The Iced Coffee Hour - FBI Hostage Negotiator: The Secret To Getting ANYTHING You Want! | Chris Voss

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

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I don't bargain. I negotiate. Gunman burst into the Chase Manhattan Bank and Park Slope this morning. Ever since, negotiators have been trying to get them to give up. What persuaded the gunman finally to come out? I think it was excellent hostage negotiating. Have you always been so good at negotiation? Nobody's always good. Nobody's always good at anything. Negotiation is a learned skill, and it's a parish rule school.

Most people see successful negotiations as who's the pushy, who's the most, demanding great negotiations just emotional intelligence people are driven more by loss and by game because almost all negotiations you're pitching gain almost all sales you pitching gain knowing that that completely changes my assessment of how I'm talking to you what the value is do you think it's possible that anybody can negotiate a higher salary this is what you do you walk into his office and say this and meaning all right Chris Voss thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour Appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for a meal. So you are an FBI agent lead crisis negotiator. You were for 20 years. You have a best-selling book called Never Split the Difference. And you also taught courses at Harvard on how to negotiate. So I'm curious, why should people care about negotiation? And point of fact, we're in seven or eight negotiations every day.

Like negotiations about collaboration. First of all, if you see it as collaboration. Secondarily, most of the time people think of it as win-lose beating the other side, which means you're constantly repelling people with that approach. And the one commodity that's always involved in negotiations is time, which is why your negotiations are every day. Like, my favorite example is, a number of years ago, I run across a guy who started this website called Secrets.

He said, tell me your secrets. Anonymously, I will share them with the world. Anybody you're struggling with what you're struggling with, and it helps them to know they're not alone. So one of the phrases I use is the most dangerous negotiations, the one you don't know you're on. He comes up to me and he says, I get a Starbucks coffee cup still in a rapper

to prove that it was from somebody at Starbucks, and the note said, I give decaf to people who are mean to me. So even when you're in a negotiation, ordering something at Starbucks, what makes it a negotiation? The other side has to implement the way you asked. And how are they going to know if they put decalc,

how are you going to know if they put in decaf, or how are you going to know if they did yours right away or the person behind you, they like more. So they kept putting you behind them in a line. Like implementation is what it's about. People want to implement. Never mean to somebody could hurt you by doing nothing. Well, who did you interact with in a given day

that you needed them to do something for you? Or they just said, ah, you know, there's nothing I could do. Well, they hurt you by doing nothing because they didn't like the way you negotiated with them. And it's constant. So then the flip side is, what can I do for you if they fell like? Like, I'm getting ready to get on an airplane the other day, and I asked for a different seat.

The guy liked the way I asked, so he's moving other people out of seats to put me where I wanted to go. Now, they will never know they got moved. But I got a better seat because he liked the way he approached me. How do you do that? Yeah, walks to that approach. I try all the time. I always get, sorry, our flight's full. We can't do anything.

Yeah, because you come up there and you ask the same way as everybody else did. Like most people see successful negotiations as who's the pushiest, who's the most demanding. Like there are a lot of people out there that, you know, they'll go into a hotel. And you might not be demanding, but this is what they're used to on the other side.

That's the problem. They're preconditioned to the demanding person or the person who's going to make a pitch. You know, do this for me and it'll be good for you. You know, I'll give you guys a five-star review or all the promises that people make that they never follow through with. Like I walk in

And, you know, I'm playful. Self-effation humor is the combination of empathy and humor simultaneously. So I walk up and say, look, I probably feel like the biggest jerk you ever saw in your life. Or my son, when he needed to change his seat on an airplane one time, because he was late, he walks in and he says, I'm here to sign up for the mistake of the day award. And I am the dumbest customer that you are going to see today. And he saw the woman behind a counter smile, and she finished typing,

and she looked at him, she says, all right, what do you got? Now, he had called me because he was supposed to fly out to L.A. We were teaching a USC at the time, and he called me to tell me he was going to be late. And he was in his great mood. And I'm like, you missed your flight,

and you're going to be late, and you're really happy? Well, as it turns out, the subsequent flight that she booked him on, which with no fee, first of all, she didn't have to rebook them at all. The amount of power the people in the airlines have on those keyboards is astonishing. They can do crazy stuff. If they feel like it, how did you approach them?

Did you walk up and go, how are you today? That's an indicator you got an ask in that tone of voice. First of all, secondly, everybody says, how are you today? When was the last time you looked at them and said, you know, you look like it's been a tough day? or you look happy or you look distracted or looks like an average day. Like if they're stressed, walk up and they'll go, how are you today? Because you're trying to push them into another mood. And they feel that right away.

If they look stressed, walk up and say, tough day. And they'd be like, wow, somebody just saw me. And they weren't trying to change me. You know, they, it felt concerned. with no push or no ask embedded. And you begin to change things from the very beginning. First of all, by not approaching them the way everybody else does. Everybody wants a free seat.

Everybody wants a better seat for nothing. And what's your reason? Because I'm a good customer. Did you check my status? Do you see I'm a diamond member? You don't know. They've heard that all the time. And, you know, a lot of people will be successful with that.

They'll get 10%. 10% is a throwaway. 10% is the annoyance fee. You're so annoying. I'm going to give you 10% when I could give you 30 if I felt like it. But because you're annoying and I want to get rid of you, I'm going to give you 10% as a storeway just to get you out of in front of me. So there's all these little things.

A lot of it starts with don't be the same annoying person that they've seen 10 of already that day. So throughout this podcast, we're going to go over a bunch of different strategies on how to negotiate and become better off because of that. But I always worry, when I was doing a bunch of research into you and I was drafting up the questions, I kept on conflating, like, strategies to get what you want with some sort of manipulation. Right. Like, how do you differentiate between the two? Because if you're employing strategies, that's just not talking clearly and concisely, you know, without all of the added context and fluff.

If you're adding strategies, that's like, I guess, embellishing something in order to get what you want. How do you differentiate between the two? Yeah, well, so what's your intention to begin with? manipulation is when you're trying to get something at the expense of the other person. When they find out about it, they'd never do it again. Influence was somebody that you,

like my approach with people, at a bare minimum, if I leave you in a better mood than when I walked up, I'm happy because I made a deposit in the karma bank. I have increased the chances I'm going to get something, but I'm a very strong believer in karma. So it's selfish for me

to try to make the world a better place. It's ultimately going to come back around to me. It's selfish for me to try to leave you in a better mood than when I walked up. Like, I don't know how it's going to come back to me positively, but it is. So to start with, that's my goal. My goal is to leave you better than I found you. You're going to sense that right away. And in my approach, a lot of people can be really charming until they don't get what they want.

