The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne https://amzn.to/3SkicEI An inspiring and exciting guide to building unstoppable momentum for your transformative ideas In The Two But Rule: Turn Negative Thinking Into Positive Solutions veteran tech innovator John Wolpert delivers an exciting, hands-on guide to using the principles of Momentum Thinking to get you―and your organization―unstuck. You’ll learn how to build unstoppable velocity for your big idea, product, or strategy as you blast through the endless objections and counterarguments that bedevil every innovator and changemaker. You’ll discover how to address common “but” complaints, like “But that’s too expensive,” or “But that won’t work,” at the same time as you refine your idea and polish it into a gem worthy of attention and implementation. In the book, you’ll also find: Explanations for why a “but” statement should always be followed by another “but” statement Discussions of why “toxic positivity” and blind optimism can be just as harmful as constant naysaying Step-by-step strategies for transforming momentum-killing objections into momentum-boosting innovation rocket fuel A can’t-miss resource for managers, executives, directors, and business leaders everywhere, The Two But Rule is also perfect for product managers, professionals in any field, government and academic leaders, and anyone else ready to successfully tackle their most stubborn and intractable problems. About John Wolpert John Wolpert is an esteemed speaker, writer and thinker in technology and business innovation. As a CEO, product executive, and advisor, he’s been at the vanguard of technological breakthroughs from the early days of the Web to the rise of artificial intelligence. John is known for founding Flywheel, a pioneer in the ride-hailing industry. His work at IBM made him a key figure in the evolution of open source software, blockchain, and AI. He’s co-founded global R&D consortia and industry standards bodies, and his thought leadership on Open Innovation has been showcased in the Harvard Business Review. John has led countless new venture workshops and spoken before the European Union and the Australian Parliament in his mission to help organizations work together to solve hard problems.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, the Chris Foss Show is the family that loves you but doesn't judge you,

at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law, because she really wanted him to date the other guy first. But you came along and ruined all her plans, so she's still going to eternally hate you. But if you want to get the mother-in-law on your side and her family and all those other people that are on the show, the show's up 300 300 330 actually as of last night in january so i don't know what the hell is going on 15 years millions of downloads

and somehow you guys are blowing up the show 330 so welcome if you're one of the newest members listening to the show i guess everyone decided to listen to the show for new year's resolutions or something we have the we're calling it the gym effect of new year's anyway guys go to goodreads.com for chest christmas linkedin.com for chest christmas christmas one on the tickety talkity and christmas facebook.com you can see all the groups and everything we do there we're an amazing author on the show returning for another book that she is just putting out febru February 13th, 2024. It's called, our favorite topics actually, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility by Nikki Payne. She's joining us on the show and will be talking to us about her new characters

and the things that she's up to in the book. She is by day a curious tech anthropologist asking the right questions to discover better digital services. By night, she dreams of ways to subvert canon literature she's a member of smut you a premium feminist writing collective and is a cat lady with no cats welcome to the show nikki how are you hey hey chris i'm excited to be here there you go and a cat lady with no cats what do you have against cats eh or what do you don't have against cats? I'm not sure.

I love cats. I love their vibe. I love that they don't care about us, but I'm deathly allergic. I wish I could go through my life as a cat. There you go. Well, there's always a, what's that thing where you come back as something else in life? Reincarnation. Reincarnation.

There's always reincarnation. Make sure you pay your tithing over there and you'll probably get on the board. I think that's how it works. So give us your dot coms. How can people find you on the interwebs? On Instagram. That's one of my favorite mediums. I'm Nikki Payne Books. On TikTok, I'm Nikki Payne Writes.

I don't know why I have two different handles. It's very difficult for me. On Twitter, sorry, X. Oh, my gosh. I am Nikki Payne books as well. I still call it Twitter. I'm not, I'm not relenting.

