BigDeal - #44 FBI Hostage Negotiator: The Art Of Negotiating To Get Everything You Want | Chris Voss

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

🚀 Main Street Over Wall Street is where the real deals get done. Join top investors, founders, and operators for three days of powerful connection, sharp strategy, and big opportunities — live in... Austin, Nov 2–4. https://contrarianthinking.biz/msows-bigdeal Codie Sanchez sits down with Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and author of the bestselling book Never Split the Difference. Together, they explore how the high-stakes strategies used to negotiate with criminals can be applied to business, personal relationships, and everyday decision-making. Discover powerful tactics like the "tactical empathy" method, why "no" is not the end of the conversation, and how to use mirroring to create deeper connections. Whether you're negotiating a business deal, managing a team, or navigating tough personal situations, Chris’s insights will give you the tools to communicate more effectively and achieve better outcomes. Want help scaling your business to $1M in monthly revenue? ⁠Click here⁠ to connect with my consulting team. Topics Covered: The psychology of negotiation: lessons from FBI hostage scenarios How to diffuse tension and build trust in any conversation Practical negotiation tactics for business leaders and entrepreneurs Why listening is the ultimate superpower in any negotiation -------------------- Learn more here: https://www.blackswanltd.com/negotiation-mastery-summit-2025 -------------------- MORE FROM BIGDEAL: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ OTHER THINGS WE DO: 🫂 ⁠Our community⁠ 📰 ⁠Free newsletter⁠ 🏦 ⁠Biz buying course⁠ 🏠 ⁠Resibrands⁠ 💰 ⁠CT Capital⁠ 🏙️ ⁠Main St Hold Co⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Chris Voss is one of the FBI's former lead hostage negotiators. He has negotiated with terrorists like ISIS. He has stopped live hostage situations. He has also negotiated across some of the biggest boardrooms and billion-dollar companies all around the world. If you haven't read his book, never split the difference. You should absolutely read his book. It's one of my favorite books when it comes to negotiating. And every time I speak to Chris, my mind gets blown wide open with new ways to make more money
Starting point is 00:00:28 and get people to do the things that I want them to do. This podcast has all of that. He has stories in here. I've actually never heard him share before anywhere. And he has things that you can take today to make you more and also to make you maybe even a better human and how you communicate with those you love and those you don't like very much.
Starting point is 00:00:46 Without further ado, my friend Chris Voss. What I wanted to talk about to you today is like we've been talking a lot lately and you've been everywhere, Prague, Helsinki, you know, all across the world. And I was wondering, what are you, talking about now? Like, what are you obsessing on? Well, more ways to help people understand why this works. And then a talk I just gave in Riyadh, which, by the way, Saudi these days is fascinating, like fascinating. I think they told me 60% of the country is 35 and under. Like youngsters that want to get at it, they're careless for about the past and more about the future, which is what that
Starting point is 00:01:30 age groups about. Like we don't care how you guys did in the past. We want to see what's the best way to do it going forward. So what I talked to them a lot, particularly in the Middle East, like why are we all the same and yet simultaneously all different? Which was at one point of time I thought it was an academic distinction that just made academics happy to talk about, the difference between feelings and emotions. The first time somebody brought that up, I thought, you know, I don't care what the difference is. I'm a layman. I, you know, I make stuff work. And we're going to use the black swan skills, whether or not there's a distinction between feelings and emotions.
Starting point is 00:02:06 I don't care. And so a friend of mine, Eric Barker, wrote a book called Barking Up the Wrong Tree, and a blog by the same name. And he's written that different cultures have terms for feelings that other cultures don't have. Like in this island of South Pacific, they don't even have a term for this feeling or emotion. So how do you explain that?
Starting point is 00:02:32 And then the consistent multicultural experts who say, yeah, you got to understand Arabs, you got to understand Germans, the difference between Germans, Italians, Arabs, all this. And my response to that is like, look, dude, you're just keeping yourself employed over nonsense. So what's the answer? or the hypothesis which I haven't seen it, how you prove it, but I'm not seeing anybody disagree, that you're born with five basic emotions.
Starting point is 00:03:06 It's original equipment. You come to planet Earth with five core emotions. And I think there are angers, sadness, disgust, happiness, and I can't remember what the other one or two are. and the only argument I'm seeing is whether there's five or there's seven, and is it happiness or joy. But I'm not seeing anybody contend with that.
Starting point is 00:03:36 So part one, that's why we're all the same, because you're human, period. You're born with these emotions. Now, me being an observer of navigating them, my first observation is four out of the five are negative. Only one is positive. And the Black Swan approach is let's deactivate the negatives, and then the positives will take off on their own, which is the case. That's why we got the skill of the accusations audit, listing the negatives,
Starting point is 00:04:05 and then why, if you're not angry yet, I might say to you, it's going to make you angry. And it doesn't plant anger, it inoculate you from it. So, you know, we got a strategic advantage as soon as you understand this. But then as you go through life, your emotions interact with your experience, creating feelings, which then begins to explain, you know, there's a detachment disorder syndrome of people that aren't held enough in the first year of their life. Most commonly shows up with orphans because they're in an orphanage, you know,
Starting point is 00:04:42 prior to probably this century, they didn't know they need to hold them. They didn't understand detachment syndrome, and a lot of people that were adopted in the past, you know, they get to their mid teens, their parents adopted them at age two, three maybe, showed them nothing but love. But in the mid-teens, they're lying, they're not, they have an attachment, detachment syndrome. Like, where did this come from, first year of life? I heard that too with preemie babies. Like, they originally said you can't touch the preemie babies because bacteria and they have compromised immune system. And then they tried to study, I think it was here in New York where they allowed for touch like for an hour a day just holding them and the
Starting point is 00:05:23 preemie babies grew faster and survived more just from human touch yeah yeah which is wild yes yes so but that's you interacting with the world the explanation for social paths has the bureaus always try to figure that out when we're you know how does one become a serial killer what happened and one of the hypothesis is when they were five six seven years old, they did something, made a mistake, parents punished the hell out of them. Three months later, they made the same mistake, parents didn't do anything. What's that teacher child? There are no rules. So, but then that's, again, you interacting with the world.
Starting point is 00:06:03 So, yes, we're all the same and we're all different, but if I understand the fundamental rules of how to navigate emotions, no matter where you grew up, no matter what your ethnicity, your culture, your diet, your religion. I know that you've got these five core emotions. And so empathy, tactical empathy, works with Arabs, works with Persians, works with Latinos because you're a human being. So in pointing that out these days
Starting point is 00:06:36 and what I'm talking about, it makes it easier when I'm in Riyadh. And it's an international audience. And they go like, well, you're an American. It's an American. and it's an American book. This is an American methodology. And I'm like, no, it's not.
