Huberman Lab - Chris Voss: How to Succeed at Hard Conversations

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Chris Voss. Chris Voss spent more than two decades as an agent with the FBI or federal Bureau of investigation Where he was a lead crisis negotiator and a member of the Joint Terrorist Task Force. Chris is also the author of a phenomenal bestselling book entitled Never Split the Difference. In addition, he has taught courses in negotiation at Harvard, at Georgetown, and at the University

Starting point is 00:00:38 of Southern California. As a world expert in all forms of negotiation, today Chris teaches us about how to hold hard conversations where we are seeking particular outcomes or perhaps where we don't know what the optimal outcome could be. He talks about this in the context of business, in the context of relationships, including romantic relationships, but familial and work relationships as well. And he talks about how we should think about ourselves in the context of negotiations so that we can all arrive at the best possible outcomes.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Indeed, during today's episode, you will learn to pay attention to emotions, not just other people's emotions, but your own emotions. In order to determine whether or not you are processing the information you're hearing accurately and equally important, whether or not you are being heard accurately when you are being heard accurately, when you are in a discussion of any kind, but especially heated discussions.

Starting point is 00:01:29 In addition, we discuss the role of both physical and mental stamina in the context of difficult conversations, negotiations, and decision making. Because in the real world context, oftentimes, those can take place not just within a single conversation, but over the course of several days or even several weeks, months, or years. Chris also teaches us about deception, that is how to determine if somebody is lying by asking particular types of probe questions. Thanks to Chris Voss's both breadth and depth of expertise in the negotiation process that he gleaned during his more than two-decade service in the FBI, as well as his generosity in sharing that information. By the end of today's episode, you will have an excellent understanding of what the negotiation process is really all about

Starting point is 00:02:13 and how to better carry out those negotiations so that they can best serve you and others. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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Starting point is 00:03:35 Again, that's plunge.com slash Huberman for $150 off. Today's episode is also brought to us by Roca. Roca makes eye glasses and sunglasses that are the absolute highest quality. I've spent a lifetime working on the biology, the visual system, and I can tell you that your visual system has to contend with an enormous number of challenges in order for you to be able to see clearly

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Starting point is 00:04:40 and I suggest that you do the same. If you'd like to try Roka Eye Glasses or sunglasses, you can go to rocaroca.com and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's rocaroca.com and enter the code Huberman at checkout. And now for my conversation with Chris Voss. Chris Voss, welcome. Andrew Pleasure, man. I've been wanting to talk to you on record for a while. You are quite the, what we call, in science, end of one when somebody is a true sample size of one. I realize that yes, you are because you have this incredible skill set

Starting point is 00:05:21 from your time in the FBI. But you also have an incredible understanding and knowledge of how to communicate about that skill set from your time in the FBI. But you also have an incredible understanding and knowledge of how to communicate about that skill set so that people can clean useful information from it. You are also the guy that I text or call every once in a while and I've run myself into a jam or when I think I might be in a jam and I won't reveal details, but you tell me whether not things are okay. And fortunately, the last couple of times I reached out, you said, you're good. So thank you. I always happen to help, man.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Thank you. Well, I have a lot of questions today, but what I'd like to start off talking about is negotiations take many forms, but if we could break those down into their broad categories, that will be useful. But before we do that, I want to know about the mindset that you have when you go into a negotiation and whether or not there are any practices, I realize it has been in this

Starting point is 00:06:15 profession a long time and so perhaps became reflexive to you at some point. But all of us at some point are going to go into negotiations, business negotiations, relationship negotiations, et cetera. Is there a process of getting one's mind and body right for a negotiation, shifting from more listening and less talking? Are there any tools that you use on the regular that could be useful for us to keep in mind as we extend into the different categories of negotiations and ways to approach those negotiations. And it can be a couple of different, first of all, just trying to figure out

Starting point is 00:06:53 what's really going on is the real issue and then how can I get an approach where most likely to get the best possible outcome? So there's always more than meets to eye. And there's a certain few cliches, but the real issue is, there's always a better deal or there's no deal at all. So first of all, my first thing is I want to find out whether or not there's a deal at all or whether or not it's a bad deal. And then I'm going to walk away really fast because those are going to be complete waste of time.

Starting point is 00:07:32 It's not a sin to not get the deal. It's just to take a long time to not get the deal. Well, it's a sin to take a long time to get a bad deal. So, you know, I want to know, I'm going to try to figure out real quick whether or not is there a cut through it on the other side of the table as somebody I could trust. I'm getting, I'm leaning a little more inclined to dealing with the difficult people now as long as I don't give in. So I got to, I want to diagnose early on what the possibilities are. Now if I'm curious, if I'm actually interested. Now another aspect of the mindset is, if I'm in a great mood,

Starting point is 00:08:08 like if I'm just gonna be playful, a couple of really huge personal negotiation wins recently, was when I was just trying to be playful. I mean, I was in a great mood, and I'm joking around. And great negotiation is not exciting, it's astonishing. I'm in a, we're in conversations right now with a possible non-scripted TV show. And so I was telling the producers,

Starting point is 00:08:36 you know, this ain't gonna be real housewives for to make this show properly. They ain't gonna be any screaming, it's not gonna be bar rescue or re-ealing to people.'s not going to be bar rescue or re-ealing with people. We're not going to be health kitchen or re-ealing with people. It's never going to be exciting, but it is going to be astonishing. Like you'll get outcomes where suddenly you find yourself

Starting point is 00:08:56 in a place like, what in the world? How did that just happen? And so I lose a suitcase in an airport the other day. And I'm walking into a lost luggage place. And I'm in a great mood because I'm home and I'm happy to be home. And I'm going to get a good night's sleep. And even though it's late in the day, I'm just happy.

Starting point is 00:09:19 And I get ready to walk into the lost luggage store where these people are better children. Like they expect you they know that you expect them to wave a magic wand and poof your luggage is going to be there. So for whatever reason that's what I say when I walk in the doors young lady says how can I help you? Well first of all how you could help me is obvious because I'm in a lost luggage there's only one reason I'm in here. So that's kind of a silly question. And I go, I need you to wave a magic wand. And she just laughs and she looks at me.

Starting point is 00:09:52 She ends up walking me out to the carousel, climbing up on the carousel, and she walks down a ramp the luggage comes out of. And I guarantee you they're not supposed to do that. And she sticks her head and she looks around, she comes back out and I've never seen any of these people leave the office, let alone walk back to the carousel. And she says, wait here.

Starting point is 00:10:12 And she disappears into the bowels of the airport, which looks like a super highway down there, right? Like God knows what it looks like on an easy airport. And pretty soon the carousel starts up again. And my bag and another bag pops out this other porch mockess in there waiting. And I'm like, I have never seen anybody do this ever. Like normally they say, here's a number we'll call you in 24 hours. It might show up at your house. And I look around at the, there's another young lady there and

Starting point is 00:10:43 I say, you know, please tell her, thank you for me, I got to go because she doesn't come back out for like almost 10 minutes. And on my way out, she comes out the door and she high-fies me and she says, how does that for waver a magic wand? And that was the magic phrase and I never would have said it to her if I wasn't playful in a moment And I've got a couple of others like when I was just playful and I'm joking with people

Starting point is 00:11:11 Almost at my expense. It's shocking astonishing Where you can get people to do if you if you hit them the right way So interesting. I wonder what it tapped into but it sounds like it might have tapped into her sense that everybody's always asking me for a magic wand kind of ability, but finally somebody just said it directly and that would be kind of fun to actually play that role because normally they're restricted to their keyboard and their phone. Yeah. You know, I love that. On the opposite side of that spectrum, if ever you're feeling tense, stress, jet lag, angry, I can think about negotiations where people are

Starting point is 00:11:52 trying to keep their egos in check. They wanna be right, their breakups, negotiations, there's not necessarily romantic breakups that could include that, but also professional breakups, the dissolution of a contract or something like that. Do you ever have to check yourself?

Starting point is 00:12:11 Like, okay, I need to, I mean, I imagine being calm is better than not being calm for most all things. Do you have a process of doing that? You seem like a pretty steady guy. I've never seen you Overall I'm pretty steady um well The late night FM DJ voice that I'm not sure that I coined the phrase, but kind of famous for

Starting point is 00:12:41 To calm you down also comes me down So if I get bent out of shape or to calm you down also calms me down. So if I get bent out of shape, I will, and a conversation gets heated, I'll switch into that voice with the intention of calming you down because that's the hostage to go share his voice. But it'll calm me down too, like intentionally going to that voice, tamps down the negative

Starting point is 00:13:07 emotions which convinced make me dumber in the moment, interfere with my capacity to process information. Got reasons for that. Laman's reasons. No scientific academically rigorous studies that have been in any journals. Well, after you're done, I'm going to tell you something that will perhaps be astonishing to you as to why there's real neuroscience behind that late-night FM DJ voice having an impact on other people's brains. But yeah, and I'll do that because it calms me down. Now, if I can make this shift, the hard part is to shift into a positive mindset. If I can make that shift, but I can only make it

Starting point is 00:13:47 from a calm voice. I also think it's the emotions are kind of a rock paper scissors sequence. I don't think you can go from sadness to elation directly. Sad, depressed, down. I think there's something to getting angry to pull you out of sadness. And I think if you're angry, you've got to go to calm next. And so, but if I can get out of anger and go to calm, then I can say something to myself.

Starting point is 00:14:17 Like, the reality is, this is a luxury problem. Or I was in a negotiation with a counterpart that I knew was deceiving lying to me. And I remember saying to myself, you know, I'm lucky to be in this negotiation. I mean, they wouldn't be trying to hustle me if we weren't really good. If we didn't have a product that was phenomenal. I wouldn't be targeted at all. So I'm actually lucky to be in this conversation. So if I can make that next shift emotionally, then I'm good.

Starting point is 00:14:48 The hard part is making those shifts. I'm gonna just share with you what I learned recently about sound and emotion. I'm researching an episode on music and the brain. Fascinating topic, believe it or not, there's a lot known. And the auditory system has this property where of course there are neurons and nerve cells that respond to different frequencies of sound.

Starting point is 00:15:12 Low frequency, deeper tones and high frequency, squeals and that sort of thing. Okay, that's pretty straightforward. Just like we have neurons that respond to different colors or different angles of light in the room. But what I learned, and I confirmed with a good friend of mine, who is an auditory neuroscientist and neurosurgeons named Zeti Cheng, who was a guest on this podcast previously, is that low frequency sounds of the sort that your voice is, that late night FMDJ voice, are

Starting point is 00:15:48 responded to in the brain by neurons, no surprise there. But the frequency that those neurons fire is also low frequency. In other words, when you speak in your low voice, right. The other person's brain hears that and starts firing in a low frequency tone. In other words, it entrains to your voice, not just the timing, but it's actually like you're essentially playing an emotional piano down in the low keys of their mind. Now, when you go up to the high frequencies, the neurons can't follow that high frequency. So there's something special about low frequency sound that actually changes the emotional tone of the people that hear that low frequency sound. This is wild, right? I mean,

Starting point is 00:16:39 of course the content of the words matters too, but anyway, there's real neuroscience to support the voice that you were endowed with and that you employed for your work. Well, then, and then also the point then too, is it's not, the other side's not making a choice. It's an involuntary reaction. That's right. This is not something one can override,

Starting point is 00:16:57 except by perhaps plugging their ears. Right, right. If they're hearing that, their mind is getting shifted toward a state of low-frequency oscillation, which is one of more calm. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's a real thing.

Starting point is 00:17:12 And we're you to have a high squeaky chipmunks voice. You might not have been the negotiator. You would all know that. Who knows? Maybe there'd be another tactic there. I mean, I think back to the, I guess it was during one of the Gulf War campaigns, whether they, weren't they trying to squeeze out Saddam and some of his people by playing like Millie Vanillee at high volume for hours and hours?

Starting point is 00:17:36 Is that tactic actually used? So that was Panama when they were trying to get Noriega out of his country. I'm only a few, I'm only a few countries over. I had no emotion. I got the truth. I was telling you before, the wacky, yet fascinating, useless information around terrorism and stuff like that. I tried that at Panama.

Starting point is 00:17:57 And for whatever, the military guys, they were playing music and sounds. And then also among the many stupid things that the FBI did at Waco, and late at night they tried that in the Waco compound too. And it was just, there was one of the things that the hostage negotiators were adamantly against, adamantly against, but they got overruled by Aouncing Command among the many stupid things that would done at Waco. That was also done at Waco. It was stupid. It's counterproductive. Hostess and Oshators were always

Starting point is 00:18:30 against it. So for those that you don't remember Waco, Waco is branched dividends, David Kuresh, right? Right. Yeah, there was a Netflix series that was out about it recently that's fair about how I went down. Yeah, sad ending. He eventually set the building ablaze, killed himself and everybody else. And have people inside set the building on fire?

Starting point is 00:18:52 Yeah, including a lot of children. Including some children. So there's some FBI agents that have still not gotten over that. I'd like to talk about some different types of negotiations. Oftentimes, I think, because you're a former FBI negotiator at a terrorist task force, this kind of thing, tend to focus on the negative negotiations, right? Get the hostages away. And we'll talk about that stuff.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Breakups, business deals that have gone wrong, people lying, cheating. What about negotiations that have gone wrong, people lying cheating. What about negotiations that are benevolent? Let's say that two people want to come to a true win-win around, you know, what they each see to be their best interest in, let's say, friendship. Two friends taking a trip together, vacation. Who's gonna pay for what? Who's gonna pay upfront?

Starting point is 00:19:44 People gonna pay each other back. Or romantic relationship. Two people are considering, you know, fusing finances to some extent, or moving in together. What sorts of questions should people be asking themselves prior to those negotiations? In particular, is it very important that people know exactly what they want going into a negotiation? In particular, is it very important that people know exactly what they want going into a negotiation? Or I can recall many times when I've gone into life circumstances knowing I wanted a certain set of feelings or outcomes, but not being extremely specific about, you know, I want this salary, I want to live in a West facing house on this particular location. You know, an exploration of potentials, I think can also take the form of negotiation.

Starting point is 00:20:29 So how should people think about approaching benevolent negotiations, like we're not talking about something tragic happening if it doesn't go through? It might hurt, it might be a little bit high friction, but let's talk about how to get to a win-win. Yeah, well there's a couple interesting things there. First of all, you know, the phrase win-win,

Starting point is 00:20:51 because win-win is just great collaboration. I mean, in point of fact, it should be win-win, which might only be emotional win-win. Now, the phraseology win-win, I know that if someone opens a negotiation with me and they say, right up the bat, look, I want to do a win-win deal with you, that correlates extremely highly with someone who's trying to pick my pocket. So, if you use that phrase in the first five minutes, I already know where you're coming from. You're trying to get me to draw my guards. You win, I lose.

Starting point is 00:21:28 So, and this came up on Instagram post I put up recently, which is essentially watch out for the person that says win, win. Now, I didn't say win, win is bad. I said watch out for the person that says it. Also, you've got to be cautious if you like some of the win-win mindset, then people set themselves up to just get slaughtered. By the person who's expressing a desire for win-win and looking to pick their pocket.

Starting point is 00:21:58 Like, if I feel win-win in my heart, you go, let's do a win-win deal. If I want to watch it, I'm like, okay, what do you want? And then I find myself giving away the store. So there's a lot behind the win-win phraseology that you have to have a complete understanding of. In point of fact, both sides should feel good about the outcome and isn't that the definition of win-win? Well, kind of sort of, but it's how they feel about, more than really what they got.

Starting point is 00:22:27 So, in a benevolent negotiation among friends, where are we going to go to eat, where are we going on vacation, what are we going to take. People really just want to be heard out, more than anything else, which operationally seems to be, I don't understand how it's going to make any difference. It makes all the difference in the world. And what's the best way for somebody to feel hurt out? Well, I'm going to start out by telling you, describing to you, not telling you, but describing to you what my best guess is on your perspective.

Starting point is 00:23:04 Because it's really calibrating me, actually finding out what your position is. And the only way I can find out what your position actually is, I'm gonna increase you telling me if I start taking a guess at it first, because you're immediately right away, you're immediately gonna tell me either I'm right or I'm wrong. You're gonna correct me.