And then they turn into vindictive jerks. Like when I was a cop, I get somebody locked up, found a way to play to play. police station, you know, they're hitting me with tons of flattery. I know they figure for some reason that between now and a police station, I'm going to stop the car, I'm going to open the door, I'm going to take the cuffs off and turn them loose, which is not going to happen. And so they're saying all these nice things to me on the way of the police station, being really complimentary. And as soon as I get into the station, they're saying the nastiest, meanest, vindictive, hateful things, because they used flattery,

they didn't get what they want, but what they really wanted was something at my expense. So how do you know if someone is being honest or truthful when you're negotiating with them? I feel like if someone's flattering, a lot of people would just kind of...

Yeah, flattery is a weapon. And even like the way that you say, tough day, like when I hear that, I'm like, man, like, you know, I wasn't, but now I feel like I was having a tough day. No, you weren't. No, you weren't. No, you weren't. Let's stop right there. First of all, no, you were not.

Because this is a pretend situation, and you're not rolling in having a tough day. So what you're trying to do is you're defeating it in your brain. Your migragetless kicked into gear. Here's what I would, I challenge you to do. Whoever you run across on the outside today, you're going to get a read on what's going through their mind when you walk up. All you're going to do is pay attention to the person. All the data you need is the day that they're having is going to be right there in front of your face. Now, if they look indifferent, say, it looks like an average day.

If they look happy, say, looks like you have a good day. If they look stressed, say, go a tough day? See what happens. Have you always been so good at negotiation? Nobody's always good at it. Nobody's always good at anything. Negotiation is a learn, two things. It's a learn skill, and it's a perishable skill.

Jim Camp a long time ago referred to negotiation as a human performance event. Now, he would put it in that category because of a way. one point in time as a football coach. But in point of fact, that's true. So emotional intelligence is unlimited and perishable. Great negotiations, just emotional intelligence, reading the person, seeing what the possibilities are in the moment, and then really where it goes has to do with what your intention are, a long-term trusted relationship, or am I trying to exploit you? Now, I can get away with exploiting you once, but you're not going to repeat with me again. And so, and I, and I, I realize that there's no such thing as a one-off.

I'm a big believer in karma in general, and I figure I'm going to see you again. One of my students at Georgetown went into Home Depot. In my book, never split the difference. There's a chapter on bargaining towards the end, and it's called the Akraman Bargaining Method, and it's ridiculously effective. So he goes into Home Depot,

and, like, he just kills him on a price, just gets one of the best prices on the cabinets that you could possibly imagine from Home Depot. It's got to come back a couple of weeks later because there's a problem. You think they want to help him? This is a guy that cut their throat before. They're charging him for every dime

and still dragging their feet. So there really aren't one-off negotiations. And so I treat everybody like I got to live with my intentions and I want them to continue to do business with me for 20 years. So that strategy that you taught that he employed, what were like the actual steps in him to achieve the cheapest cabinets, even if it would just be once?

I don't bargain. I negotiate. And I negotiate with long-term prosperity in mind. So I can beat you on the price. And I have in the past. And one way or another, it's always come back to haunt me. Now, every now and then you're going to have somebody on the other side of the table.

You've got to get into a bare-knuckles bargaining with. But that shouldn't be your default move. It should be your last move. What's wrong with that? Because if I pay you on a price and I need you for anything else, you're going to pay me back with interest. At least 2x, if not more, over what I saved on the initial price. So bargaining like crazy is a great way to defeat yourself long time.

And I, you know, if you and I get into a negotiation, I'm going to want you. to give me your real price. You know, most people make this mistake of asking for more than what they want. There's a lot of advice out there, you know, anchor high, ask for more than what you want, be willing to settle for less. But number one, I've done this long enough

that if you anchor for more, if you ask for more than what you really want, you've lied to me. That was a lie. And then it becomes very easy to excuse yourself for lying. all the time, one way or the other. And then people eventually find out.

And then people know that, look, look, you know, I can't trust him. It's not going to tell me what he really wants, what's really going to make him happy. He's going to exaggerate. He's going to distort everything he says to me. And at some point of time, I'm just going to stop talking to you, period, if I can't count on you to tell me the truth. And so asking for more than what you really want, by definition, is a lie to begin with. But you know what, while we're on this topic, it really got me thinking about what the future has in store for businesses.

Because if you ask nine different experts, you're going to get 10 different answers from a bull market, a bear market, stocks are going up, stocks are going down. Be really helpful to have a crystal ball at this point. But until that happens, over 40,000 businesses have already future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform. And plus, with just one unified business management suite, you have just one source of truth, giving you all of the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. Not to mention, when you're able to close the book in days and not weeks,

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and now let's get back to the episode. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting, more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live,

telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. When did you realize you had a knack for negotiation? I realized I enjoyed applying emotional intelligence when I was working to become a hostage negotiator. Because when I first wanted to become an FBI hostage negotiator in New York,

was rejected because in point of fact I was eminently unqualified the woman who was running the team I approached her she knew who I was she was in a different squad on the terrorist task force at the time I'm working domestic she's working international and I walked up there and say hey I'm Chris Faw she's yeah I know who you are um I want to become a hostage to go shit and she's like yeah you and everybody else everybody wants to do it sounds easy sounds fun sounds sexy people want to sign on and want to get the t-shirt and then they don't want to do anything afterwards. Just a cool thing to be. Say you're a hostage negotiator.

So she says, you know, just, I know you're a cop where you were on the hostage negotiation team of the police department. I'm like, nope. She said you got a degree in psychology or a related degree. I'm like, no. She said, you have anything on your resume at all that would qualify for you to be a hostage negotiator? I'm like, no.

She says, well, you can't. it, it's not bother me. And I'm persistent. I'm coachable. I didn't really realize at the time. And I take instruction from the right people. Never take advice from somebody who hasn't been where you want to go or somebody who wouldn't trade places with.

