THE SECRET To Negotiating In Business & Life TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS | Chris Voss & Lewis Howes

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. 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.

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the iconic Chris Voss in the house. My man.

Thanks for having me.

Super glad you're here. You were on, I think it was about four years ago.

Yeah.

Three years ago, four years ago.

Yeah.

Blew my mind with the stuff you were talking about in your book. Never split the difference. The book has gone on to just take over. It seems like every year it gets bigger and reaches more people and it's constantly in the top of the ranks. You've now got a masterclass which is blowing up. You've got workshops around the country and I'm assuming soon to be around the world. You've got people doing big deals in an inspiring and in a good, clean way of integrity. Not trying to screw people over. you really try to create the win-win experience for people making negotiations, which I think is beautiful because there's a lot of people who have, especially in LA, who said they've been burned by business deals or negotiations. They thought they knew who the person was in a business deal, but then something went south. They didn't have their contracts set up. They didn't have the true negotiation set up and they got screwed over. And so you're teaching people, whether it be in business, whether it be in marriage, whether it be in just friendships.

Yeah.

How to negotiate. with integrity so that everyone wins. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the cool thing, subtle distinction, weekly it's what we hear and what we don't hear. On a weekly basis, if not daily, somebody says, I cut a deal, it's going to change my life. Really? Now what they also never say is they never brag about beating anybody. Nobody ever gets burned. One of the guys, the compensation deal he cut with his employer, he says literally this will change my life. It's also the best avenue for his employer to grow his company. So the company's gonna get huge for giving this guy a great deal. Nobody ever burns anybody else in the deals that we coach.

It's amazing.

Which means they don't pick up enemies, they only pick up people that want to do business with them.

There's a lot of people that burn bridges, it seems like, right?

Right.

Yeah, we don't like burning bridges.

That's the hardest thing to do, I think, is to not burn a bridge, especially when your emotions are involved. You feel like, I've gotten screwed over by this person in this whatever deal we had, and I'm gonna burn a bridge. I've been there in the past, so I'm guilty of this. But I feel like people's emotions get so caught up in their deal making and their deal breaking. How do we navigate an emotional thing and make it less emotional, I guess, for deal making?

Yeah, well, there's a couple different ways to do that. I mean, the first one is in a process to begin with. Like if you can learn to be genuinely curious, like a genuinely curious state of mind, it's really close to the mindset of flow also. But it's highly positive. You pull in a lot of data. You'll never feel backed into a corner. you will never burn blow up a bridge.

If you're acting curious.

If you're completely curious, like if you're calling me names or if you're threatening me.

Yeah.

There's a lot of threatening going on out there. Defensive threatening. You know, I might react. Like one of the things that we found out, a couple things we found out about the book we didn't know before, the procurement negotiator. In business, the procurement negotiator is feared. People are scared of procurement. Procurement tend to be very threatening, very attacking, very, very, very pushy. Now, the flip side is, it's unfortunately that's not fair because procurement is one of the toughest jobs out there. Like, whoever thought the idea of having a procurement negotiator, it's like, it's a great theory and practicality, they got one of the toughest jobs on the planet. So they're constantly being backed into a corner by their employer. They're backed into the corner, they're probably gonna make threats. You're on the other side of that threat making. You're gonna get bent out of shape. You're gonna wanna threaten back. You're gonna not wanna deal with them.

Right.

That's fear-based stuff. Instead of going like, how dare you threaten me? Because a lot of procurement people make threats, you should go like, wow. What the, what's behind a threat, man? Kind of pressure you under? Somebody makes threats against you in a negotiation, chances are they're not a jerk, chances are they are under tremendous pressure. You know, if you don't make this deal with us, our company's never gonna deal with you again. You know, my instinctive reaction as a combative person is like, yeah, screw you, I can live without you. You're an idiot. But instead, my best reaction is to say, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure. Because you're not gonna make that threat unless you're feeling tremendous pressure. The original question, how do I not overreact? If I'm really curious about what in the world are you dealing with that's making you act like that? Right. Then I won't overreact in the moment.

What if it's something that you care about so much?

It always is.

Your baby, your business, your thing.

It's hard.

So how do you go to a place as a defensive person by default to not be defensive when someone is making an emotional attack on you? Obviously it's not a life threatening attack, but it feels triggering. So how do you separate that emotional part of your brain or your heart and just say, okay, I'm not gonna go there, I'm just gonna be more curious. Is it just a matter of practicing it over and over? Is it role playing?

Is it... Yeah, it's any performance, it's a performance skill. You know, everybody we have in performance skills, which is almost all of them, other than riding a bike, you got three choices and only three for tomorrow. Stay even, be worse, get better. Two out of three of those choices require effort. You got to put some effort in just to stay even. I, somebody did an analogy the other day, you know, a positive frame of mind. It's like taking a shower. Today you can't say, well, I don't got to take a shower today because I took one yesterday. I don't have to brush my teeth today. I brushed my teeth yesterday. You know, the repetitive behaviors to stay in a positive frame of mind are critical because we're naturally wired to be negative. You know, this crazy little thing in the middle of our head called the amygdala. Neuroscience has shown us that 75% of the real estate in your amygdala is dedicated to negative thoughts. 75%. And that's not a psychology thing, it's mapping the brain with neuroscience imaging. We needed that negative attitude when we were running from saber-toothed tigers on a jungle path.