Starting point is 00:23:24 Correction is a satisfying thing to do. And you're gonna be much more candid with me if you're correct than me than if I'm asking you. So I'll, and you'll feel good about correcting me. So it's gonna, there's all these great emotional lubricants to me getting you to correct me. So I'm gonna start out by saying like, here's what I think you're thinking.

Starting point is 00:23:47 Here's how I think your approach in this is what I think you're wanting out of this. Not what you should be, but what you probably are based on your perspective. And that's gonna accelerate the conversation exponentially. Like it's ridiculous how much faster things are going to go. And then it becomes both an information gathering and a report building process simultaneously instead of separately, which is what makes this approach faster even though it seems

Starting point is 00:24:15 more indirect. So if we're getting ready to, let's say you and I got to take a car trip to San Francisco from here. And I'm going to say, all right, so my guess is, you wanna take the most direct route because you hate wasting time. And you're probably gonna say to me, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Starting point is 00:24:33 I wanna go up the Pacific Coast Highway because this beautiful stretch of country, I like, I realize it's gonna be a waste of time if we go up the Pacific Coast because we gotta jump off it at some point, but I really wanna see the scenery. You would have, I've taken a guess of what you want, if we go up to Pacific coast because we gotta jump off it at some point, but I really wanna see the scenery. I've taken a guess of what you want,

Starting point is 00:24:48 and you're gonna come back real quick and correct me. And then maybe I'm thinking time on the trip, but I've forgotten how beautiful it is to roll up the coast. And so when you throw that out, I'll be like, oh yeah, it is a beautiful ride. And we might not get into the shot. I'm like, who knows what's going to happen. So yeah, now that we're having a conversation I'd rather run up the Pacific Coast Highway before we go inland and make the trip. And

Starting point is 00:25:18 that's how we get to, we collaborate for a better outcome, maybe a better idea than what I had in mind in the first place. I love that because what you just described is hypothesis testing. Yes. It's the way scientists are training you up. Many people don't know this, but they teach us in science not to ask questions,

Starting point is 00:25:37 but to start with a question like, you know, how does the brain develop or something? And then you say a hypothesis. And you test hypotheses, and then you figure out they're right or wrong, and that takes you through a set of decision trees, and you eventually get it what you hope is some core truth. And then hopefully others arrive there as well,

Starting point is 00:25:55 and you get a consensus. So I love the idea of hypothesis testing. In fact, when you said, take the most direct route from where we are now in Los Angeles to San Francisco. I like to take one on one, not the five, the five is faster. So I mean, I think, but I like one on one. First of all, there are a couple of really great taco and hamburger spots along the way that I used to stop with my bulldog. And yet also you get to see the coast and it makes those extra two hours completely worth it. And so you're exactly right in that working through the decision

Starting point is 00:26:27 tree doesn't necessarily mean presuming that the hypothesis is right. It sounds like you be equally okay with the hypothesis being wrong because really what you're trying to do is just learn. And in learning, setup, setup this collaboration. I love that. A couple of things. First of all, when you talk about hypothesis, when my son Brandon was involved in a company he's on his own now, but he used to always say hypothesis, test your hypothesis. He always used that term. And then even now, like if we were talking about it and you just said, you knew some hot

Starting point is 00:27:00 dog and hamburger places, I'd be like, holy cow. I didn't even know that. Yeah, I wanna check those places out. So that's how you discover new stuff in a conversation. I love it. And also, I'm sure people are noting to not say the words win-win when approaching any kind of negotiation. What do you think it is about those little catch phrases that signal lack of authenticity or trustworthiness. Because you could imagine

Starting point is 00:27:26 that somebody, you know, I come to you and say, you know, hey, Chris, like, let's, I don't know, let's do some collaborative thing for social media, for podcasts. And this is going to be a win-win for both of us. Now I know it would never say that with you, but you could imagine that somebody really means that. But for you, it sounds like it's a flag that they're trying to pull one over. It correlates really strongly with the people that are definitely trying to cut your throat. And I've had to admit that to me candidly. Amazing.

Starting point is 00:27:55 I'll be, I've experienced it. Like if somebody throws win-win out early to me, I'll say, all right, I think I know where this is going, but let me explore it. And they'll say, yeah, you know, this great opportunity for you. That's another top. And we're gonna put you in a room with all these billionaires and there's gonna be all this opportunity for you if you just come in and speak.

Starting point is 00:28:19 And, you know, we don't have a budget. Well, I've gotten that one before. Yeah. The famous, the famous, the world were just workout in your favor because it's going to work out in my favor. Right. Exactly, right.

Starting point is 00:28:32 Exactly. I've been on the receiving end of those offers many in time, fascinating. Conversely, what sorts of openers do you think establish the best rapport and benevolent discovery of a topic? Well, what I'm seeing correlates real strongly with people I want to do business with.

Starting point is 00:28:52 If they figured out something that they know is valuable for me and they've just done it and they've just offered it, like right off the bat, no strings attached. They found a way to drop something on me that's valuable. They didn't approach me with their hand out. They approached me with some sort of generosity. Like, of, of, friend of mine, Joe Polish runs this outfit called Genius Network. Joe, believe he says, life gives to the giver. I joked that a bunch of favors for me before I ever joined. And he was trying to help me out and get my book sold and he asked me to come in and speak and he'd done, he'd

Starting point is 00:29:33 emphasize my book on his podcast and in different conversations. And I, you know, I finally paid the fee to join because he had done so much for me. Like, there's not much Joe could ask me for right now because he's done so much for me that he gets a blanket pretty much yes right away. What do you want? What do you need? Because he's just generous. And the generosity approach, universally, I'm seeing a lot of really successful people that lead by generosity. And so if you start out that, you know, if you give me a five-star review of the book on Amazon, no strings attached or anything, like that goes a long, long way to somebody who wants to

Starting point is 00:30:16 establish a long-term relationship, a collaboration. When I first opened my laboratory in 2011, I had a technician at the time who had been a technician for a lot of years. And there's this culture and science of people borrowing things from laboratories and not giving them back or breaking them. These can be little things like a small instrument or a four-seps, but as a student or a postdoc, these are the things that you covet, like a really nice para-four-seps. It's like a great thing.

Starting point is 00:30:46 You drop them once, they're not good anymore, by the way. It's like they're, they're, they're, you get to treat them with respect. Surgical tools have to be treated with respect. These are very fine instruments. And people used to come by our lab all the time and borrow stuff from us. And he'd always lend it out.

Starting point is 00:31:01 And I was like, what are you doing? But anytime I went to go borrow something, he'd say, do not borrow anything from anybody else because then we're going to owe them. Right now everybody owes us everything. And I was like, you're running up our budget, giving away these instruments. They come back with the four steps, dent in and so he said, just trust me. This is the way to do it. And I don't recall ever, quote, unquote, caching in on any of that. But he was exactly right. When I eventually decided to move institutions,

Starting point is 00:31:26 we'd given away so much, and we'd asked for so very little, maybe nothing, that, you know, when you leave a place, typically there can be a little bad blood. And all we got was, sorry to see you go, kind of stuff. Had it been me, I would have been in a kind of an exchange about we asked for things, we give things, you know, it's kind of a neighborhood.

Starting point is 00:31:45 I grew up in a neighborhood where you'd borrow eggs or milk from the neighbor, remember those days. I don't know if people do that any longer. But I think it falls well into what you're describing that, you know, when you just do things for people out of goodness, then, you know, sure, you sort of have a history where you could return to that they owe you, but there's also just something good about just doing things out of goodness and also not asking for so much and expecting people to provide that. So I love that and I actually, I love providing good reviews for things I like.

Starting point is 00:32:21 You know, on the phone when, when you know the airline that we don't do the same where we book our own flights but anytime I get help on the phone and you know if it's really great help I'll say how can I help and they'll say oh it would mean a lot if you would send an email to this to my business just saying I did a great job or something. And I actually really enjoy doing that. So I love the points you're making because they're very actionable. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that's designed to meet all of your foundational

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Starting point is 00:33:29 try AG1, go to drinkag1.com slash huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash Hubertman. Shifting slightly into the more, let's call them high friction negotiations or the types of negotiations where there is the potential for a truly bad outcome. Right. I know you've been asked this before, but some of our listeners are going to be learning about you

Starting point is 00:34:00 for the first time. Do you recall of the many negotiations that you did while in the FBI, any one particular negotiation that felt like, if this doesn't work out, this is really catastrophic. And would you be willing to share that with us? Well, I learned, you know, they tried to teach this early on

Starting point is 00:34:24 that not everything's going to work out. And the second negotiation I had in the Philippines, the first one, young man named Jeff Shelling, was grabbed by Teres Group, Abu Saif, and he ended up walking away. We stole the bad guys long enough that we just, you know, sometimes if you can slow it down, you'll wait for something good to fall out of the sky. And it will. And that ended up happening in that case. And a bad guy ends up calling the negotiator that I coached on a phone after it was over

Starting point is 00:35:00 to basically tell them that they still had a good relationship. It was nuts. Why does a bad guy called the negotiator, the responsible friend losing everything, and say, you know, you did a good job, which is exactly what happened. So we rolled into a case, and I hadn't had anything go bad at that point in time.

Starting point is 00:35:23 A very nice case, a Burnham-Siberal case, by a different faction of the terrorist group, 13 months later, ends up in two of the three remaining hostages, Sean Killed by Friendly Fire. Along the way, hostages have been executed, American have been executed early on, and it was a train wreck and

Starting point is 00:35:46 Lots of people got killed all along the way and just really ridiculous bad things happening and that that was bad all the way through So learned you know learned a lot from it Went back and checked everything we did and we didn't do anything wrong, that we felt based on our strategy didn't miss anything, and that was why I ended up going collaborating with the guys at Harvard, because my reaction was, if we did everything we know how to do,

Starting point is 00:36:16 and it wasn't enough, that means we're not smart enough, we got to get better. And so that case taught me a lot about the dynamics that really happened on the other side and the difference between you know whether not people are really on your side the US government was not highly collaborative the Philippine government was not highly collaborative that everybody wanted to get their pound of flesh out of the other out of the other side

Starting point is 00:36:44 I mean just everything bad that you can imagine. Early on when Geron-Mosabarro was murdered by the Abu Sayyaf, it was a national holiday in the Philippines. And the bad guys had a history of killing people on national holidays. And we weren't front of Philippines, and we no idea that that day was a national holiday. And we showed up at Philippine National Police headquarters in Manila and it was closed. Now we got an ongoing hostage case with bad guys, threatening to kill hostages, and we show up at the gates and the gates are closed and we're like, what the hell's going on here?

Starting point is 00:37:25 It was a national holiday, nobody's working today. I'm like, first of all, nobody told us that. Secondly, I don't think the bad guys really care that it's the National Holiday, nobody's working. Our negotiator's nowhere to be found. We got a guy there that the previous negotiator we worked with, Philippine National Police, was not that happy that they didn't have him under complete control, so they give us a guy that will not tell us anything

Starting point is 00:37:51 until after he's told them. So he's having conversations with the bad guys, and we're actually hearing about him secondhand. He didn't show up that day. And then, of course, that day, the bad guys' announcer gonna kill a hostage and give it as a gift to the country of the Philippines because it's a holiday. And then they go, oh, by the way,

Starting point is 00:38:11 they like doing this on holidays. And so, and, and, Germes and Burr, ended up getting his head cut off with the, because of all the warring factions on our side of the table, not telling each other what else going on. So I had assumed at that point in time that people would tell us the stuff we need to know,

Starting point is 00:38:32 we didn't need to ask. And after that, I got like, look, there ain't nothing here that I don't need to know. I don't, if it's a holiday, it's coming up, then you assume I know, you got to tell us. So really learned a lot about collaboration on our side of the table and also the lack of collaboration on the other side of the table. Just because we're mess, doesn't mean they got their act together and the bad guys didn't have their act together.

Starting point is 00:38:55 And ultimately the hostages, one of the reasons someone didn't come out because internally they had double crossed each other. So learned a lot about what really fundamental human nature dynamics are on teams. And your team has not got its act together, and the other team does not either. So what can you do as a communicator to make up for that? Really learned a lot about that in that case. I had cases subsequent to that,

Starting point is 00:39:20 involving Al Qaeda when Al Qaeda was killing people on a regular basis. But we saw those coming, and we did everything we could do to keep the train from smashing into us. You see a train coming down the tracks. You know it's coming down the tracks, and you do the best you can to derail it, and sometimes you can't.

Starting point is 00:39:40 I've heard it said that when people take somebody captive that they either want their money, their body, or their life, or some combination of those. Yeah, that's probably one of those three. Yeah, that's very true. And as the negotiator trying to rescue the hostage, Is it important to identify early on which of those three or which all of those three thereafter, like how serious they are? Are they willing to actually kill the hostage?

Starting point is 00:40:13 Are they, you know, will they go for any amount of money above X number of dollars? Right, right. Chad, figure out their threshold, right? I mean, because the person is on the other side is gambling, right? They're gambling figure out their threshold, right? I mean, because the person on the other side is gambling, right? They're gambling their freedom, they're gambling their reputation with whoever their reputation matters to.

Starting point is 00:40:32 Is it important to get into the mindset of the person you're negotiating with quickly using the hypothesis generating method? And if so, could you give an example of how that played out in your previous work? Yeah, the indicators are really there. I mean, once you sort of lose your illusions about how you think things should play out,

Starting point is 00:41:00 then the patterns of behavior are generally pretty quick and clear. And just because you don't like the patterns, like with Al Qaeda, we recognize the patterns. And knowing what they are doesn't mean you can change what they are. And Al Qaeda in 2004's time frame was very clear about killing people on deadline. And we had to recognize that. So there becomes a pattern of behavior and it's usually specificity in what they say.

Starting point is 00:41:29 And this is all human nature. Like if you're in a business negotiation and they say, you know, we're gonna do something horrible here. You know, we're gonna walk out. You know, that's fairly non-specific. And if they say, look, if we don't get this by this specific deadline, if we don't get these specific things met

Starting point is 00:41:51 by this specific time, that's pretty specific. That's its specificity. You're looking for it. I learned to look for it in kidnapping negotiations. We're working a case again in the Philippines. And a bad guy say, if we don't get a ransom for the son, 17 year old boy, at the time his kidnaped,

Starting point is 00:42:10 you tell his father he's gonna lose an egg. And that's a euphemism for losing a child. And early on, when that threat came through on our side of the table, everybody's like, oh my God, they're gonna kill him. This is really bad. We gotta make sure the family can pay the ransom. I'm like, no, no, no, no.

Starting point is 00:42:28 It didn't say when it was gonna happen. They didn't say how was gonna happen. They didn't say who was gonna do it. You know the basic specificity of who, what, when and where? Like they left themselves and out here, a very clear out. And we never said we were gonna do it. We never said when it was gonna happen. We never said, which child?

Starting point is 00:42:48 You know what, they're just trying to scare you, throwing out something vague. I said, we got plenty of time to play with this. We got to push this all the way through the process and to the end. Now later on in that case, when the family tried to deliver a ransom and it was screwed up by

Starting point is 00:43:05 God knows who the bad guys came up back on the phone and they said if we don't get paid tomorrow your son dies and I said all right now that's specific and these guys sound like they mean it and so we're gonna have to make sure this thing goes down tomorrow or that's the end of this kid. And at that point in time, we allowed the family, we were in a position to allow or disallow. We were in a position to offer thoughts and our thoughts were they mean it now

Starting point is 00:43:41 and you need to do something now or likely something bad is going to happen. And now that they're this serious because you always got to worry about what we used to refer to as a double dip. So they take the money and then and they come back and say, nah, that was a down payment. That wasn't the ransom. That was just a down payment. You got to make sure you don't get double dipped if you let the family pay. And you got to give them your honest opinion as to whether I'm thinking on the hostage. Go if you pay now. And our thoughts were, you pay them tomorrow your son's coming out and he did. The double dip is a scary thing to hear about. At a much lower level, meaning more minor level,

Starting point is 00:44:28 people sometimes get shaken down online. You know, like their password will get taken. There are people everywhere who go for the click on this link, you know, you get a text message. You know, we've identified that your account has, you know, been changed, verify, you click on the link, takes you someplace where you put in your login and password and boom, it's gone.