Right. Yeah. Like I still call them tweets. I don't know. Yep. It's just dumbest thing ever. Next week it'll be called BK 11. I believe from what I understand,

they just turned down another $56 billion pay package for what you might call it he's already bitching about having more shares or something so i'm just i've saved at least ten dollars to buy the thing out when it hits the bk market so yeah i'm all good but i'm not i'm not ever gonna call it x i'm always gonna call it it's just weird yeah it's just weird and besides i like the old twitter better which is weird to say because it was pretty toxic beforehand. But so give us a 30,000 overview of your new book, Sex, Lies and Sensibility. Oh, Sex, Lies and Sensibility is one of my favorite books to have written. I am such a fan of Jane Austen and it's a retelling of Jane Austen's sense and sensibility. And essentially two sisters

find out at the worst possible time that they are their father's outside kids and they are swiftly disinherited. And the only thing to their name is a dilapidated property in rural coastal Maine. And first thing they think is, ain't no black folks in Maine. If they can make the money to get the house out of foreclosure, it's theirs. They just have to stay focused. What's the worst that could happen? Maybe a tall, dark, and secretive indigenous tour guide is a little bit too much of a distraction for our main character, Nora. We follow them and see if they are able to rehab the house and also fall in love. Ah, so it's one of those lifetime sort of things where you go to the rural Maine and fall in love with the local hot guy.

Yeah. Maybe. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. That's it. Maine sounds like Utah. I'm visiting Utah right now. It's a little bit of HGTV, a little bit of Insecure, a little bit of Schitt's Creek.

There you go. There you go. That does sound like Utah. It's all just white people food up here. It's really boring, nasty, and it's like British food up here. There's no culture. There's no seasonings. So there you go.

So give us a little bit of background. Your previous book you'd written was a bestseller. And I think it was called Pride and Protest. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Pride and Protest is a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. And it's essentially a woman who decides that she is going to protest gentrification in her neighborhood. And she goes and tries to plan this flash protest. And she didn't do her research like she perhaps should

have. And she tells all of her plans to a young Filipino man who's out smoking, who she mistakes for a waiter. And of course, the plan blows up and they can't stay away from each other. Except he's the one person that she should absolutely be fighting against. And she's the one person he could ignore. But he just can't, y'all. That forbidden love, maybe? Oh, yeah. A little bit of forbidden love.

A little bit of forbidden love. Hey, does Jane Austen like this idea that you're kind of riffing off some of her books probably i think if she like woke up today and just took off the dust and read any of my books she would get to the middle extremely spicy scenes and come and find me and haunt me so she would absolutely find a white glove and slap it across my face if she read some of those steamy scenes. But I think some of the higher kind of societal tongue-in-cheek stuff, I think she would laugh at. There you go. So tell us a little about yourself. So let's talk about you in the audience, with the audience introducing you to them. What was some of your upbringing? What got you into writing and publishing books? I am from Houston, Texas. I am from a small little place lovingly called Guns Point.

Guns Point in Texas? It's called Greens Point. Oh, you would actually have me believing that. No, no. It's in Houston. It's called Greens Point. That's where I'm from. But everyone called it Guns Point. I just want to give you all a little flavor about just the wealth in which I come from. Right. That is to say, I come from wealth. So humble beginnings. And I loved reading. I loved to to read. I would always take my auntie's romance novels and, you know, crack that book open to the middle to see what, you know, should be good part.

The good part. See what shenanigans people were up to. I was a really precocious reader. I loved school and I went all the way up to a PhD. I now have a PhD in anthropology for absolutely no reason other than just weird facts about humanity all over the world. There you go. And what made you want to become an anthropologist? Okay.

So a couple of things. I used to watch those shows, those like nature shows when I was young. And back when they used to show, you know, people like that were not dressed. And it was like this one time where you're kind of like allowed to see naked people and like your mother wasn't like flipping the channel very quickly. So you're like looking at this naked person and you're looking at your mom and you're like, okay, we're doing this. And there's always this narrator who would be talking about what's happening, like a rite of passage. I distinctly remember a young boy who had to clear a row of cows, you know, in order to

kind of like afterwards become a man. And I asked my mother, who's this person who like knows this stuff? And as an adult, I now know that was just a paid narrator. But back then I thought like it was his job to just just know these things and whoever was that person who knew but who could decipher like all of these amazing rituals and rites became like this kind of magic magic person to me and i found out soon enough that i was an anthropologist and i've literally only ever wanted to be an anthropologist all my life yeah there you go and so national geographic basically national geographic turn me turn you on to that yeah kind of turn me on a few things too it was like wow they just let all hang out there oh yeah the guy's herding the cows and

