FBI Negotiator REVEALS How To Win ANY Negotiation & Argument | Chris Voss & Lewis Howes

The assertive type of negotiator, it's really more important to them that they felt that they conducted themselves respectably, that you respected them, and that you knew what they were coming for. One thing, that's more important to them than actually getting what they want.

So how do you deal in a negotiation with the kind of person who has to win, who has to get everything they want? They're very controlling. Alpha.

Right.

And it's their way or no way.

Well, getting everything they want is actually third on their list. First of all, being in control is number one on their list, and that's emotionally satisfying. The second thing is the alpha type, which is. We refer to that as the assertive. The one thing that's more important to them than actually getting what they want is being respected and making sure that you know everything about what they're coming from. So. And it's a classic guy who's working for his boss and said, you know what? My boss didn't do what I wanted him to do, but he heard me out, or she heard me out. I can live with the direction we're going as long as I know that my boss knows my opinion. And so that the assertive type of negotiator, it's really more important to them that they felt that they conducted themselves respectably, that you respected them and that you knew what they were coming from. And once they know those things, they'll actually soften up on what they want.

If they feel disrespected, they'll probably be more frustrated and angry and demanding.

Right, right, right, right. Because when they're very demanding, what they're really saying to you, subtly is, I want you to know how important this is to me. I want you to know how important I am.

So how do you meet that person? Just come to them with respect or with calm.

You know, you could say, look, you're impressive. You're phenomenal.

You've thought, it's all out. This is very.

Yeah. I mean, clearly, you know where you're coming from, you know what you want. I'm lucky to be talking to you at all.

Right.

I mean, if were I to sit down with Donald Trump, I would, in fact, be lucky to be in the same room with him. That'd be the first thing I'd say to him.

I'd say, stroke his ego.

You're an American icon.

Right.

You know, you're the symbol of American business, certainly in New York City. Yeah. You know, stroking her ego is not a bad thing. One of the. And you Know, it's a version of empathy because that's how they see themselves. And, you know, the emotional recognition, like emotional currency, is not going to solve every deal. I just don't want to try to solve any deal with money when I could have solved it with emotional currency.

I'm saving my money with emotional empathy, currency intelligence.

Right, right. My money's too important to me to waste it when I could buy something with satisfaction. So, yeah, I'm enormously tight with my dollars.

And so many people. Well, there, especially men in business deals, I feel like there's a lot of alpha men who are trying to get what they want. And so somehow they'll. They'll lose money because they're not able to have empathy or they're not able to. Whatever. They're not able to drop their ego.

Yeah, a lot. A lot of. A lot of money's left on the pay, on the table over stuff like that or what. They value themselves out. Like, price is the most. Price is the most emotional term in a negotiation because you value yourself based on price. But if I can get you to value yourself in another way, put you on a magazine cover, I mean, stroke.

The ego in some other way.

It used to be, you get Donald Trump in any magazine you wanted to. If you put him on a cover, you know, imagine the amount of time. And that used to be his deal. If you want to do an article on Donald Trump, the deal was he made the COVID and then he would knock himself out for the people doing the articles on access, anything, answering questions, imagine how valuable his time was. They got a cover to the magazine anyway, they got to put somebody on it. Now they're trading something that costs them nothing. Right. And he's giving them dynamic interviews and.

He'S promoting them hard and he's sharing with everyone, framing it everywhere and.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. So you, you know, you're buying Donald Trump with emotional recognition.

So what are the characteristics that make a great negotiator in your field? And also, how do those translate into the business and relationship world, just in general, outside of.

Well, let the other side go first. You know, most people have. Are. So they're burning with their argument. Here's why you should make this deal. And they've got that memorized. And they're not going to listen to a word you say until they get it out. So trying to talk to them is really like trying to talk to a paranoid schizophrenic because they're rehearsing their speech in their head and their logic and so you just can't get through to them. So you let them go. You let them go first. And another guy, Ned Coletti, former GM of the Dodgers, friend of mine here in town, phenomenal negotiator. He's lectured at my class at USC also. You know, and Ned always likes to let the other side go first. You know, he did the Barry Bonds deal. He's done a ton of deals across the board. And Ned says, well, you know, in a two hour phone call, there's going to be 90 seconds of solid gold where the person I'm talking to based on changes that they made in their tone of voice and the adjectives that they used. I mean, he's got an instinct for it he couldn't identify. He'd just always say, there's 90 seconds of sock gold. And I'd say, what is that? And we talk it through. And he says, well, yeah, it's going to be a change in the tone of voice. It's going to be a different kind of adjective. So Ned wants you to go first because he wants to know what it's going to take to make the deal. What they want, Right?

Yeah.

What they, what they're burning for or how they characterize what they have or.

What they're not saying too, maybe.

Exactly. Right. What someone has failed to say is often a lot more important than what they have said, which is why I give it a little if thought in advance. All right. What they're gonna. What are they gonna say if they. If they've got this? So I, I actually like to look for more of what they haven't said, what's glaringly missing. And that's going to take. I'm going to need you to walk through it a couple of times before that jumps out of me.

Okay. Okay. Who are the most difficult people to work with then? Would you say it's the alpha people or would you say it's the uncertain people or what type of people are hard to work in negotiation with?

You know, you're talking about a little bit of a tight match that has a tendency. It's a little bit based on how bad I want to make the deal. Like, I don't like liars or I don't like. The most difficult people to work with in the long run are people who haven't thought anything through, which is as bad as a liar, only their heart's not in the wrong place.

They don't know what they want specifically.

Or they don't know how they're going to. They don't know how they're going to get this done. Which is again, we go over and over again. I go over and over again, yes is nothing without how. And the person who thinks like yes is going to make a deal, well, yes is not going to make a deal because you got to have how, how are we going to put this together? And someone who doesn't think things through, a lot of times they're actually kind of dysfunctional on their own side. So they'll make promises they can't keep and they have no idea they can't keep those promises. And so when they take your deal, you think you've done a deal with them, they take it back to their company, Their company goes like, no, we're not doing this, this is a stupid idea, we can't do this.

Sure.

And that happens a lot, I think in a private sector. I've heard from a number of companies that fully 50% of the deals that they make that don't go through get killed internally because somebody cut a deal for them and they took it back to the company and the company says no, that violates our terms and conditions. We can't deliver on that basis. So you're dealing with someone who just doesn't have a clue as to what's going on on their side. A lot of people like that.

When you're making a business deal, what do you recommend as the amount of time to consider the deal before saying yes, let's do it like, here's the deal points, here's what you want. Here's what I want. Okay, should we sign it right away? Should we give it 24 hours? Should we take it to our team? Should it be a week? You know, what's like kind of a standard?

You think unless you've got something in line ahead of time. The company name is a black swan group because we believe there's black swans in every negotiation, which is something you didn't know that as soon as you found out, it's going to change all the parameters.

The deal. Gotcha.

So you sit down at the table to find out the unknowns and it's impossible to research all the unknowns, plus a lot of the unknowns. I'll find them a lot faster if I just ask you.

Right?

And I could research for two weeks something that I may be able to get you to tell me about in 10 minutes.

For example. What do you mean something you'd want to ask?

I'm speaking for a long time client and they have another firm that I'VE been affiliated with doing a different block. When I found out they were doing that block, I could suddenly reach back through my network to find out what the competing partnership firm of mine is, what they're charging. Or I could just flat out, well, I need to get the information. A lot of information you got to get by not asking, you got to trigger it. The phrase ask good questions, it's really, get good information. And a lot of times you won't tell me stuff if I ask, but if I act like I already know or if there are other ways. Hostage negotiators trigger information without asking questions. And hostage negotiators get that information and make you feel good about giving it at the same time.

So give me an example, either in a hostage or a business deal, what that kind of trigger could be.

Well, it's going to be some sort of a statement. I might say, look, I'm sure my competing companies charging twice as much as I am.

Oh. And then they'll tell you the answer.

They want to correct me.

Oh, actually, no, it's the same. Or actually, you're getting a better deal.

Never underestimate the other side's desire to correct you.

Wow.

Because it makes people feel powerful and smart. You know, you're going to want to feel smarter than me. One of my clients is negotiating a deal for a commercial office building and South Carolina, and it's almost 100% occupancy. It's in a mixed use, historic area. So it means the building can't be knocked down and nobody can build in it because it's a historic area. And so the building is basically impossible to replace, and it's 100% occupancy. Makes no sense to sell a building. So they're genuinely thinking, why is the seller selling? First of all, you can't ask why? Because why makes people defensive. If I look at you and I say, why did you wear a black shirt? Your instant thought is going to be like, do I got to defend the black shirt?

Why I'm doing it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you need to find out why, but you can't ask why, because it makes people defensive.

Huh. So what would you ask there?

Well, then again, you don't want to ask at all. Because if you're smarter, you change your why's to what's. And it's more likely they'll respond if you say, you know what's making the seller want to sell. So you know what is causing them to do that?

Not why are they selling, but instead.

What my Student did was. He said, well, seems to me the seller's selling a cash cow because of a disbelief in the market fundamentals and the future of the building.

Now, let me correct you. This is why I'm doing it.

Exactly. And the other side went like, no, no, no. They got a couple buildings that are underwater now. I can't imagine a real estate agent answering that question ever. I mean, this is highly confidential, proprietary, you know, my seller is desperate for money is what the answer was. But because it was a correction, and people love to correct, they'll correct you without thinking it through. It's an involuntary response, a desire to sound smarter than you and to be right and correct you, which is a burning desire in most people because it makes me feel smart, more powerful, and I'll seize every opportunity to feel smarter, more powerful. You at the table.

Gosh, it's like chess.

It's emotional chess.

Emotional chess.

I love this.

And how do women and men compare as negotiators, as counterparts, either against each other or woman, man, woman, woman, man, man. Is there differences?

See, I think a powerful woman negotiator, a woman who's really good at negotiations, almost unstoppable.

Wow.

And I think that the reinforcement, the societal reinforcement is constantly trying to pound men into being better negotiators and constantly trying to pound women away from it. And I think the step from sympathy to empathy is a shorter step. And women are socialized to be sympathetic. And I don't think that, you know, whether or not it's nature or nurture, I know there's a lot more pressure societally and culturally for women to be like that. And in my class, women pick my style of negotiation up faster than the men do. And the women go to my class, start cutting bigger and better deals faster.

Than the men do in business or in life or in just in both. Gotcha.

So in my view, I think that.

Like, after they graduate, they go on.

To do well in the class. Okay, you got. You got to negotiate with skin in the game in my class, and almost all of my students are rising star business executives.

So mock negotiations. They're making more, is what you're saying.

No, in real life, man.

Real life, they take it out of.

My life, take my stuff and put it in real life while you're in my class. And you got to write about it. And one, you know, I've got everything from a billion dollar Wall street transaction. People in my class use the tools for at usc, get a lot of commercial real estate transactions. A lot of people Buying commercial real estate that are working on MBAs. I've got a lot of those transactions. Got, you know, my favorite way to say no, which I got, you know, the how question before, the favorite way to say no was, how am I supposed to do that? Just real calm deference. There's great power and deference. You know, that's. And that's what I did. Kidnappings, bank robberies, everything. How am I supposed to do that?

What if they say, I don't care, Figure it out or she's dead?

Well, then you know that you've pushed them as far as you can, and that means you got to pivot to something else now. And that's actually where you want to get to. Because a strategy of negotiation is find out you want to max every term if you can. And the only way to max that is to find out that I've hit you to the full limit without making you angry enough that you slam your hands down and walk away. Because even your reaction or you shoot someone, or you shoot someone, your reaction to this now is like, look, you got to do it or things are going to go bad. And it was, one of my students here in town is negotiating for a luxury client to rent a house in Hollywood Hills. And, you know, 20 grand a month was a rental.

And they were trying to get the rental, or they were trying to lease.

Trying to get it. And so the person said, It's 20.

Grand a month, right?

And it's from a very wealthy. His client's extremely wealthy. So, you know, and you're negotiating a wealthy market. The other side always thinks you got all the money in the world. And so he just said, how am I supposed to do that? And they said, okay, well, and they shifted the terms, and he cut the price, and he moved a bunch of other terms around. Then they negotiated for a while longer, and then he said again on the price, he says, how's my client supposed to pay that? And the realtor says, if your client wants a house, he's got to pay it. Bang, you got a deal. When the other side says, if you want it, you have to do it, which will come usually after the second, third time that you said, how am I supposed to do that?

So you knock it down a little more on a car, real estate deal.

Whatever it is, now you've maxed that term. Now you move on to something else or you make the deal. But you needed to know that you pushed them as far as you could have without them storming out or without them saying, chris, Voss is not any fun to deal with. I would never do business with him again. How am I supposed to do that in a differential way? They still feel in control.

You're not saying, screw you, that's too much like, what, are you out of your mind?

Right. And if you don't make the deal at that point, then what they say after the fact, they say, you know, I didn't make a deal, but I deal with them again. You know, they're all right to deal with.

Did they get the lease? How much did they get?

Yeah, they got it.

How much?

You know, they knocked it down to less than 20, and then they got some softness on some other terms.

Gotcha.

And then they cut the deal for the house.

There you go.

I wish I was paying 20 grand a month for a house.

That's a lot of money for a house. 20 grand a month.

Wow.

That's a rich student.

Yeah, well, usc, they get, you know, people that are involved in a lot of lucrative deals.

Yeah, yeah. So you're saying, what is the importance of empathy in a negotiation? When I'm hearing you say it's extremely important, and that's why you feel like a woman would be a better negotiator in general, because they have more empathy in general, or.

Well, it's the shortest. Most people have confused sympathy with empathy.

Okay. What's the difference?

Empathy is. I can see you're upset. It's just identifying how you feel. Sympathy is like, wow, I feel bad for you.

Feeling sorry or bad for someone is sympathy.

Sympathy. It is. In fact, it doesn't help anybody. Like, I don't care if you feel bad for me. I could care less.

So sympathy is not a good thing.

Sympathy is a weakness as a negotiator.

As a negotiation, empathy is a good thing. Empathy and tactical empathy, because we've really taken a past, just empathy in general. Like, we've been doing this long enough that I know what I'm looking for before we sit down. I know that I need to find out the stuff that are negative emotions for you, because I need to get them out of the way of the deal, and I need to find out the stuff that are positive emotions for you, because I want to reinforce that to make the deal, and I know that the negatives are going to be a bigger deal to you than the positives are.

So can you give me an example of this in a business deal?

Well, if I don't like doing business with Donald Trump at all, then if he's annoyed me to the point where I get enough satisfaction keeping money out of his hands, I won't make that deal. Or if I'm in a business deal where the other side. And I've thought about this, like, you annoy me so much that I don't.

Want you to get anything, that I'll.

Take less money to keep you out.

Right. So how would you eliminate something like that, that negative in the deal so that you could.

Well then say like, if I think that you're negative towards me, I'm going to say, look, I'm sure it seems like I'm greedy here. If I say to you like I'm sure I'm going to seem very greedy here. That sets me up to ask for a lot of money because there's actually science that backs this up. Now identifying a negative diminishes it every time. So if I'm going to make a big grab for the money, you're going to think I'm greedy and I need to get that out of the way because if I'm too greedy, you're going to get some satisfaction by keeping me from the money, even if you don't get any.

Right.

And so I'm going to say, look, I'm going to seem real greedy here. I'm going to seem like I'm very self centered and that I'm greedy. And then I'm not looking out for you at all. And I'll just let it sit and you'll take a lot more from me. A lot, a lot. You'll allow me to take more if I've said that in advance up front.

Really?

Because I've diminished that. Your thought is like, I mean, I can never seem too greedy. Then when I make that grab, you're gonna say, well, he was honest with me. He told me he wanted a lot of money. He didn't try to say, hey, look, let's do a win win deal. Now give me all the money.

Right?

Because if I say I want to do a win win day with you, I'm like, hey, I'll be nice to you, I'll look out for you.

And then you try to take 90 and give me 10, it's like, oh, it's not a good deal.

Yeah.

But when you say it up front, then you're more likely to get the deal.

Yeah.

And get more of whatever you want.

Right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna seem very honest to you. You're gonna like that I was honest with you. And you're gonna say after the fact, like, look, he was honest I always knew where he was coming from.

I didn't like the deal, but I did it anyways or whatever.

Yeah.

Huh.

Okay.

Yeah. That's crazy. That's the stuff that we found out that works regularly. We had talked about another one we talked about in the book. There was a multi million dollar deal going down in Washington D.C. the subcontractor was very unhappy with the general contractor and female negotiator. And they were getting ready to lose everything. And they sat down and they said, you know, I'm sure we seem like the big guy that doesn't care about you. I'm sure we seem like the big general contractors trying to take complete advantage of the sub and not appreciate how hard you're working for this and not care about your future at all. And she turned that deal around. When she was done, she took an additional million in profit for herself and her company. And the other side liked them more. So not only did they increase the profit, but they had a better relationship.

This is why being honest up front or empathetic or. I can see how you might feel that we're going to do this.

It's a tactical approach. There are negatives here. We're going to address the negatives up front and we're going to make them go away. Address them up front. Most people don't want to do that. I already did that. Do you know when I did that to you? When I've already done it? Remember when we talked about doing the one on one role play?

Yeah.

I said it was going to be horrible.

Oh, that's true. You said it up front.

Yeah.

And I always, I always do that every single time the same way. Because if you do the role play with me, no matter how it goes, you know you're gonna feel like you were beaten. Beaten up.

Right. But at least you told me I.

Was gonna be right. And you can't come out if I say it should be horrible. You can't ever say, well, he sandbagged me, you know, he caught me off guard.

Right.