Starting point is 00:44:47 And then they try and sell it back to you, typically through cryptocurrency, because it's not traceable. By the way, those negotiations can be a lot of fun, I feel how to them. Well, I'm hoping that our discussion about this now is going to save some people, the trouble of having their account hacked.

Starting point is 00:45:03 I've known people who've had their account hacked. And these are some smart people. But what's interesting is that I've also observed those situations where somebody gets to the point where they say, you know, I'm just gonna give them what they want. And I remember in this one particular instance, saying, no, no, no, do not give them the money

Starting point is 00:45:20 because then they're just gonna say, they want more. There's no guarantee that they're gonna give you back what you want and why would they? If you think about it, why would they? The money funnels in and like they just can pivot and go to the next thing. So how do you gain confidence that you are likely to be double dipped or not?

Starting point is 00:45:41 Well, first of all, I gotta find out if they're in a position to carry out the threat or if there are any sort of legitimate position to begin with, for lack of a better term, it's proof of life. And there are a lot of people that are trying to scam you, but they don't really have the ability to scam you. So you got to find out, you know, do some confirmation. Do they have access to your account? Do they have your data? Do they have your account? Do they have your data?

Starting point is 00:46:05 Do they have your money? Do they have it in a position or they're just trying to make you believe that they have that position of influence on you? There are a lot of bad guys out there that are just rolling in a dice, styling for dollars, if you will. And if they don't scam you when they have no leverage on you,

Starting point is 00:46:22 they'll find somebody else that'll give in. So there's a bit of authenticity, or are they in a position to do it? And the same rule applies in any negotiation. The other side is going to give in when they feel like they've gotten everything they can. Kidnappers, I'd be asked by an ambassador, asked by an FBI commander, when's it's going to be over? When the bad guys feel like they've gotten everything they could, not when they did, but when they felt like they did. So our job is just making them feel it sooner. So how hard do you make it innocently on the other side?

Starting point is 00:47:04 Everybody wants to feel like they did a, they got a good days pay for a good day's work. So, if you let them feel like they're in charge, and you make them work, by asking them innocent how and what questions, which are very hard and fatiguing to answer, then you're gonna get to the point where you're gonna get a solid outcome which are very hard and fatiguing to answer, then you're gonna get to the point where you're gonna get a solid outcome

Starting point is 00:47:29 where you don't get doubled dipped and they're gonna be happy that it's over because they felt like they got everything they could. It could be your data, it could be your bank account, it could be anything. The other side is gonna be satisfied with the outcome when they feel like they've worked for it. And business negotiations, you're selling your car is going to be satisfied with the outcome when they feel like they worked for it.

Starting point is 00:47:45 And business negotiations, you're selling your car and you put a price tag on your car. And the guy walks up to you and says, I'll give you a full amount right now. What's your reaction? I should ask for more. Maybe I won't sell my car. Every human interaction the other side wants to feel like that they earned what they got. And so the idea of empathy and hostage negotiations

Starting point is 00:48:12 is really just to make them feel that sooner. We're gonna come back to empathy because it's such a big and important topic. But I've heard it said before that if somebody, you don't know, but maybe you also, somebody you know, places a real sense of urgency on, you know, need the money now. Or I need you to do something right away or else, not a threat of physical violence. But that any request for expediting something is a red flag that

Starting point is 00:48:47 It's likely to be a scam You know very seldom if you need to click on the link within 24 hours, right? I mean how could that possibly be right that but we but that's one way in which people are exploited. Yep That some requests come as in by phone or by or by email or text or maybe even person. Somebody says, you know, you need to do this right now or else something bad is going to happen. Capture people's sense of urgency. Get them to make a mistake. And then they're left reeling because that request for something right now or else I think hits a fundamental nerve in us. Yeah. They want to help, they'll be a rescuer.

Starting point is 00:49:26 Right. So is that a good rule of thumb for people to keep in mind? To not... I think that's a great rule of thumb. I mean, a friend of mine, somebody got to hold his phone number not that long ago. And I was getting taxed from his number. So I like, look man, I got some real problems.

Starting point is 00:49:44 Look, I need some money from you number. So I like, look man, I got some real problems. Look, I need some money from you now. It was a friend. The friend's number. And I remember when I first saw it, actually when I first saw it, it was really busy and I felt bad that I didn't get back to him that day. And then I didn't hear from him again. And so I thought, well, whatever was, you worth it out. So a couple of weeks later, I get the text again. You got a real problem. You got to get back to me right now. So a couple of weeks later, I get the text again. You got a real problem, you got to get back to me right now. So I'm, I decided, if it's really my buddy, I am gonna help him right now. I got to make sure it's really my buddy.

Starting point is 00:50:17 And I said, hey man, you know, you didn't raise this at all last time I saw him in Vegas, because I'd seen him in Vegas recently. And he's like, yeah, you know, I was busy, I couldn't bring it up. And something like, all right, so there's no direct confirmation of denial. We had breakfast together in Vegas.

Starting point is 00:50:36 So then I shoot back, I say like, and man, I gotta tell you something, that was such a crazy night. And I still owe you money from them. So, you know, that night when we were gambling, I still owe you money. I'm happy to help. Now, it wasn't a crazy night.

Starting point is 00:50:50 It was breakfast and I didn't owe money. And his next response was like, yeah, don't worry about it. You know, you can make that up to me with this. So I'm like, all right, cool. So now I start making stuff up. And I said, you know, and when we were with those strippers and that dog and the clown and the pony, I'll never get over that. And so now the guys, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 00:51:14 And I said, by the way, and then I started throwing in some stuff about his wife and his mother. And the guy got an insult and called me names and stopped texting me. And then I sent all those text messages to the real guy, including what I'd said about his mother. And he texted me back. He's got a great sense of humor. He says, by the way, my mom does think you're attractive.

Starting point is 00:51:35 Oh, man. But I started it all by just checking the source. If it was my friend, I would have helped them immediately. And I need to throw something at him that's going to confirm that it's him. And then I'm there for him. But I'm also going to have put a little bit of a curve in there that if he doesn't catch, I know it's a con. And then I'm going to have fun with it. Incredible knowledge that people will hear this and they might think, oh, you know, that's never gonna happen to me.

Starting point is 00:52:07 But like I said, I've known family members and friends who they make the mistake. They take the bait of clicking on the link and then now they're getting the shake down. Actually, a good friend of mine said that her parents called at some point, her parents probably in their late 70s now, someone had called their house and told them that their child, this woman had been kidnapped

Starting point is 00:52:37 and that they needed to send money. And that if they called the police, they'd kill her or harm her in some way. So they started sending money, and they were afraid to contact her. And you can see what a bind a loving parent would be in, they obviously don't wanna get this child of theirs hurt, and they obviously are willing to do whatever it takes

Starting point is 00:52:58 in order to get them back. Turns out it was total scam. Because eventually there was communication that made them realize that their daughter was perfectly okay and never even interacted with kidnappers. So those kinds of scams happen pretty often. Absolutely. That happened to a friend also.

Starting point is 00:53:12 Yeah. So the sense of urgency should have been the first flag. That's a great point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And look, look, even if they've got your loved one. The secondary issue is, if you do what they want, are they gonna let them go? Which is actually a legitimate question.

Starting point is 00:53:32 Like if they're really our bad guys, one of the things we learned in hostage negotiation that I applied a business to go negotiation. They're a legitimate question that is okay to ask. You're not being disrespectful. You're not pushing back. There are fair, you know, to use the F-BOMM, fair legitimate questions that you can ask

Starting point is 00:53:54 under any circumstances, which is basically, you know, if I comply, is this going to work out the way that you're articulating it? Anything that adds communication into it, which gives you more information, to find out what the ultimate outcome looks like. Even in kidnappings, how do you know that if you pay, they're going to let them go? That's a legitimate question. There are examples somewhere in between getting your know, getting your Instagram account hacked,

Starting point is 00:54:27 your bank account hacked, and you got forbid your child kidnapped. For instance, there's a whole practice within the legal profession of probing to see whether or not somebody is going to give up money to avoid a lawsuit, for instance. This is a, actually a lawyer friend of mine recently described their job very well. He said in his words, first person, he said, I scare people for money. The operative word being scare people. That's being honest.

Starting point is 00:54:57 Yeah, he's being very honest. He scares people for money. He's very good at it. And he understands how other people scare people for money. And he works both sides, you know, and playing for defense type situations. But it made me realize that a lot of the legal profession is not, okay, the lawsuit slid across the table.

Starting point is 00:55:16 It's the, okay, here's what the lawsuit would look like. Here are all the statutes that potentially were violated. And then there's a probe of like what somebody's finances are and how much they're willing to pay and do they have liability insurance or they have an umbrella policy. All the sorts of things that are really, it's not necessarily an illegal shakedown, but it's, you know, approving as to whether or not, you know, there's, it's worth the effort. Dagnosing the other side's ability to pay. Right. And so that happens really often.

Starting point is 00:55:47 I can give a specific example where somebody had a incident at a dog park where their dog allegedly ran into somebody, maybe charged at somebody, dog park people are standing around, and the person moved and apparently injured their knee. But rather than sue the owner of the dog, what they typically do is deliver some set of documents that say, you know, I was injured, your dog was responsible for this, and if you don't settle up for X number of dollars, you're going to be sued for usually an exorbitant amount.

Starting point is 00:56:26 I love that. And then there's this question that the lawyers have to figure out, like is it puffery, right? Are they saying, I'm gonna sue you for $4 million? Is there any basis for that? And good lawyers will say, that's puffery. They're trying to scare you with a big number. But a lot of people see that number and go,

Starting point is 00:56:40 oh my goodness, what do they want? You know what, I don't even know if they were injured. If they were, that's terrible. I'd want that taken care of they were, that's terrible, I'd want that taken care of, if my dog's responsible, I'd want that taken care of, but what do they need in order to make this go away? And that happens millions of times a day throughout the country, and a good portion of those probably happen here in California

Starting point is 00:57:01 because that's kind of the way the legal system is arranged. So this is not somebody, you know, it could be somebody manipulating the law. It could also be somebody who's being entirely honest about their experience of being injured by somebody else's dog. So under those conditions, I mean, it sounds like the same set of rules apply. You want to know how serious they are. Do they have a case? So to speak, that's the work of the lawyers. But in assessing how serious somebody is, you said it's fair. You called it the F word. I like that. I'll never forget that. It just asks a fair question. Like, how much money do you think you deserve? Or would that be a good example of a very direct question? Or is it

Starting point is 00:57:46 how likely are you to walk away if we don't give you the money? I mean, because I could imagine there's all sorts of reasons why people would be dishonest about answering those questions. Well, and then how much money you think you could deserve? You deserve is a really good question, not necessarily what the answer is, but how they answer it.

Starting point is 00:58:04 Like, you're gonna get how quickly they fire back and whether or not they stop and think about it. How and what questions typically are best to judge the other side's reaction and the answer is secondary. Because the how or what question causes what we would refer to is deep thinking, slow thinking, Danny Coniman, behavioral economics, thinking fast and slow. Slow thinking is in-depth thinking. You ask a how or what question makes the other side think first?

Starting point is 00:58:42 And judge their reaction to how they think about it and Do they actually do they actually think about it? Or do they fire right back at you? It gives you a clearer picture of who you're dealing with where the outcome is gonna go How much money do you think that you deserve if they immediately you know ten million dollars? All right, so this is I got a shake down artists on the other side Or they say all right if they stop and think about it and they give you a thoughtful answer That's a completely different person on the other side You're asking a question to get a to diagnose how they respond first the answer is second and

Starting point is 00:59:20 Sometimes I if it's a cut through it on the other side, I'm gonna start pepper on them with how and what questions, just to wear them out. That's passive aggression. If I got a cutthroat aggressor on the other side, I'm gonna drop into passive aggressive behavior to slow them down and wear them out. One of my hostage negotiation heroes, a guy named Johnny Peaco, was John

Starting point is 00:59:47 Domenico Peaco, not Johnny like Johnny Rockets, a Italian Johnny, John Domenico, got all the Western hostages out of Beirut in the mid-80s. Wrote a book called Man Without a Gun, negotiated in person face- a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person who was a person go nose to nose, you don't argue, you're not combative, you wear them out, exhaust them. And if you get somebody really combative or cutthroat on the other side, start peppering them with how and what questions, because they even think about the answer tires them out. And it's passive aggressive, and it's deferential,

Starting point is 01:00:41 and it really works. So if the person on the opposite side of a high friction negotiation is aggressive, the goal is to slow things down, fatigue them, and get them to just either relent or to reveal something that's a loophole. Yeah, right. Yeah, if I have to make the deal, then I'm going to wear them out.

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Starting point is 01:02:34 you know, manipulation to extract something, we're actually talking about the reverse. We're talking about a bad actor who's aggressive and trying to defang that bad actor. What does that process of wearing them down look like? Or sound like, could you give us a couple of examples of let's say I'm the bad actor, we could play this game. I won't be very good at this.

Starting point is 01:02:57 And I am saying, look, I want X number of dollars like this date or You're not gonna get what you want. They're gonna die or disappear. Is that simple? And I'm you know a stone wall kind of approach What is the approach that you take to wear that person down? Well, what what are they're gonna be how and and questions that are mostly how and what and they're going to be legitimate questions. Which is how do I know you're going to follow through?

Starting point is 01:03:35 What does that look like? Like, if I do what you want, how do I know you're going to follow through? So get them to talk about the alternative. Okay, so if you were to, well, if you deliver by that date, I'm going to pass them to you without fail. Like if they're just getting kind of brief answers where the person is just, again, this kind of like rigid stone wall approach. Yeah, well, and so there's a phrase that we use all the time vision drives

Starting point is 01:04:05 decision. So if you're really going to comply, if I if I give in, and when I say, how do I know you're going to you're going to follow through, I'm not talking about the threat. I'm not trying to get you to clarify the threat. I'm trying to get you to clarify what implementation looks like. what implementation looks like. So I need to know, I'm based on your reaction to that. If you plan on following through, if I comply, you will already have that in your head or be open to it. Vision drives decision. You've thought it through in advance.

Starting point is 01:04:39 What does letting the hostages go look like? If you have no intention of ever releasing the hostage, if I follow through, then you're not gonna be able to answer the question, or you're probably gonna throw it back on me really quickly. And so then now I know, all right, so you got no plans on complying. If I give in, you're not gonna comply.

Starting point is 01:05:07 So I, but you still want the money. Then I'm going to ask, well, how am I supposed to pay if you don't have any plans for complying. And if you're willing to entertain a conversation about what compliance looks like. It was a kidnapping that my unit worked just before I was in it in Venice, O'Waylor, where they weren't entirely sure that the bag guys were gonna, the FARC, I think, had the hostage. They agreed on an exchange point to let the hostage go that was some distance from where they had a pretty good idea

Starting point is 01:05:44 of the hostage who was being held. So they figured they're not going to drag the hostage all the way to this river crossing, if they're not going to let them go. It's just too much effort. And then it was one of the few times that it was going to be a simil-theoretically a simil-tainy exchange, but they're going to have to send the money across the river before the hostage was let go. So if we agree to this, all right, so they're not going to drag this guy all the way to this river crossing. If they don't plan on letting them go, and if it's a long way to drag them and they got their

Starting point is 01:06:15 money, do they want to drag them back? Like even if they're ambivalent, once they get there, if they've gone through all the effort to get to the meeting location and the hostage is there, we've not just increased the chances significantly, they're going to go ahead and comply because it's pain in the neck to take them back. This is all human nature stuff, human nature investment. How do you get them to engage in actions and behaviors? And then verbal commitments that actually mean something to them. When I was working kid nappings, the very last thing

Starting point is 01:06:46 we'd always have the family get the bad guys to say it. Last, not first, but last, was we'd actually get a verbal promise to let them go. Again, at the end, because we've been talking to them long enough at this point in time, we got a pretty good idea of what they sound like when they're lying and what they sound like when they tell in their truth. If somebody tells the truth, they pretty much tend to tell the truth the same way every time. If

Starting point is 01:07:12 they tell the truth, you talk to somebody long enough, you got to lie on, do they ever tell the truth? And if they do, what does it sound like? People lie 20 ways. They tell the truth one way. So we've been coaching and negotiations with the kidnappers long enough that we know what they sound like when they tell the truth. So when they ask at the very end, if we pay, you promise to let them go, it's not that the answer, but how they answered it. And that will be the last thing to see the deal. You know, How do you continually stack the odds in your favorite implementation?