To protect us.

To live. Yeah, we don't live in that world anymore. So yeah, you gotta constantly, I mean we're in Southern California, it's a cliche, you know, I'm so grateful. In point of fact, gratitude is a great emotional hack. You write down first thing in the morning anywhere from one to three things you're grateful for. That's emotional, spiritual hygiene. You need it every day. And if you don't do it every day, you deteriorate.

Yeah, okay. so as a FBI negotiator for 24 years, is that what it was?

FBI agent for 24 years, hostage negotiator for the biggest portion.

Biggest portion. How often did you fall backwards and not do two to three, but you did the, the negative part of it where you went backwards, where someone was really aggressive or attacking you or saying that one word or the trigger phrase that got you to react. How often did that happen as As opposed to, man, what are you going through? Like, as opposed to being that curious, loving negotiator, how often-- the loving hostage negotiator.

Let me give you a hug, Mr. Harris. Nice to see you.

How often did you fall back into a negative state, I would say?

You know, it makes no sense. In dealing with the bad guys, I never fell back. Really? I would get mad at my bosses and yell at them.

Why?

My negotiation, you know, When I was a hostage negotiator, I was on a bit of a mission. I mean, you know, we were out there, people's lives were on the line. And it's a frightening environment for everybody who's involved in the rescue, if you will. And so, you know, I was determined that we were gonna stand up for the kidnap victims and their families, no matter what kind of damage it caused internally. I stepped on no shortage of toes. within the US government and the FBI by being really insistent about what I thought was right. And I was probably harder on them than I should have been. I got the question a couple times, if you had your career to do over again, what would you do differently? And my answer has consistently been, I'd have been nicer.

To the people you worked with.

To the people I worked with. And especially the people I worked for. Now, I wouldn't have backed off of anything. But I would have just been nicer about it. You wouldn't have burned bridges. I would have burned fewer bridges.

Okay, did you burn a lot of bridges?

Yeah, it burned some, you know, it burned some and some of them, if their heart was in the right place, they got over it.

Yeah.

And if it wasn't, I mean, I remember being on a secure video conference with a bunch of different elements in National Security Council. I'm an FBI headquarters guy from the White House in And I got after him a little bit. I was harder, harsher, spoke harshly to them. And I can remember after the fact, two people on the other end of the line, Bill McRaven, the guy who wrote Make youe Bed and also Sea Stories.

Really? He was on the other line.

He was Captain McRaven at the time.

Wow, that's a great book. Great speech.

McCraven's phenomenal guy. Caught both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It's not a bad resume. McCraven told me there was a NSC guy in White House on the other side after I got done being kind of hard on these guys. He said, you know, they said you made some good points. They didn't get off the phone and say, that guy was a jerk. They probably were thinking it, but they were willing to admit that I made some good points. Not everybody's like that. They get bent out of shape and they don't get over it. But these guys didn't. Craven was a great guy to work for. Wow. For with in any way, shape or form. Cool dude.

Wow.

Great guy. That's cool.

So when people, let's do basic negotiation right here. When people are looking to make a deal, whether it's in business, and it's mostly business negotiation is what I think a lot of people are Diving into this, but they're doing it with relationships, with friendships, family, with kids, everything.

Are you in a negotiation when you order coffee at Starbucks?

Absolutely.

What makes it a negotiation?

Because I usually like to make it a game to see what I can get. What I can get for free. I like to make it see what I can get for a discount, what I can get for free. And I also just try to make it a game of like, how can I change someone's day? So I'm always thinking of like, okay.

You make it better, right? Because the game is fun.

This person is fun. I try to put myself in the person's shoes who's taking the order. And the person who's making my drink. So I think this is a lot of my, yeah, because I want it.

To be too important.

I want a great drink, you know? Because I've got a lot of times where it's like, ah, it doesn't taste as good. So I try to, first off, say something to the person making the drink, because you're waiting in line usually And if you have Starbucks, they're running around backwards. They're busy, right? Busy making, so I try to say their name really quickly because they usually.

Have the name tag on it.

All right, yeah. Okay. So I'll just say, Hey, I'm Mella or Hey, Chris, I hope you're doing amazing. Hope your day's going good. Just try to get a quick little.

Moment of like, they'll see me and.

They'Ll go back and they're doing their crazy thing. Recognition of them as a person though.

Huge.

Being seen, I think, is something that I always wanted as a kid.

Right.

And when I learned that, that's the thing most of us want, is to be acknowledged and seen that we're here, that we're alive. It makes a huge difference in likability of just saying, oh, that's a nice gesture. Like, thank you. Whether I never see them again or not, but it was like, it's always something I think about. So I'm always trying to communicate with the people around me and just say hello and smile. And then I typically try to say something to the person before I even make my order. to the person who's like taking my order and make them smile. It's always a game. What do I need to say or do to get them to smile? I feel like if they smile, they're gonna have a better moment. And hopefully that moment turns into better moments moving forward the rest of their day. So that's what I try to do.