And then, then what I always do, then I diffuse the negative and then I pitch the positive. And most people pitch the positive and hope the negative will go away.

They sandwich the negative. Positive, negative, positive.

I don't like sandwich at all.

Start with the negative.

Start with the negative. And I said, and you will learn more than anyone else.

What would you say then are the three biggest mistakes you see a lot of people doing in negotiations?

Trying to club somebody with their leverage. Yeah. Explaining, you know, I got to go first you know, I got, I got to set an anchor out. You know, this anchoring on price or terms is just such, such a bad idea and so many people love to do it.

Can you give me an example what that means?

Like if I, if I know I want to pay $100 and I'm saying, look, the best I could do is like 25, you know, and you know, you go this out on the open market, I want to pay 100 and I want you to work me up there. The real problem with extreme anchoring, from the beginning, I think all seasoned negotiators have learned it drives deals from the table. Like, I don't want to miss out a deal because my extreme anchor on the price of the terms at the beginning was so extreme that you're like, I can never come close to this. When we should have made the deal, we, we should have figured out a way to work it out. Price doesn't break deals, doesn't make deals, it breaks them. You don't make a great deal based on price. You can break a deal if you.

Try to undercut extremes.

Somebody's going to get mad, they're going to walk away, you know, you're going to get a, you know, heck with you. I don't, you know, you, you insult me with that offer. And they just don't realize how many deals they drive away from the table.

Interesting. If someone wants to get a better price on something. So that was, I think that first off, before I asked that question, that was the second, I think, mistake. Was there another big mistake people make in negotiation? The price, extreme price anchoring, using too much leverage to try to club someone. Was there another big one?

What a lot of people do that's actually taught out there a lot, which is really bad, is continue to ask for stuff after you made a deal, like ask for free stuff.

That's the worst, right? You made a good deal. Here's a win, win. And now you're asking more, now you're.

Asking for more and more.

It's gonna leave a sour taste every time.

And that's taught out there regularly. Really? It was, you know, there's a negotiation guru from the 80s, and I can't remember what he called it, but he gave the example. You go out and you get a custom made suit and you've made the deal for the suit. And one of the guys measuring you, you say, so how many free ties do I get with that? And he said, that's a great way to get free things, free little things after they Made the deal.

Throw in a pocket square, throw in a couple ties, throw in a couple.

Legs, whatever it is. And what that does is make the person you did it to hate you, which they're going to resent it. And if they have the opportunity to fail to comply with any term, they will do that. Now, unfortunately, that's taught really extensively and it's done in business all the time. People call it scope creep, feature creep.

Interesting.

Like it drives every single business person crazy because they don't know how to deal with it. Now, in a black swan method, you know, you might say if you were good at how questions, you might say, how can I give you free ties and continue to want to do business with you? You know, how can I be a great tailor for you if you ask me for free stuff and it cuts my margin.

Right.

You know, make their prop. What they ask for the obstacle to what they want. Either what you want is a path or if what they want is bad, it's the obstacle. You know, how can I serve the needs of your family if you're cutting into my profit margins? You know, there's got to be a way to wake somebody up to it. Because a lot of people have been taught that they don't know any better. Like if I'd have stuck to that training that I learned from this guy back in the 1980s, I'd have thought it was okay because I'm getting free ties all over the place.

Yeah.

Like a lot of people, if they don't know any better, how do you wake them up so that if they only knew they'd change? Now there's some people that are doing it on purpose. If you do something like that to me because you didn't know any better. Let me see if I could wake you up. If I can wake you up. Awesome. We've got a great long term relationship. If I can't wake you up, I now know and I'm probably like, okay, cool. This is the last deal I make with this guy.

One and done.

Yeah, this is a one and done. I'm out. But I need to know if. If you just did it by accident. I got job negotiation recently brought somebody onto my company. Thought we had the deal settled.

And the new employee.

New employee.

Yeah.

Because employment contracts like any other. And this person brings up a bunch of other stuff. After we've laid out the terms, we've written the offer letter. We sent the offer letter. Offer letter doesn't get signed. Silence. Not a good sign. My director of operations, who knows no Oriented questions. She's this person. An email. Have you given up on signing the offer letter? Immediately comes back with a bunch of, you know, not ridiculous benefits.

More asks.

More asks, which are not on a plate. Some of them are like, wow, that was interesting. I never thought of that one. Now we can't do that. Not in a million years. This is stuff I aspire to, but not yet.

Now.

We can't do it now. But no, this is. I like this one. It's just not in the package now. But my director of operations, like, I never had somebody come back. And I'm like, okay, first I got to do is I got to find out, did this person just not know any better? So I engaged in the conversation, and I said, all right, so however this goes, I want you to understand two things. First of all, I'm glad it came up now as opposed to six months from now. But secondly, this is a bad habit to bring stuff up after the deal has been cut. So I'm guessing you just didn't know any better and you were uncomfortable bringing it up.

Right.

But if you come on board, first, you got to understand we don't do this to people. And you got to learn. We work all the little stuff out before we think we have an agreement instead of going for a little stuff after the agreement.

Right.

And this person was like, hey, you know, I didn't know. And my intention is to help build the company. And I appreciate you letting me know, and I understand where you're coming from.

They were genuine about it.

They were very genuine. I needed to know that. Like, was this person advised to do this? Did they do it by accident or did they do that? Because this is going to be the predictor of future behavior, which now we have a real problem. Because if this is a habit that you're born with, you are not going to last. And you can't represent me.

No.

Because the people that work on my team are also my ambassadors. I gotta find out which one it is. And I go back and we talk it through and we settle everything out. And I got a list of things to aspire to for employee benefits, because these are great things.

Sure.

So to finish that up, one of the worst things you can do is ask for more and more and more and more things after the negotiation has been agreed on.

Right.

Do that before the final agreement is what I'm hearing you say.

Yep. Yes.

If someone's looking to buy.

Nice paraphrase, by the way.

You want to make sure I capture that. If someone is looking to buy, Wanting to buy something, acquire something, whether they're buying a business, a car, a house, some potential expensive item, jewelry, something of more value than a thousand dollars, and they might be able to negotiate a lower price. You mentioned the extreme price, anchoring, how that is a mistake.

Right.

There's a house for a million dollars. I'll give you 200 grand for it. But you want to get a better deal. Maybe it's a Rolex, maybe it's a car, maybe it's a house. Maybe you want to acquire business, whatever it is, something of higher value. An engagement ring. You're going to marry someone, right?

Right. Right.

Let them make their profit off somebody else.

Yeah. What should be the lower percentage on a higher item of value? What should the initial offer be? You want to get a better deal. So you don't want to pay a million dollars for a home, but you really want the home. You don't want to pay 3,000 for the diamond ring, the engagement ring, but you really want that ring.

Right.

How low of a percentage should you go to anchor in order for you to feel like, oh, I got a great deal and I got the thing I wanted and they didn't get screwed over? You know what I mean?

Well, depending upon the context, I mean, like, 30. 30% is a good rule of thumb to start at. Well, for, For a target. Like if you, if you. And very, very context driven.

Sure.

Like, for example, I'm in Macy's one time and picking out this jacket. Girl I'm with really likes it. She searches the thing extensively. She finds like a threat out of place and she goes like, watch me get 10% off on this jacket. And I'm like, I can get 30% by being nice.

No way.

Well, like in every transaction, you know, I look at it as an. There's an aggravation tax. Now, the person you're dealing with has already built in the aggravation tax because of all the aggravating people that have come through the door ahead of them. So there's an aggravation penalty, there's an annoyance tax, there's an aggravation tax that's already there on a price. Now, if you're not aggravating, you don't need to pay the aggravation tax.

Interesting.

Let somebody else pay that aggravation tax.

And you benefit from them actually paying that tax.

Yeah, let somebody else pay it. If I'm not aggravating, why should I pay the aggravating tax? So, you know, this young lady, she'd gotten 10% off on a regular basis. I will be demanding 10, 10% of the annoyance tax when there's another 20% to be gained.

Interesting.

Like you don't. So many people don't realize how much money they're leaving on the table. Really like massive amounts of money.

On.

Any given the difference between 10% off and 30% off.

Right.

Like they got a way to give you a better deal if they feel like it.

So how do you get them to feel like it?

Well, so. Yeah, great, there you go. Exactly. Again, the approach, very similar to the hotel thing. You know, there's a strategy where we sort of bundle the skills in a black swan method. We call it the accusations audit.

The accusations audit.

Accusations audit. Let me do an audit of all the names you would call me if I'm gonna do this?

Uh huh.

You say this, you say it to yourself.

Okay, not today because I need to.

Come up with a list. So again, it's like, look, you get annoying people coming through here all day long every day, want something for nothing. I'm going to look like just like another one of these annoying jerks. It's really demanding and rub you the wrong way and don't appreciate how hard it is for you to work in this jewelry store, this car dealership, this. Wherever you are, you are knocking yourself out at tough sales job. You're trying to feed your family. People are coming here trying to take food out of your mouth because how do they see it? You know, it's not about you and it's not about. It's really not sympathy. You know the difference between sympathy and empathy. You know, I feel your pain, right? Like I've been there too, you know, like I'm a regular guy like you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, don't give me that regular guy stuff. So but you, you look at people like me who want something for nothing, who come walking in all the time. You know, you look at us as wanting discounts and you know, and you're trying to feed your family. Now suddenly this person is like, oh.

Wow, they get it.

This is not the annoying jerk that came in here. Now they're starting to open up. And then, you know, you talked before about being playful. Being playful about this can be a really big deal.

I've gotten so many things for free for being playful or upgrades or discounts just by, let me just say a friendly joke or just something funny, right? You know, let me just be goofy and dance in front of them and be like, what is this guy doing? You know?

Yeah, you've Just got. You don't got to pay the aggravation tax.

Yeah.

And then plus, see, Sean says you're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind, not only have you put the person in a better mood, you now got them thinking about options. What can they do?

What?

You know, how can they help you? What can they get away with? How can they shortcut the TSA line? How can they. What's the code for the employee discount? Like, I. You know, in this same place where I'm. Where I'm trying to get this 30% or so off, and I'm joking around with this guy.

Sure.

You know, and. And one of the things you see as a human being, I'm like, well, I'm Chris. Is there a Kris discount? What kind of Chris discount is there? And then laugh at that. And so. And I'm still not getting enough of discount. And finally I go, like, look, give me the employee discount. I've been joking around. I smile when I say this. This guy goes like, if I give you the employee discount, I gotta pay for this thing myself. I. And I go, I'll pay you back. And I'm laughing. And he laughs. And so he looks at the machine and I says, wait right here. And he walks around, and I see him, and I walks up to a person and I perceive to be the manager, and he's whispering in the manager's ear. And I see this manager standing, going.

Like, no, no, really.

And he comes walking back, and another employee intercepts him, whispers in his ear, and I see his eyes light up. And he walks over and he plugs in a discount for me, and we get the 30% off.

Wow.

But I was joking with him. I was showing I knew what it looked like from his perspective. I'm getting myself out of this aggravation tax thing. You know, let somebody else pay the demanding, aggressive, annoying tax. You go in there and you brighten somebody else's day up, you leave the world a better place. You get some practice in because you want that confidence for the big negotiation. And all these things work for you, and you end up feeling better about the day yourself.

Yes.

You had a fun interaction and you got a discount.

Exactly.

Do you practice every day on any transaction? I mean, any financial transaction? Are you practicing even if it's a cup of coffee, if it's the gas station, if it's a hotel, it's a plane?

Any.

Are you always pricing?

It's a perishable skill. And me and everybody on my team, if we let ourselves get out of practice. We get rusty.

Interesting.

I'm really used to my know, oriented questions. That's pretty much all I ask.

What questions?

No oriented, where I'm trying to get you to say no. That's what you're saying.

You're pricing that.

I keep that. I keep that teed up console.

Is it a ridiculous idea? Is kind of your go to.

Yeah.

Is it a ridiculous idea for me to get a 30 employee discount today?

Yeah. And so depending upon my daily interactions, I get so caught up in my world, then I don't get my practice in. And so like when we started traveling in right after the pandemic, I'm getting ready to go into a hotel. I haven't done a hotel upgrade in a while. And I almost talked myself out of it. Really. I am, I'm ah, this, you know, amygdala's kicking in. It's not gonna work.

I'm embarrassed myself.

I can see this guy turning me down. I mean, I literally stand outside the hotel and kind of go, all right, all right, you can do this, you can do this. Come on, come on, you can do it, you can do it. I gotta psych myself up. Cause I'm out of practice.

Yeah, but you're the guy.

That's right. Everybody, it's perishable for everybody. It ain't. It is not riding a bike.

Yeah.

And then you also got to be willing, like if it works, nine times out of 10, sometimes you don't get anything right. Hotel I was in recently. You know, my read of the guy is you run across deceptive people that are not there to help you, that are not going to give you anything. And through the course of the interaction, I get several very strong reads that this person was that minority that we're all afraid of, is the majority. They're a minority and they're there. And so that interaction was all right, so my read is this, this and this. Now I'm smarter. I see this guy coming farther away, like Conor McGregor. I win or I learn.

Sure, sure.

You know, you win or you learn.

Now I'm curious. When you go into a store, a hotel, you know, airport, is it. And there's multiple options of people to talk to, who you would buy from or get upgraded from. There's two people at the counter, there's three people at the store. Are you assessing first, who I should approach based on body language, based on if they smile, if they're, you know, in a more positive state, or. Or is it depending on male, female, is it do you have a success rate based on. Is it just more an intuitive feeling who you walk up to?

I hadn't thought about that before. What I'm really more worried about is what kind of vibe I'm putting off. Like, I don't have a lot of control over who I'm gonna get. In point of fact, they're reading me before I start reading them. Cause they got a revolving door. They're picking up this energy. I think there's actual energy there. It's one of the things I bounced off of Andrew Huberman, you know, is the energy actually there?

Interesting.

And he's like, the data doesn't support it. I suspect it's possible. And he's a very data driven guy. He's solid. Solid science. Solid science. Peer reviewed journals, yes. He's like, the data ain't there yet, but I think it exists. That's Chris Vaugh saying that, not Andrew Huber. Andrew didn't say that. He didn't say, I think it exists. Chris Vaugh says, I think it exists. These people behind the counter, they're picking up on my vibe. So what I got to do, instead of sitting there like, I want this guy, doing this guy. I want this guy. I might be putting off a bad vibe. I need to put off a relaxed vibe.

Yeah, just go. Walk right out.

Not in any hurry. Like, I'm cool. If I'm looking at them, I gotta make sure I'm looking at them. And my inner voice is saying, like, take your time. I know you guys are busy. I can't look at them like, do your job. I'm standing here.

I'm a customer.

You should be waiting. They're gonna pick up on that. If that's my inner voice. So I gotta get my inner voice in a place where I'm giving off.

A positive vibe, relaxed, positive.

And then I'm gonna roll up and I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do a read on the person in a moment. You know, if they look like they're having a bad day, I'm gonna say, tough day. I'm hitting the reads on the TSA people all the time. Really, for practice. I do a misread on a TSA guy. Don't remember what airport I was in. I ended up in an unexpected negotiation on the phone 15 minutes later because of the misread. I looked at this TSA guy and he just looked kind of blank. And I said, tough day. And he kind of went. And then I went, just another day, right? He goes, yeah, yeah, just another Day. But that little read is like stretching before going in the game. And the conversation I had 15 minutes later, which caught me off guard because I did the read earlier, was a really successful conversation.

What was that conversation?

I needed a favor from somebody. What I did, I said, am I offending you if I ask you for this favor? Because I needed him to go out of my way for me. And I did the no oriented question and I did sort of, you know, what am I going to do if I ask him, I offend him. I'm doing an emotional read. I throw the two of them together on the spur of the moment, which is really kind of where you want to get interesting. You know, you, you play the same notes over and over and over and suddenly you combine them in the moment.

That's pretty cool.

And that's why I work on my no oriented questions all the time. And I'll do a random cold read. The TSA guy, my favorite one, I, I, I, I always got a bottle of water in my bag. I for I forget to pour out the water. Tsa, New Jersey. I got a New Jersey.

Huh?

Tsa.

I don't put up with nothing.

Exactly. So they get the water and they're taking my bag off to the side. Now they could almost walked me back out to the curb because the line is so long there to secure me. And the guy's got the bag and I realized I don't want to spend another 20 minutes in line. So I go, bless me Father, for I have sinned. And he walks, he looks at me and he walks and he looks at me and he goes, how long since your last confession, my son?

That's funny.

I'm like, you know what, an hour ago, I'm screwing up all the time.

Yeah.

And he took the water, we poured it out. He's not supposed to pour it out. He poured it out for me. He turned around and walked me back, cut me in line in front of everybody else, put me right back in the thing. It says, yeah, I'm taking care of this guy, it's okay. And it put me through.

What are the most common negotiations that everyone goes through on a daily basis?

Wow. Well, anytime somebody has got the words I want or I need coming out of their mouth, you're in a negotiation.

You're in a negotiation, Right.

The commodity that's always at stake is time.

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm, I'm in a negotiation when I check into a hotel because I want a free upgrade.

Right.

Or typically, I'm in a Hotel early. And a lot of hotels want to charge you early check in fee. I don't want to pay that fee.

Right.

Or a late checkout.

Or a late checkout. They don't want to give late checkouts to anybody that's not one of their super executives.

I'm always pushing for that. 3, 4 or 5pm late checkout.

Right, right. Yeah. So, I mean, they could do that for you.

Yeah.