Starting point is 01:07:48 Do you have a bodily, like a somatic sensor for lying? The reason I asked you is years ago I had the experience of knowing somebody and they turned out to be a generally good person. But I sensed early on that something was like off. I couldn't relax around them. I just couldn't relax around them. And I could not tell you why,

Starting point is 01:08:11 but it was as if my, I couldn't even identify the neuroanatomy of it. You know what I say? It was the vagus nerve or something, but I teach neuroanatomy and I can't point to one pathway in the body. There was something about my autonomic response that would just start cranking up when I was around them.

Starting point is 01:08:26 Like something is off, something is off, something goes. And I kid you not five years later, five years later, I discovered a series of lies that all ratcheted together that were actually pretty meaningless in the total context of things. But I remember thinking at that moment, oh my goodness, like my system knew.

Starting point is 01:08:48 Like, knew. And, you know, for all my knowledge of neuroscience, I can't tell you to this day, like what it was in my biology, but it had something to do with my bodily response. It wasn't just a thought, like that doesn't quite add up, or I feel like I doesn't quite add up, or I feel like I'm getting the run around, or this, it was a physical sensation.

Starting point is 01:09:11 Are you familiar with that experience? Yeah, well, it's a little bit, what you guys and your colleagues are still discovering, the science behind the gut. And what we actually teach in, you know, my company now, we're teaching people, learn the difference between your gut and your amygdala for lack of a better time, your fear centers. And know what one is which and listen to your gut, your gut is ridiculously accurate.

Starting point is 01:09:34 Now where does that information come from? One of your podcasts recently, I was listening to, we were talking about ol' factory cues, right, the smells. Like, I never thought of that. Of course. You know, yeah, there, what was the term for the molecules that you're putting off that, or ferramonts?

Starting point is 01:09:55 Or ferramonts, what are the ferramonts? What are the ferramont molecules? What are the ferramont molecules? They're gonna kick that. Like of course, and that's why some of the great investigators, I knew would say, I can just smell it, I can smell it. So what are all this feeding your gut? And what are the senses that the science

Starting point is 01:10:10 hasn't yet discovered? You can't make me believe, I will never believe that the life force stops at the surface of our skin, that there's energy and that we can pick up on the energy. I mean, our gut is being fed by all these different inputs that we're aware of, or that we have yet to be made aware of. The tonal voice doesn't match their words.

Starting point is 01:10:33 The head tilt. You've got a supercomputer in your brain, your gut is incredible. If you could listen to it instead of your fear centers. And as soon as you start listening to your gut You can't explain it at the time, but you got a you got a bad feeling in your gut And later on then you saw it all it all came together where your brain was picking up these cues Your your brain was probably when you were in their presence. There's got to be an odor somebody gives off when they're when they're intentionally deceiving

Starting point is 01:11:02 You don't you didn't know that that was a smile, and maybe you couldn't have consciously smiled that you still picking it up. So long answer to, I'm a very big believer in the gut. I think there's science that we know, and yet to discover that tells us that the gut is just ridiculously accurate if we listen to it instead of our fear centers.

Starting point is 01:11:25 I completely agree that there are energetic exchanges that neuroscience can't yet explain. The field of neuroscience that is is starting to explore some of these things. There are basically three apex journals, the most competitive journals to publish in science, nature, and cell. And I only mention that because there was a series of articles

Starting point is 01:11:46 written in Science Magazine about magneto-reception in humans. You know, the idea that humans can detect magnetic fields sounds like quackery, right? Turtles can detect magnetic fields. They migrate by them, actually, long distances. But the idea is that humans can't do that. And yet, there are some well-controlled studies where people have to guess about the orientation

Starting point is 01:12:08 of a magnetic field and they do it better than chance. Not everyone can do it, but some can do it better than chance in a way that cannot be predicted by anything else except some inherent form of magnetoreception in their nervous system. So there are capabilities of the nervous system that are starting to be revealed, which we don't have a lot of evidence, but there's enough evidence to suggest that these things are really happening. The other example, which you might find interesting, is a little bit more little less esoteric, but there was a beautiful paper published in one of the

Starting point is 01:12:39 cell press journals a couple of years ago showing that when people listen to the same story, a couple of years ago showing that when people listen to the same story, the distance between their heartbeats tends to be very similar. Now it doesn't mean that their exact heart rates are similar, but if you look at the distance between their heartbeats, they all entrain to the same rhythm, the same song, and get this. They're in completely separate rooms. The experiments are being done on completely separate days. And yet if I were to line up just, you know, the distance between the heartbeat for you, they would line up like a set of columns

Starting point is 01:13:12 for dozens of individuals listening to the same story. So, you know, clearly there's a passage of energy from things we hear and things we see that goes into our nervous system at a level that's below our conscious detection. Here's the last thing I'll say about this. We have a series on mental health coming out, not mental illness, but mental health by a, I think, to be among the very finest psychiatrist in the world, Dr. Paul Conti. And he said, you know, we all think that the four brain is the super

Starting point is 01:13:40 computer. Right. He said, no, the subconscious is the super computer. Yeah. That's where the real knowledge processing is happening. That's the iceberg below the surface where all the real heavy lifting is taking place. And that people who learn to tap into the subconscious can learn to use that information in very meaningful ways. And I think that's what you're describing. He's been on with you before, right? He has to talk about trauma in particular, and he was on Lex Friedman's podcast as well. The series that we're doing with him

Starting point is 01:14:09 is not about trauma per se. It's really about the subconscious and the self. I think you'll find the series really interesting. Oh, yeah. And it has a number of very practical questions that one can ask themselves about their subconscious and kind of work the process of psychiatry. We're excited to release that series,

Starting point is 01:14:23 but it, because I don't know of anything like it that's been put out there into the public. But I was so pleasantly surprised to hear him say, you know, we all hear that the four brain is the supercomputer. It's what drove our evolution. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, it's the subconscious. That's where our real wisdom resides.

Starting point is 01:14:42 And the four brain is just the implementation device. So it's, you know, how we can convince ourselves that we're in charge, right? Yeah, I mean, I can't think of a time that my gut told me A and it turned out to be B. More often than not, though, I've suppressed my response to the gut. I override it thinking, I think I made the mistake that you guys train your negotiators to avoid, which is I thought, well, this is making me anxious and the anxiety must be like me, like this must be my fault, or I'm not able to call myself in this situation, not sleeping well, et cetera. And therefore, like this must represent some deficiency on my part.

Starting point is 01:15:22 And then, and Lord knows, as your shirt points out, I'm a very flawed person. I have many flaws. I always say I have 3000 pet peeves and at least as many flaws to match those pet peeves. I want to one at least relationship. But the point being that I think our bodies really do know. They know.

Starting point is 01:15:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would agree. So when you're doing negotiations and you're hearing somebody's voice on the phone, there are a lot of cues. When you're face to face, there are additional cues. There's their face. And then of course, if the negotiations are being done by text over a computer or a phone,

Starting point is 01:15:57 it's a very diminished environment for information. So maybe we could talk about each of those because we live in those landscapes. If we're face-to-face and we're negotiating, you're listening, of course, to what I want, what I'm insisting on, you're working that process from your side. What are you paying attention to visually? It's more our things in alignment. There's layman's data. You know, the words, the way it said, and look on people's face, and how are they weighed, and how they play out. There's a ratio out there that, in brand scientific, 735, 575, 7% words, 38%, delivery, 55% body language. People won't

Starting point is 01:16:43 argue about it all the time, whether or not that's accurate. As a rule of thumb, we throw that out there, but I tell people the most important issue is, do they line up? So, I'm not going to look for, like, when you raise your eyebrow, or when you look up into the left. I'm really just going to try to get a gut feeling

Starting point is 01:17:03 with it and I think these things are lining up, whether they're an alignment, whether they're out of line. And then I'm going to be real careful about what meaning I assigned to that. You know, affective cues, changes in your tone of voice, changes in your movement. That's one of the reasons why we don't teach reading people's body language, because it's completely contextual to you and the moment. So if I convinced myself that, you know, a raise of the eyebrow means this, it's out of context. I was in a negotiation once, where I figured somebody and I some kind of look off to the side and look back and accepted my offer. And I made the mistake of not saying

Starting point is 01:17:52 to them, the proper thing for me to say at the time would have been, seems like something just crossed your mind. Because you only completely true observation, if they look to the side and look back, something crossed their mind. Now, I read it at the moment of saying that they had more money. And I found out after the fact that was wrong, they were stretched to the limit. The look of hesitation didn't mean that they were holding stuff. They were holding stuff back, but I read it wrong. And I didn't bother to check on the affective cue that I saw. So one of my babbling about, what I'm babbling about is, if we're in a negotiation, and whether or not I'm listening to your tonal voice or watching your body language or your

Starting point is 01:18:41 words, if I see you shift at all, I should pay attention that there was a shift in your affect to behavior, but I need to find out what was behind it, as opposed to making an assumption as to what it meant. So yeah, I'm going to watch. I'm going to get my gut feeling, and I'm going to say, sounds like there's some hesitation or it looks like something just crossed your mind, or even if I can't attribute it to specific, affective move, I might say, it feels like there's something in the way. That's me listening to my gut.

Starting point is 01:19:22 I'll throw out an observation on whatever any of those might be, just to go back over the ground a little bit and double check. Because the other thing about negotiating in person is you're going to give me more information physically than I can actually process. And if you say something that's thought provoking, I'll stop and think about it. And while I'm stopping and thinking about what you just said, I'm missing all your cues. So all the skills that we teach, the labels, the mirrors, the opening of questions, which seem like we're going back and plowing the ground again, we are because I didn't pick up all the information at first time. There's just more than that I can get.

Starting point is 01:20:06 And so I need to go back over it a couple of times with you, just so I get it right without making you feel interrogated, you actually feel hurt and you actually get to go back over it again. So it comes with seems to be an inefficient process, but it's actually me just double checking my information. So if we're face to face, I'm going to ask you to repeat, but I'm not going to say, would you please repeat that? I'm going to get you to repeat without asking you to repeat.

Starting point is 01:20:37 It's the same true in online or text communications. The same thing is true. The problem with online and attacks is people try to bundle everything into one communication. The best analogy I can think of is if you're playing chess by text, would you put seven moves in your text? No, you'd only put one move in. So only try to get one point across in a text. Don't explain, don't throw a whole bunch of stuff and text your emails. They're all almost always too long. And it's going to come off as cold,

Starting point is 01:21:12 so do what you can to soften, soften. It's a documentary film that's been done on my company, called Tactical Empathy, Nick Nanton, 122, 23 Emmys, the filmmaker, DNF, DNA Films, who's finished last year, it's not out yet. For a variety of reasons, we haven't put it out. So we screened the thing in Vegas last year.

Starting point is 01:21:38 I see it, I love it. I'm not a good judge, but a film about me, I'm gonna love it, no matter what, it's about me. But I tell him that that night, oh man, I love it. This is great. Two days later, I find out I realize there's a huge problem. I've already told him it's okay. So I gotta get him, I'm gonna text him and then I'm gonna call him and we gotta fix it now.

Starting point is 01:22:03 It's a Sunday. Text message. I sent him a two-line text. It's now bad time to talk. I got something you don't wanna hear. Two lines. Now, what were my other options? I could have called him.

Starting point is 01:22:21 Nick and I got a great relationship. I call him if he's in a position to pick up the phone, it doesn't matter what he's doing. He's going to answer the phone. He was in the middle of a Zoom call. If I had called, he'd have picked up during the Zoom call and both conversations would have been bad. He immediately fives back to me. I'm in the middle of a Zoom call. I'll call you in a half an hour. He already knows you ain't gonna like what he's gonna hear. I'm prepping him for bad news. Get him on a phone, like look, I know what I said. We got a problem, we got to get Derek on camera.

Starting point is 01:22:57 Derek is a guy in my team. I'm shocked that I haven't made a part of the documentary. This is gonna be incomplete without Derek.'ve got to get Derek on film. We can't show this to anybody else until we get him on film and make a part of it. Immediately, he's in problem solving mode. He goes, OK, I've got to get a crew to Derek or get Derek to a crew.

Starting point is 01:23:16 I need to know when we can do that. I need to, we got another showing of the film's schedule in LA less than a month away. Says, I've got to get Derek on camera and we got to edit it. It's going to take three weeks of editing. So to get you access to Derek's camera, he goes, done, or Derek's calendar. He says, done, it's done. We go through this whole conversation in less than 10 minutes.

Starting point is 01:23:41 Now, think of the normal negotiation. Hey, Nick, how are you? What's going on today? Are you in a good mood? Hey, hey, hey, how the kids doing? All this time wasting conversation. But it set them up with that normal. He would also, he could have legitimately said,

Starting point is 01:23:59 are you out of your mind? We've been working on this for a year. You didn't bring this up in a year. Not only that, you already told me two days ago at the show in Vegas that you loved it. And now, a year, you're in a half into this project. You're bringing up all these new problems. That would have been the normal negotiation.

Starting point is 01:24:18 But since we got a highly collaborative relationship, I, two line text, we're done in 10 minutes. Now, since Nick's a very generous guy, when he gets done, and he says, by the way, you understand how much this is gonna cost me. This is three weeks of editing. This is three hours of shooting in three weeks of editing. I go, yeah, he goes, but I'm happy to do it.

Starting point is 01:24:40 Causing back the next day, he's got a favorite ask of me. You got it. It Doesn't matter what it is Because we'd gone through what would have been a very complicated negotiation that started on text And I sent them a two-line text on a Sunday and we got to solve that fast So if I understand correctly by setting the context in a very direct and succinct way, he goes into it in a problem solving mode with you. Whereas if you do the tour of all the things that are going well in life, and the sort of the, we'll keep this PG, the mud sandwich approach.

Starting point is 01:25:25 You know, they teach you that, when you get a laboratory, most scientists have no skill running a business, you get a laboratory all you've done is experiments and then suddenly you're in charge of people, managing budgets and all this stuff. I mean, most scientists, 99% of scientists are completely unqualified to do the job,

Starting point is 01:25:40 they do it at the level of running a laboratory when they start, you learn it on the job. And eventually you end up having to let somebody go. And so the typical thing they teach you in these online training things is you tell somebody something nice, then you give them the bad news, and then you tell them something nice on exit. That's kind of the mud, so to speak, sandwich. All right.

Starting point is 01:26:03 This is not that. What you're talking about is saying, hey, this is not that. What you're talking about is saying, hey, this is the problem, you're not gonna like the problem, or there is a problem, you're not gonna like it, so that they show up with the context of solving a problem, as opposed to giving them the tour of all the things are going well, and then the problem is really in contrast to that, and then it's like,

Starting point is 01:26:21 oh, you know, so what I love about what you're describing is it's it's direct, it's honest. You're not doing the tour of the garden before you take them down to the to the septic tank. It's what I would call the difference between being blunt and being a straight shooter. A straight shooter tells you the truth. They just tell it in a way that lands softly. Let's talk about breakups. Business breakups, romantic breakups. You break up with me? No.

Starting point is 01:26:56 No. But thanks for the hypothesis test. No. In fact, I'm enjoying this conversation so much. As I always do, I'm learning a ton from you that if anything, I'd like to expand and deepen our relationship, Chris. There, you got a lot of knowledge out of me.

Starting point is 01:27:16 Plotonic and professional, but expansive. What is the process of ending a relationship? And again, this could be romantic relationship, could be business relationship, could be employer employee, could be individuals, could be telling a whole group, or an entire group telling an individual.