Starting point is 00:06:47 As a matter of fact, it's human. And so that's why I'm talking to people about this a lot. What exactly is tactical empathy, and why does it matter? It's effectively proactive listening based on patterns of behavior that are predicted by things like your five core emotions and neuroscience. Now, originally, empathy was originally designed to not be sympathy. It's been contorted, convoluted into usage. These days, people say if you have empathy, that means you sympathize, you have compassion. Empathy is just observing the other person's emotions and where it's you getting out of the way.
Starting point is 00:07:28 Empathy from an Israeli to a Palestinian is to the Israeli to say, you hate us because you think we're a colonizing power that's bent on your extermination. That's not agreement. That's observing the other side's. view, Palestinian to an Israeli. The world persecuted you. You feel that this is your homeland, which is taken away from you two thousand years ago. Ultimately, there was a global effort to exterminate you perpetrated by the Nazis in the 1930s. Most of the world stood back and watched.
Starting point is 00:08:05 And then finally, after all these years, you finally have a homeland, and this is the only place you feel safe. there was no agreement from either side on that. That's empathy. That's stating the other side's perspective. And that's the true application of empathy. We called a tactical empathy originally because it's a little why you tell a seal guy, no, we're not teaching you yoga breathing. We're teaching you tactical breathing.
Starting point is 00:08:31 That's so good. And then the guy go like, oh, okay, I'll do tactical breathing. I'm not doing yoga, but I'll do tactical. That's right. So we're trying to make the term more usable. I like that. You know, it's interesting because I was actually talking to Chris, my husband, about this the other day, that I remember when I was a journalist. And at the time, I was talking to cartel members. And these were young cartel members, you know, so, you know, they were really
Starting point is 00:08:59 human. You know, they were like young guys at a club. You could find them often by their tattoos and some of the outfits that they would wear in northern Mexico. And these are people that that have done categorically awful things, right? Rape, murder, violence, lawbreaking. And I remember at the time talking to them and saying to a girlfriend afterwards because we were cut writing a story, like, you know, it's fascinating
Starting point is 00:09:25 because I can understand why they are the way that they are based on the conversations that I have with them. And her response was, why the fuck would you talk to somebody like that? You know, that's like talking to a white supremacist. Like, why would you even want to understand where they came from?
Starting point is 00:09:40 And I thought that was, really interesting. Like, how do you talk to somebody that you physically, like, viscerally disagree with and should you? Yeah. Yes, you can. Yes, you should. And you don't equate understanding with agreement. And most people have trouble drawing that distinction. And that was actually the, you know, as an FBI hostage negotiator, that was the first time they had teachers. Because how the hell am I going to agree with the guy on the other side? You know, I'm Al-Qaeda on the other side. ISIS on the other side. How am I going to agree with them?
Starting point is 00:10:13 I'm not. However, on behalf the American people, you guys are putting me in there to have an influence on his behavior. And so if I'm going to get in my way, then you should fire me. So, and I actually learned that previous to that on the hotline, suicide hotline. You know, you don't believe in suicide at all.
Starting point is 00:10:37 I don't for religious reasons and spiritual reasons. so then what are you going to do? Get on the phone with somebody's suicidal and say, and be judgmental, tell them they're doing the wrong thing. It's not going to help. It doesn't help anybody. It's a waste of time. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:50 So when you can decouple those, then actually you give yourself the ability to influence people in a way nobody else can. And I was kicking this around just the other night with Derek Garnett, head of my training. We teach curiosity as the ultimate attribute for you
Starting point is 00:11:12 to make you smart and more resilient or even anti-fragile is Nassim Nicholas Talib would say so curiosity could be a very self-centered thing to do simultaneously
Starting point is 00:11:29 I can open anybody up like anybody with my curiosity because curiosity is impossible to resist. And so you can talk to a member of the cartel and they will not be able to resist your curiosity
Starting point is 00:11:50 because you're not judging, since you're not agreeing, then you've got no problem internally. You're not violating any of your core values to talk to them. Because you're not agreeing with them. But they will open up to you in ways they will not open up. to anybody else which gives you a superpower.
Starting point is 00:12:11 This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season.
Starting point is 00:12:31 Plan started just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. In his book, Chris Voss tells us never split the difference. So why settle for less when you can aim to get the best possible outcome? The same thing applies to your finances. That's why I like domain money to help you unlock your full financial potential.
Starting point is 00:12:53 Domain money doesn't do a one-size-fits-all advice. They build highly personalized financial plans designed to help you get the most out of your money, whether it's building generational wealth, saving for a big goal, or optimizing for your taxes. With a flat fee model and expert planners, they make sure every dollar works as hard as you do, and you know their advice is designed with your best interests in mind. Their process is simple. Tell them about what matters the most to you. Upload your financial documents and get a clear, actionable financial plan that's as unique as you are.
Starting point is 00:13:22 Stop winging out with your money, book a free 30-minute strategy session with Domain Money and take the first step toward a better financial future. Head to Domainmoney.com backslash-cody-sanche Cody Sanchez for you to get this free strategy session. That's so interesting. So today, we yell at each other on the internet. We have massive judgment for each other. We think it's wrong often to associate to date or engage with somebody who has different views than us. Right. Right.
Starting point is 00:13:47 And what we're actually doing is maybe killing our own superpower with that. Yeah, well said. That's right. Interesting. So if you wanted to influence somebody, what is the way to do it? Is the way to do it, curiosity? Yeah, and then they'll feel it. And everything that they say that would be encouraged,
Starting point is 00:14:11 because they want to tell you. Like there isn't anybody out there that doesn't want to open up to you. They still want to be judged. And as soon as you're delighted, because curiosity is highly positive. I'm in a conversation, how we got into this with Derek, I'm in a conversation three nights ago with a woman. We're describing another conversation. I interviewed somebody for a marketing position on my team.
Starting point is 00:14:35 And shortly I found out that they had a formative moment in their life was during a seance on a Ouija board and his ex-girlfriend's haunted house that she grew up in. Okay. And because I find that stuff out about people. I find a thread. I start digging in. I'm going to find out about you.
Starting point is 00:14:56 And so this woman is listening to a conversation. She says, how do you get from an instance? interview for a marketing job to Ouija board in a haunted house. I'm like, you know, it's, I don't know, it's just me doing my thing. She's, I don't see how you got there at all. So I turn a conversation on her to draw her out, and she's being very guarded because she knows I'm getting ready to come at her with the skills. And she's like, you can't do this on me.
Starting point is 00:15:26 And so we started out asking her about her background where she grew up and her dad, and she's like, I don't remember anything about that. I don't know anything about that. I don't know how he got there. I don't know, this and that. 15 minutes later, I'm getting a detailed history of this guy, her father, and it's utterly fascinating. It enlightened me about Cuba.
Starting point is 00:15:48 It enlightened me about the relationship between Spain and Cuba. I found out that Castro's parents were Cuban. Now, he was born in, or his parents were Spanish. Yeah. Now, he was born in Cuba. But your first set of values from age zero to five is what you grew up with in the house. So even though he's Cuban, he started the world of Spanish values because his parents were emigrated from Spain. Oh, shit, those are my people.