If they felt like it. You know, never be mean to somebody who could hurt you by doing nothing. Well, everybody you interact with could hurt you by doing nothing. Which if you take the flip side of that coin is they could do something for you if they felt like it. How do you make them feel like it? Demonstration. A little bit of understanding, recognition of them as a human being. Let's go back to your Starbucks example. You're trying to show them that you're not treating them as a clerk behind a Starbucks counter, that they're actually a human being. You say the name, hey, how you doing today? It's not that you're saying how you're doing, but I guarantee you that the way that you say that is you're saying in a way where it's my intention that for the brief moment that you interact with me, at least your day will be better. Yeah. And their gut instinct is going to pick that up. So the minute you're no longer demanding. Now, you little negotiation with a Lyft driver, is he gonna, is he gonna come out of the Lyft app and go into another app that is even faster? Is, is he gonna, is he gonna drive the slow lane the whole time? Yeah. Or is he going to try to get around the traffic? This save you a few minutes. You see the Lyft driver, he or she, Are they going to make some extra effort for you?

Yeah.

You know, there's a million things everybody could do, no matter how simple the job is. You talked to a woman that probably about three years ago, she said, you know, we buy music for movies and the people on the other side are just order takers. It's not a negotiation. Yes, it is. The way you interact with them on that phone, if they write down which song you're after with Sony or whoever it is, do they take your order and they walk it down to the hall to the guy who executes, or do they put them on a bottle of pile because they didn't like the way you spoke to them?

Right.

You know, there's a million one things people could do for you if they just felt like it.

Right.

So if on a regular basis, you're trying to give somebody a nicer date, you turn around, they will have done something for you for free. And then stuff accumulates.

What's the. What's the formula or process to get. Get people to do things just because they feel like it?

Well, you know, it's. It's really. It's. It's gonna sound stupid.

Yeah.

Smiley smile.

Smiling Neuroscience behind a smile. If you smile at somebody, you actually hit their mirror neurons, you start a smile in their brain.

Wow.

Smile is an involuntary response.

Mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons in their brain. It's the same as if the doctor hits your knee with a little hammer and your leg kicks forward. You didn't choose to have your leg kick forward. It's an involuntary response. So if somebody sees you and you smile, you've instantly hit their mirror neurons. You started a chemical change. Now, they might fight it. And sometimes you get them three smiles, Right? By a third smile, you get them smiling too. Yeah. So you've already started the process. And then your inner voice betrays your outer voice when you say, how are you? To somebody at Starbucks? Your inner voice is saying, I'm trying to make your day better. I want you to be a happier person. They're gonna feel it. If your inner voice is saying, like, how are you today? I need my Starbucks coffee, and I need to get out of here. And I hate this line, and I hate how long.

You guys.

If that's in your voice, they're gonna feel that. They're gonna be pouring decaf in instead of. Instead of the other kind.

Right.

So your entire approach, the neuroscience, shows us the person is picking it up and responding. And so your body language, your tone of voice, the greatest negotiators in the world really maximize that because it's an invisible skill.

Yeah, but it's a skill you can teach.

Sounds like.

And learn and learn. You can teach it. You can learn it. You can practice it. All you got to do is you get your repetitions in. John Foley is a Blue angel pilot. I heard him speak about four years ago. He talked about, how long does it take to build a habit? How much training do you need? He called it grooving, putting a groove in your brain. The Blue Angels, you know, they got to build their habits before they get up in the sky. Otherwise, the jets crashed.

I was in a Blue angel two years ago. It was crazy, man.

That had to been an adrenaline.

I threw up twice. I was sick the whole time and sick for three days afterwards. I'VE got a weak stomach, but it was unbelievable. At the same time, they needed to.

Know what they were doing. Oh, for sure they can't learn up there, right?

Amazing to watch them so close, just, like, feet away from each other at.

Mach 1 or however faster, 4 or 5, whatever.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah. All right. So Foley said, how do they get that good? They practice. He said 63 to 64 repetitions to put it in your brain. And another guy wrote the talent code, Daniel Coyle. He talked about perfect practice.

Yeah.

You could go excruciatingly slow as long as you do it right. And the first time you try any skill, you probably go slow. You come to one of the training sessions that my company puts on. I'm going to say, say this word for word, take your time, and then react in the moment. We have a. One of the negotiation tools is what we call a label. When I say something to you, I want you to label it. I don't care if you have to stare at me for 10 minutes. Label it. Label it. It seems like. It sounds like. It looks like. A label is a verbal observation, okay? But I need you to use those exact words. And if I say, I love teaching negotiations. Now label my emotion, your motion, the motion that I displayed when I said I love teaching negotiations.

Label that.

What do you say?

The three things it seems like it.

Sounds like or it looks like label.

Say all three of them.

Just pick one of those three. Say. All right, I'm going to say it again, and I want you to say word for word, it sounds like, and then fill in the blank.

Okay?

I love teaching negotiation.

It sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

Yeah. Now, that's enough. Now, to start with, what just happened is you demonstrated it perfectly, okay? Because the important part is you have to say the first three words that actually fires the brain. And you did exactly what I thought you would do. We just said it sounds like you fired the brain, and then you opened yourself up to whatever your brain put in. That's why I wanted you to actually say the words, the actual, specific words, because your brain will kick into gear and say something. Now, your first label. Every time you fire the synapse, you get a little bit better. There's a substance called myelin. Your brain wraps this substance. It's an electrical synaptic connection in your brain. And anybody you know, if you know anything about electricity, every time you insulate it fires a little bit better. Fire at 63 to 64 times, according to the Blue angel pilot. And you Get a nice circuit belt and it'll fire quickly and then you'll start to hear it. So we'll fire it again. Okay. And I want you to label it again. I love teaching negotiation.

Sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

All right, now dig a little bit deeper.

Explain it more.

No, no, no. Just another label, but use another adjective. It sounds like teaching. Sounds like X. I love teaching. Good negotiation.

It sounds like you're passionate about.

There you go.

See?

Perfect.

Yeah.

Now you came up with another word. Now it stumped you for a second.

Yes.

And you, you kicked in. You, you know, you, you let that supercomputer come up with another word and like, yeah, I'm passionate about it. Now, interestingly enough, this is a way in a business negotiation because a great business deal is an alignment of core values, just like a great personal relationship is an alignment of core values. I'm sitting on a plane flying in here this morning. I found out more about the guy sitting on a plane next to me than he's told anybody in 20 years. With the same kind of an exercise. What do you do for a living? What do you love about it? And when he, when he tells me, I now know the guy sat next to on a plane. He's got an adopted daughter. She was adopted when she was six months old from China. His mother struggled with bipolar, manic depressive. She committed suicide at age 17. He was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather survived the Depression. His grandfather at one point in time, going into the depression, owned 11 banks that all went bankrupt. He had to start completely over again. His grandfather used to tell him, I lost 11 fortunes. His grandfather loved to live off the land. They loved to make things by hand. This guy's a very successful contractor here in Los Angeles. And he's constantly, constantly, constantly working on improving himself. Married to his first wife. They're business partners.

They work together.

They work in different aspects of business. I mean, I've lost track of the number of things I found out about this guy. I know, I know about this guy from when he was three years old to now. Now, in the space of what sounded like a normal social conversation, I know this guy's incredibly loyal, he's very practical, he's very hard working. He. I just, I just flew in from Vegas. He was in Vegas because he was in a capacity competitive poker tournament. He likes reading people. He's a very hard worker. From what I know from this guy, from what this perceived social conversation, I know that we could do business together. And if we run into trouble, I Have a pretty good idea of what to expect from him and how to deal with those problems. If we run into trouble with the very sort of thing that you and I did just now, you know, you start. So when he asked stuff out.

So when you ask him a question and he says something, you would use one of those responses. It seems like it sounds like. What was the third one?

Yeah, it feels like.

It feels like.

Looks like it could be. It looks like I might be reading your body language.

It's like you're not that interested into it, even though you said you were. Your body language tells me something different.

Exactly. And then. And then see if you see that in somebody's body language. Your point before about Starbucks, about actually seeing a person. The same thing is going on and they might not even know it. You know, every now.

And I get.

People go like, yeah, you know, I've been struggling with this for a while.

Really.

I'm really conflicted about it. And they find themselves opening up because, you know, most of the time you see conflict in somebody. Most people say, ah, it'll be fine.

Just keep working hard.

It'll be fine. It's all part of the journey.

Right.

Instead of actually being a great sounding board for somebody and helping them sound it out, consequently learning a lot about that person. At the same time, it sounds like.

You'Re going through a lot right now. It sounds like you're having a hard time with this.

Sounds like exactly. Or that's exactly right. And you start to become a tremendous sounding board for people.

So what happens to that person when you respond in one of those three or four ways of. It sounds like fear. Feels like. Looks like. What does that person feel on the other side when you're showing that type of compassion or empathy?

They feel connected with. They feel very connected with. They. They feel seen, you know, they feel like they're a person on the planet. They feel like suddenly they're not just another part of the Thundering Herd that nobody's paying attention to. Yeah, they feel at least that. Last week we're doing a training with some.

Some.

Some pretty tough business people. And one of the guys in this exercise is saying, like, I found myself talking about stuff that happened when I was seven years old. He said, I gotta tell you something, I feel transformed right now. And so we stopped the group at that point in time and we said, all right, so now, based on Larry talking about that sort of a change, what kind of a guy is he to deal with? He's a pretty decent guy. Yeah, you now have got a glimpse into him as more as a total human being, which means if he does something that you perceive to be a negative move, he did it accidentally or you misinterpreted it, which means it's okay to go back to him instead of letting the rage build up in you because you misinterpreted something or did it by accident.

Accident.

He's a decent guy. If he, if he slighted you, he did it by accident.

Right.

You can go back to him and bring it up and say, hey, I gotta tell you, I got a problem with this. He's probably gonna open up because just based on his real. This three minute exercise you found out.

About, he opened up then. So you'd probably.

Yeah, he's a decent human being.

Wow.

And every human being is going to hurt you, principally inadvertently. So you can go back to them and find out what's behind it and make them aware because they're going to want to know.

Yeah, every human being is going to hurt you.

Everybody, one way or another is going to do something accidentally or on purpose that's going to hurt your feeling. We're going to interpret it as negative the vast majority of the time, when in fact it was probably a complete accident. There's a really good chance they got no idea they hurt your feelings.

Right.

You need to know which one it was. Did they do it on purpose? Do they know they did it? The numbers are that they did it by accident and other numbers are there's a really good chance they didn't know they did it.

Right.

You know, I went, I went to, you know, Landmark Forum a couple years ago.

Yeah.

Talking about making amends with people, talking to people have hurt you. And so one of the young ladies.

Did you go through the whole program?

Yeah, one of the young ladies in. It was like, you know, when I was seven, this a girl who's my cousin, you know, they bullied me, you know, they said something or hurt me. I, you know, it's 30 years I haven't let go.

Wow.

So we talked about it. They talked about it. And she said she went. She decided to go to the person and just because to forgive, to forgive is to let go. You know, not forgiving is like taking poison, hoping the other person dies. Right. You've heard that?

Yeah.

So she goes to this girl and she says, I want you to know I forgot. The girl didn't even remember. She got no memory. She was just being a stupid kid at the time. She had, you know, they would.

Stupid at seven, Right.

Yeah. They're joking around and they're.

And held onto it for that long.

30 years, the other person doesn't even know it. So by nature, we're joking around with somebody and we accidentally say something that, that wounded them. If they don't feel they can talk to us, they're going to carry it for 30 years.

Yeah.

If I heard, if I heard somebody, I want to know.

Yeah.

You know, I. Because I'm going to be like, I'm an idiot. You know, I had no idea I did that to you.

Yeah.

I had no idea.

Was there anything from the emotional intelligence training at Landmark that added to your curriculum of negotiations that you didn't already know or you used before?

Well, not because it's all interwoven. The biggest thing that jumped out at me is it occurred to me that somebody hurt somebody else without even knowing they did it. Like in, in a master class thing, you know, they did a great job. The master class people are phenomenal.

Yes.

So we're wandering to the very tail end of it and they got me talking about this guy that bullied me when I was a kid. You. Yeah.

You're talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And I had, I had, I had literally never told anybody about this.

Wow.

So, you know, it's. And it happened when I was a little kid.

Yeah.

I literally had never told anybody about.

It, not even through Landmark or anything else.

Nothing. Wow.

And they get it out of me in master class. They catch me off guard over it, you know, and it's to, to this day, this is one of the reasons why I hate police. You know, I want to become an FBI agent because we want to go after the bad guys, because the bad guys are bullies. And there's nothing I like better than getting a bully that's victimizing somebody else. And I think it was instilled in me in what happened when I was a kid. But then I started comparing that to this interaction I heard at Landmark where somebody bullied somebody else. They didn't even know they did it. And then I began thinking about, like, how many people have I hurt and I didn't even know.

Right.

Like if they would come up to me today and said, you heard, I've carried this for 40 years and I have to have done that to somebody.

Right?

Have to somebody.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's, you know, this forgiveness thing is a two way street. And also being, being, you know, who do I need to go back to that I could think of that I. And say, look, look, since I know that Inadvertently. I'm a jerk. Did I. What did I do? I'm sure I did something. I had to have done something then. It's an. It's an interesting dilemma. All sort of part of, you know, being a better person anyway, which I know is what you're dedicated to.

It's almost.

It seems like it's really hard, especially if you're a public figure that has an audience that you're going to say something or do something that's going to affect or hurt someone.

Right.

At all the times.

Yeah.

It's like you're always going to be offending someone. If you have a voice, if you're sharing something, your. Your point of view.

Right.

Your point of view is going to reach a certain audience's point of view, but not the rest of the world's point of view. So it's like you're always hurting people, aren't you?

Yeah.

And at some level, you're like, offending, hurting, or frustrating.

And their hurt's going to be defensive in reaction. Yeah. Or they misinterpret. Or you. You hit a button with them.

Yeah.

That you didn't even. You. Maybe you didn't hit the button, but you came close to a button that's been hurt before. And, you know, and interestingly enough, we see this a lot with the procurement people that come to our training. I'm really careful to say, look, look, I know you guys fear procurement, and this is about dealing successfully with procurement. And we had one person in the training go, I work in procurement. And you criticized. You said procurement people were bad. I said, as a matter of fact, that's not what I said. But I came so close to your hot button that it hit it anyway. Yeah. And I spent some time with this woman, and she was afraid that that was what I meant and. But didn't know how to approach me or. And when it came up subsequently, I said, no, as a matter of fact, procurement has one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. You guys are both. You spend your days either herding cats or getting chased by villagers with pitchforks.

Right.

You know, it's one or the other.

Yeah.

And she was like, yeah, yeah, it's really tough. I was just afraid that that's what you meant. It was that amygdala that we were talking about before, the 75% negative.

Yeah.

We're all equipped with that. And when someone even comes close to criticism, then we're afraid that that's what they mean and they're hurt.

How do you take criticism not well. I've never really been good at it until I wouldn't say I've mastered it. I think I've gotten better over the last six years. I started to really, like, say, okay, let me not react to this criticism. Like they probably have some good intention. They're trying to tell me, and maybe.

There'S some truth there.

So let me start to listen to the feedback or the criticism and say, okay, how can I be better? Is there any truth in there that really resonates? Or are they coming from a place of anger of their own thing?

Criticism is mostly fear driven by the person criticizing.

Right?

Yeah, yeah. And you criticize that important fact. You've been hurt, you've been disappointed, you've been frustrated. You know, there's a lot of saying, you know, never take advice from anybody. You wouldn't trade places with. Criticism is a form of advice. But you're afraid to tell people how to do stuff. So you just criticize what they do some people, and then they get. It becomes an addiction for some people. Criticism is not a great behavior. I know you've heard the phrase, nobody's doing better than you will ever criticize you.

Right.

They'll mentor you.

Right.

So first of all, how do I take criticism? I got to take a step back and understand if somebody's coming at me with just a criticism, even if they ask permission to criticize, they got some. They got struggles that are worse than mine.

Right.

Depending if they ask you to give you criticism, I'm.

I be. You know, they are an open wound at that point. So I'm not gonna. I'm gonna say, yeah, sure, go ahead.

Right.

I'm. I'm gonna. They've already told me they're probably coming from a difficult place.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

So what I'm going to try to do is just kind of take it easy on them and understand where they're coming from. A blog I'm a big fan of, Eric Barker writes this Greg blog. Barking up the wrong tree.

That's great.

Eric told me one time, for every. Every hater, there's going to be 10 people that are on your side. So when a critic comes up to me, I see that as there are 10 people, you're indicating to me that I'm successful with nine other people. And I'm not going to get down on this person because it's very easy to get down on them because unfortunately, they're coming from a negative place. Yeah.

What's a word you never say in a negotiation or the Worst thing to say. Business deals or personal relationships or depends.

Upon what's coming out whose mouth it's coming out of.

Like, do you ever say no?

Or do you ever say, I might.

Need to say no? I'll probably. I like to let no out a little at a time, which is actually, how am I supposed to do that? Is the first way that I say no.

That's no without saying no.

Right. That's. That's saying no to what's on the table, but not no to you. Let's figure if we can work this out, there may come a point in time when I say no said and done. But I'm going to need to explore every option there. I mean, I don't. Saying hearing yes is a bad thing to hear.

So don't say yes.

Yeah, yes in and of selves. I would much rather say, you know, okay, I'll do it. I'd love to say you win, because when you win, you're going to perform. Yes is nothing without how I need you to perform at a top level, you perform at a higher level when you feel like you win. If you look at me and we make a deal and say, okay, well, that's a resigned okay, and we're going to run into trouble when we go to implement. Because the minute anything bad could happen by your inaction. You know, there's a phrase, never be mean to someone who can hurt you by doing nothing, which nearly everybody can hurt you by doing nothing.