Starting point is 01:27:41 You know, the reason I raised this as a particular example is that I'm assuming that both sides don't want the same thing. One side wants to continue, the other side wants to end. All right. I'll avoid the use of the word win-win or the words win-win, excuse me. And just ask, is there a way to have that conversation in any of the context I just mentioned in a, so beautifully described in a straight shooter manner where it's direct, it's honest, but it lands soft. Because what we're talking about here is feelings of rejection.

Starting point is 01:28:20 And nobody likes feeling rejected. I don't know anybody that likes being fired. Even from jobs they don't like. People's egos suffer. So is there a more specific way of asking the question is, is there a way to encourage the person getting the bad news, to get their ego out of the way and see that if both parties don't want it, it's best for everybody involved. I almost want to say no, but first, what are the caveats? Most of the time when people are struggling with this, they're not trying to save the other

Starting point is 01:28:55 side, they're trying to save themselves. So who are you really trying to save? By postponing it, softening it, trying to act like it's something that it's not. Like there, I don't know that anybody has ever been fired that didn't have a sense that it was coming, the person that was getting ready to fire him opens up by saying, how are you? They know how the other person is.

Starting point is 01:29:24 And a person getting ready to get fired has got some gut instinct that things are going wrong. Like you said, the gut's very powerful. So you got to lower the boom as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can. I was involved in a nonprofit a number of years ago affiliated with a church, and we were struggling with whether or not

Starting point is 01:29:47 to let the executive director go. I go to the minister of the church, Norman Vincent Peales Proto-J, a guy named Arthur Calliandra, one of the best human beings I've ever met in my life, phenomenal guy. And I'm struggling with, I thought, firing, letting this woman go was gonna be bad,

Starting point is 01:30:02 and I thought Arthur was gonna counsel me a way out. And he looked at me and he said, you know, there's no gentle way to cut somebody's head off. And I thought, yeah, the humane thing here is how to bring it to conclusion as quickly as possible, because there's no humane way to cut somebody's head off. There's no humane way to terminate the relationship. Now, what are the caveats? Maybe there are. First caveats, if you're going to fire somebody, never fire somebody on a Friday, fire them on a Monday.

Starting point is 01:30:35 If I'm on a Monday, they got a work week to work their way out of it. If I'm on a Friday, they get a weekend to be miserable and to feel horrible and they can't do anything about it. Caught off guard or not on a Monday, they can pick themselves up, they can start looking for a new job, no matter who you are. Fire them on a Friday, they can't start looking for a new job on a Saturday. It's two days of misery. So yeah, if you're gonna fire somebody, fire them on a Monday, not on a Friday. If you got bad news to give somebody, warn them it's common. The people are ridiculously resuming to pain if warned. And then that you lower the boom. You're not going to like what I have to say.

Starting point is 01:31:16 It's going to be heartbreaking. You're going to hate me. Has it take no more than three seconds? They got their guard up. Let them have the bad news That's the humane way to cut somebody's head off don't make don't linger Don't make them think that how are the kids? How are you? I care about you? You're a great human being None of the stuff at the beginning Warren and bad news is coming and hit him with the bad news

Starting point is 01:31:45 ripped the bandaid off. The pain is not, if you try to rip the bandaid off slowly, that's excruciating you trying to save yourself. So if you got a terminated relationship regardless of what it is, the quicker you do it, the less painless it is, the sooner people can move on, stop trying to save yourself, realize how human beings handle pain. If anything, human beings are incredibly

Starting point is 01:32:12 resilient, if given the opportunity to brace themselves first. I agree. Thank you for that. There's a concept that a lot of people haven't heard of, and I'm confident in saying that because I hadn't heard of it until recently, despite spending a lot of time in the literature around dopamine and motivation. And it's a term from psychology that is being used a little bit more now, and it's ego depletion. Yeah, it's an interesting concept.

Starting point is 01:32:40 And I've been wanting to run this by you for a while, but I saved it for our discussion today. It turns out ego depletion is a lot like decision fatigue. You know, we've all heard the Steve Jobs thing. You know, he wore a black turtleneck every day because it, you know, he didn't have to make that decision. So he had more energy to make other decisions. I've been accused of doing the same because of my black long sleeve shirts, but there's

Starting point is 01:32:59 a whole other reason for that that some people might know. But anyway, it's unimportant in the moment. But ego depletion is a little bit different than decision fatigue or decision budget. The idea with ego depletion is pretty simple. It's that the molecule dopamine does many things in the brain. But one of the things that it absolutely does is it holds us to goal-directed behavior that's associated with a sense of self. I want to accomplish this. I want to get to that.

Starting point is 01:33:31 The whole notion of ego depletion involves the idea, and this has been a data-substantiated observation, that when people have to fight to be right or to defend their position for a period of time, eventually that depletes. And it seems to be at least in part dopamine mediated because defending one's position takes work. Earlier you talked about running somebody down, you know, wearing them out.

Starting point is 01:34:00 And I wonder as I just throw this concept out to you, cold here, whether or not that calls to mind any examples from your work where you felt like, okay, like this person could really hold, but if I just kept pressing, eventually they'd tilt. You know, and it's different than the kind of fatigue that comes from a conversation that starts at three in the afternoon and ends at two thirty in the morning.

Starting point is 01:34:25 We've all been there. I've been in those conversations. Usually they're not very pleasant. And at three in the morning, everyone's peeling apart. You just, I've learned over the years, you know, like you clip it at nine thirty and you try and shift, right? You know, one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever heard is you'd never go to sleep angry.

Starting point is 01:34:43 It's like, no, actually, actually get sleep wake up and then revisit the problem if the situation allows. That's my, that's my, yeah. Trying to stay up all night, trying to work something out is just counter biology. So ego depletion. I have a feeling a lot of what you did in your profession was running down their dopamine to the point where then they are operating

Starting point is 01:35:07 from a different place where they're not defending the ego. They're actually thinking more practically about the whole situation. Does it have any kind of texture of meaning to you? Yeah, no, I would agree. And I would draw the distinction, first of all, in hostage negotiation, there's two kind of hostage takings if there's a demand. And it's going to be contained and uncontained, which is just literal definition. Contained is bad guys in a bank, like at the Chase Bank in Brooklyn way back when.

Starting point is 01:35:38 You got them surrounded, they can't get away. And uncontained is a kidnapping, you don't know where they are. Uncontained on normal location. We're going to try to get our way in a contained situation probably by eagle depletion, wearing them out, getting to the point where they're just going to get at it because they're tired. Because they're going to come out,

Starting point is 01:36:02 we're going to put handcuffs on them. Which means that if the ego gets recharged, they're going to go back and they're going to think back over the deal. So we're in somebody out in a business negotiation. It's basically on contained. Because even if you come to an agreement, there's a whole implementation phase. Did you get to your agreement because you wore them out? Because they get tired. Because they just gave in. At some point of time, they're going to get recharged. And they're

Starting point is 01:36:32 going to get recharged while you're in implementation. So they're either going to not going to follow the terms of the deal. Or it's the slightest opportunity, they're going to deviate. so, yeah, I think ego depletion is a real thing, and it's a bad way to get a business deal that's gonna stick. Because they rest, and then they come back. Yeah, a different person. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna be recharged. Their ego is gonna be recharged.

Starting point is 01:37:03 And if you get the agreement based on a depletion of the ego, that battery's going to get charged back up again, whether it's a business deal, whether it's personal negotiation. You know, you have a disagreement with each other, significant other. And you follow that bad advice, don't go to bed angry.

Starting point is 01:37:20 And so you stay up till three in the morning and you think you come to a resolution. Everybody gets a good night's sleep. And next day they feel completely different about what they said the night before Yeah, I might have heard of that happening once or twice Saw in a movie right that saw it in a movie like a friend explain that situation to me Earlier you mentioned approaching a conversation in a playful way right like all right, you know

Starting point is 01:37:42 This might even be life or death, but let's play this like a game because you can see more opportunities. We know that when we are relaxed, we see the big picture when we're tense, everything narrated. Tunnel vision, tunnel thinking, tunnel everything, we lose access to the full tool kit. So you obviously take really good care of yourself. You fit, you're in shape, you always seem calm. I'm sure you have your moments like anybody else, but what are some of the things that good

Starting point is 01:38:14 negotiators do all the time so that when the bell goes off and they have to respond, they are ready. And the reason I ask this is because, you know, we've been talking about negotiations in kind of a vacuum. Like it's happening and then how does one handle it. But like any athlete, like any teacher, like any parent, like any kid, everybody has to be ready for real life circumstances. And we don't always get the warning. We don't get the memo that it's happening in two weeks. And sometimes the conversations around courtroom drama or the big day, you know, it implies that we get the warning, but more often than that, it's a phone call or a

Starting point is 01:38:55 text that comes in and boom, it just hits us. And suddenly we are in negotiations and we didn't get time to prepare. Right. So maybe we could talk about readiness, and then we could talk about, again, maybe this sounds trivial to you, but for me, I'd be very curious to know whether or not you have any practices of stealing yourself, what those look like, what you've seen other people use to be able to get themselves into the moment of being able to show up their best self.

Starting point is 01:39:23 Yeah, well, readiness, small stakes practice for high stakes results. Like, I will occasionally find myself in a middle of a negotiation that I didn't expect. Like, if I've been throwing out stuff on a regular basis on my way during the day, verbal observations, what we refer to as labels, because the label seems like something just crossed your mind. Is a label in the middle of a negotiation when I see you hesitate or look to the side. How do I get ready for that? You know, I'm on my way over here to this interview. I'm both talking to my left driver the whole way, getting him to talk. Also being careful about not the whole way, getting them to talk, also being careful about not tapping the gas tank out completely so that I'm fatigued when I get here.

Starting point is 01:40:10 I talk up the lift drivers on a regular basis. I, um, interactions, TSA guys in the airport, I'll throw a label out. Seems like a tough day. Tough day? Seems like you're in a good mood. And whether right or wrong, I'm trying to stay loose. I'm trying to keep the mental muscles limber. And it just becomes a bit of a habit on a regular basis.

Starting point is 01:40:37 Occasionally, I'll throw something out. Now I'm talking about lift drivers. I can find them in a bad mood. I get into a lift a couple of weeks ago on my way home. Lift driver is not helpful. I mean, I'm coming out of the airport, I'm struggling with my bags, not lifting a finger, doesn't open up the rear.

Starting point is 01:40:55 I gotta open up the rear of the vehicle myself, I gotta load the bags, everything. I get in and he's just seething unhappiness. Now, I know that if I say, what do you love about what you do for living? I immediately trigger what Tony Robbins would call a state change. And I'm annoyed at this guy. And you know, our, our fair mones are combative.

Starting point is 01:41:21 But I'm thinking like, I just, I just don't need this. And so I go, what do you love about driving for left? This guy proceeds to unload on me on all his personal struggles. Did I feel like a complete jerk for being angry with him at everything that he's going through? And I'm just trying to get myself out of a bad mood and to keep from sending him a really negative vibe

Starting point is 01:41:42 the whole way so that he doesn't drive 45 miles an hour and a 65 mile an hour lane and make it, you know, inflict me with longer and more expensive ride because I'm so annoying as a customer. But I've got a habit of small stakes practice for high stakes results and who do I get to practice on the lift drivers on a regular basis, the guy behind the counter at the hotel, the TSA guy. I'm going through TSA, the grocery store clerk, the Starbucks person. The only way I'm at my best in my negotiations is just trying to keep my negotiation muscles limber by interacting with people throughout the course of my day.

Starting point is 01:42:20 And then ideally, leaving them better than I found them. You know, trying not to leave negative karma in my wake, trying to leave as much positive karma in my wake as possible. I love that. And I'm very familiar with the feeling of needing to conserve my voice for podcasting or energy for things. And yet, I'm somebody who's genuinely curious about what people's experiences are. So I like the question, you know, how's your day going? It's pretty open-ended.

Starting point is 01:42:50 It's I suppose if somebody was really upset, that would be perhaps the worst question I could possibly ask from what you just described. But I'll put a fine point on it too, because like I've manipulated them with what do you love about? Because there's you watch them change in the moment to immediately to shift into this concept of love which is more than like. What do you like about driving for a lift? What do you love about driving for a lift? I can trigger a state change in you instantaneously no matter what kind of mood you're in because this guy was in a very bad mood.

Starting point is 01:43:26 Plus additionally the download from that typically is so quick, I'm going to get a real clear picture on who you are really really fast. I'm talking to a CEO of a company a couple of months ago there there you know for lack of a better term they're delivering clean water to the world and I'm like that's a cool mission. Like, I dig this. As an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur want to make a dent in universe, I dig that. Like, I'm trying to make a difference in the world.

Starting point is 01:43:56 So I say to him, what do you love about what you do for living? He immediately fires back at me. I love leading teams. I love leading teams. I love leading teams. And I love giving shareholders a great return on an investment. It's really important for me to give shareholders a great return. And then yeah, you know, we deliver water. And then he said a fourth thing.

Starting point is 01:44:15 And I thought, this guy could be doing toilet paper. He doesn't care about the mission of the company at all. He's a great CEO probably because you want to see you to lead teams, you want to see you deliver a corporate CEO to deliver a return on investment for shareholders, but that's why he's a great corporate CEO and not a great entrepreneur CEO. So by him giving me that download real quick, that was blatantly honest. Like, do I think this is a great guy? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:48 Do our core values line up? My mission is more important to me than his mission is, or his mission is making money. Now I like making money, but it's not number one. It's a strong number two. But that question instead of how are you today to what do you love about you immediately put them in a better place plus you get some ridiculously candid answers that tells you who they are real fast. What is the best way to approach our response to somebody who's asking to be heard.

Starting point is 01:45:28 Perhaps they've got complaints. Maybe about us, maybe about somebody else. People are venting. People seem to vary on the propensity to vent spectrum. Some people just, they vent all the time. This happened, that happened. And they wanna complain. The way it's sometimes described as they love to take other people's inventories. They love to take inventories.

Starting point is 01:45:48 If everybody else is mistakes, they did this, they did that. It's a lot easier, often than taking our own inventories of what we could be focused on and do better. That's a universal truth in my mind. But people approach other people that they trust and they want to vent. Presumably to get over whatever it is that is bothering them, but all too often it seems to just amplify the feelings of frustration. What do you do when somebody you care about and that cares about you comes to you to vent?

Starting point is 01:46:23 Is it just you let them, you let them vent or do you, do you try and let them negotiate with themselves a little bit in a way that could help them more than if you were to just let them vent? I'm really, really, of letting people vent because a lot of times, it just, they never, it seems to be a spiral that just spirals out of control. It just they never it seems to be a spiral that just spirals out of control So how do why is somebody vented they don't feel hurt? They feel ignored they feel like they've been wasting their time talking they're frustrated That's the feedback. I'm gonna give you feedback on what I'm guessing called it's causing you to vent In just an observation

Starting point is 01:47:02 It sounds like this is this is driving you crazy because nobody listens to you. Sounds like you've been struggling with this for a long time. Sounds like this is very frustrating for you. What's the emotion? The particular negative emotion. Frustration is about somebody being denied a goal

Starting point is 01:47:20 in the future. Anger is about somebody's upset about something happening in the past. The type of negative emotion begins to focus you in on where they, is it forward thinking, or is it backward thinking? And frustration and anger can be two very different versions of the same negative emotion, but they're focused on different points in time.

Starting point is 01:47:43 So I'm going to try to intuitively, if I don't know from what you've told. So I'm gonna try to intuitively, if I don't know from what you've told me, I'm gonna start taking educated guesses on making an observation on what it is that's driving you. If you need to vent, you've been talking and people been ignoring you, or you've been taking actions and people have been ignoring you.

Starting point is 01:48:04 It's your need to vent because your communication or your actions have been ignored. There are some clues here and the sooner that I get at the heart of what's bothering you, the sooner you're going to be able to let it off. So I'm going to encourage letting the steam off without trying to correct you without giving you advice, Without frustrating you by not listening to you by trying to recognize Verily what some of the motivators are which will deactivate the anger much more quickly It's the whole basis for a crisis hotline to begin with people are venting and

Starting point is 01:48:38 So how do you most effectively vent somebody so that instead of going on a rant for an hour and the rant? Introduce toxins into their system where they're poisoning themselves. I think negative emotions put toxins in our system. You know how do I deactivate that as quickly so that you're not hurting yourself as much? And you feel hurt, you feel relieved, you feel less than two. So it involves me. If it's a close friend who's venting to you, you're involved in a situation to some degree.