Starting point is 00:16:19 That's not good. Which then puts a whole other spin on the history. Now, I'm fascinated by this. I'm curious. This is exactly the same thing that she told me 15 minutes earlier. She didn't know. Interesting. Because she's blocking me.
Starting point is 00:16:33 She wants to know, am I using a technique on her? And is it safe to open up? And am I going to criticize? But I'm just, I'm fascinating. I'm curious, which then comes out in how I respond. She says something sort of innocuously about some member of a family. And I'm like, yeah, really? Like, how does that work?
Starting point is 00:16:58 Because I know this and I know that. And how does it play? And I'm intensely curious. she opens up and not only that at the end of the conversation she wants to have another one having been opened up against her will
Starting point is 00:17:12 she found the experience great which means she doesn't resent it which means she'll talk to me in the future which means I can ask deeply core value related questions in the future if we're working on something together and we have an issue she's going to trust me
Starting point is 00:17:30 this is the beginning of a great working relationship, great person, whatever you want. And that's what curiosity does. You can open anybody on earth up with curiosity. Do you think, I mean, young people, especially today, you know, there's lots of studies that show that we have less face-to-face communication than ever
Starting point is 00:17:53 before, lots of async communication. We don't really like to pick up the phone. You know, we like to do a lot of text communication. Do you think young people are worse? at communicating than prior to generations? Without question. Communication, emotional intelligence is an unlimited skill and a perishable skill.
Starting point is 00:18:12 So if you haven't built it, you haven't built it. You know, it's like going to the gym. You're not going to be in shape unless you go to the gym. Stop going to the gym, you start sliding back. Now that doesn't mean they can't do it. And so the interesting thing we found about that is the one percenters, the top performers, in my view,
Starting point is 00:18:36 no matter what the generation, they're all the same, whether they're 20s, 30, 40s, 50s, 60s. So they do have an innate curiosity and a desire for innovation. And a desire, first to beat the competition, but then the real revelation is how do I be the best I could be? That's the other thing I'm talking to people a lot about now because you may be best in class. but for you, you're only at your C grade level.
Starting point is 00:19:06 And you don't know it because you're best in class. So then how do you get to a level that you don't even know it's there? And the top performers, as soon as they discover empathy, they're like, wow, this is cool. I can't get enough of this. And I got a 22-year-old, a 28-year-old, a 32-year-old. And when we're doing our live in-person training, they are some of the most interesting
Starting point is 00:19:31 because the world has said, well, you only want to text, so I'll just text you. Or, you know, the educational institutions, kids these days just want to be digital. So we'll feed them what they want. And they don't know that they've been blocked from this.
Starting point is 00:19:49 So when they discover communication, like the world has opened up. So yes, they tend to be less skilled in it. but when they discover it, they're more delighted than anybody else is. Interesting. Yeah, it's almost like we've forgotten what we knew. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:09 So what about, I want to go back to something you said before because it's fascinating. You were negotiating with what we would call terrorists. Bad guys. Yeah, as bad as you can imagine. What is your process for getting interested in them? Do you have to fake it for a point? Do you have to fake non-disgust? How do you have a conversation with somebody
Starting point is 00:20:33 that you hate like a terrorist? No, you don't have to fake it. You don't have to fake curiosity. Like, I didn't realize that at the time, like I knew how influential the process was from practice. I didn't understand all the moving parts of the time. I just knew the abilities it gave me, which was if I'm listening, if I say a couple of things,
Starting point is 00:20:55 if I understand how they see things, and I can feed it back to them, then I'm going to gain traction with them very quickly in a way that they are not prepared for. They're prepared for arguments. They were never prepared for empathy, ever. Bad guys who rehearse in advance, what to expect. Hezbollah in the 80s,
Starting point is 00:21:15 when they were kidnapping Westerns all over the place, they were told what the kidnapped victims were going to say. You know, the jailers had bosses, and the jailers would say, you know, they're going to say they're innocent. Here's a predictable dialogue and so it would wall the jailers off that were holding the hostages. So soon but then nobody ever prepared for empathy. Arkite didn't prepare for empathy. ISIS didn't prepare for empathy. It catches him off guard. And I'm delighted that I know it's going to catch you off guard. So as soon as I understood
Starting point is 00:21:49 how influential that was in a very short order, what would catch them off guard, I'm 15, 20 years ago, I'm being brought in to train the hostage negotiation team nationally for the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh that's in charge counterterrorism at the time. I'm walked in and they say, look, understand ahead of time, if anybody takes hostages here, shake wants to kill him. You know, if you take hostages on Emirati soil, he doesn't care who you are. you have violated our sovereignty and we are going to deal with you accordingly
Starting point is 00:22:31 and so don't pitch the shake that you're going to save lives across a board he wants to know how you're going to make his people more operationally effective his SWAT teams how are we going to end this as soon as possible we don't want any Emirates to get killed
Starting point is 00:22:47 but we're in here to save bad guys so I sit down with this guy fascinating dude American-educated, deeply insightful thinker. And also he walks in with no entourage by himself. So he said, Donnie looks at me and he says, what are you going to say? What are you going to teach my guys to say?
Starting point is 00:23:13 And I said, here's the opening line I wanted to say. What you're doing is a great thing. And his mouth drops open. And he said, now I got you because you can't wait to hear what I'm going to say next. And that's exactly the power I want to give you all guys. The bad guy's mouth is going to drop open and he's going to be sitting here waiting to hear the next word. And that's when they have influence. And he says, you're hired.
Starting point is 00:23:50 I would hire you too. That's wild. How did you know, did you know you're going to say that before you went in there? When you start thinking about the dynamics and the patterns for the other side, if some terrorist has taken hostages, how do they see it? They're doing a great thing. And, you know, with my colleagues, we talked about it, we understand empathy. How does the other side see it?
Starting point is 00:24:21 How do I get into your head? I have to say something that's really close to what the voice in your head is saying at the moment because otherwise a voice in your head is going to distract you. So as soon as I start lining up with a voice in your head, you don't listen to that, you start listening to me. Now I've got influence. That's so true. Even in fights.
Starting point is 00:24:43 I can think of that same thing in like interpersonal relationships. It's like when somebody's telling me something that is not aligned with the voice in my head, I'm ignoring it. I'm not listening to you. That makes all the sense in the world. And so if you start from that standpoint, the most important part of this conversation is really probably your research and preparation
Starting point is 00:25:05 on who the human is. Are you doing a lot of preparation ahead of time? Or do these come back to the big five? Yeah, well, you know, in point of fact, it comes back to the big five. In point of fact, we were taught initially what we called emotion labeling. Just label the emotion you hear.