So saying, okay, I'll do it.

Right.

Or yes, you win or you win.

Right, Right. I want you to feel like you won.

You win. So you got the better end of the deal.

Yeah. Because are you gonna hold to the deal? If you got the best end of the deal, you can brag about it.

Awesome. Yeah, I got the better end.

Huh? Right.

So you win. Okay, I'll do it. You win because you're both of them together.

If I say it, that's good, because you won. If you say it, it's bad to me. Because you feel beat. I don't want you to. I don't want you to feel beaten. Which is one of the real big problems with negotiation. Because since I've been helping people get better at it, I get more stories. A guy says, let me tell you about this deal. I had them over a barrel. There was nowhere for them to go. For all intents and purposes, I took them hostage. Well, I guarantee you that the person they beat was as passive aggressive as possible on the implementation of that deal.

Then you feel Good about it.

Money on the table.

They didn't feel good about it.

Right.

Huh?

Right.

So always make the other person feel like they got the better end of the deal.

Right?

Right.

They won and.

Yeah, they won. And it was their idea.

It was their idea. I like your idea. I'll do it. Something like that.

That's really good. And so that's why usually the one word answers of yes and no, those are also frequently misunderstood. There's three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. And most people are used to getting lured into a trap with yes. Would you like to make more money? Isn't it true this is the off season? You know, whatever setup. Yes. There is.

Would you like.

Okay, yeah.

You know, it's leading someplace.

Yes.

One of my. One of my students is on a honeymoon, and he's wanting to get an upgrade on his bungalow. And it's the off season in this. In this resort. Now, what they typically do is they cut prices on. On their basic rooms, but they don't. Honeymoon suites, but not the honeymoon suites. But he knows they're all vacant now. He doesn't want to cut price on a regular room. He wants a honeymoon suite. And he starts out the conversation with like, you know, isn't it true this is the off season? The general manager knows there's a trap.

There, so what's he say?

And so the guy starts going sideways on him immediately.

He didn't say yes.

Right. He didn't want to say yes because he knows that yes is commitment and yes is probably a trap. And he knows. I don't know where you're going with this, but you're going someplace.

That's what he said.

Yeah.

And then what happened?

Well, then. And so then my student realized that, you know, he fell into this yes trap thing. So he had to kind of. He had to kind of get back out of it. And he started talking, and instead of trying to get yeses and nos on him, he started describing the situation. He started showing him a little bit.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sure, you know, a lot of guys like me come in, we want a room we don't want to pay anything for. You get so many tourists that are in here in the off season, and they're cheap. That's why they're here in the off season anyway, because they're cheap to start with, and they don't want to pay anything for anything anyway. And now the managers appreciate where the guy's coming from.

So leading with the negative, Right.

He ends up Getting the upgrade. Really? Yeah.

Free because he built a relationship.

Yeah. The guy's got an empty room. Never be mean to somebody who could hurt you by doing nothing. Not giving you the empty room is doing nothing. You know, you want this guy to give you a favor, and he doesn't own the hotel, and those rooms are normally vacant anyway. So his owner, whoever owns a hotel, they're not mad at him because those rooms are empty. They expected him to be empty. So he's got options. You know, ultimately, you want to make the pitch. Like, you know, you give me that upgrade, I'm going to be a fan for life. I want to tell everybody.

I want to come back.

I'm going to promote it, tell all my friends about this.

Something I've done for, like, the last 10 years. A friend of mine told me this line that he's like, you know, if you ever want an upgrade, if you ever want, like, something better in the deal, use this line. And I swear I've been using it. Maybe it's been wrong, but I'd love your opinion. I say, what's the chance you can help me with this?

All right, so that's a. That's a what question to start.

What's the chance?

Two things about that that I like. First of all, it's a what question.

Yeah. And secondly, what's the chance you can upgrade me?

You're elevating the person when you're asking for help.

So you're giving them power. Right?

Right.

The opportunity to have power.

Right. Yeah. So there's. And I don't know that I changed that sentence at all. I might say in advance, like, look, this is really going to seem greedy of me, you know, because you can't.

You can't leave me with the negative.

Leading with the negative. If you try to call out a negative, that's not there, you won't plant it. If you try to deny a negative that's not there, you plant that, baby. That's why you have to know the difference between a denial and a straight observation. That's a subtle difference. Because you're probably going to want to say, before you ask a guy for a discount, you're probably going to say, this guy's going to think I'm cheap and I'm greedy. I don't want him to think that. So if you mention it at all, you get instinct to say, look, I don't want you to think I'm cheap and greedy here. That's a denial. That plants it.

So I bet you might think that I'm being a little greedy.

Sure.

I'm sure it's coming across.

Being greedy, but what's the chance you can help? You can upgrade me?

Yeah. Yeah.

You can support me in getting upgraded.

And so if you're. If asking for an upgrade as a human being, the guy's going, no, that's not greedy. You want them. You want them thinking no. You want them saying no? No's a great answer, because when somebody says no, they have just protected and defended themselves. Like, it's ridiculous. You will be stunned at what people are willing to say no to. I mean, just absolutely stunned. I'm coaching a guy who's working on a new position with the city of Beverly Hills, and they're constructing. Since it's a new position, he sees his job description that he wants to take, but it's problematic the way they put it together. He says, how do I negotiate with these guys? Because this job description is not going to make it work. And I said, look at him across the table and say, do you want me to fail? And their answer is no. And I said, well, look at how this is set up. I'd love to have this job. But instead of saying he wants to sit down with him and say, hey, look, this is never going to work the way you guys designed this.

Right. You can't say that, though.

You can't say that because then they're.

Coming from defense mode or something.

Right? Right.

Right. Now their ego's in a way where you say, because when you say, do you want me to fail? I mean, that's them again to help you. Yeah. They say no. They protect themselves. You then come to the other guy's rescue. I mean, you're punching a lot of really powerful emotional triggers there. When you say to somebody, you want me to fail? And one way or the other, I mean, we try to sit down and think of the most ridiculous question that they would never say yes to. Like if at the end of a negotiation, if I can't. If my. One of my last things I'm always going to say is, like, if you can't budge at all, I'll say, all right, well, look, it seems like you're powerless here. Oh. Because nobody wants to say yes. Oh, wow. Seems like there's nothing you could do. It seems like you're completely powerless here, and they'll put you on hold. They'll find a way to help.

So it seems like you're powerless.

You can't help me. It sounds like you're powerless here.

Right. Nobody Everyone say yes to that.

Wow. That is powerful.

Yeah.

Do you use that a lot when.

You'Re at the end of any bill.

Or anything or something?

At the end of any deal, if we haven't come to an agreement that. That I'm happy with, that'll be the last thing I'll say. It seems like there's nothing I could say, and it seems like you're powerless.

Seems like nothing that you could say to them to get what you need. Right, or for them to move deal points. And it seems like you're powerless. They're powerless.

Right.

Holy cow. That's powerful insight.

So, yeah, a lot of people have cut deals by. They thought it was completely in the tank, and they're actually just trying to end positively. It's really. It's critical to end positively.

So give me one little extra thing then if, you know, they want to end positively. Not like, yeah, I'm powerless here. So let's do the deal.

Yeah.

Okay, I'll throw in this, or I'll give you this.

Like, I make it a regular part. Like, my credit cards, almost all of them got fees. And I call every year, ask them to waive the fee, and they almost always do until the guy says, well, we waived the fee on you the last five years in a row.

So it sounds like you're powerless here.

And I'll say, yeah, I'll say that. I'll say it sounds like you're absolutely powerless here. It sounds like nothing you could do. And they'll put me on hold, let.

Me see what I could do.

They'll come back and do it. Nobody wants to be powerless.

Oh, wow, that's great. Someone taught me this, like, 12 years.

Ago.

And he said, use this. Say, what are the chances that you can do this? What are the chances you can get me an upgrade? What are the chances you'd be able to do this after you've created the rapport and the connection and all those things? What's the chance? And that has worked really well for me. And I'm wondering, why do you think using that has also worked?

Okay, so I'm glad you brought that up, because you asked me about questions before. If you're going to ask a question, they should only start with either the words how or what because they feel very deferential to the other side. People loved to be asked what somebody should do or how somebody should do something. It's extremely appealing to the other side. There's great power and deference. It feels differential. So it's a lot More important, impactful than just saying it's an open ended question. The who, what, when, where, why and how should really just be narrowed down to what and how. Okay, now how is primarily but not exclusively to MAP implementation. How am I supposed to do that? Is actually how am I supposed to implement that? How do we get this done? It's implementation. What primarily, but not exclusively to uncover obstacles. What stands in the way? What are the chances? So when you put it like that, you got a what question. It feels differential. It's open ended. It triggers deep thinking. Danny Kahneman talks about deep thinking, slow thinking. Your demeanor is very genuine and curious and connective. You want to talk with people and then what are the chances? Triggers people to immediately begin to assess where the obstacles in the environment are. And they're really going to probably. If you look back at all your answers, because what are the chances? Most of the time, if I were to technically answer that question, I would say the answer would be 50%, 75%. In point of fact, people probably say like, well, here's what we got to overcome, here's what we got to do. Here's what that would look like. They would be answering you in regards to the things to be overcome in order to make it happen.

And then you can negotiate more.

And then they would think about chances or how hard each of those obstacles would be to overcome. So those are the things I love about that question.

That's interesting. When you were practicing again, you're practicing all the time. I feel like this is something I've been doing as just a game in my life. Just like a fun challenge. Can I get this from this person? Can I do this? Can I get an upgrade? It's just like a fun thing that I've been doing for a while. But when I started reading your book and having you on, I was like, okay, I need to do this even more. The question I'm curious about is, with every interaction, is there always something we can get? Even if they say no? Like, for example, if they say no, we can't upgrade you. I try to say, well, can I have a free mint? And if they say, oh, we don't have any mints, then I say, can I get a fist bump? You know, can I get a smile? I'm always trying to like get something, even if it's a little something. What's your thoughts on that? Like, even if they say, even if they say no to everything that you want, but can you smile for me? Can you give me a bottle of water? Can you give me something, you know.

Yeah, yeah. No, I. I love it. As energy, there's measurable energy. So it's always. If you're complete mercenary, it's your advantage to be increasing your positive karma.

Right.

That's going to constantly increase your chances of success.

Right.

And the more karma you leave around you, you know, whether it's real, whether, you know, who knows what it is, but you're gonna. You're going to increase your chances of success.

Yes.

And so. Or, you know, you increase the chance of success of the guy behind you, and the guy behind you ends up sitting next to you on a plane or, you know, whoever's in line alongside you as you're increasing that karma is probably there because, yeah, if it's on the airplane, they're going to be on. On a plane next to you, it might be the dude next to you. You know, they might be the guy who either rubs a flight attendant the wrong way or he makes her feel good. And consequently, when she walks up to you, she has a different. I mean, there's, you know, the sort of the domino effect. Domino effects always there. So I love that. I love that approach. And then on important fact, you're doing in a positive fashion, which keeps you smarter, so you're probably more prepared for your next interaction.

Right.

And there's nothing that fuels our momentum like success.

Yes.

So for Uganda, as dude was a fist bump.

Right.

You're walking forward with a success something.

Yeah. Okay, good to know. Can you share your. For you, your greatest negotiation, both when you were working FBI, it could be not in a hostage situation, but just the greatest negotiation you had during your time there and also your greatest negotiation in life outside of that. This could be something small. This could have been for like, the biggest deal ever. This could have been an intimate relationship. This could have been buying a car. This could be rescuing a hostage. I'm curious if you can give one example, personal life and professional life.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, there were some different victories in hostage negotiation after a really bad debacle. Second case I worked in the Philippines. Second major case, the Burnham Sombrero case. Two to three hostages died in friendly fire at the end. That whole case, 13 months from beginning to end, a lot of people died. It was a train wreck. It was ugly from start to finish. An American citizen was executed early on. I mean, everything about that was ugly. Everything, Everything. And we had somebody got proof of life in the middle of that case, and I don't know who it was or how they got it. And all we, we find out one of our hostages on the phone. Hostage is only ever on the phone for proof of life. And he ain't on the phone with us. And we're thinking, like, who the heck is out there? Is there a competing bidder for the hostages? Like, it was insane. So struggled that for a long time. Finally got the revelation how it's done, which is, in my view, somebody on the other side and another player asked a how question. So that was when we first got onto how questions. Drug dealer in Pittsburgh. Really? Drug dealer on drug dealer kidnapping. The drug dealer goes to the FBI because who do you go to when somebody important to get kidnapped? The FBI, no matter who you are, you, even if you're a drug dealer. His girlfriend gets grabbed by another drug dealer. Hostage negotiators is riding around with this guy on his own. He says to the other bad guy, hey, dog, it's my favorite phrase of all time, hey, dog, how do I know she's alive? Hot question. Everything changes in that moment. Who really had the upper hand shifted from the guy with the, quote, leverage, who had the hostage. Total shift in upper hand when he asked that how question. So I'm like, this is it, this is it, this is it.

We gotta change, start doing how questions.

We gotta do how questions.

But what if someone, the person who has the hostage is like, well, you have to trust me or this person's gonna die. You know, you just have to believe.

You know, that's a possibility.

Right.

And then what would the follow up how question be? If someone's being unreasonable and not giving you a little bit, how are we.

Supposed to pay if we don't know their life?

Right.

You know, we got, we got, we got a couple lined up for the bad scenario. Now. There's a possibility that they may still go because that's the way it is.

Right.

But you got to go that path to find out first. You can't be afraid of going that path. So we decided to do the higher questions and we do a shift. We got another kidnapping in Ecuador. This guy named Pepe, who I'm still friends with. The kidnapper, the hostage.

Oh, I was like, I gotcha. I was like the kidnapper.

I got some bizarre friends.

I'm sure you do.

I got former prison gang members that are friends.

I'm sure you do. Yeah.

But none of them were hostage tanks.

Okay.

Yeah.

So this was the hostage hostage, Pepe.

Still a friend, he and his family. So we asked the how question. Now that it's in Ecuador and the gala which is the local police in Ecuador. They're like, we don't do it like that down here. We ask a different proof of life question. Pepe's wife afterwards says she knew there was tension between the FBI and the gala, and she knew it was there, but she appreciated professionalism that nobody would argue in front of her. Well, they were arguing about this change I wanted them to make. So we're doing a how question and halfway through this thing, they start referring to Pepe as Don Pepe. And we're like, what, Don? That's a sign of respect. What? And God's name is going on on the other side of the table. And about 28 days in, Don Pepe makes good his escape.

Escapes.

Goes out. 2 o' clock in the morning, driving rainstorm, middle of the jungle, goes out a window. He's a jungle guy. He was a jungle guide ahead of time. In 28 days, he'd been there. He figured out where the nearest town was, how to get there. He knew if he goes out in the rain, all he needs is a 20 minute head start. They're not going to be able to track him. He's going to be able to get to town, he's going to be able to get out of there.

Interesting.

28 days in, I get a call from the same negotiator that had called me a year earlier and said, I got bad news. Martin Burnham is dead. This same guy happens to be in Ecuador on my behalf. And he says, hey, Pepe's out. He escaped. He hasn't got out of guerrilla territory yet. He's on a bus. We're going to meet him.

Wow.

And so I'm. This is all this how thing. So we never got proof of life. I can't wait to interview Pepe. He's actually a New York State resident. He's an American citizen, dual national. I'm sitting down with him in upstate New York and I'm like, hey, you know, we never got proof of life. We were asking this how a question. And he said, you know, it was crazy. The whole time they talked about taking me to town to put me on.

The phone.

And they kept talking with me about that. And that was one of the major factors that he went from being a commodity, a piece of property that they were housing in a house waiting to be sold, to this forced interaction on the other side of the table where they had to talk to him regularly.

Kind of build a relationship with them.

And he happened to be very good at relationship building.

Wow.

So we triggered the Interaction. And then he capitalized on it with his natural gut instincts, creating the opportunity. They relaxed his security so much because they got to know him as a person. They were less worried about him running away. They got very relaxed around him. They gave him the run of the camp. He sees the opportunity. 2am Rainstorm, he's gone.

Wow.

And that, to me, that was like, great. Negotiation gives the opportunity for good things to happen. And you don't get so focused on your outcome that you wouldn't take something better and just engage in a process and let great things happen. And he escaped, and that was not part of the game plan. And I realized, if we got a great process, if good things are going to happen, you got to let them happen.

Yes.

That's powerful. And what about personal. Personal life outside of the FBI? Best, most memorable negotiation? Again, it could be some big deal or something that was small but really meaningful to you.

Wow.

Director of Operations, Black Swan Group. Chelsea loves working with us, and we initially brought her in as one of the, you know, the virtual assistants.

Yes.

Not an employee. And you get a virtual assistant because if they don't work out, you don't got to fire them. You say, hey, this person wasn't the right fit. We learned about fit. Chelsea's phenomenal and just loves working with us. And the most satisfying one was when we hired her. The virtual company want to continue with us as a customer, and we were good customer. And so they let you know, the deal that you sign in advance is if you hire an assistant, you got to pay them a penalty.

You got to pay them like, 30 or 50% of that year's salary or whatever.

Right.

Like, they waived that. We brought Chelsea. We got. We got a waiver because we continue to do business with them, and we're a good customer, and we're not demanding jerks. No aggravation, tax. But we took one of the top people, so that negotiation went well. And when we brought Chelsea on board, we gave her a substantial raise. And she. She almost broke down in tears.

Wow.

That was cool.

That's cool.