Starting point is 01:49:10 And I might even say, boy, it feels like you're probably frustrated because I haven't listened to you up to now. And I'm going to start taking some emotionally educated guesses on what I think is driving you. And I'm going to put it in the form of a label, which is just an observation, seems like sounds like it looks like. Then if I get it wrong and you go,

Starting point is 01:49:30 well, let's not it at all, I can say, well, that's just the way it seems. It just seems that way. It puts you in a position to just let somebody know that you see them and you're doing your best to understand. I'm not a fan of venting. If I go on a rant personally, I always feel worse. So I wanna deactivate that negativity

Starting point is 01:49:54 so I can get my feet back under me emotionally. Very useful knowledge. You just shared with us. Do you meditate? Tiny little bits. I mean, I'm trying to make my day more effective. I have a gratitude exercise that I do almost every morning. Other ways to make myself effective. Actually, I'm looking at the non-sleep deep rest practice

Starting point is 01:50:25 or the, because I like to make use of my time. And I'm spiritual, so I'm talking to the Almighty on a regular basis. You pray. I do. The morning and night when you need to. Both. Yeah, both.

Starting point is 01:50:41 I mean, I think, you know, whether or not you believe in one God or the universe or whatever it is, I think spirituality is an important component of health. Whatever your spirituality is, you should recognize it and you should, you'll be better off if you engage in some sort of a spiritual practice. It doesn't have to be any of the three major religions, but spirituality is a component of who we are. So yeah, I practice it on a regular basis.

Starting point is 01:51:07 So a sense of higher power or to better define higher power, it could be, as you said, with aligned with conventional religion or just aligned with the idea that there are things outside of us that are important to pay attention to that we can all do better by being in recognition of or service to or or both. Yeah, something like that. Pretty much like that. And then leaving it as open and as possible because I think there's a spiritual nature to us. Period. I agree.

Starting point is 01:51:41 What about your physical training? I must say, you're an excellent shape. I imagine that went on along with the FBI thing. I mean, I saw silence to the lambs at the beginning, she's running around with other... Quantity. ...agents, yeah. Shooting targets and running and lifting and doing their sit-ups in there.

Starting point is 01:51:59 That was, I think it was a 1980s film. So it was a little bit dated now. Probably now they're doing other stuff as well. But nothing works like the basics. So was the FBI the first time you got serious about fitness or prior to that, were you an athlete and into fitness? And what are you doing nowadays

Starting point is 01:52:17 to maintain your frankly impressive shape? Well, thank you for the compliments. I was a sports athletics fitness who was always a part of my life. I was in the sports, but not particularly good at them. Football, basketball. I'm a last century guy. So long before the conditioning has evolved as it is now with interval training and the rest of the stuff, which is phenomenal.

Starting point is 01:52:47 Weightlifting was introduced in my high school, my senior year, I lifted weights some, continued through college, a little bit of time in the martial arts, ripped my knee apart in college in the martial arts. But yeah, fitness has always been a part of my life as much for liking to be in condition and you know the spiritual regeneration of it, whether I knew what it was or not. These days,

Starting point is 01:53:14 you know, I'm looking for every hack there is, I don't know, you don't like the term hack. Now well, we like mechanisms. Scientists like mechanisms. Yeah, hacks sort of implies that we're using one thing to call for something different. I like mechanisms, but at the end of the day, if people want to call something a hack because it gets them the result they want or that they're more, it's more appealing to apply the tool. That's what matters to me. You know, tools sitting in a box don't do anything. Right. People are using them and then I'm good with the term.

Starting point is 01:53:39 Yeah, yeah. So what these days, cold plunge, sauna, principally, I'm struggling with issues with a couple of joints that I know science will eventually help me regenerate. So in the meantime, good diet, you know, the basic pillars, diet, not a perfect diet, but by and large, overall my diet's pretty good. And then, you know, the little things.

Starting point is 01:54:06 Spiritual keeps me in shape physically. The Hint and a cold plunge is challenging psychologically and physically. And a son of a true... So state shifter, that's for sure. You don't need science to know that 30 seconds are a minute and that cold water is gonna change your chemistry for a long while afterwards.

Starting point is 01:54:26 And for the better, I believe. Once you get out, people forget this, they're like, I hate the cold, the point is not how you feel while you're in it. You can feel proud of how you navigate that portion, but the point is how you feel afterwards. Well, I feel the old saying, why do you hit yourself in a hand with a hammer

Starting point is 01:54:42 because it feels so good when you stop? I like that. I like that. It's spoken like somebody worked in New York City for a long time. Out here we'd probably say something different, you know, like crystals and lava lamps or something. Although there aren't many lava lamps anymore. I think that the idea that California is all hippy-dippy, that's not true anymore. I think it's been overrun by other, and a different ethos. In any event, thanks for sharing that because I think that we can't separate the physical from the psychological, right?

Starting point is 01:55:10 I mean, we've been talking about the mental and fatigue status of the people you're negotiating with oftentimes during this conversation, but then of course there's how you show up to the job. I mean, if you're run down three days and you've been in a fight with your spouse, and that's still in the back of your mind, and your hungry, tired, sick,

Starting point is 01:55:30 what, you know, not connected to your higher power, all those things that there's no way you can be as effective at any job. So it's great to hear and not surprising to hear that you have bedrock practices that you implement. Special. Yeah, it's an interesting point. Almost everybody I knew that it was really good at anything they did for a living. They probably took pretty good care of themselves. Yeah, I agree. You know, there's this, the language around self-care, I think it's really distorted. I'm going to editorialize for a second here. I think it, but I'm going to editorialize

Starting point is 01:56:03 in line with what you just said. You know, I think self-care sounds like naval gazing, where people think that it's all about self, but it's actually taking care of oneself so that we can show up better for everybody else, more energy, more capacity, more staying power to have those heart conversations with the people we care about and that move our life forward. So it's really refilling the fuel tank in my mind as opposed to the kind of egocentric, narcissistic you know

Starting point is 01:56:38 Stance that a lot of people take towards that. They've and I understand what they do You know people scroll through Instagram and they see people self-being every muscle and all this stuff. And I'm not disparaging what people want to do. But at the end of the day, self-care is about being more ready to do better for the world if you're mission oriented. Agreed. Completely agree. Do you think there's been a change in the FBI over the last three, 40 years around that? You know, I have this image in my mind of agents like

Starting point is 01:57:09 sitting in cars for 20 hours eating hoagie sandwiches and, you know, and looking through binoculars and running themselves into the ground with it like this kind of bulldog-like persistence to get to solve the puzzle. I mean, put differently. I imagine there were some negotiations that were very long and fatigued. So do you recall one of the longer negotiations that you had? And how do you sleep at night, midway, through a hostage crisis? So the longest one that I was directly involved in on almost day- day, an hour to hour one. Went about three-ish days, Washington DC, 2003, started the Second Iraq War, got in him Dwight Watson, rolled the tractor into the middle of DC,

Starting point is 01:57:54 and claimed he had four bombs, and he left four bombs scattered around the city. Had he actually done that or he was just blunt? He was blunt, and he hadn't done either. And it started on St. Patrick's Day. Interesting, you know. Like the thing, and you said it was in the Philippines. It's like National Hall Day. Yeah, how are they, right? Interesting, for a whole bunch of reasons.

Starting point is 01:58:20 Now, I had to go home and go to sleep one night and when we were in the middle of that. And then it was just, I don't remember having trouble going to sleep because I felt like I did a good job and that we handed the shift off to another hostage to go shader. And the bureau was effectively a team leader

Starting point is 01:58:44 of Vince Stefano and Vince was bringing a go-shater. So, and the team that he was with, everybody was in good hands. As a matter of fact, Vince almost kicked me out of the scene because I didn't want to go, and he just kept saying, go home, get some sleep, go home, get some sleep. And finally, the fifth time he said it to me,

Starting point is 01:59:00 I went home. So I felt like I was leaving things in really good hands. And when working kidnappings, we expected them to go for long periods of time and you just kind of got to, if you have faith in a process and you feel like that you're doing the best that can be done, then I think you could sleep at night. I just to answer that question. You have to be careful whether you're working a case to siege or anything in the bureau that you don't run yourself into the ground. And there was some cases that worked in the 90s where I mean like we knocked ourselves out. Like we would, we worked hard on anybody we ever saw.

Starting point is 01:59:46 But we occasionally, we took time off too. You know, I worked with the guys that realized that sometimes you got to go out and have a beer and kick back and blow off some steam. So I think everybody that I ever worked with, we're occasionally cautious enough to recharge the batteries. And then, depending upon the nature of the challenge in front of you, it was a siege in St. Martin's parish

Starting point is 02:00:07 and went six days. I don't think those guys got a lot of sleep, but the nature of those siege is in that particular type of siege only last five or six days anyway. You just got to gut it out. Where there ever instance is where you just try to keep the person on the line so they can just raid. You know what? I never had to do that personally. You had to be prepared to do that

Starting point is 02:00:30 from the very beginning of any siege. That you might have to get some, you might have to orchestrate an assault of some sort. I was fortunate enough early on in my training, there's kind of a famous siege in, if you know, hostage negotiation history in London, called the Princess Gate siege, where a legendary British hostage negotiated David Van S had to bat guys on a phone while the SAS was hitting the building. And I remember that we were showing like,

Starting point is 02:01:04 look, there may come a time when you have to keep somebody on a phone when SWAT comes in. That goes with the territory. So expect that's a possibility from the very beginning. And it was a great siege. The bad guy, Salim, the photos of him after he was shot, the phone is within his reach. David kept them on the phone. I've heard the tapes, the breaching explosions were going on. And Slim says, I got to go, I got to go. There's suspicious noises. And David Vennes and his classic British accent said,

Starting point is 02:01:40 Salim, there are no suspicious noises. Now let's get back to talking about how many people Salim, there are no suspicious noises. Now let's get back to talking about how many people are going on the bus to the airport. Bam. And they went in and I caught up with David a number years later, I had a presidential intern from the White House intern with me in the Bureau. We're drinking in a bar with David Vines. I got a lot of stories where I'm drinking in a bar with somebody.

Starting point is 02:02:07 And the intern walked around everybody and tapped David on the shoulder and he says, Chris says you kept a terrorist on the phone up to the moment that the SAS came in a door. And David says, yeah, and I had to kept them on the phone even longer if the SAS hadn't come in so soon. So why am I telling that story? If you're going to get into that line of business, you've got to accept all the things that go with it. And realize that it's not you that made the decision.

Starting point is 02:02:35 Somebody else did. You got to implement the strategy. Do you remember a case in Sacramento where I think it was a youth gang, it took over like an electronic story. A good guy, Siege. Yeah, I remember this when I was a kid. There are two things that stand out of my mind from when I was a kid. One was the...

Starting point is 02:02:58 Good guys was the name of the electronic story. Right, good guys was the electronic story and bad guys, so it was Pete went in the electronic store. Right. Good guys was electronic store and bad guys. So a speed went in there took them hostage. And I must have been a kid. This must have been like late, there was a late 80s, 80s, something like that. I remember that case. It was about 1990. It was either 80, 90, 90.

Starting point is 02:03:18 I knew one of the negotiators that was 15. So I was born in 75. So and as I recall, they ended up opening fire on a bunch of hostages who were laying down on the ground. Is that right? They knew that they were getting ready to execute the hostages because they put bags over their heads. And that whenever the bad guys do anything

Starting point is 02:03:40 to dehumanize a hostage, it's easier to shoot somebody with a bag over their head than it is not, because you can't see their face. And so the bad guys had begun that process and they knew they needed to assault. God forbid anyone should ever be taken hostage. I realize circumstance that's differ, but you just mentioned putting bags over the heads. There's this notion of sheeple that people will describe post-talk after something about how somebody walks into a building, tells people to put zip ties on their own ankles or go into a back room that nobody resists

Starting point is 02:04:21 and that in retrospect had somebody caused a commotion, they might have caused enough of a commotion to either run out or be let go. And yet, of course, there's a very logical part of everybody's brain, I would hope, that things. Listen, this person is an aggressor, there's a gun in my face. Don't be an idiot, right? Because we also have heard of the case in New York City that I read about this in the newspaper, so presumably it's true, where someone was held up at gunpoint and one of the women in

Starting point is 02:04:48 the group that was held up said, what are you going to do? Shoot us and the person shot them. Right. So that happens too. So, you know, I don't know if there's a fair and safe answer to give people on this, but if you're told to do something by somebody and it's all happening in real time, I mean, you have to ask, do they want my money, my body, my life, or some combination of the three, in real time while under presumably significant arrests. But for hostages, like if they disobey, cause a commotion, is that extending their life or is it shortening their life? I guess it it's very context dependent right? The only thing that I could without knowing the context anything you could do to humanize yourself and comply with what the bad guys want

Starting point is 02:05:36 Increases your chance of survival So let's say you got ordered to go in a back room You could look at the hostage taker and say, I'll do whatever you say, I'm Chris. Drop your name on them in a way so that you go from being a faceless person to somebody with a name that increases the chances of your survival, humanization.

Starting point is 02:05:58 Whatever you can do to comply simultaneously become more of a human being because it's the opposite of what I was talking about before. If you're easier to kill, if you've been dehumanized, you're harder to kill if you've been humanized. You're harder to harm. Like, maybe they're not going to kill you, they're just going to hurt you. They're less likely to harm you if they know your first name.

Starting point is 02:06:21 How do you get them? As a hostage to go shader, if if they if they talk about a hostage? I'll say you you know you mean you mean Sheila? Do you mean Rex? You know, I'll find a way to drop the person's name into the conversation. So as soon as if you can humanize just by getting them to know your name you increase the chances of survivability increase the chances of being treated better and comply. I'll do whatever you say I'm Chris, is going to start to move the

Starting point is 02:06:52 odds in your favor. You know that what you just described extends to science. I've talked before about my stance on animal research and why I choose to no longer do it. I do think it has its place in making important discoveries that cannot be made on humans, but that eventually extend to, but you don't want to do it. I don't want to do it personally. I don't want to do it.

Starting point is 02:07:18 And I don't want to do primate work or large carnivore work or small carnivore work. But the point I was going to make is that when you do primate work, they strongly discourage, near forbid you from giving them names. Right. Give them numbers. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. So it all falls in line with what you were talking about, because the moment something has a name, it moves from being a research animal to a pet of sorts, and that makes it a relationship. Right. So interesting has a name, it moves from being a research animal to a pet of sorts, and that makes it a relationship. Right.

Starting point is 02:07:47 So interesting how a name turns something from a, you know, it elevates something to a relationship. However insignificant, it's up a notch and into our empathy circuitry. Which is perhaps the appropriate segue to talk about empathy. This is a topic that you spent lots of time with us. You mentioned tactical empathy, it's documented by the way, when is that going to be out or do we have some sense?

Starting point is 02:08:14 My guess is we'll finish jumping through all the hoops and probably have out at the beginning of next year. I'm currently working with William Morris and Devar on a couple of different projects. They've been enormously supportive and we've asked for their guidance on how to, the best time to get the documentary out. And very happy with the people I'm dealing with there. And actually, the University of Struck University was looking out for me, funny set of circumstances and just really enjoyed it with the people that I'm working with there So probably first part of next year fantastic

Starting point is 02:08:50 What's your take on empathy? I think of empathy in the pop culture sense of you know somebody's feeling pain and we feel they're pain But of course empathy extends way beyond that Yeah, yeah, and that was Rob Malenka. Yeah, my colleague at Stanford. Yeah, I was really fascinated by the conversation that you had with him on that recently. And so he said a lot of people use empathy in a lot of different ways, sort of for their own meanings. So

Starting point is 02:09:23 my take on empathy, tactical empathy, also to keep throwing names out, because people give me thoughts and I wanna source them out. I'm very close to Stephen Kotler's perspective on it. And Stephen would say, empathy is about the transmission of information, compassion is the reaction to the transmission.