So anyway, I'm coachable. She rejects me and I say, well, there's got to be something I can do. and she said there is go volunteer on a hotline. Now until you've done that, stop bothering me. So I went volunteered. I found a hotline, happened to be the hotline that she had volunteered on, and I got back to her about five months

after I'd been on the lines, and she was shocked. Like, I tell everybody to do that. Nobody does it. And I was shocked. I'm like, if I ask, why wouldn't I do it? Like, why ain't God's name what I ask if I wasn't going to do it?

but in point of fact, most people don't do what you tell them to do. So then I got on the line and when in the training they say, all right, so just so you know up front, all calls are limited to 20 minutes. And I remember saying like 20 minutes, you got to be kidding me. And they say, no, as a matter of fact, if you're doing it right, it won't take that long. And so you get on the line.

So when you understand the actual application of empathy, like it moves very quickly, ridiculously fast. And there's law enforcement data that says that interviewers who use active listening empathy skills, actually use them, get collaboration confession 14 times faster than anybody else does, 14 times faster. So I'm on a hotline and I'm seeing this ridiculous transformation in people

and 20 minutes or less. And I thought, are people in crisis, the only people that deserve to be understood, without being judged, without being given any advice? One of the critical issues was never give advice ever. And I started using it in my personal life and it started making, I don't do it all the time, I'm not flawless. But it's transformative faster than anything else. Did that negatively affect you or influence you after getting off some of those calls? because I imagine that you have to have a somewhat thick skin. And if I were to hear those situations,

I don't think I'd mentally be able to comprehend what these people are going through. Well, if you go through the training regardless and you stick to the training, you're going to be fine. It didn't mentally affect me, and I didn't suffer burnout. All crisis hotlines, the number one problem is volunteer burnout. Funding is close on the heels with number two, but it's not number one.

And I wasn't vulnerable to it because I went there to learn a skill. I went there as a mercenary. Now, actually helping people, I really enjoyed that. I mean, I got a kick out of the fact that somebody could be lost and 20 minutes later be back on better footing. Most people go to hotlines to help. And if you're there to help, then you're vulnerable to the emotional burnout that you're talking about. because you can't help everybody,

and they're actually a large, a significant percentage of people that call in to not be helped. If someone's genuinely in crisis, they're going to listen to you, but because you're supposed to listen as a volunteer, there's a bunch of people out there, the energy vampires,

the people that nobody could stand, they crawl crisis hotlines to prove that the world sucks. And they're going to prove that the world sucks by abusing the person on the other end of the line. So that's the source of real burnout on all these volunteer lines, the frequent callers that are there simply to abuse you.

So what's the common and ineffective way that people would fail helping or attempting to help people calling on the crisis helpline, versus the uncommon and more effective thing that you can get someone off of a ledge in 20 minutes or less? Yeah, well, the first, the predisposition to advice. Advice is debilitating to the other person. If I'm giving you advice on a,

an emotional level, I'm talking down to you. I'm saying, look, just be as smart as I am. Here's a smart thing to do. Why don't you do the smart thing? What's the matter with you? That's what advice is. And advice is frequently significantly flawed, unless somebody's got experience doing it.

If they've been there, if they've actually dealt with the problem, and then if they've actually dealt with the problem, if you don't feel emotionally connected, you don't care about their advice anyway, because you feel dismissed, you feel talked down to. Just because advice is wrong doesn't mean it's not well-intentioned. Just because you shouldn't be giving advice doesn't mean that your heart is in the wrong place,

that you're not actually trying to help. Those are two separate things that are simultaneously true. Advice doesn't do anybody any good, and your heart can be in the right place. Why don't most people know? Because empathy's invisible. Like, we see people giving advice all the time. our advice might be accurate because we're not emotionally involved we don't know all the dynamics that are there

so you don't see it in everyday life and then of course in movies and tv you know somebody gives somebody else advice and they go like oh wow yeah that's insightful or they'll say something really stupid like i know how you feel i i suffered loss too but if i'm using empathy with you internally, it's going to be landing well. And unless he knows what he's looking for, he's not going to see it. He's not going to see it at all. And it's astonishing and visible.

It's not celebratory. But you're talking about using empathy instead of advice. What's the difference between empathy, compassion, and sympathy? That's a brilliant question. All right. So the best description of empathy is simply the transmission of information without taking a position on it. not saying it's right or wrong.

I'm saying yes or no, good or bad. Stephen Collar, a friend of mine, has written a number of great books. Anything he has got Stephen Conler's name on it. You're probably out of read it. And he said, empathy is about the transmission of information. Compassion is the reaction to that transmission. So what's an example of empathy?

So I'm with the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force, New York City. At the time, First World Trade Center bombing, subsequent plot to blow up four locations in New York City simultaneously, guys who claim to be Muslims, Islamic terrorists, if you will, to put a brand on them.

All of the witnesses that we put at trial, 99% of them. A couple witnesses testified to bargain their way into a lighter sentences, but the vast majority are witnesses are there voluntarily. Arab Muslims from the Middle East, testifying against a man who has legitimate credentials as a cleric, an Islamic cleric.

He's got legitimate credentials. He's been to Al-Zar University in Egypt as an expert on a religion. He also was inciting others to commit. Which is a crime. So what are these guys thinking if an Egyptian Muslim in the United States driving a country? when they look at me, representative of the FBI, I think, like, you know, you're from an anti-Islamic country. You know, your country, no matter what you guys say,

he's got a history of being anti-Islamic for the last 200 years, which is what I would say to him. I'd sit down and I'd say, I know you believe that the United States government has been anti-Islamic for the last 200 years. That's their perspective, but me saying it out loud, not just understanding it, I got to say it out loud, particularly if it's against me.

And it'd be shocked that I could say it and then not go, but we have a First Amendment, you know, but we believe in freedom of religion, but, but, but, they don't care about that. When I lay out your point of view, the way you see it, and don't explain any of it a way, particularly stuff that I know the negative light that you see me in, what do I look like to you?

A straight shooter. Somebody you can count on. somebody that tells the truth, no matter what the truth is, and I'm not afraid of it, which gives me a massive amount of credibility, and it completely changes your perspective on me. Do you try to then use the butt

at some other points afterwards? Never. Then how do you lean the conversation away from? Yeah, you know, you must believe this. How can you then articulate your own point across to maybe have them hear a different perspective? Well, if I want to share some thoughts with you, I will first plan on laying it out in really small doses

and I'm going to read your reaction all along the way see if I see skepticism, see if you're on, if you're with me, but I'm going to say, I will ask permission to share with a no-oriented question. And I'll say, is it a ridiculous idea for me to share a couple thoughts with you? If the answer is yes, then I'm not going to share them. but if the answer is no then you'll listen to me in small doses

I'm not going to try to make a 25 point argument you know conversation should be back and forth and I should be paying attention to you and if I see a look on your face where you reacted that would be what we refer to as an affect change if any expression on your face changes

something has crossed your mind. Now, I don't know what it is, which is why we don't teach body language. If I'm really good at body language, it means I'm going to be right about a third of the time, which means two-thirds of the time I'm going to be wrong. Like a classic example I heard, if somebody's listening to you and they're scowling,

they could be angry, they could have gas. Nothing alike. And I'm one of those people, if I'm listening intently to you, I have a resting serial killer face. I'm looking at you like, I'm thinking about eating you with a nice kiante and some fava beans.