And she's, to this day, like, I joke around that she's like, I'm a toddler and she's. She's a minor. She keeps tracking me.

Right, Right.

And if I'm not where I'm supposed to be, you know, I'm getting a buzzing on my phone.

Yeah, that's great.

Her husband plays a banjo, so her ringtone is a banjo.

Wow, that's great. In a world that has now shifted to what seems like, might be a. For a while, half virtual, half in person, this kind of flexible style of communication. What have you noticed over the last couple years about the challenges of virtual negotiations versus in person negotiations?

See, that's another reason why I think this energy thing that you feel is real. Because, you know, people get on zoom, and they're like, you know, I got to see him. I got to see him. I got to be in person. Like, you got almost all the same data visually that you had before.

Yes.

Like, if you and I are meeting in person and we're at a table, I don't see you from the waist down.

Right.

If we're on zoom, I don't see you from the waist down. The amount of visual data is all there, and everybody feels more uncomfortable on.

Zoom and more uncomfortable. Uncomfortable.

Everybody complains about the comfort feeling on zoom, and they attribute it to the visual data, and the visual data hasn't changed. And it's my belief that there is a feel. There's an actual feel that we get from people when we're in the room. And I think it's one more indicator of why this. Whether you call them auras or the energy that you exude is an actual thing, and we just don't have the ability to measure it yet.

Yes.

I mean, like, if we were all deaf, sound would seem mystical.

Right.

Right.

So I think. I think that's what we've learned in terms of human communication. And then I think the hybrid model is actually better for everybody. I think it's creating a better work environment. I think we. We have learned that we can be more effective at home, and we need to get out of our houses. Right. And we need to be in person and you both. Yeah. And so how do we blend the two so that not only you're happier and more productive, and you're happier because you're more productive, and then. And then you find the right job, and your employer's happier with you because you're doing a better job and you're happier.

Yeah.

So I think energy is real in person. Energy is real. I love the evolution of how we're creating a better work environment. I don't think you have to have an office, but I think we need to be in person frequently just to feel there's something about matching of the energies that make us all better off.

That's cool. Have you ever gone up against. Not gone up against, but worked with another master negotiator.

Everybody on my team.

Yeah. But maybe a complete stranger that you're like, oh, this person. Oh, they know what they're doing. Like they're, they're another level of. They're using your strategies or they have their own that are really effective. And is it harder to negotiate with someone who is actually really powerful, communicator, confident, using great negotiation strategies, not manipulative, or is it easier because you kind of both speak the same language?

Well, it really depends upon whether or not they're trying to be collaborative.

Yeah.

And so it's easier. A Black Swan trained negotiators trying to be collaborative. That's a great negotiation. I mean, and we're, we're engaged in it all the time. Like our, our clients, we're making them better negotiators. Like, we're always trying to scare out a better deal. We're always trying to figure out what's better for them, what's better for us.

Sure.

And so welcome it. It's really what the other person's trying to do. And we've run across some old style people. You know, you're here in Los Angeles, Entertainment industry is famous for being purely exploitive.

Yes.

So you could have a great resume in the entertainment industry and be a really offensive human being. Now, because of your resume, your employer might think I ain't a great person. When in fact, you run around offended people regularly and had a negotiation like this where it started going off the rails early. And I looked this person up and they had an extensive entertainment industry background. And I thought, all right, here's the problem. Their resume looks great, but it's from an industry where if you cannot get every. Get all the chips, then you don't want to do that deal. And, and then I, which I also think the top level of the entertainment industry, you know, these guys and gals get together at a social function and I say, look, stop messing around. What do you need? How do we make this deal?

Right.

But they're very quiet about that.

Yes.

Because they don't want to be seen as pushovers.

Right. Because, well, it takes a month or two to negotiate. Then they're back during, like, what do we need to do? Let's figure this out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, you know, we see. When I see those types adopting our skills, if somebody's using Black swan against me. But I'll figure that out really fast.

Really.

And I'm. No, it's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long.

Time to not get the deal because you're wasting time.

Wasting time. It's Also a sin to take a long time to get a bad deal. Yeah. So if I know the deal is going to be a bad deal, then we quit and we move on.

What do you do when something you feel like is dragging off? You're going back and forth, back and forth. And it's been weeks, a month.

We don't go back and forth.

Really.

No. Look, there's a good reason it's going back and forth. We're going to figure that out and we're going to make a decision.

We're going to move on.

And we started. You know our internal terminology, which I borrowed from a guy, Joe Polish, genius network. He calls them halves and elves. Easy, lucrative, fun, hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. What some people would call a Peter pain in the neck. PETA does not obviously finish with an N, but everybody's got their term for that person. So I tell my team, who negotiates on my behalf all the time, look, let's walk away from the have sooner rather than later. Let's develop a profile of what a half says. So we figured them out earlier. Now in the meantime, let's pull our own data. How long does it take to make a deal with a good customer? How long does it take to make a deal with an annoying customer? And we found out two things. Number one, it can take five times as long to make the deal with an annoying customer.

Wow.

So now we're working at 20% of our pay. We just took an 80% pay cut.

Interesting.

And the annoying customers are not repeats.

Right.

They're tankers. Yeah.

And if, if they're annoying for us, we're probably annoying for them. So here's the, here's the proposition. Do you want repeat customers that pay you full value or do you want one offs? They want an 80% discount and you're never going to see them again. So as soon as you drop the one offs, then the repeaters accelerate. How do you put yourself in a position where your business accelerates?

Right. You let go of those types of people.

So it's let go of the friction.

It's learning the profile, learning to understand what are the cues.

Yep.

Of those types of individuals.

Yeah. Yeah. We did the same thing in hostage negotiations. They realized that there were some bad guys that were not going to come out. Suicide by cop. And once we recognize suicide by cop, which is, you know, the harsh nature of the reality is if a guy went there to die and he has hostages, what we had to accept was that he's going to kill hostages until we kill Him. And it was always a him.

Wow.

And so then, if this is going to be the case, are there telltale signs at the beginning? And my old boss, Gary Nestner, came up with a block of instruction called high risk indicators. What are the indicators of high risk? What are you going to see in the first hour? And so I went back to my team and I well, we're going to do high risk indicators for bad customers.

That's good.

What are they going to say in the first hour?

Interesting.

And then let's. And then let's. Before we know for sure, let's make a list of the things that they say that we suspect. And then let's just track how long it took to make the deal and whether or not they made another deal. And you will be shocked. It doesn't matter who you are. The behavior is going to be repeated in your world over and over and over. And you were going to be able to spot them in the first 20 minutes.

If I look back at all the relationships, intimate relationships that didn't work, I could go back and spot the first interaction, the second one, and realize, well, that was all because of me. I didn't spot it correctly and I kept repeating the wrong relationships. But that's good. It's having those indicators, tracking it and then adjusting, moving forward. When you have a new potential customer, potential girlfriend, whatever it might be, having that indicator, I give you one of.

The big ones in business. Somebody who's going to be a problem. Yes, I've got a great opportunity for you.

That's a bad indicator.

That's a bad indicator. What that means is this is a great opportunity for me. If you do all the work.

Yeah.

A lot of people are seduced by the enormity of the opportunity. Like, there's a lot of money there. I got a bunch of billionaires in a room. This is a great opportunity for you. No, it's not.

No. You're doing all the work. Yeah.

You want to put me in front of those billionaires because they're going to make you look good. And so then my question will be back to you, like, all right, so how's this played out in the past? Who that looks like? Me did you put in this position and how did it work out for them? Because now that's implementation. Like, all right, so you got me worried by offering me this great opportunity. I suspect it means if I do all the work, something will come of this. So maybe what's that work look like? Have you done this in the past? How did it work out?

Sure.

I'm asking how questions because I'm suspicious, but I got to worry about how's this going to go. So that's been a real consistent thing across the board.

It's a big indicator. Yeah, it's powerful stuff.

Chris, listen, I got a great opportunity. You know what? If you would just go to Dubai and move your whole operation to Dubai and set up there, like, I think Dubai is a great opportunity. And you're going to be sitting there like, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea the time zone and how many people I have? Yeah, but I actually, when we were talking earlier, I asked you about setting up shop in other countries and your immediate reaction was how hard that was going to be.

Yes.

Because in throwing it out there, I want to get a feel for is this a layup for you? Is this a slam dunk? Do I think it's a slam dunk and you think it's a three point shot or it's a half court shot?

Yeah.

Now I'm teasing this out like there are things like that that could be good opportunities for some people. But is your team set up and ready to move for it? That's really where that all that comes in. So if somebody has a great opportunity, I got to know what the journey looks like. My team is set up or it's not.

Right.

But I can't jump at that opportunity. And there are a number of places out there that are glittering jewels in a distance like Dubai, which I'm thinking seriously about setting up shop there.

Really.

But it doesn't work for everybody.

Right, Right.

So I got somebody saying to me, Dubai is an opportunity. That ain't good enough.

Right.

I've been there twice. It's actually pretty fascinating what they built. I mean, it's pretty impressive. But again, you're on the other side of the world, you know, and if you do a lot of business in the US and it's just a different, you got to see if that, that could be a bigger benefit over there.

What's the journey to the opportunity and what are the obstacles in a route?

Absolutely.

And very few people think about that because a great idea looks like a great opportunity and they don't have an appreciation for the landscape on the way.

What's a role playing exercise that anyone could do with a friend that would make them a better negotiator?

Try to get whoever you're talking to to say the magic two words. That's right. Which means you got to summarize where they're Coming from. If you, in any given interaction, if you got a point you want to make.

Yeah.

Before you make it your trigger, you're not allowed to make your point.

So give me an example. And you want the other person you're role playing with to say that's right.

Okay, so you were telling me about critics.

Yeah.

You're a high profile guy, you're about helping other people, which means you get criticized a lot.

That's right.

And when you get criticized, I mean I, you know, I wouldn't say you're empathic, although you are. I would say you're probably more compassionate. Those are two different things. Empathy is, you have to have empathy to be compassionate. But empathy is not compassion. Compassion is the next step. Empathy is a compassionate thing to do genuinely in understanding somebody. But there's a real fine line there that distinct things. And I think you have a tremendous amount of compassion for people. So you know that when someone criticizes you, they're attacking you. But you also know that they've been hurt and they're struggling. So you want to know how to respond to them and have them better as a result of the interaction instead of coming back and making them feel worse. And you struggle with that because you're under attack and you try not to, try not to fire back at them, right? Yeah, that's right.

So you want to have a conversation with someone.

If you could summarize their point of view from. First summarize the other person's. When you summarize the other. What the other person's struggling with.

In, in any type of deal making.

In any type of deal, business deal.

Relationship, buying coffee, upgrading, whatever it is.

Right, Gotcha. Yeah. Then after that you can make your point.

Make your point or make your proposal.

Or, or yeah, or whatever.

So if you're trying to get, if you're trying to get an upgrade on an airport, you know, on a plane or at a hotel.

Right.

Or trying to get a super sized me for free.

Right.

You're trying to get some type of upgrade for free.

Right.

Would you do the same thing? Would you say, I know you're going through, it seems like it's been a long day for you.

Well, you can look at them, tell whether or not it's going to be a long day. So right off the bat you say long day.

Right.

And then as soon as you get ready to make your ask, what's their initial instinctive response? The knee jerk reaction, what's that gonna.

Be when I make an ask?

Once you've made your Ask what's their. If somebody's trying to get something for free.

Yeah.

What's their typical knee jerk reaction?

This person's just trying to get something for free from me.

Right.

So.

And everyone does this or everyone.

There you go.

Everyone's doing this.

Yeah. So you walk up and you go like, hey, look, man, I know I'm going to seem like just another jerk who's trying to get something for free. Somebody who treats you like you were their servant. Oh, man. Somebody who doesn't care about you could care less whether you live or die. They only care that you're long. You're alive long enough to make my coffee because that's what the other guy's thinking. How do you articulate what they're thinking, especially the negative stuff about you? When you say that, they're going to.

Be like.

No, no, no, no, no, no. But what you did was you just woke them up, you know, you, you what, you snapped them out of the negative loop that's in their head because the last guy come in and said, yeah, I want to, and I want it now. And I hate waiting in line.

Starbucks.

Do you do this all the time? All day long. Are you constantly in a game of negotiation with people?

It's, it's that, you know, that I brush my teeth today just because I brushed them yesterday. You know, I, I, I, I genuinely, I got to keep my skills up because it's either stay even, decline, or get better. I want to keep my skills up. The mercenary in me does it because I got to keep my skills up. The missionary in me does it because I actually care about people. Yeah. I just assumed that you had a good day. Yeah, yeah. You know, that you didn't. That my interaction with you didn't leave you wet. Worse that my interaction with you left you better. Everybody we encounter should be left better by the interaction.

How important is the intention? Before you walk up to the coffee shop, before you go to the hotel, before you get on the phone with the other business owner to make a deal, before you have a conversation with your partner about where you're going to dinner, do you set an intention first? Like walking into the hotel, you're like, this is what I'm going to say. This is the result that I want to get out of this. This is the, the way I want.

To leave people feeling the intention. The intention is, you know, I, I, I, I want to, I want you to have fun with the interaction.

The other person.

Yeah, I want you to have fun. If I, if I, if I'm playful if I'm intending for you to have fun. You know, I'm in a department store.

Yeah.

I'm joking around with the guy behind the counter, and I go, I go, tell you what, you know what? How about if you give me the employee discount, right? Give me the employee discount. I'll say it like that. Give me the employee discount. Guy in the store says, if I give you the employee discount, I'm gonna have to pay for it myself.

Really?

And I go, I'll pay you back. I said it just like that. He went. And he started walk around asking people how he could key. Key it in and give me the same discount without having to pay it himself. He walked around the store for 10 minutes.

Really?

I, I. And I, I saw, I saw him walk up to a manager, as a.

Manager shaking his head, he's going to someone else's.

And on his way back, another employee walked up to him on the side, whispered in his ear, and he went, okay. And he walked up, and I get 30% off.

Wow.

But you didn't pay him back. It was just like a playful.

I just, you know. Yeah, I just, I'm just, I just was being, Being playful about it. Just being silly about it.

And what's the best way to get an upgrade at a hotel for you?

All right, so slightly different take on the approach.

Yes.

My son does this all the time. My son Brandon runs my business. He's our best negotiator. He prides himself when we all come into a hotel, he's got to be in a better room than me, and I'm the boss.

That's hilarious.

And as far as I'm concerned, and I'm paying the bills.

Yeah. Of course.

He got an upgrade in a hotel one, One time that I couldn't even get on the floor.

You need a special key.

Yeah, key code. Yeah.

Me, me and the other guys were going, hey, we'll come up to your room. He goes, no, no, I got. He goes, I got to come get you. I said, no, we'll just come knock on your door. Goes, no, you can't even get on the floor I'm on. He paid less for his room than I paid for mine, and I'm the boss. But he'll walk up to somebody and say, getting ready to make your day. Your day. The most difficult day you ever worked here. And he says, because somebody works behind a counter at a hotel, I mean, God knows what they've seen. You know, have you got a head in the bag? Do you Want to. Are you gonna have ritual sacrifice in a room? You know, what have you done? You've done. Because in a hotel they've seen every, every kind of sort of crazy thing could imagine and they just go, oh.

God.

What is it? He goes, I'm just going to be another self centered person looking for a free upgrade. They're like, oh my God, that's it.

That'S it, that's it.

Oh yeah.

And they, they, they immediately through the roof and they start checking and in this and say, hey, you know what? Yeah. I tell you what, let me, let me give you this room. It's on, it's on the exclusive floor. It's on a presidential suite. President ain't coming. So I'm going to give you the president. I know the president ain't coming tonight. We're holding a suite for him just in case you can have it. He's not going to be here.

Wow.

I remember from our interview the last time, I think if my memory is right, you would say one of the strategies is leading with like being challenging in a certain way or I'm going to be like, I'm going to be demanding a lot.

Isn't that something that you talk well.

To a little bit?

Yeah. You know, right. I, I'm gonna, if, if, if I know you're gonna react negatively to my ask, I will give you a preview that makes it worse. Look worse than what? Than what it's going to be. Yeah.

So what do you call that, that framework?

For lack of a better term, it's emotional anchor. Emotional anchoring. Emotional anchoring. You know, we, we don't do price anchoring.

Uhhuh.

You know, but we'll do emotional anchoring. If, if, if you're not gonna like what I have to say say, I'm going to say, look, you're not gonna like this.

Right.

That's what it is.

And then I'm gonna shut up because your amygdala is going to kick into gear and you're gonna think that I'm gonna insult you, your parentage, your family, your genealogy, everything. Because the amygdala is going to go into overdrive.

Wow.

So whatever I ask for after that is going to be relief. And I'm doing that also because I need to keep an eye on how you feel when we're done. Not as much how you feel at the start, but how you feel when we're done.

So you want someone to be. It's okay if they start off in a lower energetic or negative attitude as Long as when you finish, they feel like, okay, it got better over time.

Yeah. You feel good at the end. The last impression is a lasting impression. Interesting. And that's unavoidable. Yeah, it's a. It's what we refer to as a law of gravity. It doesn't. You know, we have gravity. We can't explain why gravity works, but you're still not going to step off the balcony because gravity's there.

Right.

The last impression is a lasting impression, no matter what. So I need to, more than anything else, make sure that the last impression is positive or at least feels collaborative.

Let's say you've been in a negotiation with someone, or you're a business partner with someone, or you've been in a long negotiation for six months with someone. Either one, you've been a business partner working together for a year or two, or you've been trying to find a deal with someone else for a year or two.

Right.

And it's taking too long.