and he's just everything's out there in the hanging out atmosphere and you you're just like, you know, you really should cover that thing. One of those cows might kick it off or something. Yeah, it just felt a little transgressive when I was young, you know? And I grew up in a pretty religious cult when I was young. So just being able to see women letting it all hang out, I was like, hey, that's pretty interesting. I don't know what it means, but I was a little too young to figure all that stuff out but so in anthropology you study human nature and behavior i guess correct yes and i'm sorry i couldn't let that statement that you the anthropologist in me just went ding you did you say cult i'm sorry please say more. There you go. So I imagine studying human nature kind of helps you flesh out your characters, develop your characters in the books and scenes and different things like that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that one of the things that I love to do is explore, use my characters to explore some of these like cultural understandings. In Sex, Lies, and Sensibility, I have this Black woman who was from the DMV area. She's flown to Maine and she now has this new property. And there's an indigenous man who's like already using her property and they have to have this tense, uncomfortable conversation about whose land it is. And this is a Black woman who is being accused of Christopher Columbus-ing. And she's like, wait, can I, am I, what are the rules here? And so I love to use romance and to

use these types of mediums to talk about how these two cultures would actually interact with each other and how they could potentially fall in love. There you go. And so in, in both of your books, is it, is it black women falling in love with white guys or just the first book? Oh no.

The first book is an Asian male. He's Asian male. Okay. Well, it's kind of a white guy. I always thought there, I don't know i was i just never really good at separating people i'm just like yeah i love everybody oh yeah yeah we're all humans damn it at least that's what i think but i could be wrong is indigenous male indigenous male oh that's right you did say that huh now is so is he from another country or

is he from no he's he's from maine even though what do you refer to maine as another country i see what you did there thanks for helping me out with the one of the best lines that that i have bear the main character deliver is that nor says oh well well you're from maine and because he's a native he said well actually maine is for me right and he talks about you know the the structure of the wabanaki confederation and how it kind of predates the constitution and all of these really cool ideas. So yeah. Yeah. There you go. So anything, I know the problem with novels is we can't give away like the middle and the end.

Any other maybe scenes you want to play out for us or teasers that people might be interested in? I will say, because it's a romance, all the romance girlies know how it has to end, right? Love, love is the answer.

Absolutely. has to end, right? Love is the answer, absolutely. But there is this particular scene where Nora and Bear are, he comes, she comes into his home to help him run some errands. And she is a track star. She used to run track and she's very, very good. And she's there to help his team get down some of the fundamentals. And there's the scene where she is running. She had the signature victory lap where she would kind of blow kisses. And he is watching her like run her race. And it's just like happening in slow motion. And he's just appreciating how she moves. And it's just steamy and it's just like happening in slow motion and he's just appreciating how she moves and it's

just steamy and it's swoony and by the end by the end when she's done with her victory lap she does her little blows her kisses but she also incorporates his move he as he's a runner too of flexing the muscle and so she does both of those and it's just this moment where he's just, I am completely in love with this woman. And it was just a show of like awe and grace and also him sharing his space, you know, sharing his culture with her as well. There you go. There you go. So a little bit of culture in there, all the anthropologists in you coming out and stuff. When you develop these characters, what sort of writing schedule or sort of how do you approach your writing for those who are writers out there or want to be writers? Do you write an

hour a day or how do you go about your technique? That's a really good question. I have to create some form of consistent writing. Even if you just set aside the time and you only look at the screen, just giving yourself their ritual is really, really important because the only thing that defines a writer is that they write, right? Not that they think about writing, you know? So I do have a time, it's mostly in the evening because I want to kind of swoosh away my work and just start thinking about other people. Like like how do i get this person to kiss that's the only problem i want to have right now you know so yeah like these are the only problems i want to have right now is like getting this person to make out and so it's a great way for

me to like decompress at the end of the day it's definitely different than my business books for an audition absolutely yeah i've never never maybe i should approach it from that angle honestly these two ceos to kiss honestly new york times number one 100 buy it yeah i mean i i look at i look at novelists and you guys write great books and you guys always kill it because they're very popular especially among the ladies for their beach reads and and sometimes i look, I look and I'm like, why am I writing about business and all this factual crap? It sounds like it might be fun to make characters,

but I don't have the talent. Wait a minute. Do you have a song in your heart? Do you have? No, I have no heart. I got sold this date in a long time ago. The soul, the heart, it's all sold. It's all sold. That's how i got this gig

doing this podcast they said to sell my soul yeah three easy payments yeah it's like five dollars a day i get it's great it's a slow burn for getting rich for slow burn there you go so any plans for future books is there anything in the works maybe you're toying with i am writing this very steamy murder mystery and yes murder like romance and like murder kind of go together a little bit too well because you're you know like you're trying to think of how to dispose of this body but also trying to manage the love of another body. It's a lot of bodies. They're making out with the dead bodies. What's this? Necrophilia?