Like, I scare people I listen so intently. So if you thought I was angry, and then you proceeded as if you were correct in that assumption, then we're going to get off track really fast. I see something cross your mind. I'll say, looks like something just crossed your mind. And you're very likely to tell me exactly what it is.

Because I recognize, because I'm watching, I'm paying attention. And you appreciate the fact that I saw that. Now, with something crossed your mind, if I keep going, you're distracted by what just crossed your mind and you're going to miss everything I say. So I got to stop there and find out what's going on. And that's why, you know, I'm going to proceed in my thoughts a little bit at a time. and I'm going to make sure that we're in alignment the whole time.

Or do my best to keep us in alignment. What's something unexpected that you learned about human nature in the process of negotiation? That people are driven more by loss and by gain. Because almost all negotiations, you're pitching gain. Almost all sales, you're pitching gain. I'm trying to get you to do something at all. If I'm trying to get you to give me a cup of coffee,

I'm pitching gain. If I want an upgrade in my hotel room for free, I'm pitching gain, I'll give you guys reviews. But the vast majority, at least 70% of our behavior is driven by trying to mitigate or avoid a loss. So knowing that, then that completely changes my assessment of how I'm talking to you, where we're going, what the value is. In those cases where they try to get what they want, has there ever been a situation where a host, has gotten away. Well, all right, so there's two kinds of, quote, hostage situations. There's, you know, sort of domestic U.S., which is contained known location.

And it's kind of self-defined. You know where they are? They're in a bank. We got the bank surrounded. They're contained. He's in his house. You know where he is. Got the house surrounded.

They're contained. And then kidnappings tend to be uncontained, unknown location. We don't know where the bad guy is, we don't know where the victim is. Domestic U.S. kidnappings are extraordinarily dangerous. Vast majority of the time, you're never going to see the hostage. They're going to die.

There's nothing you can do about it. International kidnappings, a whole different ballgame, vast majority of the time, it's going to be a ransom. Ransom's going to ransom the hostage out. They're going to come out. And a ransom's going to get them out. Now, international kidnapping,

then essentially the way you've got to work it, if you're going to work it where you really want to bring, not just a bad guy to justice, but his whole operation, then you use the ransom as bait. Same reason you give bait money to a bank teller. Bad guy comes in to rob the bank. You don't give the bank teller access to the vault. You give the bank teller a stack of money, a few hundred dollars,

maybe a couple thousand. You got the serial numbers recorded. There may be a die pack and a money. Hands it to the bad guy. Bad guy doesn't shoot the bank teller. nor take him or her hostage. Bad guy leaves a bank, a small amount of money. If the die pack explodes,

as a die pack all over him. If it doesn't explode, he goes back to his hideout, divides the money up with his buddies. They go out and they spend the money, you trace the money, you take everybody, not just a bank robber.

That's the best way to work international kidnapping. You get enough evidence in the kidnapping to indict the bad guy, you lengthen the process out. You get a lot of communication, which gives you a lot of evidence,

a lot of information. You get them indicted, ultimately, you are damn, ultimately, either they end up in a U.S. jail, depend upon the country. In Philippines, if you get away with kidnapping there, and the U.S. has got you indicted quite likely, the Philippine government's going to find you.

When I think of those situations, I often revert back to movies where they know how to ask for, like, I want this airplane, and I want these bills, and I want a car to meet me at this location. Like, how accurate is that to real life? Like, can there be a series of requests that give that person a high likelihood of just disappearing? Not inside the United States.

Because U.S. law enforcement has learned a lesson. First of all, like, we won't even let him get in a car to go to the airport and plan to assault them. I'd say we never plan on letting them get to the airport. As soon as a guy comes out of a contained location, more people are at risk. and the civil liability as a result is indefensible. And there's one thing that gets U.S. law enforcement's attention, it's civil liability. So the minute that thing goes mobile, no matter how smart we think our plan is, and maybe every now and then somebody might think that they can let them get away with that,

it's going to go bad and extra people are going to get killed or even hurt. And the lawsuits can bankrupt the city, let alone a police department. So you don't let people go mobile domestic U.S. Now, there aren't the same rules in other countries. They don't have the same civil liability. They don't come at, their law enforcement is not trained to the same level. They take chances that would shock you,

and it's mostly in what we would refer to as the developing world. Like you're not going mobile in the UK. And I doubt if there's any Western European country that would let you go mobile. Yeah, again, you see stuff like that happening in the Philippines. You see it happen in Brazil where they may have very well-equipped, robust law enforcement that's poorly trained. They don't have a great jail system, and they don't have, their judiciary is not as effective,

like the entire structure arounding it. He's not as robust and as effective as the U.S. is. You know, in those countries, something every now and it goes mobile, because they just, they want to be over and they want to get a chance of killing a bad guy, and they don't pay a high price for killing us and civilians in a crossfire. Can you walk us through a specific scenario that you worked on that went in your mind very well? Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.

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back to the podcast. Can you walk us through a specific scenario that, that you worked on that went in your mind very well. Well, yeah, I mean, I had a Chase Manhattan bank robbery. Bank robberies with kidnappings are rare events. Even though the movies make it sound like it happens five times a day in L.A. and New York. If you made me bet, I would say there won't be one happening in the U.S. this year at all. And there may not be one that happens in the U.S. in five years. Because the bad guys and the police run away.