Both auctions have taken too long that haven't. You haven't been getting the results you want and you feel like you've been taken advantage of a little bit. Let's just say that. How do you. And it's going. It started off good, and it's going the opposite way.

Right.

It's getting worse and worse. How do you finalize it so that it goes back to a high or a higher mark, leaving you feeling better and leaving the other person feeling better.

Or.

Or you get out of it.

Yeah. Or you just get out of it. But you just say, okay, I'm done. Bye. I don't want to talk to you. How do you not burn a bridge if you're in that situation?

I'd probably say something to the effect of, look, you're not gonna like this.

So you start with the emotional anchoring.

Right. Interesting.

This isn't working for me.

And I'm.

Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do it anymore. And my problem here has been that I like you. I've always liked you. And the stuff that we've done together successfully has been phenomenal. And I would like nothing better than at some point in time in the future for us to be able to get back to that. But for right now, in order to preserve the memories of the positive things we've done, I gotta be.

I'm out now. Wow.

How do I remember that?

So every time I'm in a situation, I can say that same thing.

Well, it's a little bit of a sequence.

Yeah.

And the, the sequence is. We need to stop what we're doing right now. But if we're going to stop what we're doing right now, what everybody thinks of is, where is this going?

The future.

So I gotta, I gotta create a point in time for the future that we're both happy with.

So there's still a bridge there.

You know, there's still, there's still an opportunity for the future.

Yeah, maybe it's a year, maybe it's never gonna happen.

But you keep it open.

I'm open to it. I want. And I'm. I'm finishing positively, but I am finishing Interesting.

Yeah.

Because the last words that I. The last two sentences, maybe even just the last sentence, are gonna ring in your ears over and over and over and over because that's what your brain is always going to go back to, the last impression. How do I make you feel at the end? I make you. I make, make you feel valued. And you're going to appreciate the fact that I walked away without calling you names. But I walked away.

Right.

It's hard to do.

Yeah, it. Well, it's hard. Get your, get your practice.

You got to practice. Yeah.

You know, you just, you work on it a few times. Most of the time, what people have at the end is the, the battle for the last word is when the last word is a cheap shot.

Right. That's when people screw you too hang up.

Right. And I'm going to call you back, just say screw you right back, and then I'm gonna hang up.

Yeah.

You know, there's a battle of the last words of problem and the last words of cheap shot. But when the last word is a positive thing, it's not a problem.

So always end in a positive. With positive words.

Right.

Even if you feel taken advantage of, even if they hurt you, even if they screwed you over or whatever, you should always try to end in a positive way.

Yeah. Without question. Because if you're talking to them, then your goal was to resolve things and to have a great relationship. Now, you might say that at the very beginning of the interaction, but it's more important to say it at the end. You know, my goal was always to have a great relationship with you. And if we could get out of this dynamic, that would be my goal again. But right now I'm out.

Yeah.

But understand that at any point in time we could go back to working collaboratively. I'd love to do it. Oh, that's good.

Yeah.

And so usually what it is, is take, take what you said at the beginning and at least say it again at the end.

That's good.

Yeah, I like that. What is something that you did as a hostage negotiator with terrorists around the world. World that you use today in just common interactions? Is there something that you did at the height of, like, this intense conversation that you. You do on a daily basis?

Pretty much everything we've been talking about.

Yeah.

You know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make a verbal observation on. On how they're processing things. You know, it seems like.

It seems like.

It sounds like. It feels like you'll see all those things.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the bread and butter of great horses and negotiations. Really. Yeah.

It's having them be seen or heard.

Yeah.

Feeling understood.

You know, people are taking actions to make a point. What happens if you can make the point without taking the action?

They're taking actions to make a point.

Right.

And you're saying you don't need to take that action Because I hear you.

Yeah. Let me see what happens. If I can. If I can.

If you.

And it makes no sense at all, but I'm going to take probably 90% of a terrorist agenda away just by making them feel hurt, making him or her feel hurt. Then I'll deal with whatever I have to afterwards. But let's say I could only take away 10% of their agenda by making them feel hurt. What if I could only take away 1% of their actions by making them feel hurt? That's worth the investment to me. Let me see what's left over after they feel hurt.

Less fingers, they're cutting off, less people, they're blowing up, whatever.

Right?

Yeah. One way or another.

Yeah.

What is. What's the best approach? Say I'm looking to buy a company.

Right.

I'm looking to acquire something I really like. This software, this tool, this agency. I want to buy them. What's the best approach? Without seemingly. Or thinking like, oh, if I come to them, like, I'm too needy, I really want them, that I'm giving them all the power.

Right.

What's the best approach of someone that wants to buy something?

Yeah. Completely counterintuitive. What are all their arguments for making you pay the high price? State them first, because what that actually does is it leaves them with nothing to say.

So. Eight Mile.

Very nice. Right? Exactly right.

Eight Mile.

Yeah. We used to. We used to use that, that clip from 8 Mile all the time.

So good.

Articulate everything they got to say.

So, for instance, if I'm an agency, you want to buy me Right.

My company.

What would you say if I'm like, my business is growing, we've getting all this attention, we're helping clients with big results where we're growing as much fast as possible. And you're like, wow, this company's really growing. We got to get them now before they're too big. What would you. You call me up on the phone, do you write me an email? Do you need, hey, I want to meet for coffee. What's the best approach in person? Email, phone, video conferencing? If you could have it any way.

All right, I'd say, look, I'd probably say right off the bat, like, Like I'm completely blown away with what you're doing. You guys are phenomenal. You're on the upswing. You guys are killing it. I'm gonna seem like a cheapskate. I'm gonna seem like I'm trying to get something for nothing.

So emotional anchoring.

Yeah. Is it a ridiculous idea for us to talk about you selling me your company?

Wow.

Getting something for nothing. Is that what he said too?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

Because I've started off with appreciation. Yeah. I've lowered your expectations of me. And see, the last thing that I did also was I did what we refer to as a no oriented question. Instead of saying, would you like to buy? Would you like me to. Would you like to talk to me about selling your company? I'd say, is it a ridiculous idea for us to talk about you selling me your company?

What if I say, yeah, it's kind.

Of ridiculous and we're done.

I never had a shot to begin with. See, this is about keeping me out of deals that either I'm never going to make or I don't want to make.

So it saved you six months of your life, potentially, in a two minute phone call.

Right.

But if they say, yeah, we're growing super fast, it'd be hard for me to really want to sell right now. But, you know, if you made me a great offer, I'd be open.

Then I'd say, sounds to me like there's just no way that I'm gonna be able to ever make you happy.

Because I need a great offer.

Yeah. If you say something like that to me, what you're actually doing is trying to get a really high bid out of me to soothe your ego. You want to go back to the employees and say, you know What? We're worth $150 million. And I turned it down because in five years, we're going to be worth $450 million. Wow. So that kind of. That kind of a question is you want to bid from me to make you feel good?

What made you want to get into becoming a negotiator in the FBI?

Why?

Did you think this would be fun for me or something you wanted to do?

Well, I was originally a SWAT guy. And before I got into law enforcement, I figured to be a SWAT guy. Like, I'm a medium sized guy. So I figured, well, I gotta do martial arts. And so then in college, then I ripped my knee up really badly in college and martial arts. And that was what ended up being the turning point negotiation. Because then I was on a SWAT team with the FBI when I was in Pittsburgh and was on a SWAT team there. And then I tried out for the Bureau's version of the seals, which is the hostage rescue team. And when I tried out for the hostage rescue team, hrt, then I reentered my knee again. And then I realized there's only so many times doctors can put it back together.

It's tough.

Humpty Dumpty. How many times can the doctors put you back? So after they got the knee put back together the second time, I. I looked at hostage negotiations, I didn't know what negotiators did. It sounded both cool and easy. And I thought, I could talk to Terrace. I remember literally thinking, yeah, I'll talk to Terrace. I'll do that.

Sure.

And then that actually was a big turning point, getting onto the team in the New York City office. Because originally the woman who ran the team just tried to shoo me away because I had no credentials. I just figured I could do it. I'm from sort of a can do, pitch in kind of world. I grew up in a small town in Iowa, and it's like, hey, figure it out. Do it, get it done. Move on to the next thing.

Where in Iowa? Waverly.

Waverly.

I've been to Waverly.

So that's why that's a mecca of Iowa culture, probably. No, I'm from Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Southeast corner of the state. It is about 35 miles south of the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. Okay, just for all. You start.

There you go.

There you go. So what was the first negotiation process like for you at the FBI? What was it? How long have you been at the FBI for? And what was the outcome?

Yeah, the first real deal was bank robbery with hostages in Brooklyn.

Your first deal was a bank robbery?

My first FBI gig, if you will. Wow.

And this happens once every two decades.

Bank robberies with hostages are rare. Rare events.

Okay, where was the bank?

It was in Brooklyn at 7th and Carroll. It was Chase Manhattan Bank. And there we were. Dun, dun, dun. No, but I was actually scheduled to do a terrorism related interview that morning. And I was not quite a year out of negotiation training. And a partner of mine, Charlie Baldwin, came in and says, bank ride with hostages in Brooklyn. Let's go.

And you were in Manhattan at this time, right?

Yes, Manhattan. Yeah. So Charlie and I, and we were both nursing bad knees at the time. He actually had a bad left knee. I had a bad right knee.

You got your wheelchair, your crutches, just about hobbling around.

Hobbled around. And so we pull up to the bank robbery and we're too close to the crisis site. And we didn't realize we were like right on top of where the bank is, where the bad guys were. So two guys with bad knees bail out of the car and low crawl basically through the inner perimeter to where the negotiation team was being set up. And that was my first gig.

Okay, and now is the team in a van? Like it is in the movies, where you're like, have a van and you've got the radios, and if you can't.

Set up someplace, then you get a van.

Gotcha.

And NYPD had a van, but we didn't need it. We set up in a bank across the street to took over. It was Chemical bank at the time, and just took over the bank and set up the negotiation room right across the street, started rock and roll. It took us two hours from the moment the bank alarm went out to the first contact was two hours.

Two hours.

Is that quick or is that, you.

Know, that's probably standard.

Okay.

Because it takes everybody a while to get there.

Two hours.

So they had to wait for two.

Hours until they got any communication.

Well, that's what we thought. But the bad guys inside were really tricky. That was one of the first things that I began to learn lessons about business negotiation. Because the organizer inside was one shrewd guy. And it's a cliche in a business world that if you're sitting at the table with some guy who wants to make them seem powerless, that's an influential guy. A guy who always said, look, I don't have control over what's going on here. I got CEO, I got all these people, anybody that points to negotiators away from the table. The harder they work to make themselves seem powerless, the more influential they are. Because they don't want you to corner.

Them at the table because they don't have the decision. They can't make the decision.

Well, they can. They don't want you to know it.

Yeah, right.

They're hiding that.

They're acting like they can't make it.

Right, right, right. And this guy in that bank, he just kept saying, you know, these other guys that I'm here with, they're so dangerous. I don't know what they're going to do. And he was extremely calm. And at first, we just thought we were dealing with an inadequate personality, somebody who just had no power. But we found out after the fact that he was one of the most controlling guys. The guys he took to that bank robbery, they didn't even know they were going to rob the bank. They thought they were going to burglarize a cash machine.

Wow.

He was manipulating everybody. So my first solid dose with that, with somebody like that was like, one of the best business lessons I ever learned.

Wow. What happened? How long did the process go for?

12 hours. Well over 12 hours in total.

How many hostages?

There were three hostages inside, two women and a man. They had.

They had guns. They had everything.

I'm assuming bad guys rolled in. This guy thought everything through in advance, and he rolled in with a gun that looked like a.357 was actually not, because he wanted everybody to think he had a.357. So the first thing he does when he rolls in the bank is he takes the two female tellers hostage, he hits one of them in the head with the.357, he sticks the barrel in the other one's mouth and pulls the trigger.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, terrifying.

Yeah. Frightened out of her mind, she thinks it was just an empty chamber, which is what he wanted her to think. When he dropped the hammer on an empty chamber, he said, now open a vault. And they wasted no time getting that vault open. But by then, the police had shown up. We'd surrounded the bank.

The vault was open. They got cash and bags or whatever.

They were getting ready to get out when we surrounded them, Surrounded them.

So how did they get out?

Well, we had them trapped inside, and so we went through a really long negotiation. I mean, this guy's thought everything through.

So you're on the phone with him. You get a hold of him, he gets a hold of you. How's that work? Call the bank.

The first thing we do is we try to isolate the phone lines.

Right.

So. But. So we just got in on. We connected our equipment to a phone and just called in on the bank phone. And this was. And that ended up being the way we communicated the entire time.

He picked it up the first time.

Yeah, well, because he's smart. He wants to figure, first of all, he wants to get away from doing. He wants to get away. And he also realizes that if he's talking to us, there's a pretty good chance we're not coming in.

Right.

If he's talking to us. And also if he realizes he's got to manage the risk level, you know, he's got to talk to us in really measured tones. And so he knows as long as he's talking to us and sound and reasonable, we're probably not going to break down.

But if they're sounding crazy, then you're going to come in.

Then we're going to come in.

So he sounded reasonable. He was like, what was the conversation like?

Well, he started off, right off the bat by telling I was the second negotiator. The first thing he'd done was he had already. Actually, we didn't know he'd called the precinct before we got there. He called the precinct and said they wanted to surrender, which also then on his perspective, he thinks that that means we're going to drop our guard. And it's very much like a really shrewd negotiator says, look, I want to make a deal, you know, and if you get a negotiator says, you know, let's do a win win deal, right. The sooner win win comes out of somebody's mouth across the table, well, that's an automatic mark of somebody's trying to.

Oh, really?

To rip me off.

Oh, interesting.

Because he's trying to get me to relax. He or she, you know, if I look at you and say, hey, man, you know, let's do a win win deal here, you need to be putting your hands over your wallet. Really? Because I'm going after it.

That's funny because I'm always thinking about, you know, I'm trying to come from a place of win win and all my relationships and business deals right now in my life.

Right.

But I'm honestly not trying to, like, screw someone out of a, you know, by saying that I'm really like, let's make sure that you win, I win in this business deal, or, you know, whatever's happening. But it's different. Maybe when there's someone who's stealing something.

Well, it's context, too, but. And then it's. The first thing that you say is like, if you say to me, look, look, I want to make sure that this is good for you, and I Don't want it to be good for me. At the same time, you're expressing a win win. But if I sit down, I would say, look, Louis, let's do a win win here. I'm telling you, I don't want to pay you anything. The sooner it comes out of my mouth.

Interesting. So you should negotiate first before saying that, is what you're saying.

Well, you start thinking about stuff other than money, what I'm really telling you is I don't want to give you any money.

Gotcha in that context.

Right?

Gotcha.

Right. But as soon as somebody starts trying to give you a deal, it's a great move to get the other side to relax.

Right, right, right. Okay, so what happened next?

Well, he called the precinct and said they wanted to surrender. So the deal he wanted to do was he said, put a van out front. We'll all get in the van, and we'll drive to the precinct. Right. That's absurd.

Like, you'll drive to the precinct. Okay, Right.

Like, but that's an escape plan.

Right.

So. But because it came out, half that information came out. When we actually got to the bank at the beginning, all the top brass had showed up. They figured, you know, they're half paying attention. They figured it should be 20 minutes and it's over. Because that was the information when we first got there that wanted to surrender. And as stupid as that sounds, a year earlier, a hijacked plane had come into jfk. And in that hijacking, the hijacker said he wanted to surrender as soon as the plane touched down. And that was, in fact, what happened. So there was some precedent in New York for somebody wanting to surrender right away. So if you're half paying attention, you're thinking, oh, this is the same as this stupid hijacker a year ago. Well, it wasn't the hijacker that came in a year earlier. He wanted to get into the US to get out of his country, and he figured jail in the US Was better than life in his country.

Interesting.

And he just needed a free ride to the U.S. that's why he hijacked a plane.

That's funny.

He didn't know he was going to spend life in jail.

Wow.

And so there was some precedent for it. So the bosses show up, and they're just hanging out outside, shaking hands. They're not paying attention to what's going on. You know, pretty soon, they wonder what's taking the negotiators so long. They're looking at their watches. They're like, we've been here an hour. You know, these guys said they want to surrender an hour ago. Why isn't he out? Well, they were stalling and they were trying to escape. And we also found out the guy on the inside was. He was burning money in the basement. The bank was under construction at the bank. Wow. And what he was doing was he stashed a couple hundred thousand dollars inside the construction and then he burned a pile of money in the bank. And so he figured, I don't have to get away with the money. I just got to get away if I had enough money and then hide it later. I'll come back and get it later. Wow. So he was a cagey guy. He was really cagey smart. And at 8:30 that night. Right. At 12 hours later, he walked out of the front of the bank and we put those golden handcuffs on.

He couldn't get out, huh?

No, we had him. We had him. But even, even up to the last minute, I saw, because I was inside, I saw the video. He's looking around, he came out real slow and he was looking left and right the whole time. I mean, right up to the moment that our SWAT guys actually put their hands on him. He was looking for any opportunity quite escape. Yeah, he never lost his poise the whole time.

Wow.

Interesting.

So.

So how did you guys finally get him to surrender or to.

Well, he got. When I got on the phone with him, I was part of a change of strategy and I was going to be.

Something wasn't working for a while, right?

Well, we slowed it down and I was going to be the really tough nice guy. Like I'm going to. My job to get on the phone was to be the immovable nice guy. And the nicer you are, the more movable you could be. You know, forgive me for picking on Mr. Donald Trump right now, but, you know, the style of being, you can be very aggressive without or very assertive without being aggressive. And his style is he wants to yell at people. You know, he wants to intimidate his way in. You don't have to give up that much assertion. You just, you don't want to be that mean. You don't want to be that hard.