But, it works.

It works.

Now you want me to lay out for you why that works?

Sure, tell me.

All right, so Sean Acker, Ted Talk, the Happiness Advantage, Harvard psychologist. You're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind. So you're both making people smarter in the moment, you make them feel like they exist on a planet, and you're showing them recognition, which is really close to empathy, and you're good with it going no farther than that. Now ideally you get it in return. Because that's how you get a better drink. So, first of all, as I'm talking to a speaker one time, he wrote this website called Secrets. Tell me your secrets. Anonymous, I'll share them with the world. Somebody's struggling with what you're struggling with. He's telling me we're at a conference. He says he gets a brand new still in wrapper coffee cup from Starbucks and the note says, I give decaf to people who are mean to me.

Wow.

So interesting. And then, as I bring this up in different, like, certain waiters and waitresses in restaurants have told me that if they have a customer that's being a jerk, and they ask for decaf at the end of the night, they give them coffee with caffeine in it, because they know it's gonna keep them up. So people make you pay in little ways. But then the other thing that I like about it is because, you know, got my U2 shirt on. So I'm a big fan of Bono as a person, in addition to a lyricist, a singer, and a rock star. The forgiveness of the African debt, him and Bob Geldof, have negotiated the forgiveness, straight forgiveness, literally hundreds of millions of dollars of third world debt. And I'm reading Bono's one of YouTube's books, and he says, you know, I've taken a lot of heat because of the pictures of me laughing with Vladimir Putin. How dare you laugh with the devil, that sort of thing. How dare you. But he said, I found out early on, because Russia's got a third world debt, they need them to say, Never mind. He said, I found out early on, no matter how despicable the person was on the other side, if I could find a way to share a laugh with them early, the chances that we're going to make a deal are very high. So he's laughing. with dictators and brutal heads of dictatorships. Not because he's looking to have a good time for him, but because he knows how much good he's doing in the world by breaking the ice in that fashion. This is what you're doing in a small ways. Small ways.

Yeah.

It's funny because I remember having a similar interaction with people. I went on Ellen a few years ago and and then I went on Glenn Beck within the same 24 hours.

Interesting.

And people were like, how could you go on someone like Glenn Beck after you go on Ellen thinking that he's whatever, not as positive or compassionate as Ellen, right?

Right.

And I said, to be honest, I'm happy to go on anyone's platform who's got an audience because why do I want to only talk to people who think and believe the same way I do or a similar way, right? I want to talk to people who think in different beliefs and try to support them as well and add value to them as well.

That's what employees are about, right?

Can't just fire them all day long.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, for whatever reason in their head, they have a reason for what they're thinking. And if you hear them out without attacking them in return, they're shocked. And then their mind opens up a little bit. They're like, Ah, somebody doesn't believe in what I believe. I can have a conversation with? Yeah, it makes all the difference in the world.

Now, your book came out a few years ago, and you told me before we started this that you've learned so much since the book. What are the biggest findings since the book that you've learned about negotiation or making better deals?

First of all, that, you know, the entire system was first designed to to be successful against the international kidnapper. And that profile is almost exactly the profile of the professional negotiator in business.

Really?

The contracts guy, the procurement guy, gal, almost exactly the same animal. So it's far more useful to people, the hard bargain in business deals. They're a minority. They're probably about 25% of the people that are out there, but about 25% of the people that are out there are real sharks that are looking to cut your throat. Now you might need to make that deal. How to deal with them without burning a bridge successfully. Then having learned so much more about the procurement negotiator, I'm at a procurement negotiation conference probably six months ago. They got a horrible job.

Yeah.

I mean, they're under tremendous pressure. Their job is 10 times more difficult than anybody realizes. And, you know, we'll do one of our training days this year. We usually had 50 people in a room, high performers, top performers. There would always be at least one procurement person in there, and they were trying to remain anonymous because they knew how hated they are. Yeah. But while being hated, they are decent people who are under tremendous pressure trying to do an extremely difficult job. So being much more aware of them and then also the kind of pressure they're under. They're getting pounded internally from so many different directions. So that's been a big one. Then the other one is how many fake deals there are out there. You know, I was talking to you earlier about what happens if you could put get 20. What if, what if you get 20 of your time back? How much more could you get done? Right.

What do you mean by fake deals? People just trying to waste your time.

You're never gonna get the deal.

And they're just going back and forth, back and forth.

They need you as a competing bid. Oh, wow. They, they want free Consulting from you. They want it. They want to.

Tell us your secrets first.

Tell us your secrets, and they're never going to give it to Open up.

Your books, tell us how much you're making, let us do our due diligence.

Right.

Interesting. Right, it's at least 20% of the opportunities.

That's messed up.

Actually, we think the number is much higher.

That's messed up, isn't it?

Well, again, you can't blame the other side. There's a lot of human nature involved. We're doing a lot of coaching in the real estate industry with a gentleman named Steve Shaul, performance coach. cool guy, played in the Super Bowl. One of the people that have completely adopted our approach in real estate, and this is just human dynamics, so this is not limited to real estate, since she changed her approach about 10 months ago, she's gone out on 80% fewer appointments.