And so they're going to get out of there. They might take hostages to get into the vault, but they know in very short period of time the cop's going to be there, and they're smart enough not to stick around. So the bank robbery with hostages that I negotiated the Chase Manhattan Bank, you know, last century,

they got trapped inside. NYPD FBI showed up. We put together a combined team. The commander of the NYPD negotiators took responsibility to run the negotiations. I took the coaching, and then with my hotline experience, you know,

I just started laying, empathy on him, and I had a bad guy out about 90 minutes later. What did that person feel like they got in exchange for giving themselves up? You got to live. Not only did he get to live, but his biggest concern was he didn't want to take a beating when he stepped out the front door. When he was satisfied that he wasn't going to get killed, his next most urgent concern was whether or not he was going to get beaten badly,

and then he was concerned about how much jail time he was going to do. I was working on this guy to let a hostage go, which, as you could imagine, I should be doing, right? I'm a hostage-eotia. We've got to get hostages out. One of the other members of the team, his gut instinct told him that this guy wanted out, more than anything else.

So I'm sitting on the phone, talking to them, people are handing me notes. And somebody hands in him on me a note says, ask him if he wants to come out. And in the minute I switched from, you know, working on getting a hostage out and I said, you want to come out? And he says, I don't know how I do it,

which is a great big giant, yes, if I can give him a plan. And so now this is a 180 degree. turn on the conversation. And so I started going back and forth with him and his concern about jail time keeps coming up and the abuse that he knows is taking place inside, which he won't say,

but he's kind of alluding to being held accountable. And finally the last step, because I was, you know, I listened to him. I didn't argue with him. You know, I used the same voice I knew from the hotline and the next note I get is tell them you meet them outside. And that's a face-to-face surrender. Bureau does not advise doing face-to-face surrenders.

Police departments do it all the time. And now it was kind of a crazy scramble because we're like, oh, holy shit, I got to get outside. And then I didn't have any blist. SWAT teams got, you know, the bank surrounded. I got no ballistic gear. They can't let me go out there to the front of the bank without ballistic gear. So, you know, I'm buying a boltproof helmet here

and buy a bulletproof vest there. And then, you know, they get me decked out. And I get outside and then they need me to go voice to voice with the guy. So they got a speaker with a speaker set up. And they go like, all right, so you're not going to actually go to the front door. You got to talk him out into the arms of the SWAT team. And so you got to lay out to him exactly what it's going to look like. Step by step, you know, you paint a picture.

paint a picture of him not getting hurt. So I lay out, you know, there's going to be two SWAT guys standing out there, then I'm going to grab you, come out with your hands up, move really slowly, and as soon as you step out the front door, move to the right. And there'll be a police officer named Bob.

And Bob's going to start talking to you, and you move over to the right, and then back into this doorway, and that's where you meet Bob. So like, okay, we're going to do this. He's getting ready to come out. And at the time, we got no idea how many bad guys are inside.

We're being told by the other bad guy that there's seven of them and that they're from different countries and they're all really dangerous dudes, which is not the case, but we don't know that. At point of fact, there's only two guys inside. We got this first guy coming to the door. We don't know what that's gonna happen.

We don't know how his buddies are gonna react. We don't know what's gonna go. We just know somebody inside is gonna come out. And we gotta take that thread and we gotta go ahead pull it. So he comes to the front door and he can't get out. Because it's SWAT team's standard operating procedure to lock the door from the outside so nobody makes a run for it unexpectedly. You know, somebody decides to rabbit, you know, they come out the door and they make a run for it.

SWAT ain't ready for that. That's not a good thing. So they've forgotten that they locked the door. They chained the door from the outside. So then everybody's like, what do we do? What do we do? we do, SWAT commander, everybody keeps their head. SWAT commander sends two guys forward behind a ballistic shield to unlock the door and only unlock the door. And they do it perfectly. And a bad guy comes out and surrenders. I've always been curious.

Now, you mentioned he was afraid of doing jail time. Can they ever negotiate jail time as, you know, someone taking hostages? You can't make those promises. I'm guessing that the FBI or the negotiators would be able to lie to the domestic terrorist. All right. So, I mean, first of all, it's a good guess. It's wrong, but it's an understandable guess.

So to your question, any agreement made under duress is not an enforceable agreement. But we wouldn't do that because it ended up being a lie. Now, what's wrong with lying? So hostage taking as a coping mechanism to survive a situation, they've learned. And you don't want them to learn that police are going to lie.

threat to the hostages is always higher if there's more than one because the bad guys figure they got at least one disposable hostage. And so you might be tempted to make a point if you've been lied to by the cops before. So that for a bunch of other reasons

why the lion's a really bad idea. You would think a lot of, and that actually is the first thing that when you're training negotiators, you got to teach them. Like, we're not lying. We're not. And then you give them a number of examples

why it's a bad thing. So if you can't lie, what do you say to someone who says, you know, I'll come out if my jail time is reduced? And so, and as we're talking about this, I mean, this, all this stuff has direct translation to business and personal life, too. Because the problem is, first of all, if you've lied, what happens when the other side eventually finds out? Like people, people you do business with, people in your family. Why happens to only find out that you lied, though? Like you're done. Like you're done.

And so if somebody would have said to me, in a hostage situation, you know, I'll come out if you promise to reduce my jail time. I'm probably going to say some of the effect of, you want me to lie to you? Now, in a hostage siege, many cases, they'll throw something like that out to see if I'll lie. My currency is credibility, authenticity.

It was with the Bureau. It is in my personal life. It is in my business life. If I say it, I'm going to do it. Even if you've given me reason to not trust you, there's a pretty good chance I'm going to do it anyway. Because I'm cautious about what I say. I'm cautious about making commitments. I'm very cautious about commitments and promises

because I plan on keeping them. So I'm cautious. Like you may have, I say, you know, I'll say, you know, let me look over the proposal and if it works for me, we'll make it happen. Or somebody approached me to do a speaking gig a couple of months ago, said, are you available on this date? I looked at my calendar.

I said, yeah, you know, I'm available on that date. You know, let's talk about it. The response was, okay, so you committed. All right, so let's start talking. And I said, and I came back to him. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I said I was available. I never said I was committed.

You know, we got to talk about what this is. And sometimes people inadvertently jump the gun. But then a lot of people just want to see if you're going to lie because they're better at lying than I am. And it's a test. I always look at the temptation to lie as a test. and if they're if they somebody very manipulative person since I'm not a liar I'm not good at it and if you're good at it then you're going to spot it if you're if one of your methods of

operation is to lie then you're just testing me I'm working at kidnapping in Saudi 2004 time frame al-Qaeda in Saudi which no longer exists is a completely different world, different government in Saudi these days than it was back then. But the bad guys, Al-Qaeda's got this guy, Paul Johnson, and it looks very much like they're going to kill him on deadline, if not slightly before. I want to make an appeal through the Arab media. I want Paul Johnson's wife to be interviewed in the Arab media.