On people, for example. What do you mean? Like how?

Well, you know, we're in la. There's a great guy here in town. His name is Tom Girardi. Voted top trial attorney in California several years in a row by the Bar Association. He gets voted top trial attorney so many times that when they put it on the front page, they say Again. So he comes in and he's a guest of my class at usc, and he stepped. And I know he's a top trial attorney, but I don't know his style. I figure he's going to be an attack dog because I spent so much time in New York, you know, I used to attack dog attorneys. And Tom walks into the class and he says, you know, the key to negotiation is being nice and gentle. Now, what Tom does by being nice is get you to drop your guard. And Tom is an immovable, unrelenting opponent, and that's why he's so successful. And he's ridiculously nice about it. Like, he smiles and he chats with people. People. And he always talks about how we'll collaborate with each other in the future. You get into an argument with him, and immediately he'll bend it, where he's talking with you about how you and I are going to be successful together 10 years from now or in the future, which is the same thing a hostage negotiator does. Like, if you're barricading a bank, I'm going to say, my first goal is to get you out of there alive. Well, I picked a point in the future that we can collaborate on. Tom Girardi does this instinctively, and he's just super nice about it. I mean, like, you either you're going to cooperate with him because you like him so much, he's never going to let up on you, or more than likely, you're going to say something accidentally, and he gets people saying stuff accidentally, and then he doesn't jump on you if you say something accidentally. He lets you say so many things accidentally.

What do you mean, actually?

Well, like, you know, he loves to get people uncovered emails that they never should have written. Like, if you send Tom an email saying, tom, let's go have lunch together, he will not email you back saying, okay, because he doesn't put anything in emails, because that's the downfall of almost every single lawsuit. Somebody who's done something wrong is going to put it in an email. And Tom knows if he's nice to the other side long enough, he's going to figure out where those emails are.

So.

And that's what people do all the time. You know, lawsuits are uncovered. People get into trouble with what they put in emails. When they say, hey, they send an email to somebody else, they say, hey, you know, we, you know, we shouldn't be doing this. And a person sends an email back saying, like, yeah, it's okay. Nobody's ever going to Find out.

Oh, my gosh.

In today's day and age, people put stuff in emails. And so Tom knows. He's just relentlessly nice. Relentless. And the most charming guy you ever met in your life. Wow. So you don't have to be aggressive.

To get what you want.

To get what you want.

Interesting. Okay, I've got a bunch of questions for you that I want to ask about this, but I want to do a role play first.

If you're cool with it.

I'd love to.

You say you do this in your class outfit?

No, we're going to wear uniforms.

Exactly. Yes.

I'll be a referee.

Okay, perfect.

And you'll be a wide receiver.

We can do that.

Call you for illegal procedures off center.

There you go. But you do this in your class, right? Because you teach at USC business school. And what do the role play usually consist of?

All right, so I say, all right, I'm going to ask you to volunteer to role play with me in front of the class.

Okay.

And I want you to know, just in case you're worried about role playing with a hostage negotiation in front of everybody. Just ease your mind just so you won't worry. I promise you the experience is going to be horrible.

Perfect.

And you probably get more out of it than anybody else in a classroom.

Okay?

All right, so here's a role play. You volunteered.

You agreed.

I'm a bank robber. You're a hostage negotiator. I'm trapped at a bank.

Yes.

You and your colleagues have got me surrounded. It's your job to talk me out.

Just like your first case, right?

Okay.

Yeah. There's only four restrictions. You can't give me transportation. You can't give me weapons. You can't give me drugs or alcohol. And there's no exchange of hostages. You can't offer. Come in. If I offer to let everybody go, you can't offer to send my mom in. If I let everybody go, nobody comes in.

I can't get anyone to come out.

People.

People only come out. Nobody comes.

No exchange for no.

You know, like Eddie Murphy did a movie.

No exchange for a person.

Let me talk to you. You can't do that. You can't walk.

No one can come in.

No one comes.

Only people can come out.

Only people come out. So those. Those are your only four restrictions.

Can something else come in?

Sure, if you don't break any of those other restrictions. No alcohol, drugs, no alcohol, no weapons, no drugs, no transportation. Hostage exchange. We'll do the negotiation over the phone.

All right?

When you. When you're ready? Say ring, ring. I'll pick up.

Ring, ring.

I need a car in 60 seconds or she dies.

Let me see what I can do on that.

Okay, you got 57 seconds to do something.

Well, Chris, we don't have cars that quickly.

Tell me to kill her right now. You've got 55 seconds, as a matter of fact. Or are you telling me you're gonna give me a car?

Let me see what I can do on that and get back.

I heard you say that before. You've got 50. You got 45 seconds. Car yes or no?

I need to make sure she's still alive before I can get you a car.

She's alive.

I need proof.

43 seconds.

I need to hear on the phone.

Nope. No, absolutely not. 40 seconds.

I want to help you get exactly what you need.

Fine. You telling me you can give me a car?

I'm gonna do my best to get.

It for you as quickly as I can.

Do my best. Are you telling me, Zetti, yes to a car? 35 seconds.

I'm gonna do my best to get you a car.

That sounds quickly.

I need a little more time than 30 seconds because we can't get a car.

Then you have just said you are going to.

Gonna get you a car. Just give me a little bit more time.

Yes, on the car.

I'll get you a car.

Yes, on the car. Okay, you got 25 seconds. Because there are cars everywhere, and if you can give me one, you give me one. It's right up front right now.

Give us a few more minutes, and we'll get you a car as quickly as we can.

You got 25 seconds.

You're gonna have to give me a little bit of help here.

I don't have to give you anything. You got 20 seconds.

We're gonna do our best to get you a car.

Yeah, you just said you were gonna give me a car.

Now you're back as quickly as we can.

You're saying yes on a car.

Yes, in the car.

Seconds. I kill her.

Okay, well, we just need to make sure we have a few more minutes to get the car for you. Yes.

Okay. 10 seconds.

Okay, our men are on it right now.

Okay, we'll stop there.

Okay.

All right. So literally tense. Everything that you did was wrong. No, no. Your strategy is on the money, okay? See? And I would only change how you tried to implement the strategy. Okay, but you're trying to feel me out a little bit. You got a great tone of voice, like I was attacking you like crazy. I'm Hitting you hard. And I actually used one. I used a Donald Trump voice, basically. Now you didn't respond, you didn't lose your stuff at all. You stayed very calm the whole time.

Okay. That's the key.

That's not easy to do.

No, because I was feeling it inside.

I was like, oh man, that's very.

Impressive that your voice didn't come up one iota in that negotiation. And with that particular voice as a counterpart, it's not at least a bit unusual where we start talking over each other.

Right.

You didn't talk over me once. Right.

Is that a key to not talk over, not try to interrupt or secret.

To gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control. Now I'm coming at you as a very control oriented negotiator. As soon as you don't struggle with me over control, you actually begin to gain an advantage because then you feel.

Like you're in control and you don't have to try to gain it anymore.

Right? Right. I'm more than likely going to start dropping my. If I'm a control freak guy, if I want to talk all the time, I'm a control freak guy. Control freak negotiators who want to talk all the time, they feel out of control when they're not talking. So you want to get them to the point where they don't talk. But they don't talk because they're relaxed, not because they're trying to seize control. So you did a real nice job with that. Now the only thing, another thing that we teach is, see, you're not going to give me a car. And you try to make it sound like you were going to. I teach how to say no. And then you want to feel other ways of saying. Because the real answer to that, just like at the very beginning of my book, you're supposed to look at me and say, how am I supposed to do that?

So points it back to a question.

Right. A how question.

An open ended question.

Well, not just open ended. How. How is the key to life. Yes. Is nothing without how. So you never find. And. And you could also start talking about how without talking about yes.

So just say, would I even say.

You could say, how would I do that?

Would I say I'd love to get you what you need. How would I do that?

Just how would I do that?

How would I do that? So give them the control to figure out the solution.

Right, right. Right. How am I supposed to get you the car in that time frame? Because that's what you're trying to express, there actually is a time problem here, right.

In 60 seconds, how am I supposed to get you a car?

Right, right. That's different than we can get a car. We just need 60 more seconds.

We need more time. Yeah, right.

Because now I think you're ducking me, but if you. Instead you say, like, how am I? You know, of course the cars are out here right away. But first of all, I got to tell everybody what we're going to do. I don't need anybody to get surprised. Let's talk through the details of how this is going to get done. In the meantime, what got you here in the first place, how do you find yourself into this kind of a situation? How do I make sure I get you out of there alive? The succession of how questions. How am I supposed to promise to get you a car if I don't know that she's going to come out alive? You take what you want and make it the path to what I want. You know, how am I supposed to get you in here if it doesn't benefit me also?

Right?

So as soon as in any negotiation, what I want is now a means of getting what you want, then that changes the dynamic right away.

How does someone develop that confidence?

I'll break that into two parts. The type of confidence and developing the confidence. Because there's a lot of empty, vacuous confidence out there. Like I am, like, false confidence, the false confidence. And I, you know, this one guy we were talking to about a possible investment company, you know, I pointed out, you know, how I thought the numbers were flawed. And then the guy said, well, I'm confident I can make these numbers anyway. And I'm like, all right, so we're walking away from you right now because you just told me you have confidence in the things that I just pointed out to you that were flawed. Instead of actually listening to what I said. Now, the confidence that you spoke about a moment ago, the way you lived it and what you said, it wasn't confidence. It was confidence in connecting. And that's the critical point with people. With people connecting with somebody and the desire to connect with them, which is also the whole point of the negotiation, the black swan method, is about succeeding with people not at their. Not at their expense. You know, getting better at negotiation, not necessarily at the expense of other people. In point of fact, making the other person's position better, also not hurting them.

Not hurting, but them succeeding. And you succeed.

Right, because you want to repeat business.

Yes.

And if you hurt Them they're not going to repeat.

Right.

So connecting with people, negotiating with people, that's your confidence is a desire for that and a genuine sincerity, enthusiasm for it.

How does someone do that when they know what they want is not what the other person wants?

Well, and that's only if it's short term.

Gotcha.

And then, then if it really gets at the risk of that, you make what you want the path to what they want. Like, you know, I love seeing a Black swan method thrown showing up in the real world. So of course, somebody sends me a clip from Shark Tank and Kevin o' Leary got Black Swan.

Okay, tell me.

So one of our, one of our go to lines when somebody's giving you an unacceptable offer or something you can't deal with or something very difficult for you. I used to say to, you know, to kidnappers, how are we supposed to pay if we don't know the hostage is alive? They want to get paid. I got to know that your hostage is alive. How are we supposed to pay you if we don't know you're going to let them go? They want to get paid. I want to get the hostage out. I'm making my goals, their sequence. So how am I supposed to do that? As some form of how is a great. Leveling the playing field question when someone's coming at you hard.

So what happened with Kevin?

Kevin o' Leary did classic. All right, so this is my offer. Take it or leave it. No discussion. Yes or no, you got to answer me right away. This is what I want. Can't talk to anybody else. And the guy looks at him and says, how am I supposed to do that? And then he says, how am I supposed to agree to those terms and pay you back your money? Now, o', Leary, initially this started with Larry basically saying like, yes and no or get out of my face.

You got five seconds. Make a decision.

I'm out or I'm out. Instead, they hit him with a couple of how questions and there's a sequencing, but Larry wants his money back. So how am I supposed to do that and protect your investment? And so suddenly now, all of a sudden, now he's not angry, but now he's not. He's back on his heels.

He's trying to think.

He seemed thinking. And at that point in time, since they've created so much space in a negotiation now Barbara Corkin jumps in. Right now there's some time that some people.

10 second window, there's a yeah, and.

A better deal is opening. And Kevin looks at her and says, hey, are you in?

Are you out?

You know, I thought you were out. And so then. But now he's engaged in a full on negotiation. It's back and forth exchange. And these guys are still hitting him with like, how are we supposed to protect your investment and give you those kind of terms? And then finally they get a great deal teased out that o' Leary is still not ready to jump on. And Barbara says, you know what, I'll take that deal. And she jumps in and she gets it. Wow. So great negotiations about succeeding with people and creating the opportunity for good things to happen. Because until they did that, Barbara Corcoran was out. But they created some space. They, they ask some legitimate questions and suddenly Barbara says, there's a great deal in front of me, I'm going to jump back in.

Right.

What would you say is the most important word to use in any negotiation?

Wow.

Not used, but come to grips with no. The word no. No is a great word to hear.

If you're trying to make the negotiation.

When I'm trying to make the negotiation. Because empathy is about what it is for the other side, not what it is for you. It's not about you. So when you say no, you feel safe.

I'm protecting myself. I'm guarding my deal or whatever the side of that I have. I'm not giving into something I don't want.

Right.

And as soon as you do that, you're more willing to explore options.

Okay, no for this, but maybe what about this, this or this?

Right, right. Or I may say, look, does this look like a bad idea? And you might say, no, it doesn't look like a bad idea. But I need these things. Which you, having feel safe, will now tell me honestly, because you don't feel obligated. If I'd have said, does this look like a good deal to you? You might say, yes, it looks like a good deal. But the erasing word, I need these things. But you're afraid if you had said yes in the first place, you're now on the hook, so you're not going to be as honest with me about those things. So coming to grips with what yes and no really means is one of the major first turning points in anybody's negotiation journey. As a great negotiator, say that one more time. Coming to grips with what yes and no really mean is the first major turning point in anybody's negotiation journey. Because you think yes is success and it's not. And you think no is failure and it's not.

Why Is yes not a success?

Yes, at best is aspiration.

Only.

You know the phrase hope is not a strategy. Yes is hope alone. Hope is inadequate alone. And at best, it's an aspiration. Most commonly, it's counterfeit.

It's fake.

It's a fake.

Yes.

When someone says, hey, I want to do this deal with you, and you say, yeah, I'm open to that, or, yeah, that works for me. You're saying it's not 100% until the deal terms are laid out over paper and people are going back and forth, or. What do you mean?

Well, about 80% of the time, I want to know what your deal terms are so I can shop them.

Ooh.

And if I've said yes, you're going to lay those terms out to me, now I'm free to shop them and start playing you off somebody else.

Interesting.

And that is such a problem in the business world. Recognize that a lot of salespeople now taught to say, are we the vendor of choice? Well, you're. You're going for yes there. Now, if you're being played, nobody's ever. If they're playing you, then they're gonna tell you the truth.

Yeah. Yeah. They say yeah.

They're not gonna say, well, thank God you asked, because as a matter of fact, you're not. We're just pumping you for information.

Right.

We want free consulting.

Yeah.

Like, nobody's ever going to say that. If they were already lying to you, they're going to lie to you about that question, too. So this whole the seduction of yes, because we love to hear it like, yes, the heavens part. The angels sing, the sun shines. And that is such a seduction that people exploit us regularly by telling us yes.

Yeah, it's interesting. So when you hear a no or when someone hears a no, what is the first thing they should think in a negotiation?

Well, it depends upon how the no came up. Like, you know, in never split the difference, we point out no could mean not yet, or no is no to these circumstances, which doesn't eliminate other circumstances. Like, no could be I need time to think. Like, no is almost never rejection. If it's come up unexpectedly, it's really. It's a signal that there's another path versus I gotta quit and go home. No, it's failure. I'm horrified with no, that ain't the case. So we intentionally try to get it all the time. Like, if getting someone to say no as a result of a calibrated question.

Is so powerful, you intentionally try to get people to say no.

Intentionally try to get people to say no. That that may be the only thing that some people learn. Because I, I get emails on LinkedIn all the time like, hey, I. I use the phrase, have you given up on this project? And I, my close rate is so exceeding everybody else that I, on my company that I should come work for you and teach this. And my thought is like, I'm glad you're making a lot more money right now, but you just scratching surface and you think because you're comparing yourself to your peers who are in the middle of the bell curve, that if you just moved up the bell curve one notch, you now see all these people way behind you. You don't have any idea how much more upside you have.

Right.

Wow.

What is the. When you hear a no, what do you think next in a negotiation?

Well, I always hear no's that I want to hear.

You hear that you set it up.

Yeah.

So is it asking for something so extreme first?

Well, for example, there's a lot of stuff, let's say about the particular deal that I know you don't know.

Okay.

I mean, Ronald Reagan says, if you're explaining, you're losing, but I got to give you some information at some point in time, which evidence is explanation. So I'll say something like, all right, here's what I think you're up against, is what I think the challenges are that you face. Are you against me sharing some ideas with you?

No.

Right now I just teed up. You just, you got no problem with that now I can't. If I got 15 things I got to share with you, I probably only get away with three because it's. Each one is a lot. It's good information. You gotta absorb it. I gotta let you think about it. We gotta go in small doses. But I will always. We are cda. Call to action, call to next step. However we close out, we always close out with a no. You know, me, the black swan team, everybody that we coach always close out. Are you against doing this? Are you against me sharing some ideas? Does this look stupid to you? Is. Is this a ridiculous idea? Like, you can turn any one of your yes questions into a no question.

Which is a yes times more valuable.

Really?

Because I've heard in the past from people that says, you know, you want to get people saying yes, yes, yes, leading into the close to a sale to whatever.

Right, Right.

It's like getting them saying yes.

Right.

But I'm hearing you say get them to say no.

Right.

Why is no more powerful than Yes.

I think that what you're referring to is called the yes momentum. And I think that has been so overused. And not only overused, but it's also been. Everybody's been. They've been flim flamed, they've been bamboozled. You know, they've been conned by that two or three times. They're yes, battered. And then your problem is they feel.