Starting point is 00:25:22 Now, that emotion was always going to be negative. And so then we made the presumption, well, yeah, of course, it's a bad history, bad situation. So you're going to hear negative emotions. And I didn't really realize at the time, you know, of the big five, four out of five are negative. So I've just started to increase my percentage chances because they're human, not because they're bad guys in a bad situation, but because they're human. and then the brain science, what little there is, the neuroscience that backs it up, none of it contradicts it. There just hasn't been that much to support it.
Starting point is 00:25:57 It has shown consistently that calling out negatives, not denying them, calling them out, diffuses them. So that's why one of our, you know, I'm teaching a Black Swan method, I sit down at an opening meeting with you in a business setting. I'm probably going to say right off the bat, you know, At some point of time, you're probably going to wonder where you're here. At some point of time, you're going to ask yourself, is this worth my time? At some point of time, you're probably going to say to yourself, this guy's just greedy.
Starting point is 00:26:30 He's only looking out for himself. I'm deactivating your negatives. And inoculating from them, too. That's the other thing. Most people don't realize you inoculate. A lot of people fear, you know, speak the devil into existence. Their experience has been from denying negatives. and the thing that nobody ever notices
Starting point is 00:26:50 instead of saying, I don't want you to think I'm grabbing with both hands here. That's a denial. But if I were to say instead, it's probably going to feel like I'm grabbing with both hands. Your reaction is going to be like,
Starting point is 00:27:03 well, you've got to look out for yourself. Yeah, that is. Why do I want to say that? Like, why do we want to say that back to you? Because that's my gut reaction. Yeah. I think there's, there is a fundamental,
Starting point is 00:27:18 fundamental human instinct for fairness, which the exploiters use against this on a regular basis. Like we call fair the F word. And so why is it so powerful on a regular basis when somebody says to you, like, I just want what's fair. You know, the manipulative negotiators learned that using that phrase will cause you, probably cause you to compromise your position. inside you'd be like, I don't want to be unfair. You don't want to be unfair. So I think when we
Starting point is 00:27:55 call it out in the other way, then you say, yeah, you know, I got to look out from my side, but you have to look out for yourself too. I know that that's the trigger. Now, why that's the trigger, my hypothesis is that, you know, we are in fact wired for fairness. Yeah, otherwise we wouldn't exist as a society, right? I mean, if we, if we, if we We were all Machiavellian to our roots, dark triad, sociopaths that went after our own interests, we wouldn't be able to have a cooperative society. Right. We wouldn't be able to innovate the level that we have. So at some degree, in order for humanity to continue, we had to err more on the side of, you know, peace, sex, continuation of species as opposed to violence and destruction.
Starting point is 00:28:39 Otherwise, we probably wouldn't be here. I mean, New York, how many people are in this city? Tens of millions. And if we were all destructive and self-interested at all times, I don't think the city would work. it'd be mad max wouldn't it yeah that's right um that's right what about you know um when i've heard you say before that you don't really lie is that true is there ever been an investigation or a negotiation where it was life or death so you had to lie or you think you should have to lie no i i don't think it's ever necessary and very much against it um first of all uh liars are really good at spot
Starting point is 00:29:21 lying lies. And so we'll often invite you to lie to test you. Number one. So it's number two, even if you're great at lying, it's exhaustive. And if I talk to you long enough, you're going to say something contradictory, and I'm going to figure it out. So even if I'm good at it, you're going to catch me ultimately. And then the relationship is destroyed. So it's often, it's often a test. And we know of instance after instance where being determined to tell the truth was what made the difference. And everybody appreciates, like, it's just don't lie. Just, it's really hard.
Starting point is 00:30:08 Business these days, deception by omission tends to be accepted. And it's out of defensiveness. People don't know how to tell the truth. and you get really caught up in short term. And this is another reason why, an example, Egyptian business deal. And I'm picking it out because it's in the Arab world, you know, but they're people. So Egyptian businessman has got a contract with the Egyptian government for a $4 million contract. It's whatever's company's selling them.
Starting point is 00:30:42 And $4 million. And, you know, he's going to get big commission. Company's going to make a lot of money. But he knows it's not going to work. and finally he can't take it anymore, and he reaches out to his government contact and says, look, this thing you guys are buying from us, it's going to fail you.
Starting point is 00:31:00 They cancel a contract on a spot. Now, because he was such a successful salesman, he doesn't get fired. You know, I'm sure he was worried about losing his job, but he just couldn't compromise his integrity. He couldn't live with himself. And his boss, since he was a performer, it's kind of like, all right, we're going to live with this.
Starting point is 00:31:19 three months later, same government point of contact comes back to awards him a $12 million no-bid contract. So long-term, it's going to work out for you. And even as I'm riffing on this now, listened to an interview by Jordan Peterson the other day. And he says, the truth is the best long-term strategy. But we get caught up between short-term success and short-term fears versus long-term. I'm long term. And when you start looking around for it, the truth is the best long-term strategy.
Starting point is 00:31:57 But it feels like it's going to cost you now, and it scares a heck out of you, which is why often people defer to deception by omission, and so many people are kind of forgiving of it. But when I find out that you deceive me by a mission, I'm probably not going to be angry with you, but I'll never trust you again. Yeah, you have to be.
Starting point is 00:32:20 it just like in the back of your head a little bit. Yeah, you know, were you always like that? Like, were you like that as a kid? Or is that something that you became after being in the bureau? No, and my father was very high integrity. Uh-huh. A hardworking, high integrity. I'm proud to say a very blue-collar guy.
Starting point is 00:32:39 Yeah. So he kind of instilled that in you. Yeah. Interesting. Because it definitely, you know, even if you look at a lot of our politicians today, on whichever side, it's almost like, you know, I always, I kind of laugh watching the debate, because they're like, well, who lied more, you know? But it's not like who didn't lie. It's like, who lied more? So we do have this, we have this natural proclivity, I think, in society to say it's,
Starting point is 00:33:05 it's cool. Like, we know they lied, but like, not that much. And I do think that that negates our institutions by large. Yeah. Well, it's, we start with what's a white lie. And then how big does that latitude get? And then for what purpose? Yeah. What are some of the tells about somebody lying to you or not? How can you tell if somebody's lying to you? Yeah. So it's a great question. So I don't believe in tells per se.
Starting point is 00:33:35 I believe much more in the way a polygraph works. Polygraph tries to figure out what you look like when you're telling a truth. So then when you come out of that profile, then you're lying. Or you're deceived. prosecutor's southern district in New York, Pat Fitzgerald, brilliant dude. You used to always say the truth comes out the same way every time. So I will talk to you not looking for tells,
Starting point is 00:34:03 but I'm going to try to draw a beat on what you look like when you're telling the truth. Every now and then somebody wants to play, they interview me, they want to play there's two truths and a lie game. And so what I do typically is I just start firing questions at you, and then we go through any one of your stories. And then the minute you're out of sync, I'm like, all right, so two truths and a lie, which two stories came out the same way,
Starting point is 00:34:34 which story came out differently, what did you do differently? All I know is it's different. So what does that mean? That means tells our situational to the person in very broad terms. You can kind of guess. But another interview that I'm hearing recently,
Starting point is 00:34:50 the person who's kind of this body language expert says, all right, so if you got a frown on your face, if you look angry, you could be angry. You could have gas. True. If I go, oh, I're angry and they're not, then you've blown it. You went down the wrong rabbit hole.