And we're going to prepare for it, and I'm going to ask her to make some points, some very respectful points. And how do you tell the, arguable truth. Like you don't say Paul's innocent. You say, Paul's not your enemy.

Those are two different things. Innocence is a judgment. Paul Johnson was there to try to help the people in a country. That's why he was there in the first place. You're not going to try to make that point. You can simply say, Paul's not your enemy. So we're going to want her to get in an Arab media,

not American media, media and make a few points like that. And I'm talking to her and Paul's boss, good man, very protective of Paul's wife, for good reason, cared about both of them deeply and looks at me and says, if she does this, is this going to save his life? I don't think it is. I think it's one of the longest shots we could ever take. I'm not trying to pitch that.

You know, slim and none, give me slim. I didn't say that. And I said it's probably not within reach. And he says, I didn't think so. I just want to see if he'd lie to me. We'll do it. And she made the pitch. It was powerful.

They killed Paul slightly before deadline. How do I know it was slightly before deadline? Because they put a video of his up, his mother, not a his murder. They put it up on deadline and for them to have committed the act, them inviated it and put it up out in the media. It had to have taken place before the deadline was over. But because she was so genuine and so respectful of their culture

and even of the bad guys, the Arab media broadly was very critical of the bad guys. And it was the first time that the Arab media had been critical of the bad guys. as opposed to the Americans. What role does silence play in a negotiation like that? Like that or like in any negotiation? I guess like in any really intense negotiation like that. Silence gives people a chance to think.

Like silence is really important. And even if you want to talk all the time, you want a chance to think. If I say something that I want you to think about, I should shut up after I say it. Otherwise, I'm keeping you from thinking about it. And some people find silence to be ridiculously respectful. And I didn't really appreciate the full extent of it.

The world splits up pretty evenly into thirds in terms of how you approach conflict and their fight, flight, make friends, assertive analyst accommodators. Who are good examples of each? Donald Trump is a great example of an assertive. Warren Buffett is a great example of an analyst. And I would say Richard Branson is probably a great example of an accommodator,

a very relationship-focused person, very hope-focused person, like hope almost as a detriment to implementation, and almost always smiling and pleasant friendly. So the world splits up pretty evenly into thirds. Now the analysts, I'm listening to Lex Friedman's podcast, and he's talking about silence, and Lex's a very analytical guy, and he says, there's a shared intimacy in silence.

Like, if we can be silent together, I feel like I'm bonding with you. I feel like there's this great shared intimacy. And it never even occurred to me that an analyst besides wanting the opportunity to think could feel like they were connecting with me through the silence. And so, you know, that's one of the reasons

that it can be so valuable. What about humor? What about humor? Yeah, like joking around with someone in a negotiation or in an intense situation, do you ever find that that could be beneficial and just lightening the mood a little bit? Or do you feel like sometimes

it's more inappropriate than not? Well, if it fits contextually, like, first of all, there's a difference between telling jokes and being humorous. And so if it fits contextually, and a high-intensity business interaction, like if I can make fun of myself with you, that's probably pretty effective.

Like I can make fun of me in a way that if you said it, I'd be offended. So if I get you to laugh with me at me, it's frequently very powerful. That's really interesting. It seems like a lot of the common thread that I see is just stripping away the ego

and being very, very humble approaching the conversation with humility, like laughing at yourself, saying, is it so ridiculous if I suggest this? And kind of like softening the blow rather than, as you said, when you're providing advice, it kind of seems like you're establishing an inequity between you and the person you're talking.

Yeah, no, that's well said. A lot of us getting out of your own way, getting your ego out of the way, getting self-gratification out of the way. And then, yeah, softening the blow. I mean, you want me to tell you the truth. You just don't want to feel like it's a brick in the face. What if they don't want you to tell you the truth?

What does that tell you about them? That's the issue. If they don't want you to tell them the truth, what are your prospects for a long-term relationship? Like those, and I'm a believer in long-term relationships of trust. Like if I'm a complete sociopath, and all I care about is making money, long-term relationships of trust are more profitable than any other kind of relationship

with the least amount of work. It's hard to come to that conclusion because the big victories are celebrated, kind of like winning the slots at Vegas. You know, there's all sorts of celebratory things around big victories. And those are seductive, and you forget about how few times they actually happen.

And for me, in that context, I think the Vegas slots are a great example because I've read in reliable sources, not put out by the gambling industry, that the casinos understand the algorithm and they got to let you win at least once in every 84 polls to keep you there. And so then all the lights flashed, the bells ring, you know, the sirens, and like there's. massive celebration of the victory when in fact you fail 83 out 84 tries so the celebratory victories are like that too they're very seductive and when you realize that you want long-term relationships where you you know the money comes frequently without a lot of maintenance that's how you make money And so then getting back to your original question, what if somebody doesn't want me to tell them the truth? Well, the prospects for a long-term relationship here are very poor, and I value my time. So you don't want me to tell you the truth, then we're not going to last.

And what about verbal fluency in terms of having good dialogue, being able to, I guess, negotiate something? How important is that? I know some people, you've spoke with Jordan Peterson before. He is incredibly verbally fluent. He's able to just string his sentences together and articulate his thoughts incredibly well. Is that important at all? How do you keep up with Jordan?

Like in terms of in conversation or just like... Well, listening to him. How easy is it to keep up with him? I can't listen to him on double speed, that's for sure. I mean, it takes all of my concentration to be on him. It depends on the topic. I think, you know, like if it's something that's a little bit out of my wheelhouse,

I definitely have to one exit. If it's something I'm more familiar with, I can digest it fairly well. Right. All right. So you're talking about a podcast, which is an interview that you control the speed of

and you can go back to. But live and in person. Oh, yeah. And so that's like the ridiculous shortcoming, which is why I love to listen to him be interviewed. His thoughts are so rich that live, if he says something that triggers your thinking,

right. You're going to miss the next 10 things he says. And that's why I love listening to getting him interviewed. You know, his interview on Lex Freedom's podcast is brilliant. Lex interrupts occasionally and asks him a brilliant question. Lex is far more well-read than I am. And then I actually just listening to him being interviewed at Genius Network

just a few days ago by Joe Polish, my friend Joe Polish. And it's a great interview. And then having heard the two interviews, then of course, I get to contrast some of things he said in one versus the things he said in the other. So then that's the conversation to learn from versus a negotiation. which should be a collaboration. Now, if you get Jordan to slow down, you could take those skills and make a great negotiation,

but you'd have to get them to slow down significantly. It's interesting you talk about negotiation in terms of collaboration. How important is being able to read people when you're trying to find a common thread? Or do you think that that's just kind of like them putting up an abstraction? of themselves, and then you're not really negotiating at that point.