Like it's a trick or something or some strategy.

You're not a trickster, but you're engaging in the same methodology that the trickster used.

Interesting.

You know the African phrase, when you're bitten by a snake, you're afraid of ropes. There are a lot of really legitimate people that are not trying to flim flam somebody, but the flim flam artists use that on them. You know, the timeshare industry has a very bad reputation and some of the timeshares are clearly very valuable because I know people that have them and I love them. Simultaneously, there are a lot of people out there that are hustling and conning people. And there's a whole industry that we've coached some of these people on getting people out of timeshares because they got them on a yes momentum. Now they got a timeshare that's going to bankrupt them. Now they don't remember exactly how that happened, but it was probably this yes momentum. So they weren't conscious of it. But as soon as they hear it again, even from a close trusted friend, they got burned and they get an instinctively negative reaction to the yes momentum.

Interesting. So what's the no? Is it no momentum?

What's the.

What's like, what is this process of getting the no?

Well, you know, you get to know and you're getting the information. You know, no typically triggers implementation, next steps.

Got it.

But a no is really a yes. It sounds like. Would you be against me sharing some interesting ideas for you? No, I'm not against it.

Exactly.

Okay, cool. Here's the next step.

And probably if I decided you against me sharing some interesting ideas for you, you're more likely answer is no, I'm not against it. But I only got 15 minutes.

Yeah.

Awesome. If I stick to the 15 minutes or less, I got your undivided attention. If I go over 15, you're going to start to get anxious because you're worried about your clock.

Yeah.

And you know, that's the secondary thing. Like if we set up an appointment, is it a ridiculous idea for me to take up 13 minutes of your time?

Right. Not, not 10 not five, but something in between.

Right? Now I know, I want nine minutes. I got it, I got it timed out. You know, I call this BD Airlines. They were always shown a plate.

Uh huh.

They're not getting killed for that anymore. Are they more efficient? No, they just changed the time. They said they were going to show up. You know, I'm sitting on a tarmac in LAX. Plane can't get to the gate. We're there 20 minutes early. The airline is, hey, we're here 20 minutes early. We promised an on time arrival. We're here 20 minutes early, they won't let us get to the gate. And you're sitting there thinking like, this airport is so stupid. This plane is big, they saw it coming, they got radar. We're not a surprise.

Right, right.

Well, point of fact, the airport said you guys said you were showing up at three. We ain't opening up this gate till three. Now you're sitting there on the airplane, you're not mad at the airline, you're mad at the airport. But in fact, the airline knew how long they were going to be early. Right, but who gave you back time in your life? I call you on the phone, I say, Louis, I need 13 minutes, you give me 15 because you ain't got 13 on your calendar. I get done at nine and I'm like, okay. And you're sitting there like, holy cow, you just gave me back time in my day. Everybody else is taking it away. Now you love me. Next time I call, you're picking that phone right up.

He's not going to waste my time. So I like these questions. Would you be against me doing this? What's another way you could say a no question.

It's usually like, is it a ridiculous idea? Are you against our phone call? Start with is now a bad time to talk? Instead of have you got a few minutes?

Right.

Because you know, we're. People feel safe when they say no.

They feel safe. Why is that?

Yeah, that's, you know, I get. Probably because we get flim flammed over. Yes. And we've been flim flammed so many times that no gives an automatic feeling of protection, you know, and I talked about this because I told you I want to talk about how you interviewed some of your other interviews. Yeah, Andrew Huberman.

Yes, he's great.

Like I've become acquainted with Andrew. Fascinating dude. Like, first interview of him I heard with you and I'm like, this is a great interview. I gotta listen to everything this guy says. Fascinating. And so then I catch him on another podcast, and I'm falling asleep. I'm like, oh, Jesus. Andrew was awesome when he was on Lewis. Now I can't. This is a cure for insomnia. What's going on? And I actually went back and I compared the interviewing styles.

Really interesting.

And there's a very difficult skill in the black swan method also.

Huh.

And you were really good at. You're really good at several. But you paraphrase really well. And paraphrasing is a sound, simple dictionary definition, but it keeps the conversation going in more digestible bites. And I went back and I listened to your interview of Huberman several times for I realized when you interviewed, you were genuinely connecting and interested in him. And you paraphrase frequently because it's very complex ideas.

I'm like, okay, well, let me simplify this so I can understand and other people can understand.

That's exactly right. And it also helps you stay focused. You're a much better listener if you're focused on doing that. Now, the other dude that's interviewing Andrew, he's trying to show Andrew how smart he is. So he wanted to use all the scientific vernacular, which Andrew likes to speak in very plain terms. And he wanted to show how smart he was. And then consequently, I think Andrew was having trouble keeping up with the questions because they were so complicated. The interviewer was trying to show off for the audience. I'm as smart as Andrew Huberman. You don't bother with that at all. And you were genuinely interested. And you're very conscious of your audience as well. Your audience sort of losing track and falling asleep like this other guy.

Right? If I'm falling asleep, then I need to reset the interview. I need to paraphrase it so I can stay focused and present, too, something I learned early on. Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it. I think it stemmed from an insecurity and a lack of confidence early in my 20s, once I was getting into the.

So you're saying you're a flawed human being?

Very flawed human being, yes. After I got done playing arena football and lost my identity, I was like, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Like, this was my whole goal was play professional football. Now I got injured. I can't play anymore. What do I do? Do I really have skills? Am I talented? Is anyone going to hire me? I didn't know.

Right?

And I started going to these networking events in Columbus, Ohio, to try to meet people, kind of these business networking events. And I remember I was like, wow, everyone's 5, 1020 years older than me. They're all wearing suits. I have one sport jacket and a T shirt.

Right.

Everything about this environment is designed to make you feel inadequate.

Exactly.

Everything.

And I didn't have a job and all these different things. And I was like, okay, what value can I bring to this networking event? I'm not as smart or talented or successful as these professionals. And I remember being very intimidated. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to go here and have fun and ask interesting questions and listen. And I'm not going to try to.

Act like actually listen.

I'm just going to listen to whoever's in front of me. I'm not going to look around and see who else is here, who's more powerful, who's more interesting, who's coming in the door. I'm just going to stare into someone's eyes. Not in a creepy way, but I'm going to connect and really ask interesting, genuine questions and shut my mouth. And I started doing this this first night and people. And I did it with like a joyful energy, right? Like a childlike curiosity. I was just like, really curious.

This is important.

And I would do a follow up question. Tell me more about that. Tell me more. That's interesting. How did this happen? With this? And at the end of the night, people came up to me like, you gotta meet Louis. He's such an interesting guy. He's so cool. He's so interesting. But they didn't know anything about me. I never shared anything about me. I was so curious about them. And I realized right then, I was like, oh, to be interesting, you have to be interested in other people. And you can build incredible relationships by showing how much care how interested you are in people and make it about them as opposed to making about you. And that was essentially what I started doing. I said, okay, I'm just going to use this insecurity of not feeling like I'm smart enough. Lean into it. Use the things I am good at, which is curiosity, joy, passionate. I'm playful. I'll joke with people and just try to make people feel connected and feel like their story is really inspiring, which it is to me. And that is kind of what I did with the podcast. It's just like, okay, you're way smarter than me, right? You've got these skills, this experience that I don't have. Let me be fascinated. Now I've interrupted you and I'm talking right now. But in general it's like, well, tell me more. That's interesting. Well, how Do I. How can I use this in my life, you know?

Yeah. And you threw out inadvertently, like a couple of different, like, superpowers, curiosity. Like, you know, we got a block of instruction we teach called caviar. The scene, caviar is curiosity. It's about getting yourself in the right headspace. Nassim Nicholas Tyler wrote a book, Antifragile. He says curiosity is an anti fragile characteristic and curiosity is a highly positive frame of mind. I cite this guy's TED Talk so many times. The happiness advantage. Sean Acker. He says you're 31% smarter and positive frame of mind. Curiosity is highly positive. Everybody. All these different people, places talk about curiosity as an avenue to success for a variety of reasons. You pick up more, you're interested, you pay attention. The other person feels very connected with.

Yes.

When you're genuinely curious, playful, Another highly positive frame of mind. Kotler talks about flow. Stephen Kotlin says flow is highly positive, even playful. Pre adolescence walk around essentially in borderline flow. All the time they're playful, jumping around.

Trying, you know, climbing on people. You're just singing, dancing, you're just playing.

Yeah, yeah. And so you take that attitude into a business environment, and suddenly everybody else, everybody there is going like, hey, this kid over here with this old sport coat of shoes.

Yeah.

Is the most interesting character. Hey, right, Come over and meet this guy. Anybody can do that.

Yes.

If they. Yeah. If they go like, all right, so I'm an idiot and I don't have any credentials and I don't know anything, and I'm unemployable because I have no skills. Let me go out and see what happens. I mean, how are you going to go down from there?

Yeah, you can't.

How are you going to embarrass yourself? You're going to be like, all right, so I am a goofball. Let me go in here and I'll be a goofball.

I'll be happy and figure out a way to bring value in your unique way. I'm curious, what is the most frequent question word that you use? Who, what? When?

Where?

Why?

Ah.

All right, all right. So we only use questions to create, calibrate thinking in the other person's brain. To start with, like, I'm not going to ask you a question. Get information. I'm going to ask you a question to put a thought in your head. For example, when I'm working on a free upgrade to a suite in a hotel, which I work on, every time, I don't get every time, what's your success rate.

What's your success rate?

Success rate is probably in excess of 90%.

Really?

Which is also going to be. It's going to be impacted by inventory, Right?

If there's no inventory and there's really no inventory, it's.

They can't give you a suite they.

Don'T have, but maybe they can give.

You something else or, you know, they're going to look at their inventory. The first thing, do they have any suites? The second, how many nights in a row do I want a suite? Like if I'm rolling in there and I'm almost always late because I'm traveling, sure. If they only got one suite, I'm staying one night and it's after six, they could give me that one suite. They can use up their inventory because I'm out in the morning and at 6 o' clock at night, they're willing to gamble that nobody's coming in and taking it. If I'm there for three nights, I'm not getting that suite if that's the only one they have because they got to leave it open. So. But I got to ask in a way that doesn't limit me to the suite, right? Because I want to get it. I want them to feel good about the interaction. So throw other stuff on the table. Like, I'm in a hotel in Dallas probably about a year ago. I didn't think about it until I walked in the door. Parking lot's full of Range Rovers. I walk inside, there are no shortage of women that are dressed to the nines. Almost all of them accompanied. But I mean, dress to impress. I get up to the counter and I do the sweet thing. And the guy's like, yeah, we got a wedding party here. Range Rovers. Expensive, expensive outfits. Are they out of suites? More than likely, right? So I do the pitch. He's like, man, you know, we got a wedding party here. They're taking all the suites. So I asked him in the warranty question, is it a ridiculous idea for you to make it up to me at the bar? I think about the absurdity of that question. Yeah, like I'm asking. I'm asking for something for free that I never should have had in the first place. And if you don't give it to me now, you got to make it up to me. That's good. I like that. That's hysterical.

That's great.

And so guy goes, no, no, no, no. As a matter of fact, he comes around the counter and he gives me like five, six free drink tickets at the bar. And I'm like, you know, that's pretty cool. I got to leave myself in a position to get other stuff.

What's the go to approach for anyone trying to get an upgrade?

Well, so first of all, for a car upgrade hotel, you gotta understand since it's not about you, how do they see it? And so, and then like it's an emotional journey and the journey is how it ends, not how it begins. You know, the last impression is lasting impression. I gotta take them to this great place. That's gonna be three steps. Give it to me now. In a hotel, I'm gonna be like, look, man, I'm getting ready to ruin your whole day.

That's the first thing you say.

Well, you got to give me your.

Id, Right, Right, right. They got a credit card id.

They got to find your reservation, right? Because they're going to be distracted. They're going to be multitasking.

So they say, hey, you're checking in.

Yeah. Find a reservation. If you, if you got a points number, you give them a points number. You got to wait for the moment and you go, like, I'm getting ready to ruin your day now. And you got to stop and you got to wait. They tell you to go on. Now, from a hotel, from the hotel's perspective, like they have seen every horrible thing you could imagine.

Oh, I'm sure.

You know, do you have a goat in your bag and you want to do a satanic ritual sacrifice in a room which we are never going to be able to get down on the walls?

Yeah, exactly.

Like they, they've seen crazy parties, you.

Know, animal feces, whatever it is. Yeah, everything.

So when you say that they immediately go to all this horrible stuff. No, because you're gonna take, you're gonna take them to a better place.

So you say, first, are you ready for me to.

I'm getting ready to ruin your day.

Oh, man.

And you let that sink in. And, and then they go, and then. So now you gotta, you start bringing them out of it. How are you gonna say, how are you gonna sing with them if you're somebody who's asking for stuff for free? You're cheap, right? You're another cheap, entitled, self centered traveler who's demanding. And so I'm like, I'm sure again, it's not a denial, it's an admission, a prediction. I'm sure I'm going to seem like another self centered, unappreciative, demanding traveler who thinks the sun rises and sets on him, who wants something for nothing. Now you no longer Have a goat in your suitcase. No. Ritual sacrifice is not involved. You want some for free?

Yes.

They immediately start to feel better and relieved. Yes. Now you. Because you asked me about questions. So now we get to the question to create a state of mind. The last obstacle is going to be how much trouble they're going to get into.

Mm.

If they give me a free suite upgrade. Now they. There's a colleague standing there. The. I've done this while the boss was manager.

Yeah.

I've done this literally where the manager was standing next listening to this whole thing. They may need to go find a manager. So how much trouble am I going to get you in if I ask for a free upgrade to a suite? Because the last thing that's going to go through their mind, that they have to reconcile before they make the move, is whether or not they're going to get any trouble. I lay this out in one hotel in New York, and as a woman standing next. Because you're almost always going to get it in front of somebody. This works in front of other employees, it works in front of customers. You don't got to be in a vacuum. And the boss jumps in and says, because you asked nicely, let me see what I could do. She starts checking the inventory. I want to be there for four nights. And she says, look, if you can guarantee me that when you check out on Friday, you're out of here before 10 o' clock in the morning. I got an upgrade for you, but I got. I got late checkout prompts on Friday morning. You cannot have a late checkout. Wow. And I'm like, you got it. I mean, I'll come down in my potential pajamas if I got to get out of there.

Wow. Okay, so the three steps is, I'm getting ready to ruin your day. Some type of approach of.

Because what are you getting ready to do? You're getting ready to give them something negative.

Yes.

And the second one is acknowledging that you're coming across as another greedy, demanding customer that expects the world to open up for them and have something for free. And then the third one is, tell me the third step again.

How much trouble am I going to get you in if I ask you a free upgrade to a suite now? And this, like, this emotional journey. And really the point is always leaving people better than you found them. And, you know, they've been through a lot. Like, they want to help you if they would love to help you. The first thing is, do you appreciate what it is for them? Like this. This poor schmuck behind the counter getting yelled at by everybody, everyone, you know, and everybody's going for a free upgrade. And, you know, I had a friend of mine who had this really entertaining one, but the success rate was really low. You know, he's telling me, he says, you mean to tell me if the President of the United States wasn't coming in here tonight, you wouldn't have a suite? And that clutches, of course, reward.

So what?

President ain't coming? Give it to me, right? That's really entertaining. But it left the guy resentful. Like, like one hotel I'm in where I get the upgrade for several nights. An hour after I check into the room, my plans change dramatically. I got to check out the following morning. I'm not staying two nights now, by and large, they are completely entitled, based on the terms of the contract, to charge me for the second night.

Right.

You know, I've agreed to that. I go down the next morning and I said, look, I am so sorry. This is my problem. This is not your problem. Because it was my problem. And if I asked to check out without getting charged, their first reaction is like, look, dude, that's your problem. Bad planning on your part is not constitute an emergency for me.

Yeah, we're a business. We got stuff to do, too.

You screwed up. Why should we pay? So that's what they're going to think. So they're going to think it's my problem. So I've left them with really positive residue from the day before because they felt great about helping me out. And I said, look, I'm sorry, it's my problem.

I know.

What, what is it?

What is it?

What is it? I go, my plans have changed. I got to check out, I got, I got to go home and like, oh, no, no worries, no worries.

We'll get you out here.

What can we do? I mean, leaving because you, even after the deal, you always need some sort of collaboration from somebody. You're going to need something, it doesn't matter what it is. And even if you don't need something, you want them to feel like they helped you. They felt good about helping you.

Right.

You know, the hotel staff, they realized that you could give them a great social media review as a result, which is going to be really good for their business. They don't want to get clobbered over the head. They don't want. Well, I'm an influencer and if you give me a free upgrade, I will broadcast it to all of my 75 followers on Instagram that this is a great hotel. Like, everybody thinks they're an influencer. Well, they want that. They just don't want to get clubbed with it. So if they liked helping you just because something about the interaction, instead of making them feel uneasy, made it feel like they collaborated with another human being that saw their challenges, then all that other stuff that you want to use as primaries now, great fringe benefits, social media commentary. I'm going to put a video on my Instagram about how cool the room is or how great the view is, or I'm in downtown Detroit and how revitalized downtown Detroit is. And this phenomenal hotel suite that I'm in that I'm like, I'll move in here. This is so nice. You know, so I'll put that out there. But, you know, I don't want to. I don't want them to. I don't want to use it against them. I don't want to leverage it against them. I want it. I want them to feel like I did it because I wanted to and because it was mutual gain. Yeah, it's like anything. You could take something that's meant to be positive and twist it. But I'll tell you this. When you come from a genuine place, people feel it. They feel it. When you are doing it with the goal to manipulate people, people feel that too.