Starting point is 00:35:15 So tells per se are strictly within context to the person and I will talk to you long enough until I get an idea what you look like when you're telling the truth. That's what I'm looking for. Interesting. And so how do you beat a...
Starting point is 00:35:30 Do you think you can beat a polygraph test? You can't beat a good polygrapher. And it's whether or not the polygrapher is any good. And a really good polygrapher will tell you before they put you on the box whether or not you're lying. And a good polygrapher either if you tell the truth, you tell the truth one way.
Starting point is 00:35:52 Maybe you never tell the truth. And a polygraph will pick that up. And so that's why a good oligrapher will say, we detect deception across the board. So we don't know what they're lying about. We don't know what they're telling the truth about. All we know is they're not into telling the truth. And so you don't beat the polygraph per se.
Starting point is 00:36:14 nobody ever if they if they if they if it comes back inconclusive which was the good polygraphers in the bureau say it's inconclusive they're like okay good the guy's hiding something we just don't know where it is or what it is and so every now
Starting point is 00:36:32 and then somebody will take a polygraph we asked them five questions and he passed a polygraph no you got to ask about 30 questions so I know if you if they asked five questions then it was a lousy operator, not the machine.
Starting point is 00:36:50 And so the operator varies so wildly. That's why it's generally not admissible in court. That makes all the sense in the world. So it's really expertise as opposed to equipment. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I heard about a, I never met him, but I heard about a guy in a bureau, he'd ask you a question and write down everybody,
Starting point is 00:37:14 body movement that you made after asked a question. Very patient, dude. Here's a question, would you have for breakfast? What day is it? What city you in? Baseline questions. If you tell the truth, you're going to answer each one of those questions
Starting point is 00:37:32 exactly the same way. He's going to get a complete beat on that. Now, where were you last Thursday? For the first time, he held your breath for just a moment. he's going to see that. And so he was really good. He'd put him on a box afterwards,
Starting point is 00:37:50 but he'd tell you what was going to happen because he was so observant of everything. Yeah. You said in the beginning something crazy, which is... I hope so. It's some good stuff. You said that obviously the Bureau is trying to figure out
Starting point is 00:38:03 what makes psychopaths, what makes serial killers. And you mentioned that it could be what happened in them with kids, with inconsistent, really bad, parenting, basically. Yeah. Like, go deeper there.
Starting point is 00:38:16 Like, if I have a kid and he hurts his sister and the first time I spank him and the second time I don't, does that create psychopaths? Like, what's the level of the game here as far as you guys found it? There are a variety of ways that could happen. One of them is, first of all, if there are no rules, if there really are no rules, if there's no right and wrong, then, then you can act on impulse because what do you have to feel guilty about? You feel guilty because you did something wrong.
Starting point is 00:38:48 What if there is no wrong? What if it's all in your head? So how do you learn right and wrong from your parents, from your religion, from your government? That's how you learn right and wrong. So the profilers, you know, they start looking first at what happened is did the parents teach them there were no rules? and then subsequently what did the parents believe in? Because your parents can teach you there are no rules, but if you believe in religion,
Starting point is 00:39:20 you know, every religion's got a set of rules. Or what if you're in the Soviet Union or you're in a country that doesn't believe in religion or actively discourages religion as a set of rules to government behavior? We start finding out we, collective hostage negotiators globally, every nine in, we'd get somebody from another country that would take hostages and they would kill indiscriminately and we couldn't understand why.
Starting point is 00:39:52 They were from countries where the governments fell. So if you're from a country where you got your rules from the government and the government failed, fell, what did you learn? There are no rules. So where you get your rules and at some point in time did something happen that caused you to believe that it was, was all made up and there was no right and wrong. And then there's some other behaviors that, you know, might interact to lean you in one
Starting point is 00:40:23 direction or another. So do you think that, like, today in society, we know that religion is declining, like organized religion uptick, maybe not over the last two years. It seems like there's some trend reversal, but I haven't seen the data. But we have seen, let's call it over the last hundred years, real decline in organized religion uptick in America. Right. Also, we've seen, I mean, we're in New York, it appears to me that we have a little bit of a, we've got a disagreement with rules here depending on who you are.
Starting point is 00:40:49 You know, it's like, is it lawful? Is it not? Kind of depends. So do you think that means that we're creating more psychopaths today? Yeah. I don't think so. Although the number has fluctuated. Like when I first started looking at the number, you know, they used to say like one in every hundred, twelve, hundred, 16 and now they're saying roughly 1 and 35 which then I really enjoy talking to groups of
Starting point is 00:41:17 more than 35 that's horrifying is that true because then I'll say look around a room shit look around the room see if you can spot psychopaths because there's more than 35 of us here that means there's at least one so are we creating more or are we just increasing our ability to detect them so while there may be a decline in organized religion I'm not sure that correlates with a decline in spirituality. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.
Starting point is 00:41:48 BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge.
Starting point is 00:42:05 BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. And so then that makes it a different question. And organized religion, bureaucracy-based, then it always gets watered down. You know, I think Bono said some of the effect of Christianity today is what you have when Jesus has left the room. You know, he's very much a believer in Jesus.
Starting point is 00:42:39 He wouldn't describe himself as a Christian. or again Jordan Peterson talking about his I think he said his favorite writer or his favorite thinker is Nietzsche who famously said God is dead and my paraphrase of Jordan's description of that well that was his copy it was good copy to get attention
Starting point is 00:42:58 and then he pointed out that in all of Nietzsche's criticism he criticized organized religion but he didn't criticize the gospels so then all right so now we got a departure or what spirituality versus organized religion. Interesting. You know what's kind of fascinating?
Starting point is 00:43:18 I know that a lot of people today think that it's weird to talk with somebody that you don't agree with. But I... Both to throw a rock at him, right? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, beat them with a pulp. Beat them to a pulp. But do you think it makes us weird that both you and I, like, really...
Starting point is 00:43:36 Like, when I was talking to those cartel members or when I'm talking to somebody that I think is totally out of the... loony bin, I'm, like, so intrigued. Yeah. I don't think there's anything more fascinating than getting to sit down with somebody that, like, it's almost hard to understand their worldview. And, like, does that mean that we're actually less empathetic in a way or less emotional in a way? Well, I would, you know, according to my definition of empathy, we're more empathetic.