Real estate appointments?

Yes. Gone out 80% less. have cut the same number of the deals that she did the year before. 80% less work, same number of deals, and her deals are much more profitable.

How? Is it the pre-questionnaire? Is it the...

There's a little bit of an elimination. How do you eliminate up front whether or not somebody is either accidentally on purpose, never going to do business with you, and not burn the bridge.

How do you figure that out?

The simplest ways, if you were buying my service, if you were looking for a negotiation training, the first conversation I'd say, Louis, you know, Harvard's out there, Wharton is out there, Karis is out there. I got a lot of great competitors. I mean, these people that are really good. Why me? Why would you ever, I was a hostage negotiator. Why would you ever come to a hostage negotiator to learn how to negotiate? Now you're gonna do one of two things. Because why triggers defensiveness in every human being on a planet. If I had said, why'd you wear those shoes? Your first thought is like, what's wrong with my shoes? Yeah. And you might say, because I like them, because they're comfortable. It's defensive.

You know, it's funny you say that, because my mom, I ask her why all the time. She says to me, she says to me six months ago, I stopped answering why questions. I go, why? So, but it's interesting. So why is why?

Globally, the word why always creates defensiveness on anybody we ask it. Now, you may not always be accusing them when you use the word, but if I've done something wrong, you're gonna say, why'd you do that? That's everybody's first response when they think somebody's done something. And so we hit it enough, we're always defensive. So, but if I say, why would you do business with me? If you're gonna do it, you're gonna defend it. You say, well, hostage the ocean.

You negotiate the pressure. So you reversed psychology.

A little bit of reverse psychology. So either you're gonna give me the reasons right away, because I've just hit an emotional button in you. I've actually hit two. I've created defensiveness and also it gives you, you think I need to be corrected and correction is an addiction. Might as well be one of the seven deadly sins. I can trick you, I can get you to tell me so much more if you're correcting me. I can get you to say things to me that you would never say to me otherwise.

Interesting. I really like, I don't think I've ever thought of this.

So in some ways, that's why we do what we do.

So.

I think I actually started doing this unintentionally, but I didn't know, I wasn't saying why necessarily. But I remember I was trying to... I had this high ticket mastermind called the Greatest Mastermind for the last three years. We actually just put it on pause for this year because I'm putting my effort and energy into other things. But I noticed the time it took from year one, I was doing all these phone calls to sell people to get into the mastermind. And it was a $35,000 price point. And it worked fine because people applied, they showed interest, And it worked. Year one. Year two, I remember I said, I'm going to do no phone calls. I'm going to save my time. Because I was spending an hour on the phone selling people, but just making sure they were qualified. But it was a lot of time. Year two, I said, I'm only doing emails. And I'm going to essentially get them to enroll themselves in it for me. And I started asking certain questions. I don't think I was saying, why me? When you can go to this mastermind and this coach and this, I wasn't saying that, but I was more asking them to enroll themselves in for me. So, you know, what's the purpose of you joining? In the last year, I did something similar. It was just like I had someone else on the phone say, why do you want to be a part of this? With Lewis specifically. Not saying there's all these other options, but just going, why do you want to be a part of this? And then he would listen to them say why they wanted to be a part of it. But I don't think I have the perfect system the way you talk about about it, but I think that's... And I never had to jump on a phone call, I never had to do an email, and people just enrolled in a higher price point every year, which was powerful. -Yeah. -I like this approach to saying, you know, there's all these other options out there.

Why do you want to be... -Yeah, why me? I mean, we never badmouth our competition. -Right, right. -I say they're great. Why me? Now, the other response is going to be, now here's what you're really looking for, these are the people that you're not going to do business with. if somebody looks back at you and you say, well, that's up to you.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, yeah, you convinced me.

Yeah.

Well, and in point of fact, that's a defensive reaction on their part. Vision drives decision. If they, if you sit, somebody sits down with you and they don't have a vision of doing business with you in their head already, you can't put it there.

Really? You can't inception them?

No, well, no, you can, I need to diagnose whether or not there's anything in there.

Yeah.

Well, if it is also, I mean, the return on my time, like, I get people that want to do business with me right now.

Yeah.

Because your most valuable commodity is your time. You were just talking about time. What do you and I have? It's exactly this, what's our commodity that's equal to Warren Buffett's?

It can't get it back.

Warren Buffett's got 24 hours, we got 24 hours. You can't get it back. So I could chase a deal for a long time, or I can take the deals to people that are ready to do business with me now. And there are enough people ready to do business with me now that the chase is probably a fool's errand. Coming to that is really hard. Very few people can do it early in a business career. because they're so desperate for opportunity, they think it makes no sense to not chase every opportunity. And everybody that we've taught this to, who's been in business for any length of time, you can just see the light go on over their head.

They're like, man, I've been hustling for years.

I didn't need to hustle those people.

What's that?