Starting point is 02:09:40 I like that. And by the way, I'm a fan of Stephen's work. I think he's quite a student and a boy. Is he a hard worker? He writes like a beast. He needs up at like four in the morning. He also has like 50 Chihuahua's or something crazy. Well, he's a way in the dogs.

Starting point is 02:09:53 Yeah. And I know. Well, you can fit more Chihuahua's in a room than any other speed. Gotcha, Stephen. But yeah. So, and that was when I was with the FBI, we started collaborating with Harvard because the Harvard definition was empathy was not liking the other side.

Starting point is 02:10:11 It was just demonstrating an understanding of their perspective. Bob Minukin's book Beyond Winnings, chapter the attention between empathy and assertiveness, he says empathy is not agreeing, disagreeing, or even liking the other side, which sort of falls into what Stephen talked about. You know, it's about the transmission of information. Now, empathy is a very compassionate thing to do, but it doesn't necessarily equate to compassion itself.

Starting point is 02:10:40 If I make you feel heard by me saying to you what your perspective on something is, you're going to feel cared for, you're going to feel understood. It's going to land with you really well. I don't necessarily have to feel compassion for you. I know it's a precursor to compassion. So I would separate it from sympathy clearly, and I would even separate it from compassion, although I know it's a very compassionate thing to do.

Starting point is 02:11:09 It's about tactical empathy is about me actively demonstrating verbally to you that I understand where you're coming from. Tactical, from the experience in hostage negotiators, back to Bynuriscience is that people largely react negatively. So the smarter move for me instead of trying to reinforce a positive is to first deactivate the negative by simply calling it out, calling the elephant a room out. Don't deny the elephant, don't ignore the elephant, call the elephant a room out, say,

Starting point is 02:11:47 it probably going to sound like I'm greedy. If I expect that you're going to think I'm over reaching, I'm not going to say, I don't want you to think I'm greedy. I'm going to say it's probably going to seem greedy. So simply well educated emotional intelligence, influence, gut instinct influence on what the other side is thinking and feeling. If I can define it in that way, then it becomes an unlimited skill. If it requires me for to have compassion for you, when I don't, then that limits my ability to use empathy. And I'm not interested in having that ability to be limited.

Starting point is 02:12:20 I want it to be an unlimited skill. So if you just define it strictly in terms of transmission of information, then it's not sympathy or compassion or liking or green. It has a very powerful effect. It at least feels like compassion to the other side. It reacts with the emotional circuitry, the neurochemicals that everybody has to some degree if they're alive, even if they're on this spectrum. They have some of that going on inside. And of what I've read on even even a mental illnesses, in my last century training, I saw people who were paranoid schizophrenic is effectively be more of a wiring problem than a chemical problem for layman's description.

Starting point is 02:13:10 And a lot of what I've read said empathy has been affected with paranoid schizophrenia. People regardless of how disarray the circuitry in their head is, it helps them on some level to feel understood. So empathy is just about many, somebody feel understood. Example when I'm working terrorism, we had a lot of Arab Muslims testifying an open civilian court against a legitimate Muslim cleric, who was also a criminal, who also committed crimes. And I would sit down with them and I'd say to them right off the bat, because I know where they're coming from.

Starting point is 02:13:53 You believe that there's been a succession of American governments for the last 200 years that have been anti-Islamic. And they'd look at me and they'd go like, yeah. I never said I, it was true. I never said I agreed. I never said I disagreed. By me simply articulating what their perspective on the interaction was, there was so startled by it.

Starting point is 02:14:17 It was empathy. And we were so good at that, empathy, frequently in that time frame, they would say, are you Muslim? And I'd say, no, I respect a religion. You know, if you need to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your religion, and I got no problem saying to you where you're coming from. That's empathy from my definition, and then it becomes an unlimited skill.

Starting point is 02:14:46 I don't have to feel it. I don't have to necessarily want to do anything about it. You know, Goldman says there's cognitive empathy. We just recognizing what your emotions are coming from. There's emotional empathy, me feeling your emotions, and there's empathic concern. You want to do something about your distress. My version of tactical empathy probably brings those into play in sequence on a continuum of sorts, but none of them are precursors. It's just me showing to you that I understand where you're coming from, and it has a phenomenally favorable impact on the interaction. Tell me about mirroring as a tool.

Starting point is 02:15:30 Yeah, mirroring is one of the simplest, easiest, and most effective of the skill set. Takes at least a amount of brain power. It's just repeating one to threeish words of what somebody has just said. Can be one, it should never usually be more than five. Hostage to go shit is learned by repeating the last one to three words that somebody has just said.

Starting point is 02:15:54 It doesn't have to be the last one to three words. And the mirroring is not the body language mirror. It's not mimicking anybody physically and it's not mimicking their tone of voice or their affect or anything about them. It's just repeating one to three-ish words. We found that access is for whatever part of brain that you gotta energize to do it. It's a different part of the brain than labeling. People are usually either good, really good at labeling.

Starting point is 02:16:19 Like I label. Almost everybody on my team labels a lot. Sounds like this is bothering you Sounds like seems like you're just not really sure where this is going and The mirror I got to consciously make it a point to mirror And what's a mirror used for it's in place of what did you mean by that? Or would you please go on or I I don't understand, could you repeat that again? So I'll listen for stuff that either I don't understand, or I need you to talk

Starting point is 02:16:52 more about, and instead of saying, could you say some more about that, I'll just mirror the words. Now, for whatever reason, it connects the thoughts in your head. The message, the way that lands is, I heard what you said, the words, I got the words, because I just repeated them, and I still don't understand. So I need a more in-depth explanation without using the same words that you just used. Because of you say, I think,

Starting point is 02:17:27 actual pras, actual prasism is useless. And I might say, what do you mean by that? And you go, I still practice that as a sum is useless. You repeat the same words only louder. You figure that saying it louder will make it penetrate my cranium. That doesn't work. I need you to explain, to go into more depth,

Starting point is 02:17:49 to expand using different words. And for whatever reason, we found as hostage to go shaters that I find in business, that if I mirror you, you'll expand and you'll connect. So I use it in that context. I might use it to get you to hear yourself out loud. Like if what you just said doesn't make sense, I'll repeat it backwards for word,

Starting point is 02:18:16 one to three words, and all upward and flex. I'll say that doesn't make sense. You know, use my tone, make it land with my tone. So you can hear yourself out loud. Somebody else just pointed out to me the other day that if you're talking to somebody and they're in mid thought and they kind of their voice trails off because they sort of lost their train of thought, if you mirror them there, that helps them get their train of thought back and expand.

Starting point is 02:18:45 that helps them get their train of thought back and expand. So it's a ridiculously effective communication tool to get people to expand and feel heard. It's simplicity puts some people off. There are some people that say, yeah, it sounds stupid, I don't see what good that will do. I always notice if somebody's really wants to know about mirroring, my description is they're both high IQ and high EQ.

Starting point is 02:19:10 And why does that work? High IQ guys are going to want to know something that's really simple that doesn't take any effort to do. And that's what a mirror does. It's really, really effective. It's almost no effort on your part at all. Interesting. I must say that neuroscience has an unfortunate dearth of knowledge about how brains interact. This is starting to change, but most of

Starting point is 02:19:34 what we know about how brains work is from putting people into functional, magnetic, and imaging machines, so-called MRI, exposing them to movies or games that they have to play, etc. and then looking at brain state activation. There are a few laboratories starting to look at how people interact in real time with both people in separate MRI machines that hopefully we'll be able to parse some of this. And I'm certain that somebody hearing this will use this knowledge to go do the experiment. If not, I'll run it up the flagpole to some highly qualified people at Stanford who

Starting point is 02:20:11 could do this because it'd be fun to see what's happening. But I have the sense that what's happening is that there is a real merge of cognition when one hears their own words, spoken back to them, that you know that you've got now got two brains processing the same information and that has to lead new places. So I don't have any insight as to where, what exactly is happening, but certainly that something is happening there. Right, right.

Starting point is 02:20:40 Evidence by the real world results that you're getting. We don't need an experiment to tell us that. But it'd be interesting to see and learn a bit of what's happening. right, right, evidence by the real world results that you're getting. We don't need experiments to tell us that. But it'd be interesting to see and learn a bit of what's happening. If there's a fusion, for instance, of a co-activation of emotional centers, co-activation of, there's something about hearing our own voice. It's very different than hearing other people's voices. Most people cringe when they hear their own voice on recording. Most, not all. Some people learn love with their own voice on recording. Most, not all.

Starting point is 02:21:06 Some people are in love with their own voice. We know these people, but we know that our auditory system cancels out the hearing of our own voice. Did you know that? As we're talking now, our auditory system is suppressing our own voice. We don't really hear ourselves speak.

Starting point is 02:21:21 The same way that when you speak, I hear you speak. Yeah, so it's an active neurochemical inhibition We don't really hear ourselves speak, the same way that when you speak, I hear you speak. Yeah. So, it's an active neurochemical inhibition of the response. And it's amazing too, because as we grow up, our voice changes, puberty and so forth, and other ways too, that the vocal chords change and thickness, et cetera. And our voice changes, but we always know self from other in terms of voice, and we cancel out our actual auditory perception of our own.

Starting point is 02:21:47 That's fascinating. And breathing and heartbeat. We shut down our response to self actively within the brain. That's fascinating. So maybe hearing back some of what we just said allows us to actually hear what we just said. Yeah, what's true. And that's why people sometimes all somebody needs a sounding board. So they can they can somebody else can hear hear they can hear

Starting point is 02:22:10 themselves out and get a repeat of back down and then they go like, wait a minute, can I just say that? Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Useful. Indeed. Proactive listening. Tell us about proactive listening. We're all told that we need to be better listeners. You know the other day someone said we got two years in one mouth as if that's supposed to remind us. Most people have two years in one mouth, but I get the point. They were saying hey, there's value in listening and more often than not we default to broadcast, but no reception, or mostly broadcast, less reception. Hence the call for nasal breathing, it's useful in a lot of circumstances, because it keeps us, it gives our mouths shut.

Starting point is 02:22:55 What is proactive listening? How do we do it? What's it good for? I'm really trying to get people out of the notion of active listening, just because active do it? What's it good for? I'm really trying to get people out of the notion of active listening, just because active listening has been so overused, the people have lost track of it, and most of it is taught poorly,

Starting point is 02:23:12 and it's interactive or it's proactive. And so we learned as hostage negotiators, first of all, just to label the presenting emotion. And we just assumed that, and the presenting emotion was always anger of some form. Anger upset on certain rare instances the guy was under control, but they were almost always negative emotions. So we just assumed that it was defined to what was confined to what was driving, hostage

Starting point is 02:23:37 takers was negativity. Now if I may, because now I feel like an imposter talking about neuroscience to you, your knowledge of neuroscience is spot on, uh, boss. I, let's say numerous times you, you've asked me about things in neuroscience and you've never been off the mark. So yeah, you've clearly done your homework. Oh, we keep trying to learn about it. But, um, layman's terminology, the survival brain is largely negative.

Starting point is 02:24:06 Ballpark, I would say 75% negative. Your reactions are going to be negative. So number one, I believe that's principally backed up by the experiments of neuroscience, the FMRIs, if you use alluded to. And so then in hostage negotiation, we were taught to basically label the presenting emotion. And then I've seen experimentation, a reporting of experiments. I think that first time I read about it was in a book called The Upward Spiral and that book is a good 10 years old I think which means you know the neurosciences evolving but, the experiment there that I remember reading about and read about in other places

Starting point is 02:24:49 that if people were undergoing a negative emotion in my layman's paraphrase of the experiment, is they showed a picture that induced a negative emotion in their head. And then they asked people to simply call out what the emotion was. And when they self-label call out what the emotion was. And when they self labeled, then the emotion diminished. Now the degree of the diminishment varies, but the percentage of time that it diminishes by simply by calling it out is just darn near all the time. So for largely 75% negative, and we can deactivate the negativity by calling it out, well, let's be proactive. If you're human being and we're engaged in a negotiation, there's going to be certain

Starting point is 02:25:36 very predictable negativity that's going to be there. And I should be proactive in calling it out. Anticipating the negativity is going to be there based on a circumstances highly predictable and you've got instinct before that you refer into when you want to say, look, I don't want you to think I'm being greedy. Your gut's telling you it's highly predictable, you're going to come off as greedy.

Starting point is 02:25:59 So let me be proactive and say, it's probably going to seem like I'm being greedy. And that's the dialing over to what is eminently predictable So, let me be proactive and say, it's probably going to seem like I'm being greedy. And that's the dialing over to what is eminently predictable in the interaction and just being proactive to deactivate the negative emotions that either are taking place or what our experience is found, then I haven't seen any science that has yet, that has had the opportunity to back this up and inoculates, I can create a barrier, if I call out a negative that's not there,

Starting point is 02:26:31 it doesn't plant it, it actually inoculates you from it. If, and I've done this in practice, I was given a lecture a couple of years ago, anybody asked a question, I try to find the value in the question, no matter how bad the question is. This poor guy asked me a question that I just cannot find a single component in his question

Starting point is 02:26:54 that demonstrates that he was listening or paying attention, there was nothing about it that I could congratulate him on. And so I said, this gonna sound harsh, because I know the answer I'm getting ready to give him is going to make it sound like to the group that I think he's stupid.

Starting point is 02:27:11 I just, I can't think of a way to respond to this without saying effectively like, what do you think that about? That's got nothing to do what we're talking about. So I go, this is going to sound harsh. And I answer the question. And he just kind of goes, okay, and I start answering somebody else's question, and he goes, that was in harsh.

Starting point is 02:27:33 Now if I hadn't said this is going to sound harsh, and answer the question, I guarantee you, my answer would have embarrassed him. An embarrassment is one of the worst negative emotions you can inflict on anybody and he would hate me to this day for embarrassing them. So I got a moment coming at me that just predictably negative and I can let it, I can let that train run me down or I can call that out in advance and get a reaction where the guy says, I wasn't at the end. And that's what being proactive about the emotions is about. I love it. And I'm recalling an instance during graduate school where my graduate advisor,

Starting point is 02:28:16 who sadly has passed away, but was a phenomenal scientist. I mean, just so pure. Insisted on getting the answers could emotionally detach from the answers when she was just, was a ninja. She used to come into the laboratory when we were working on a paper, and she'd sit down, and she'd say, you're gonna hate me for what I'm about to ask you to do.

Starting point is 02:28:38 And I think, oh no, like I'm gonna have to redo all the analysis, or I'm gonna, like some, you know, monumental thing, and then she'd say, you got to change the like fonts and figure two. Like, godly. What do you mean I want to hate you? But it was, but it was really, but I wanted nothing more than to make her happy with my work because I respected the standard that she held so, so greatly. I mean, she could have asked me to, you know, stand on my head and do the experiments 50 times I would probably would have done it if I thought they would make the project better. And as a consequence, she would have been pleased because she was the standard for me.

Starting point is 02:29:17 And in many ways, still is. But I'm wondering if she read your book because she used to pressage these requests with like, you're gonna hate me. And then she'd ask me for something, I'm like, oh, I hate you, like, that's nothing. But now I wonder if I would have been taken aback or she had just said, you know, hey, by the way, figure two needs redoing.

Starting point is 02:29:37 I might have been kind of bristled by that. So maybe she read your book, Chris. These are great tools mirroring and proactive listening. And thank you for sharing these. Of course. Did you ever employ the family members of kidnappers, friends of kidnappers as a means to tap into a different aspect of their psyche? You know, because I think that we are all as human beings very context driven.