Starting point is 00:44:06 Yeah. So more empathetic. And then, you know, this is going to. to sound very self-serving. I think there's a deeper love for humanity to want to understand every human. Like there's,
Starting point is 00:44:25 do I love humanity? You know, some people say, you know, I love people, but I don't like individuals. You know, I don't know where all these lines are. Or I love learning systems and origins, which is anthropology. Like, I'm fascinated.
Starting point is 00:44:41 How did you get to be how you are? So I think there's a deep appreciation and a deep optimism there too. I think there's a very deep optimism behind that, which I think everybody has, but we haven't had it covered up as much. Again, Jordan Peterson's contention in an interview recently was that people obey the law mostly out of cowardice. They're afraid of what's going to happen to them if they break the law, which is a harsh way of describing fear.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Just because you're fearful, does that necessarily make you a cowardice? that depends upon your definition of what being a coward is. But so I think that we've had it less buried in us. Because if we start with a five original equipment, and then as we've interacted through life, somebody said something to us, either mom or dad, probably mom because we were around mom more, that somewhere deep inside us put an optimistic thing in our brain.
Starting point is 00:45:44 after we were born, somewhere in the first five years of our life. And I think that has stuck. And we've been lucky enough at those two lines of code that somebody embedded in this early on was optimistic. Yeah, fascinating. What about, you know, so you don't think, so psychopaths aren't born, they're created. Is that what you think? Like, are people born with a psychopathic gene? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:13 I'm there. I'm on that hypothesis, yeah. So if you have a kid that becomes a psychopath, is it largely your fault as a parent? Fault versus accountability. What's the difference? Yeah, you're going to have to live with it. Maybe there's a politician's answer.
Starting point is 00:46:35 I once heard Chris Christie say, it wasn't my fault that it happened, but I am accountable for the results, which was an interesting distinction. So maybe somebody else did it. And I think that's what some parents really struggle with. Somebody else damaged their kid under their nose, and they didn't see it.
Starting point is 00:47:00 And then by the time it manifested itself, it was extremely difficult to reverse, if irreversible, at all. So, you know, that's a hard thing. A kid's going to go out in a world. They're going to be people around you that you should trust that betrayed you. it's a tough thing to lay it all on appearance it's a tough thing
Starting point is 00:47:27 yeah do you think that do you think you can reverse psychopathy is that the right way to say it can you reverse psychopathy there's some forms of damage that can be reversed possibly you know we're getting into new areas
Starting point is 00:47:45 all the time with neuroscience um chemical journeys that previously had been completely illegal and are starting to become experimental in the United States. Meaning like psychedelics. Yeah. There are probably certain things that can never be reversed.
Starting point is 00:48:02 We are never going to get away from the reality that there are going to be some people that we're going to need to lock up and never let out. Now, how many of them are like that? That's a tough one. You know, what's going to happen to him? Andre Norman, a friend of mine, doing serious jail time.
Starting point is 00:48:21 convicted for attempting a homicide eight times. Has a moment when effectively God comes to him in a jail cell and says enough. Maybe before that, you'd have been convinced you. You'd never get to get Andre out of what he was. Third-ranking prison gang leader in the state he was in. Very, very, very dangerous, very bad guy.
Starting point is 00:48:50 Everybody's scared of him for good reason. Now I'm making a world a better place. before that moment, you'd have said, you probably would have said you never let this dude out. Now he's making a great contribution to planet Earth, so it's a little bit hard to say what's irreversible. How do you know he's not lying?
Starting point is 00:49:09 My gut. And his action since, you know, we cross past early on, introduced by a very good friend, Joe Polish. And Andrew's just doing too much good in the world. And just too straightforward. Like, you got a kid who's on drugs,
Starting point is 00:49:28 Andre will find him, bring him out. And he said, what did he say happened? He was, two epiphanies hit him at the same time. And he was in his description, in his jail cell, plotting two murders so that he could rise to number one. And two simultaneously things hit him. he was going to become the king of nowhere. I'm going to be king.
Starting point is 00:49:58 And then I'm like, what am I the king of? I'm the king of nowhere. And then I've also heard him say that God just said that's enough. So the only answer is, it's not like a, here's steps one through seven to stop becoming a psychopath. There's no four-hour work week to psychopath's behavior changing. Yeah. How do you solve the riddle? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:50:26 Keep trying. Don't give up. heard you also say that a lot about tone with your voice, which every time we talk, I always notice with you. You have like really good intonation. And I was reading a study that I thought was fascinating
Starting point is 00:50:39 that shows that 38% of communication after studying hundreds of people in the workplace came through tone. Not even the words that we said, but the way that we said them determined our outcome. So if somebody got what they wanted or somebody didn't get what they want,
Starting point is 00:50:55 it was often the way they said it, not the thing that they said. Right, right. What was the percentage again? 38%. Does that seem right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep.
Starting point is 00:51:03 I've seen a 38% number crop up a lot. Okay. Do you think that that's true? And what do you know about tone and how to use it in conversations? Tone is like the spin on a football or a baseball. Like a baseball player wants to throw a strike for the tone to, for the ball to hit its target. it has to have spin. And so they throw a knuckleball,
Starting point is 00:51:35 your baseball player pitches a ball that has no spin. The thing flies all over the place. Nobody knows where the hell it's going. The catcher doesn't know where it's going. And nobody knows. It's going to miss the mark. So tone is very much like putting spin on a ball. It's essential for it to hit its target.
Starting point is 00:51:57 And so then when you begin to experiment with it and are fascinated by it, curious about it. And you start picking it up different ways. The great comedians. Chris Rock delivers his monologue in a monotone. Nobody's going to laugh. But he starts saying his tone of voice. And it's, then everything hits the mark. So if you're interested in communicating verbally, you start studying tone. You notice tone. And then if you want your words to be effective, and I start realizing a certain tone, just it doesn't matter how nice I said what I said,
Starting point is 00:52:38 or how nice the words were. If my tone was off, it ain't going to land. And so I want to be effective. And so I start to pay attention. And then hostage negotiations and the suicide hotline, they taught us, you know, the downward inflecting, calming tone,
Starting point is 00:52:56 the late-night FM DJ boys. And then I'm doing a training after I understood how powerful that was, psychologists in a room, hypnototherapist comes up to me afterwards. He says, that's exactly the same tone of voice. Hypnotherapists are taught. So I'm like, ooh, there's more to this than meets the eye.