Well, I try to read emotions more than anything else. And then if I'm guessing, then I'll verbally guess. And I'll say, like, seem like something just crossed your mind. Instead of, it seems like something made you angry. Because I'm going to want to know what it is. So you want to pay attention to the, that they are giving off physical clues to thinking. but you want to be careful that you don't assume what that clue is. You want to find out.

So should you be attentive and be willing to be corrected or enlightened or figure it out? And then at some point in time, if you talk to somebody long enough, you're going to draw a pretty good beat on them. But it's going to take a while. Are women better at reading people than men? Women have more of a head started doing it than men do. Women are socialized, nurtured, to develop soft skills typically far sooner than men are. You know, seven-year-old gets into a fight, comes home crying.

What's dad likely to say? What'd you do? Or go back and kick his ass, don't ever come home crying again. You know, be a man, stand up for yourself. Little girl gets into a fight with a boy. Maybe she whoops his ass, which pre-adolescence is pretty likely. She comes home happy that she kicked the little boy's ass. What's mom going to say?

Probably you won't always be bigger than he is. They will come in time when that's not going to work. You need to start learning your soft skills now. So I think women are nurtured to learn soft skills before boys are. At the top end, there's no difference in ability. Or you've got to learn to want to be emotionally. intuitive and men can learn that as easily as women can women typically have a head start on it so in terms of emotional intuition because i'm pretty interested in the whole dating aspect like how would

you say you can assess or improve your emotional intuition how do you have some sort of metric where you can say i am pretty emotionally illiterate well uh so first of all everybody's emotionally illiterate to start out with like uh there's an interesting book out there the talent code by daniel coyle the content that everything is learned. The world kind of blank slates when we were born. And I'm a definite subscriber to that emotional intelligence.

There's no limit to it if you start paying attention to it. So to get to your question, if you feel like you're emotionally illiterate, just, you know, just pay attention and actually be interested in the other person and then pay attention to their reactions and continue to be interested.

And the more interested you are, the more interested you are, the more interesting you are. Neil Strauss, a friend of mine, wrote a book called The Game, which is the secret underground society of pickup artists. And so Neil is physically like this geeky guy.

He's not a body bill. He's not a handsome dude. Very successful writer. Was a very successful Rolling Stone magazine writer. Couldn't get a date. So here's about people that are the underground pickup artist society. Some of them take him under his way. because they say to them,

we think you actually like women. Like there are a lot of people that are in this that they don't like women. And God knows what's wrong with them. You know, but there's these goofy guys and everybody's a goofy guy that like them. And so here are the secrets

to picking up women, according to Neil Strauss. If you really listen to the book, first of all, take a shower. Don't stink. Have good personal hygiene. Secondly, at least wear clothes a match. And we're clothes that might actually look good on you.

You know, learn how to dress. Develop an actual sense of style. And thirdly, actually be interesting. Be able to hold a conversation. Don't be boring. So you want to get laid. Be well-groomed, be well-dressed, and be a decent conversation.

and you'll meet girls. And, you know, the majority of guys that can't meet girls, they're like, yeah, you know, why should I have to go to all that trouble? But the third kicker on that is actually be interesting. Now, most guys in social situations are not actually interesting. And so, you know, most guys say, well, you know, the good-looking guy gets a girl. Well, from a woman's point of view, if all the guys you talk to are boring, then he might as well be good looking

as a default mechanism because he ain't going to have anything to say he's not going to entertain me he's still going to sit there and stare at the TV on Sunday and not say a word to me so he might as well be pleasant to look at so Neil who's not a tremendously physically attractive dude goes out and starts

he gets Playboy Playmates phone numbers he interviews Brittany Spears she connects with him. There's this great clip when he's on Jimmy Kimmel. I saw that. Yeah. Is it Jessica Alba was it? Neil comes out.

And he's like this goofy guy, wrote the game. And Kimball's kind of offended by him. You could tell he's even kind of more offended that this goofy-looking dude supposedly does well with chicks. And Kimmel starts to make fun of him. So Neil doesn't rise to it. He just turns and starts talking to Jessica Alba. And in a very short period of time,

time, Jessica's ignoring Kimmel to talk to Neil, like completely cut him out. You can see Kimmel's kind of, you know, he's kind of confused this or what's going on, but instead of Neil opposing him, he was just like, you know what, you want to, you want to smart off to me? I'll do it right in front of you. Yeah. Why do you think that book got backlash? Because I remember I read that book. I must have been, I must have been like 16, 17 years old, maybe 18, somewhere around there, like the mid-2000s, the book came out, the game. But I remember also people really not liking that book and feeling like it was manipulative,

or if you have this like strategy, you're not truly being your authentic self, and it all seems kind of contrived that like, I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna throw a neg out there, and then I'm gonna, you know, talk, do they do this? It doesn't have that whimsical magic of just like spontaneity. Well, who's the backlash from,

and did they bother to read the book cover to cover? Because if you read it cover to cover, you find a guy who's, struggling to be effective socially and genuinely care about people. And ultimately, you know, at the end of the book, a bunch of people crash and burn around them. And Neil gets tired of the life. And he doesn't crash and burn.

And he cares about people. So if you read the book cover to cover and you actually paid attention to what was in it, you react the way that you did. but if you didn't read it or you just want to criticize it anyway, like I would imagine that if you read it cover to cover, maybe you still criticize it, but how is it marketed? You know, Neil isn't control how the publisher markets it.

And then, of course, what percentage of people that Reddit criticized it? Like, we give outsized weight to critics when they're in the minority. I'm not going to let them stop me from the positive impact. A friend of mine, Eric Barker, I like giving credit where credits do.