Yeah, they said, I didn't need to hustle those people. Well, the only thing you needed is to develop a gut instinct for the people that aren't worth the hustle. You know, I guarantee you, anybody attends your mastermind, no matter what you charge for it, it's gonna be cheap money for them, right? But if my mindset isn't there to start with, if I show up, I'm not gonna pay attention, my mind's gonna be in other places, I'll be wasting my time.

So you don't sell those people anyways. You want to get the people that already have a vision of working with.

You, it sounds like. Right. Or a vision of working with you where they realize the visions align. Yeah. And, and now, now this is a great collaboration.

Right.

But if the visions or the values, the core, if the core values don't.

Align, what, I mean, what if there's someone who's just starting out in a business, they maybe don't have the reputation, they don't have the credibility yet, they don't have the audience size where people aren't coming to them seeking them out yet, they're trying to make a name for themselves. The new real estate agent who's never done a deal, the new videographer who's trying to get their first client, how do you get them to say, well, why do you want to work with me if I've never had the experience?

Well, they're not going to be able to answer that question.

Gotcha.

But there's another way to do it. An attorney I hired recently on a very specific issue, wrote a white paper on that topic and put it out there. So, I already knew he knew what he was talking about. He put that out, he demonstrated an expertise in the area. He took the time to do the research. He took the time to review the issues. He took the time to write this white paper and he put it out there. It was an issue that we were struggling with internally. I had an intern at the time, he says, hey, I found this attorney who wrote this white paper. Like, perfect. Bang. We went in right away and I knew that he had it. So if you're just starting out.

Put.

An article on LinkedIn demonstrating what you know at that point in time.

Credibility, yeah.

You know, people want to, well, yeah, people want to know if you understand. And so you can be brand new in an industry. and develop an understanding of some aspect of that industry in short order. LinkedIn is one of those great, it's a marketing tool, it's a marketing platform. Put a piece out on LinkedIn. Pretty good chance it's gonna create some more back and forth. There's gonna be a bunch of people that are gonna be critical of you. Nine out of ten of them aren't gonna know what they're talking about. But a couple of people who who are on your side will add some comments that'll help refine what you know. And now you've just demonstrated you're bringing value to the table the minute you walk in the room.

Right.

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

Wow, any time 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 checking fee. Why don't I want to pay that fee?

Right.

Or a late check out.

Or late check out.

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, 5 p.m. Late checkout.

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

Right.

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 the Starbucks counter, that they're actually a human being. You say their 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. and their gut instinct is going to pick that up. So the minute you're no longer demanding, now you're in negotiation with a lift driver. Is he gonna come out of the lift app and go into another app that is even faster? Is he gonna drive the slow lane the whole time? Or is he gonna try to get around the traffic to save you a few minutes? Is he the lift driver, he or she, are they gonna make some extra their effort for you. 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 our 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 a pile because they didn't like the way you spoke to them. You know, there's a million and one things people could do for you if they just felt like it. So if on a regular basis you're trying to give somebody a nicer day, you're gonna turn around and they will have done something for you for free. And then stuff accumulates.

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

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

Smiling.

Smiling. Neuroscience behind a smile. If you smile at somebody, you actually hit their mirror neurons, you start a smile in their brain. Smile is an involuntary response. Mirror neurons in their brain. It's the same as if the doctor hits your knee with a little hammer, 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.

But by a third smile, you get them smiling too.

Yeah.

So you've already started the processing. And then your inner voice betrays your outer voice.

Voice.

When you say, how are you to somebody at the Starbucks, your inner voice is saying, I'm trying to make your day better. I I 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. 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 it sounds like.

And learn.

And learn.

You can teach it, you can learn it, you can practice it. All you got to do is 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 a 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 crash.

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

That had to have been an adrenaline rush.

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 fast they're going.

Four or five, 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. 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 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 it sounds like it looks like. It labels 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 emotion?

The emotion 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 that.

Is that all three of them?

Just pick one of those three. Say, all right, I'm gonna 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.

'Cause 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, which you 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 a substance, it's an electrical synaptic connection in your brain. And if you know anything about electricity, every time you insulate it, it fires a little bit better. Fire it 63 to 64 times, according to the Blue Angel pilot, and you get a nice circuit built. 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 you sounds like X. I love teaching.

Sounds like you're passionate about it.

There you go. See? Perfect. Now you came up with another word. Now it stumped you for a second. And you kicked in, you let that supercomputer come up with another word. And like, yeah, I am 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 this same kind of an exercise. What do you do for a living? What do you love about it? And 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 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 love 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 the business. I mean, I've lost track of the number of things I found out about this guy. 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. I just flew in from Vegas. He was in Vegas because he was in a competitive poker time. 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. Wow. With the very sort of the thing that you and I did just now.

Wow.

You know, you start So when he.

Asks 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, or.

Was it that one? Yeah, it feels like. It feels like. It looks like it could be a looks like. It looks like Zach, I might be.

Reading your body language. It looks like you're not that interested into it. Even though you said you were, your.

Body language tells me something different. Exactly. 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 then I get people go like, yeah, you know, I've been struggling with this for a while. 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. It sounds like.