Starting point is 00:53:18 And then the neuroscience starts to kick in. And your response to my tone of voice is a neurochemical response, which means it's not a choice. And if I can trigger neurochemicals in your brain, then you can't stop me from triggering them. Now, you can fight them, but I can initiate the process, which then is why curiosity is impossible to resist,
Starting point is 00:53:49 because my curious tone is going to dissolve your barriers. And whether you like it or not. Yeah, do I get to tell my husband now next time we fight if I don't like tone that it just it's not going to land at all do you ever do you ever say that to windy she's like listen your tone buddy ma'am oh i get i hear about my tone from wendy every now and then windy wendy occasionally gets the real me we joke around uh we refer occasionally to me as her emotional support porcupine actually that's my chris too maybe it's a chris thing it's a chris thing he is literally the best emotional
Starting point is 00:54:31 support animal, but he is a porcupine. Oh, my God, he's going to hate this, but that's true. Okay, so apologies to Wendy, but let's imagine that you're not with your beautiful. By the way, she told me, she wanted me to tell you, and I try to get the specifics out of her, you've got some place where you encourage people that are struggling with their businesses to get help and, you know, sell off assets or write themselves. and she had a cosmetic perfume endeavor with a celebrity social media influencer that didn't do the work. Oh.
Starting point is 00:55:07 Let them down in a big way. And she saw what you had and she took the issue to some advisors. And now not only are they not going to lose money, but she's going to end up putting her investors in a black. So she wanted to thank you for that. Yes. I love hearing that. That's so cool. I got to ping her on that.
Starting point is 00:55:25 You know, what's interesting is I found, and I would be careful. curious your take. One, we didn't learn this stuff. We didn't learn about, we didn't learn negotiation, which is why your book was so important. Then we really didn't learn deal structuring and dealmaking, which is like taking your negotiation tactics and applying the language that is money or finance, okay, dealmaking terms. Two separate skills. Right.
Starting point is 00:55:47 Putting them together. Yeah. And especially for women, we really don't negotiate deals typically as often as our male counterparts. Right. Like I've found by and large, women will be the ones that let the business go down or like, you know, don't want to engage in the really tough conversation that's like, you fucked this up, you didn't do what you said you were going to do. You know, this partnership is not going to work. And obviously it would be better packaged than that.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Yes. But instead of doing that, we just kind of let it slide. And I see it because we have like 3,000 members in our group. And I watch the difference between men and women. And it's a weird female phenomenon that I've seen. So I'm really excited that she did that. She seems like a badass overall. But a lot of women don't do that.
Starting point is 00:56:32 Have you found there's big differences between the way women and men negotiate? Is my little qualitative study at all real in the world? No, it's real. It's, in my view, it's due more to nurture than nature. So little boys, are you getting a dust up when you're a kid? You go home, dad tells you, shake it off, walk it off, go back and kick his ass.
Starting point is 00:56:57 Stand up for yourself, fight. Women are generally nurtured by older women to work on the soft skills. Think about long-term, think of their relationship. So I think the nurturing for women there is to be more hopeful, to be more soft-skilled, more long-term relationship-oriented. So then getting into a world that appears to be combative
Starting point is 00:57:21 and women as generally to be nurtured not to be combative. They have been nurtured into assertion. But then if they can blend assertion with the soft skills, then suddenly they're superstars. And so then how does it get blended? The blending has been picked up most recently in the last decade or two, which I'm delighted to see.
Starting point is 00:57:54 because I'm a last century guy. Last century women were told be one of the guys which would extinguish their femininity and in today's world women are encouraged to retain their femininity in the business world and it's starting to take hold
Starting point is 00:58:17 where they can be very feminine at work. They can be a lawyer Grenier, very feminine. And Laura Gunner is still going to kick your ass. You know, I love it on Shark Tank when in a super sweet way, she tells Mr. Wonderful to shut up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you like her while she's doing it.
Starting point is 00:58:37 Yeah. Which is kind of nice. Yeah, so it's becoming more acceptable to become a badass, somebody like you, as the opportunity hasn't sacrificed a bit of your femininity and being a badass. on the fireside app, the fireside show that I have. Fallen Macbeth, Phile emphatomy.
Starting point is 00:59:04 Younger, badass, female. Very, very feminine. So it's becoming openly encouraged instead of openly discouraged. And so women are still catching up. There aren't as many role models, but the role models are starting to emerge. and like when I'm again Riyadh you know supposedly the Islamic Sharia police and a male dominated culture which was them 15 years ago which you know the current leader MBS says that ain't taking us into the future so at this at this conference if I'm surrounded out in the hall by women of all ethnicities
Starting point is 00:59:45 because they they can't get enough of this and they're being asked in Riyadh to be in implementation, influence, get it done, lead positions. And so they're looking to get into it and they're looking to get it done. They don't want to be jerks. They don't want to be kicking chairs across the table as a default mechanism.
Starting point is 01:00:10 Now, every now and then you've got to kick a chair across the room, but not as your first move. Have you ever actually kicked a chair across the room? No. Throwing one? Not yet. Not yet. You know, well, I'm sure people who work for me have told it, said that they, it felt like it.
Starting point is 01:00:29 Yeah. You know, I remember when I was younger, you're right, I remember the generation of women right before me that were tough. Like, and in a lot of way, I think they had to be. And, you know, and so they were more masculine, more like the other men. Right. And I thought I had to be like that, too. I don't know if Wendy ever went through that, but I, like, cut my hair real short and didn't
Starting point is 01:00:49 wear makeup and wore the suit. and all the things. And it was kind of ridiculous. And it really makes you, like, less endearing in a way because you're like, yeah, bro, what's up? And you're like, don't call me, bro. And so it doesn't feel very real. It's almost like you're lying, but not on purpose.
Starting point is 01:01:06 Yeah, I think so. I think if you're extinguishing part of you to try to fit in, it's a bad idea. And for women that is called for less now, you know, you've got a large audience. and they're not being ridiculed over it. They're not being told me, if somebody tells them to be one of the guys, they were like, yeah, I don't think so.
Starting point is 01:01:28 Yeah, exactly. No, they won't. The other thing that I thought was interesting was, I read this other statistic that instead that there's a study done on a couple big corporations, but across thousands of individuals, that showed that it isn't intelligence as measured by IQ that increases earnings. It's instead that those with higher-ranking emotional intelligence, earn on average 29,000 more than those with lower emotional intelligence?
Starting point is 01:01:56 That's annually. You think it's true? 1,000%. Interesting. So if you have higher emotional intelligence, you could make more money. Yes, and you can cultivate it, and you can learn it, and there's no limit to it. And it's perishable, which means if you don't pay attention to it, it'll go away, but you can rekindle it by paying attention to it.
Starting point is 01:02:18 And by paying attention to it, that just means, like, asking more questions and really wanting to know the answer? Well, being more curious and then also, you know, it's, we call it cold read. Like, I walk into an airport and I'm getting ready to check in at the counter. And the woman behind the counter is not meeting my eyes. I'm next in line. And she's not looking up. She's not looking up.
Starting point is 01:02:44 Finally, she kind of, okay, looks at me. So a very well-intention, but really wrong. approach would be, how are you today? Well, I've seen that she's not good. And if I go, how are you today? I'm telling her that I'm not, I have my own agenda and I'm not paying attention to it.