What's going on? Seems to be a theme going on here. Nothing quite so dangerous yet. I haven't reached my Stephen King. There's still time. There's still time. That's my dream. But yeah, murder mystery, romance, and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

There you go. It sounds like you are. You know, if it ever reaches the point where you think you need help, you might want to check in on that. No, I'm having a lot of fun with it. There you go. It sounds like you are. You know, if it ever reaches the point where you think you need help, you might want to check in on that. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, yeah. Help with murder. It's kind of a theme here. It's trying to get people to make out

and then now there's murder. Yeah. You might be going down a road there. Oh, yeah. My next book is probably going to be even darker. She used to be such a fun gal what went on to that making out that was kind of cool but now it's just necrophilia what's going on yeah there you go well it's good i'm glad you're off to a prolific start you're pounding out those books we have a lot of authors like yourself on the show that they're always cooking up new characters and new plot lines i'm always jealous of that being a non-fiction writer and so it's it's you know you guys you know a bill ability to get people to make out is

is definitely interesting and there's probably a lot you can learn from writers there any final tease that you want to make on the book before we go only to say that this book is kind of my baby. It's my love letter to small towns and small folks with big secrets. And also talking about how seeing indigenous folks as modern and in the world today. And that's something that I have really really excited about is making sure that these characters feel alive and feel like in the world right now and you know and doing that love with diversity and with heart and with care i did a lot of research up there in maine so i wasn't

just kind of phoning that in oh you had to go to maine to do the research oh yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah that's that's the real trick though we find with a lot of novice on the show phoning that in. Oh, you had to go to Maine to do the research. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's, that's the real trick that we find with a lot of novice on the show. They like, we, we purposely put our plot lines in different countries that we want to visit. Oh man.

We want to go. And then that way, you know, we have an excuse to build the publisher and we're like, Hey, we got to go. Yeah. You know,

we got to go to France to figure this all out. Yeah. A month. Genius. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the trick. I guess, a lot of you. That's my future life.

I want to say all of my next books are just Paris. There you go. Make them all in Paris. And I'm going to spend six months there just to do some on-the-ground research. On-the-ground research on croissants. I need deep croissant research. I'm going to sit in a lot of coffee shops on the corner there in France and eat cheese

and croissants and coffee. There you go. Honestly, now my next book is about a French patisserie that does money. I like that. You just gave me an idea. What's the French Caribbean

where all the rich people go with all the boats and stuff? Oh, the, the, the, oh my gosh. Why is that? Monte Carlo? Is it Monte Carlo? I'm not sure. It's where James Bond is every weekend or something. Monaco?

Monaco. Yeah. I think that's it. Yeah. I think that's it. Yeah. You should, you should do Monaco and just sit around and just, you know, sit on rich guys, boats and stuff like that or buy your own.

Do you see this pencil? It's for notes. There you go. Monaco. Just make sure you dedicate the book to me if you use my name. Yes. To dearest, dearest Chris. To dearest Chris.

Thanks for helping me out with meeting the rich guy with the big book. Yeah. I was researching my book. yeah well i was researching my book well i was researching my book agony half hope you know i can't think of a boat title boat monaco title but yeah i'm sure there's love being found in that area too yeah seems like seems like there probably is so thank you very much for coming on the show nikki it was fun to have you on please come back for your future book. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs.

Okay. So that is NikkiPain.com. NikkiPainBooks.com. That's my website. I'm on Instagram, NikkiPainBooks. And I am on ex-Twitter, NikkiPainBooks. And on TikTok, NikkiPainWrites for some inexplicable reason. There you go. There you go. So thank you for coming on the show. Thanks to Honest for tuning

in. Order up the book wherever fine books are sold. You can pre-order it now. February 13th, 2024. It's called Sex, Lies, and Sensibility, which is also my byline to the Chris Voss show. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.