Exactly. Or, it'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 multiple ways of it sounds like, 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 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 pretty tough business people. And one of the guys in this exercise is saying, 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. You now have caught 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 you know, letting the rage build up in you because you misinterpreted something or did it by accident. He's a decent guy. If he, if he slighted you, he did it by accident, right? You can't 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 this real, this three minute.

Exercise you found out about, he opened up. Then He'd probably, yeah.

He's a decent human being. And every human being is gonna hurt you principally, inadvertently. So you go back to them and find out what's behind it and make them aware, 'cause they're gonna wanna know. Yeah.

Every human being is gonna hurt you?

Everybody, one way or another, is going to do something accidentally or on purpose that's gonna hurt your feeling. we're gonna 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. 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. You know, I went to you know, a landmark forum a couple of years ago. Yeah. Talking about making amends with people and talking to people who've 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. 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 poise and 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 were stupid at seven, right?

Yeah.

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

Wow.

So hold onto it for 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 wounded them. If they don't feel they can talk to us, they're gonna carry it for 30 years. If I heard somebody, I wanna know. You know, I, because I'm gonna be like, I'm an idiot. I had no idea I did that to you. 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 use 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 a masterclass thing, you know, they did a great job. The masterclass people are phenomenal. Yeah. 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 I had literally never told anybody about this.

Wow.

So, you know, it's and it happened when I was a little kid. 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 masterclass. 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 bullies. You know, I want to become an FBI agent because, you know, we, 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, when I was a kid. But then I started comparing that to this, this interaction I heard a 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 that I didn't even know? Like, if they would come up to me today and said, you know, I've carried this for 40 years, and I have to have done that to somebody. Right.

Have to. I know I have.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's, you know, this, 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? And say, look, look, since I know that inadvertently, I'm a jerk, what did I do? I'm sure I did something. I had to have done something. 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 gonna say something or do something that's going to offend or hurt someone.

Right.

At all the times. It's like you're always going to be offending someone if you have a voice. If you're sharing something, 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 hurts gonna 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. Close. 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, 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 that it hit it anyway. And I spent some time with this woman and she was afraid that that was what I meant, but didn't know how to approach me. 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 hurting cats or getting chased by villagers with pitchforks.

Right.

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. We're all equipped with that. And when somebody even comes close to a 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 they coming from a place of anger of their own thing?

Criticism is mostly fear, Drew.

By the person criticizing.

Right. Yeah. You criticize that in point of fact, you've been hurt, you've been disappointed, you've been frustrated. There's a lot of things that, 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. They'll mentor you. 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 struggles that are worse than mine.

Right.

And if they ask you to give you criticism?

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

Right.

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

Gotcha, gotcha.

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

Up the Wrong Tree.

Eric told me one time, for every hater, there's gonna be ten people that are on your side. So when a critic comes up to me, I see that as there are ten people, you're indicating to me that I'm successful with nine other people. and I'm not gonna 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.

Gotcha.

That's good to know. What's a role-playing exercise that anyone can 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 gotta summarize where they're coming from. If you, in any given interaction, if you got a point you want to make, 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 wouldn't say you're empathic, oh 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 understanding somebody. But there's a real fine line there, they're 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 you try not to fire back at them.

Right.

Yeah, that's right. See, when you have a conversation with.

Someone, if you could summarize their point of view first, summarize the other person's, when you summarize the other, what the other person's struggling with 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 a point or make your proposal or.

Or.

Yeah.

Or whatever.

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

Right.

Or trying to get a super size 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 and tell whether or not it's gonna 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 there in this instinctive response, the knee-jerk reaction, what's that gonna be?

When I make an ask?

Once you've made your ask, what's there of somebody who's trying to get something for free?

Yeah.

What's a typical need you're creating? reaction.

Oh, this person's just trying to get something for free from me.

Right. Yeah.

And it's 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. You're 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 your law, your live 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 snapped them out of the negative loop that's in their head. Because the last guy come in and said, yeah, I want to talk about it. and I want it now. I hate waiting in line for Starbucks.

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

It's that, you know, that I brushed my teeth today just because I brushed them yesterday. You know, I genuinely, I gotta 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 gotta keep my the missionary in me does it because I actually care about people. I just assumed that you had a good day. You know, that my interaction with you didn't leave you 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 way I want to leave people feeling.

-The intention is... -You know, I want you to have fun with the interaction.

The other person.

Yeah.

I want you to have fun.

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 a 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. The guy in the store says, if I give you the employee discount, I'm gonna have to pay for it myself. And I go, I'll pay you back! I said it just like that. He went and he started walking around asking people how he could key it in and get me the same discount without having to pay it himself. He walked around the store for 10 minutes. Really? And I saw him walk up to a manager. I said, Manager, shaking his head.

He's going to someone else.

And on his way back, another employee walked up to him on the side, whispered in his ear, And he went, 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 was 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. 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, I'm paying the bills. Yeah, of course. He got an upgrade in a hotel one time that I couldn't even get on the floor.

I mean a special key code. Yeah. Me and the other guys were going.