Starting point is 01:03:05 I walk up instead and I go, tough day. And she'll go, and this has happened. She'll go, no, no. And smile. To me, that's just practice. You know, get out of how are you? today and a little bit more into, it's a tough day. Because you're not going to plan it.
Starting point is 01:03:28 It looks like you're having a good day. You look distracted. You look like something's on your mind. That's practice on your emotional intelligence. And I do it on a regular basis because I know it's perishable. Also, I'm very intentioned about my important phone calls. I don't take a call while I'm driving while I'm walking. I'm sitting and listening, but I might get a call that I've got to take in the airport.
Starting point is 01:03:56 So I'm going to do some cold reads, emotional intelligence, at the TSA guys, at somebody else in line. Because the phone might ring, and it might be somebody that I've been trying to get on the phone for weeks. And I've got to take the call. So you can work on your emotional intelligence in little ways. You work on it with your spouse, your significant other, and say, look, Look, you know, I'm just, I'm trying to be more attentive. So there's all these opportunities to stay sharp. Okay.
Starting point is 01:04:31 When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh. Then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center.
Starting point is 01:04:56 Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series
Starting point is 01:05:16 on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline. and discover actionable solutions to reverse it. And so simple. That doesn't really take much time. Simple stuff. Yeah, it seems like most things in life that have outsized return
Starting point is 01:05:36 are not that complex, which doesn't mean they're not easy, but they're pretty simple. Very good point. And simple is often, if it takes you out of your comfort zone, most people over the age of 25 don't want to get out of the comfort zone. But after 25, if you find that you like it, then out of your comfort zone is where accelerated learning takes place. And if you then understand that, then like, oh, wow, I can get better faster?
Starting point is 01:06:13 I'm in. Yeah. I want to ask you one more question to close out, but I wanted to tell you, too, I meant to tell you last time that I had a bunch of our employees take the quiz at Black Swan, which I thought was so useful for us and for them. Yeah. And so we talked about it a little bit. Yeah, the types.
Starting point is 01:06:30 Yeah, exactly. And so what is the name of the quiz again? It's the three types, three negotiator types. Yeah. And so this really helped me because we hired two new executives that were materially different. Wow. Okay. And I am not always the best with, with, I kind of can get in my lane where I go, I'm doing this, I'm going, and I could not pay attention to cues.
Starting point is 01:06:53 And that really helped me, actually to think about, oh, here's, here's how they, not only negotiate, but just like communicate through life. Yes. So if, if anybody at all is wondering how to get a team to work better, you know, how to understand your partner, I think that quiz is super, super helpful. So that's just at blackswan.com. Yeah, black swanltd.com.
Starting point is 01:07:12 Blackswanlted.d.com. Obviously, Chris Voss and all the socials. I really like the Instagrams that you're doing lately. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, they're my little also reminder of the cues and the things I can do daily to get better at negotiation. Like Chris had a big negotiation yesterday and I saw him be like, Took a big breath beforehand. Very good. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:29 Kind of like reset his adrenal state and then jumped in. Yeah. So I know that's from you. But the last question I wanted to ask you is, do you think that you can be interested in anyone? Like, is there a way to have any human be an interesting conversation and to never be bored when talking to somebody? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:51 I mean, it's kind of, that's the way I delightfully sort of try to go through my life. Yeah, you can. It's if you're interested in where people come from, like I may not like you, but I want to know how you got to how you are. Or I also know if I'm deeply curious in you, there's a really good chance I'm to be able to gain some influence in you. So to me, it's a combination of being both a missionary and a mercenary. So do you ever have a moment where you're meeting with someone? You're like, God, I'm so bored right now in this conversation. And how do you get out of that?
Starting point is 01:08:24 board, if I find somebody whose core values are vastly different than mine, like if they're way into manipulation. What if they just yammer about a bunch of stuff that you don't care about? Like, what if it's like PTA meetings and their dogs and something else that is unimportant to you in this situation? How do you flip your script on that? Well, for me, if my energy level is there to intervene. Like, if I'm tired and I'm burned out.
Starting point is 01:08:54 I don't know if I'm an omnivir or an outgoing introvert, you know, I don't know what it is. So if they're yammering on away, and I just don't have the gas in a tank, I'm not going to fall asleep in front of them, but I'm not going to engage. But if I can rally the energy, then I'm going to be able to get them out of it.
Starting point is 01:09:19 I'm going to, whatever they're yammering on about, there's an interest in there that's probably fast. fascinating. So I'm going to trigger into it. And then also my favorite question these days, let's say they're yammering on about the PTA. I'll probably say, what do you love about the PTA? Now, that's probably going to trigger an instantaneous state change in them and change the conversation. And then I can dig into it deeply. And pretty soon I'm going to find out fascinating stuff about them. Then it's like straight to daddy issues deep. deep talk. Yeah, whatever it might be. You know, ethnic issues, their perception of the world,
Starting point is 01:10:09 you know, how somebody, how the world kicked their ass unfairly. But it's going to change from a boring conversation to an interesting one. If I, if I can rally the energy to do it. I love that. I think that's kind of nice because there's no excuse then to not have a conversation to go to a deeper level with a human. And sometimes I make too many jokes about like, I'm so over small talk. That's pretty lazy on my part. And if I'm skilled enough, I should be able to go deeper than the small talk. Yeah, well, exactly. You can, you can, you can, you can, small talk doesn't do anybody any good, but what's driving a small talk and it's probably fascinating. Yeah. And so let's make the change. I love that. Chris Foster, the man. Thank you very much. I would like to add in a shameless commercial.
Starting point is 01:10:52 Yes, let's do it. All right. So March 17th and 18th, 2025, we're doing a negotiation mastery summit in Louisville. And we ended up in Louisville because actually my company is going to put out a bourbon next year. Get out. I also love Louisville. It is a cool city. We found ourselves tasting bourbon and Louisville and we thought, this got to be a great place to have a conference. Love this. So the purpose, why should anybody go to a two-day conference?
Starting point is 01:11:23 Because you make a quantum leap forward when you immerse yourself. Now, your husband or anybody else that's reading our self. stuff, you know, I'm going to want you to get better incrementally. I'm going to want you to know before negotiation, take a deep breath. You should be constantly working on getting a little bit better each day. But if you're working the skills and you want to, then in two days, you want to make six months of progress. Then you go to a two-day immersion. And we're going to have some cool stuff there. I'm coming. It's going to be enjoyable. I'm going to send some of our team, too. Can anybody come? Absolutely. Okay. I like it. We'll be in,
Starting point is 01:12:00 Louisville, there may be some occasional sampling of bourbon involved. I'm into that, too. We've got to lessen everybody's guards. Where do they go to learn more about it? Black SwanltD.com. And it's going to be, it's a pop up there or something, they'll see it right away. Live in-person event, Louisville. Amazing.
Starting point is 01:12:16 I love that idea. We're going to be there. You're the man. Chris Boss. Thank you so much. Thank you.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.