Starting point is 02:30:02 So I can imagine that the person who kidnapped somebody or who's trying to steal somebody's resources is in a particular groove of person. And I do think there are people in the world who are just evil. But I also know, because I've read about it and I trust the sources, that there are people who have done horrendous things who love their dog and genuinely love their dog and wouldn't harm an animal. But I'm not trying to give these people a pass, but I could imagine that those other facets to somebody represent really good entry points

Starting point is 02:30:36 for allowing them to see the kind of incongruence in their behavior. Or is it the case that when these are high-stress situations that you just have to basically, you have to attack the disarm the aggressor and you're just focusing on the person as the bad actor, not considering the other contexts of their lives? All right, so let's draw a distinction between hostage takers in a contained situation and kidnappers

Starting point is 02:31:05 uncontained unknown location. So you're probably asking about somebody in a contained situation. Bad guys in a bank, Dwight Watson in his tractor in Washington, DC. So very counterintuitively, if they're in a contained situation, there's a saying out that says a system that you're employing is perfectly designed to give you the outcome that you have.

Starting point is 02:31:31 So bad guy Dwight Watson is on his tractor in DC, the family's part of the system that put him there. The blunt harsh reality of that is, now at that siege that went on long enough and it was so high profile, some of his family members showed up. Now we can, we could and did try to use them. I'm walking from one place to another from the negotiation operation cell component on a way to command post Hosts negotiator stops me a couple of people with them. It's Watson's family and they see I'm in a hurry

Starting point is 02:32:14 And then I'm not interested to be in stopped and they got to say to me something to stop me and get my Attention and they go look our brothers just hurting in his heart He's just hurting You know things have gone bad for our whole family our brother's just hurting in his heart. He's just hurting. You know, things have gone bad for our whole family and he's just hurting his heart. Don't kill him over that. And I looked at the negotiator and I said, get that on tape.

Starting point is 02:32:38 And we'll play that for him. Because if we can get that on tape, exactly the way they said it, that'll land. But if we put them on a phone with them, they're going to try to reason with them. And they're going to say stuff to them that didn't help, which they don't very well intention, but it's going to be kind of intuitive. And it's probably going to make it worse. So you have to understand family can be extremely important if you can get them to say exactly the right thing.

Starting point is 02:33:09 And it's probably going to need to be highly orchestrated because you know how it's going to land. And unfortunately, if you get them in a direct conversation, it'll probably renew an old wound. Family members have heard each other in ways that they have no idea even happened. So the other, a family member, my son, to this day, remembers when I told him Santa Claus wasn't real. And I have no...

Starting point is 02:33:36 What? You're talking about your time. I have no memory of that conversation. I've said in there, I blew it for you, right? Wait, we got... Oh my goodness. Family members have heard each other over the years that they have no idea which comes up in these live conversations.

Starting point is 02:33:49 And you don't know what wounds, you don't even know what wounds are there that you caused. And so in a contained situation, a family member can be extremely helpful, but it has to be, it's a surgical shot that you have to be really, really, really careful with. Otherwise, it can go the other way because wounds and people don't even know are there. Yes, that's such a psychologically astute way of viewing it because I'm a big fan of the

Starting point is 02:34:15 so-called family systems model of psychology. I mean, you can't look at any human being psychology, positive, meaning adaptive or maladaptive psychology and not look at the family system which that evolved, which is not to say that some perfectly healthy families occasionally don't have issues with a child having mental illness and I mean that happens. But I'm told that 99.9% of the time you can identify a family system organization or a lineage of genetic tie, etc. that makes things start to make sense when somebody's really struggling. Right, right. And as you point out, sadly, oftentimes that involves pains of past.

Starting point is 02:34:58 Well, thanks for sharing that because I think that in my mind, the movie version of it is, you know, they bring the mother in and it's like, Billy, don't do it. You know? But as he said, Billy might, that might be the time when Billy's really gonna let his mother know, you know, job and sucked for Billy.

Starting point is 02:35:18 Right? And that's not what you want. Yeah. Goodness. What a complex job. What a complex high stakes, high consequence, job. What did you do to unload some of the heaviness? I'm not just talking about getting a good night's sleep or having a beer with your co-workers

Starting point is 02:35:37 after all, though those things are important roles for people I realize, do you think we can dump the hard stuff in our head and our hearts in a way that allows us to be functional? Because people in your line of work, and I think just anyone in the world, you live long enough, you're going to experience loss. Yeah, you're going to get kicked in a gut. Yeah. And you're going to see people you care about, get kicked in the gut. That's, there's so much beauty to life as well, but that's the reality.

Starting point is 02:36:11 So did you, do you have tools, processes that you use to kind of dump the baggage so that you can lean into your relationships and your relationship to yourself with, with the restored sense of optimism. Yeah, I think mostly, most of the people that I've always worked around, we've been very reinforcing of one another, comedically, emotionally, friendship-wise, being able to laugh with each other, taking it easy on each other, getting people, you know,

Starting point is 02:36:50 laughter and genuine understanding, without, you know, somebody trying to tell you that you did wrong, I've been lucky enough to either find myself in those groups most of the time, or we just evolved it that's just the way that we were. We were attracted to one another emotionally, psychologically, because of that. That's probably it mostly. I mean, I've tried to parse some of these emotions out recently. Like, I'm not particularly proud of anything I've ever done. But I always felt

Starting point is 02:37:24 like it was a privilege. You must be proud of your accomplishments. I don't know that it's pride, but there's other satisfaction than I get out of it. And so thinking about what drives me also now, that I'm running a company, and I've got people also entrepreneurs that are trying to do the best for the employees. What do we encourage in one another so that whatever we're doing, people feel good about it.

Starting point is 02:37:51 And I try to take a lot of that from what I learned as an FBI agent and a hostage negotiator and the people that I was around. And, you know, we did joke with each other a, and we did play tricks on each other. Good natured humor. Avoid the people that are running you down, but be able to take some good natured ribbing every now and then. And I think humor is one way or another, combined with hard work and an appreciation for what you're doing, is probably been most of the mental health along the way.

Starting point is 02:38:29 Casional bourbon. Love it. We did a whole episode on alcohol and so people are going to hear me say, love it and think, wait, here I'm supporting. Listen, the data say as long as you're not an alcoholic, as long as you are of age, probably two drinks a week is or less is safe. Make them make them good high quality drinks if you're going to have them consume them in the right context or don't consume them at all.

Starting point is 02:38:54 But that's why I said love it. I support your love of bourbon. I'm not bourbon drinker, but tell me a little bit more about what you're up to lately. You alluded to it a moment ago that you're running teams that are doing a lot. So you're in charge of a lot of people now helping people, helping people, providing a lot of service in the world through a lot of different channels. First of all, I want to say that your book never split the difference. One of my favorite books. Thank you. I don't say that lightly. I don't endorse books very often,

Starting point is 02:39:26 but the books I do endorse, I love, love, love. I also have to say that it's a toss up between your book, never split the difference, and the body keeps the score for the award for best titles of any book. Those are just like amazing titles, amazing titles. Tall Rise, a co-writer, came up with the title. Yeah, it was phenomenal title.

Starting point is 02:39:48 That and the body keeps the score. Just like, because there's so much contained in the title and then the book exceeds expectations. So really amazing book, people should listen to it, read it if they haven't already. But you're doing a lot more right now than just writing, although I want to hear about your other book projects as well. But before you list off the number of things you're doing,

Starting point is 02:40:12 tell me first about FireSide because this sounds like a really interesting endeavor that Frank Lavin heard of before. What's FireSide? A brand new social media platform, it's essentially an interactive podcast. before what's fireside. Brand new social media platform, it's essentially an interactive podcast. It's a subscription service, founded by Phalan Phatomy and Mark Cuban.

Starting point is 02:40:32 Phalan I've been friends for a number of years. She was Google's youngest employee. She's an entrepreneur, dynamic, smart, hard-charging person. And it's sort of grew out of what's inadequate in some of the social media apps that are out there, trying to combine the best ideas of a few different things. And found suggested it to me, and I thought, I'll jump in because she's a visionary. And what has turned out to be is it's effectively weekly interactive group coaching. And you get the app off your iPhone or your Android, whatever platform your phone is on.

Starting point is 02:41:13 And then you log in. We do an hour once a week. And it's you're getting group coaching. And then you get asked questions. And it's got a video component to it. So if you want to ask a question, we're going to bring you up on quote stage. And I get to see you and talk directly to you. And you get to see me and talk directly to me. Or I interviewed Mark Cuban a couple of weeks ago. And people got to come on and ask, ask Mark questions. Or ask me questions. And what

Starting point is 02:41:41 it is turned out to be is it's one of sort of the of sort of the next level of how to get better at negotiations after you've read the book and probably taken a master class. You know, where do you go next? One of the people that came on the podcast here the day, the fire side episode, they said, well, I don't have enough money yet to go to your in-person training events because those are expensive. And this is how I'm going to get better in the in a meantime and work my way in that direction. And so the monthly coaching, if you were to sign up for group coaching from us on a regular basis, on a monthly basis, it would probably easily cost you for what we're providing $25,000, $30,000 a month.

Starting point is 02:42:28 And this is a thousand a year. So at scale, it's an opportunity to interact directly with me and the members on my team once a week and get group coaching. And it's just kind of fun. We're getting a kick out of it. And people that really care about interacting well with people. Guy comes on the first episode I did and he said, besides the fact that you helped me make a lot more money, you helped me save my marriage. And he just needed to know how to talk more genuinely and honestly with

Starting point is 02:43:02 his wife in a way that made her felt heard. And he didn't really have a good way to do that beforehand. And I was just like, that's a lot. I don't know how to respond to that, or then just be grateful that people can say stuff like that to us. So the fireside thing is kind of cool. We're still experimenting with it. It's an interactive podcast group coaching. It's fun.

Starting point is 02:43:30 Great. I mean, I would say it changed in lives there. I mean, the saving of marriages is no small deal. And I think that the ability to communicate directly with people. Also, I imagine gives them the opportunity to implement the tools that you're providing in real time. That's one thing to hear about something and try it, but then you can get feedback in real time. Are you on these fireside chats directly or members of your team? No, I do, we do one every week and I'm one some month. And the other thing too, like I can explain something in one way. And if for whatever reason it doesn't land in your context, you can't quite get it. So that's what we found about the interactive nature of it. Somebody comes on and asks a question in their context,

Starting point is 02:44:16 and then I'll answer it and they'll go like, oh, oh, oh, okay, all right, that helped. So you get to hear people like you who are struggling with it the way you are, but I haven't put it in your context yet. And that's the other thing that's great about a Q&A, a live Q&A. We had a guest on here who told me that there are amazing data supporting the fact that

Starting point is 02:44:41 people follow the medical and health advice of doctors that they can relate to. Far more than they follow the medical and health advice of doctors that they can relate to. Far more than they follow the medical and health advice of physicians that they feel aren't like them. And oftentimes this can include the physician or healthcare provider being someone that they would aspire to be like. But oftentimes it's just some common rapport, like they both like baseball, or they both like to cook or to garden, and that sets the bridge where then the patient is willing to do all these things that ordinarily they would be resistant to. And there are really good data to support this, and that really stuck with me, because it says that it's not just about the

Starting point is 02:45:20 information or the delivery route or the information that the context and that rapport is even along something is like, oh, you're a, by the way, I'm not a major, you know, a major sports fan on most things, but you know, like, oh, you're a bills fan or something like me too, like that can be the difference between somebody doing all the things to lower their blood pressure, the day in, changing their diet, all those things versus not making the changes. Report is a magic, yeah, it's kind of a magic component that changes everything. Well, fireside sounds like a great opportunity for people to not just ask questions, but to build rapport with you and members of your team.

Starting point is 02:45:59 So, I'm going to check it out. Lord knows I need help improving my communications and certain domains of life. But leave me, I get the memos. Um, in fact, what other writing projects are you involved in, if any? We've been toying with this companion operations manual for tactical empathy, which getting it right is important.

Starting point is 02:46:33 So it's sort of a companion book to never split the difference. That's probably at least a year and a half out from being done. So in the meantime, we do a lot of online training. You know, we got a newsletter we put out weekly for people to get our latest cutting edge application thoughts as much as possible.

Starting point is 02:46:52 We're putting information out that we charge for a lot and we put out a lot of free stuff. You know, I'm throwing out ideas on Instagram, but we're constantly trying to put information out there so that people can collaborate better. So specifically, we just finished a book for residential real estate agents, friend of mine, Steve Scholl, we put that out last November.

Starting point is 02:47:16 That's sort of niche, but it's mostly the black swan method for real estate agents, because every conversation they're in is a difficult emotional conversation. Sell of a house is one of the most stressful moments of anybody's life. Sell and are buying. So we just put that out in the meantime, you know, we're spending as much as possible. Well, it's certainly point out the various places people can find you and the different venues for learning more. I want to say that numerous times throughout today's conversation, you throughout the words sounds like as an opener. And I have to say, I have this kind of crazy idea in the back of my mind. You know, I believe that simple field-tested tools are immensely powerful, not just for resolving negotiations, but really for changing the way that people interact with each other and themselves.

Starting point is 02:48:11 And, you know, if I have one wish for the world on the basis of our conversation, how amazing would it be if kids learned early on to talk to one another from that sounds like perspective. Because I think that would naturally orient them toward listening, or at least offering a hypothesis of what they heard and how poorly they might be listening, and then getting a defensive stance response that informs them about the accuracy or lack of accuracy. And on and on, I feel like the sounds like question, sounds like you feel blank or sounds like you believe blank just seems to me like one of the most potent tools in the universe. And I sure wish that all adults would implement it, but that kids would learn about it too.

Starting point is 02:49:06 Yeah, that's a great thought. How do we teach them at a young age that listening is actually an effective thing to do? It's actually a way to think things through also. So, yeah, I agree. I mean, we have a magic wand, right? Exactly. Well, Chris, I wanna thank you so much for your time today.

Starting point is 02:49:29 I mean, you've joined us on this tour of so many different facets of your work, prior and present, and you let us get a little glimpse into the portal of your future work too, which I'm eagerly awaiting. I also just wanna thank you for everything that you do. You've always struck me as such a giver of knowledge.

Starting point is 02:49:48 And you can't put a value on that. You're constantly putting knowledge into the world on Instagram, your book, fire side, and courses, and on and on, glean from your experience in very intense circumstances, but really with an eye toward people getting the most out of that for their daily lives, which hopefully don't involve hostage negotiations, unless they're a hostage negotiator. So I just want to say thank you ever so much for what you do and for being such a phenomenal

Starting point is 02:50:21 communicator. And also thank you for doing into that late night FM BJ voice. Yeah, I've been I've wanted to be here sitting with you being interviewed on your podcast. Since I first discovered it, you. Thank you. Several years ago, and it's a privilege to be here. I really really, and I love what you're doing in getting actionable, usable tools into the world so people can navigate more effectively. Thank you, right back at you. Come back again.

Starting point is 02:50:53 All right, thanks. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Chris Voss. I hope you found it to be as interesting and as actionable as I did. To find links to Chris's website and to his excellent book, Never Split the Difference, as well as to his social media handles, please see the links in the show note captions. If you're learning from Endor and enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five star review.

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Starting point is 02:51:49 many people derive tremendous benefit from them for things like improving sleep, for hormone support, and for focus. The Hubert Moon Lab podcast has partnered with Momentus Supplements, and we did that for several reasons. First of all, their ingredients are of the very highest quality. Second of all, they tend to focus on single ingredient formulations, which make it easy to develop the most cost-effective and biologically effective supplement regimen for you. And third, momentous supplements ship internationally, which we realize is important because many of you reside outside of the United States. To see the supplements discussed on the Hubertman Lab podcast, go to LiveMomentus spelled O-U-S,

Starting point is 02:52:24 so it's livemomentus.com slash Hubertman. If you're not already following me on social media, you can do so by going to Hubertman Lab on all social media platforms. So that's Instagram, Twitter, now called X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Threads. On all of those platforms, I cover science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Hubertman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the content covered on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, that's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. If you haven't already subscribed to our neural network newsletter, the neural network newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries, as well as

Starting point is 02:52:59 toolkits. So toolkits for sleep, toolkits for learning and plasticity, toolkits related to dopamine regulation, and much more. Again, it's all zero cost. You simply go to hubraminlab.com, go to the menu tabs, scroll down to newsletter, and simply enter your email, and we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining for today's discussion with Chris Voss. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

Starting point is 02:53:23 And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

Huberman Lab - Chris Voss: How to Succeed at Hard Conversations

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