Hey, we'll come up to your room. He goes, no, no, I gotta come get you. I said, no, we'll just come knock on your door. New York 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, I'm getting ready to make your day the most difficult day you ever worked here. And he says, if somebody works behind a counter at a hotel, I mean, God knows what they've seen. Have you got a head in the bag? Do you wanna, are you gonna have ritual sacrifice in a room? You know, what have you done? You've done, 'cause in a hotel they've seen every kind of sort of crazy.

Thing you could imagine.

And they just go, oh, God.

What is it?

And he goes, I'm just gonna 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 immediately through the roof. And they start checking it in and listening and saying, hey, you know what? Yeah, I tell you what, let me give you this room. It's on the exclusive floor, it's in a presidential suite. President ain't coming, so I'm gonna give you the president.

Right, right, right.

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 gonna be here. Wow.

I remember from my 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, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be demanding a lot.

Isn't that something that you taught? Well, it's a little bit, yeah. You know, that way, right? I'm gonna, if I know you're gonna react negatively to my ask, I will give you a preview that makes it look worse than what it's gonna be.

Yeah.

So what do you call that? That framework?

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

-Uh huh.

You know, but we'll do emotional anchoring. If you're not gonna like what I have to say, I'm gonna 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 gonna kick you into gear and you're gonna think that I'm gonna insult you, your parentage, your family, your genealogy, everything. Because the amygdala is gonna go into overdrive.

Wow.

So whatever I ask for after that is gonna 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. 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 gonna step off the balcony because gravity is there. 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 options are taking too long. That 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 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 some of 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. Now 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'm gonna 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. And 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 in the future? So I got to create a point in time for the future that we're both happy with.

So there's still a bridge.

There's still an opportunity for the future.

Yeah, maybe it's a year, maybe it's never going to happen, but you keep it open.

I'm open to it. 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 going to 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 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. Well, it's hard. Get your practice in.

You gotta get 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 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?

Right. And I'm gonna call you back to say screw you right back, and then I'm gonna hang up. Yeah. You know, there's a battle of the last word's a problem and the last word's a cheap shot. But when the last word is a.

Positive thing, it's not a problem. Always end with positive words. Even if you feel taken advantage of, even if they hurt you, even if they screwed you over, 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. My goal was always to have a great relationship with you. And if we can get out of this dynamic, that would be my goal again. But right now I'm out. But understand that at any point in time, when we can go back to working collaboratively, I'd love to do it.

That's good.

So usually what it is is 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 that you use today in just common interactions? Is there something that you did at the height of like this intense conversation that you do on a daily basis?

Pretty much everything we've been talking about.

Yeah.

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

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 hostage negotiations. Really? Yeah.

It's having them be seen or heard, really 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, 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.

It's worth it.

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.

What is the best approach? Say I'm looking to buy a company. 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, then 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? Stadium first. Because what that actually does is it leaves them with nothing to say.

So, eight mile on.

Very nice. Exactly right.

Eight Mile.

Yeah, we used to use that clip from Eight 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, we're growing as fast as possible, and you're like, wow, this company is really growing. We got to get them now before they're too big. What would you do? You call me up on the phone, do you write me an email?

Do you meet?

Hey, I want to meet for coffee. What's the best approach? In person, email, phone, video conferencing. 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 cheap skate. 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?

Well, getting something for nothing. Is that what you said, too?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay. Because I'd start 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. We're done. I never had a shot to begin with. Oh, 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 would ever 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 board and say, you know what? We're worth $150 million and I turned it down. Because in five years we're gonna be worth $450 million. So that kind of a question is, you want to bid to me to make you feel good. You're not seriously gonna, by laying it out like that, you're not seriously gonna entertain selling.

What if you as a business owner were like, we really need something like this. We need an agency like this to help us grow. What if you're in a position like we gotta find an agency like this. If it's not this agency, someone close to it, in order to help us grow, would you say, okay, let me go look at the other options internally to yourself or would you keep that one open so that you can potentially come back in six months if something happens?

Well then the last thing I'm probably going to say is how do I help you grow faster than you get the means to get there on your own? You know, my guess is based on your rate of improvement, what would you say is a high multiple of how how much you guys are gonna grow. How are you gonna get there?

Why?

We have to start talking about because now, and this is a typical dilemma for a lot of companies that are buying other companies. Because the company wants to sell today is more worried about today's price as opposed to the amount of money that they could be worth in the future and they're leaving this future money on the table. Like let's say your company is worth $9 million. but you had a buddy sell his company for 12. So you're not taking less than 12 for your company. Now it's worth nine. I can only buy it from eight. Yeah, but I can take you to 200.

That's interesting.

In three years.

So you got to show them the future potential as opposed to.

Now the contrast, the fear of loss is our ultimate decision making tool. People most of the time will sacrifice the future because of the present. But what you need to do is not sacrifice the future over the present. So I'll say to you, so two million dollars today is worth more to you than $130 million in three years?

Wow, that's good.

And then you go like, wait a minute, no, it doesn't make any sense.

So you need to reframe it for people.

Right. Interesting. Because people are almost always framed on the wrong thing.

Yeah.

Almost always framed on today as opposed to where could we we be tomorrow?

Yeah. I love this stuff.

I gotta come to one of your workshops.

It'd be a lot of fun to have you.

I gotta come.

It's a two-day workshop.

Today. Today.

How can people sign up for this? Where can they go? All right. So go to the website, blackswanltd.com. okay. The, the. And the hack to that is actually to sign up for the newsletter because we always put the announcements for that.

Stuff in the newsletter. Yeah. And you give the employee discounts in.

The newsletter, too, right?

We.

You get the Chris discount.

Right, exactly. You put those in there. So every six months, they get a little employee discount for people that sign.

Up for the newsletter. Yeah, that's great. But the newsletter has a text to sign up. Okay. Send text. Fbi empathy. All one word.

Lower case. Fbi empathy.

Don't let your spell check put a space between FBI and empathy. if you send that to the number 228-228-228, FBI empathy, you get a response back to sign up for the newsletter once a week, short, sweet article on how to get better as a negotiator right now, and then plus it's a link to the website, it's a link to everything.

I gotta get on the newsletter. That's gonna be good.

It's good stuff.

Newsletter. Workshops, how often are you doing the workshops? Once a month.

Once a month, all around the country.

All across the country. The book is available. Never split the difference.

Amazing book.

Buy it on Amazon, it's the best price.

And is there an audio version of you speaking it? Well, I didn't speak it.

Someone else did. Professional. Professional? Did it. Well, I gotta get that too. I gotta listen to that. For me, I feel like you can never get enough negotiation training. You can always, you know, it's like you said, you're either getting staying the same, getting better or getting worse.

Right.

And if you're looking to grow in your life with relationships, with your career, with business, negotiation is going to be the key. It's mastering that so that both parties feel like they're getting a great deal.

Right.

Yeah.

That's the key. So go get the book, audiobook. I'm going to the workshop. I'm going to go this year sometime. if you have it in La, I'm coming.

Do you do them in La?

We're gonna have one in La.

Okay, I'm gonna come.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm in town.

I'm there.

Yeah.

If sometime this year, if you're doing one.

And you also have a master class. Yeah.

The master classes out there. It's out. And this talks.

This breaks down a lot of Workshop, which, by the way, is a sign of the apocalypse. If Martin Scorsese and I are in.

The same platform, it's a sign the world has. coming to an end. It's amazing. Well, it just shows you how needed this information is and how important this stuff is. Psychology behind negotiating. And they can go there and get that. And then you break down a lot of role playing there and other exercises as well, right?

There's some good stuff in there. Yeah. Number of exercises. Some.

We've got some exercises that we don't have anywhere else at all. Okay. And I see more on Instagram now a little bit.

I don't know if that's you or your son. No, no, it's. Yeah, it's me putting stuff out there. Instagram is, Instagram is a good platform. I like the stuff that's out there. I follow your stuff on Instagram. And it's a great way to tap into some people that are putting out some short, sweet messages that, you know, what I like to tap into the people that are helping other people get better, which is, yeah, which is what's on your, on your platform, which is why I like to.

That's great, man. Well, I want to acknowledge Chris for, for constantly transitioning from from what you learned, saving the world to actually helping everyday people save their world.

Yeah.

You know, transferring those skills and sharing with us. The thing I love about you is you dive deeper into the same thing and just try to spread it to more people. You're not trying to take on all these new things. You're just going into one thing that you're master at.

Yeah.

And really going deep.

Yeah.

And helping a lot of people save money, make money, and really have just better relationships. At the end of the day, it's relationship that you're teaching. You're teaching how to be better in relationships, how to build bridges as opposed to creating walls between people. So it's a lot of walls every day that we create. Whether it be the Starbucks, a hotel, a hostage. And so I acknowledge you for the consistent work you're doing. I really value it, and I know.

A lot of people do as well.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I don't know if I asked you this question last so I'll ask you again and see if it changed. Imagine it's your last day on Earth many years from now. You're as old as you want to be, 100, 200, however old you can be. And eventually you got to turn the lights off and it's your last day. And you can pick the day. But for whatever reason, all the content you've created over the next years, you've got to take that information with you. So no one has access to your books, your workshops, a masterclass. It's gone with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind a message to the world. The three things you know to be true about everything that you've gone through.

Yeah.

That you would share with the world. Three lessons or what I like to call the three truths. What would you say the three things you would share with us?

Yeah. Be curious, be nicer, be grateful.

Simple, powerful.

Yeah.

Any one of those will put you in a mindset where you're going to achieve a lot more than you would ever imagine. I mean, that'll put you on a path. And if you're grateful, you recover.

Yeah.

If you're nicer, you wound less. If you're curious, you'll learn more. So, recover, nicer, learn, wound less. That'll take you a long way. That's great.

And what's your definition of greatness?

Oh geez. Yeah, maybe having a sense of what you could be. It really is, again, other cliches. It's not about how you do against other people. How did you you know, what was that what would happen if you met the person you could have been? Mm-. You know, it's probably probably a spectacular person. Yeah, so you know, everybody's it Everybody's capable of astonishing stuff, you know astonishing stuff and so you're just having a sense of going after it.

Yeah, that's great cuz well, it's my man. Appreciate you both Pleasure, man.

Thank you very much.