Eric Barker writes a blog that I'm still a subscriber to barking up the wrong tree, and he's written two books, the first of one, barking up the wrong tree, the science of success. Eric says that for every hater,

you're going to have 10 supporters. So don't be scared of the haters. As a matter of fact, the more haters you got, multiply that 10. 10, you're doing pretty good. What do people criticize you for? Anytime I'm in favor of something,

which is the post that I make, the only time I'm critical, that comes critical, I tend to be critical of the media because they're instigators. The vast majority of the legacy media are professional instigators. Put up a post in celebration

of a Jewish holiday. And people are like, well, don't you, you know, what's the matter? Don't you like Christians? Put up a post in, celebration of a Muslim holiday. I try to respect all religions. And usually if I put up a post in favor of one religion, then people in the other religions like, what about us? And I don't remember

what this one was, but for some reason they were like, why didn't you recognize this for the military to the American military? And somebody that was following along says, well, as a matter of fact, he did a month ago. You just missed it. That's a gosh. People want to find a reason to throw rocks without really getting into it, which is why, you know, the one percent is not worth paying attention to. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero?

More like Habinier Yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hello, I'm Patricia Kossim, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, and I host Info Matters, a podcast about people, privacy, and accessed information. Each episode features conversations with people sharing real stories and perspectives on the access and privacy issues that matter most to them. You can listen in at IPC.on.com or work. wherever you get your podcasts. But really quick, I just want to say before we go into that, for those that aren't aware,

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And at different times, they're different mechanisms. One of the guys on my team, Derek gone, is always coaching people to stay curious, be curious. you can't be angry and curious simultaneously. Curiosity is a superpower. It's a ridiculous superpower. You can survive anything with curiosity. Like anything. And I see you go like, anything?

Man's search for meaning, which is a book everybody should read about surviving the Jewish concentration camps written by a survivor. And once I read it, I now realize why by and large, anybody that survived the concentration camps will not talk about it.

because if they survived somewhere along the line, they did something, they deeply regret because it turned everybody into animals and survival moment to moment was at risk. Anyway, in this book, he points out, the author points out, and forgive me for forgetting his name, the people that survive psychologically, if they got to the point where they just love,

let go with a horror that happened moment to moment. And they just got actually curious as to what was going to happen next. They stopped being afraid of whether or not they were going to die. They figured they would. And so they were just kind of like, I wonder what the hell's going to happen next because I can't believe anything I saw today. And after the fact, the ones that cultivated genuine curiosity in the most horrific circumstances

one could possibly imagine were the ones that came out the other end, psychologically the most intact. Now, if that is not a testament to curiosity, nothing is. How do you curate curiosity in your own life day to day? Practice. Any emotional intelligence skill is a matter of practice

and being willing to learn it, being open to learning it, especially if it's counterintuitive, especially for whatever reason your amygdala kicks in a gear and starts telling you it's a waste of your time. Part of me wonders, I mean,

if if you're practicing curiosity, you're kind of like feigning curiosity. So it's not authentic, which is good to practice it, right? Because then maybe eventually you will become truly authentically curious. And at the same time, if you have a conversation with two people that are just wildly curious, like, how is that? Yeah, how do you go from faking to, you know, the whole phrase, fake it to your make it, well, I don't believe in faking it to begin with, right? Right. Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question. My best answer is to, I don't know that trying to teach it to yourself is faking it. And fake it to you make it also.

Like, what's your intention to begin with? Are you faking it because you're trying to deceive? Or are you trying to learn? And the real difference is, why I got a real problem with fake it until you make it as a phrase being misinterpreted, they're seeing now, because much greater understanding

of how the brain actually works. And you imagining doing something, the parts of your brain that are triggered when you do it are the same. The same. So if you can imagine yourself being curious, it teaches you to be curious. The Elon Musk, NeuroLink think

that they got going on. Like these guys, if anybody knows how the brain actually works, they're closer than anybody else does. And the reason why they're making the neuralink work, I can't remember the guy's name, who was recently in the media, it's quadriplegic. You know, they start these nerve implants in

with people who have problems are so horrific, they can't make their life any worse. And they found out the part of the brain that imagines moving a mouse is the same part of the brain where you would put your hand on it and move the mouse. So imagining doing something is the same as practicing doing it.

So are you really faking it, or are you trying to teach yourself to do it? If you're trying to teach yourself to do it, you're not faking it. You're, but emulating in your mind before you've built the habit is not faking it. It's teaching yourself.

What about intuition? Where does that play in? Like, let's say everything on paper looks good to you. It looks perfect. But deep down, there's something telling you it's wrong or it doesn't feel right.

If you can separate your intuition from your fear centers, principally your amygdala, then your intuition is a ridiculously, phenomenally, astonishingly effective supercomputer. So at a bare minimum, biology of belief, again, I'll forget the author's name.

He puts his stat out. The conscious mind processes roughly 40 bits of information per second, whatever a bit is. Yes, no, on, off, you know, the binary, a syllable. Maybe that's a bit. A second.

The subconscious mind, 20 million. 500,000 to one ratio, that's what feeds your intuition. So as a supercomputer, your intuition is capable of doing 20 million bits of information per second. That's massive. That's why if you actually listen to your intuition, you know, your subconscious processes all this data. And then if that's a genuine feeling that's coming from your gut, you're probably good. Now, if it's your amygdala, and that's a big challenge, sorting those two out.

If your amygda has got you scared concerned, that's highly inaccurate. So sorting the two out. And then even to take it a step further, there's emerging data that there are quantum processes that your brain is capable of. So 20 million bits of information per second is probably an underestimation of what your brain can do

if it has quantum computing. capacity, which then, which I believe, I believe actually that's probably very likely true. It's one of the reasons why psychologists, neuroscientists see the mind, body, and the brain is three separate entities. So how is the mind a separate entity from the brain unless there isn't some quantum connection working there, which makes it a larger entity than we can currently measure? How do you separate fear from intuition? How do you know what's... That's a challenge.

Like, so first of all, do you have any actual experience in the area? Are you assessing something that's completely new to you? Well, if it's new to you, you got no experience, you got no intuition for it. And it's more than likely your fear centers that are overriding things. But that is the challenge. And so as you go through life, you got to ask, you know, is this a feeling or is this a voice? Is it a voice in my head that's telling me this? Am I hearing, imagining somebody criticizing me for doing this?

Am I imagining somebody telling me I'm wrong? Well, it's probably your amygdala. But is it my gut? Is my gut reacting to this? And sometimes I'll ask myself, is this my gut? And then frequently, if it's my gut, like I've engaged in professional relationships with people, where they gave me strategic advice.

And I can very specifically remember thinking like, I don't think this is going to work. But I'm willing to go ahead and gather the data and find out. And I can't think of a time when I really felt like something wasn't going to work when I was wrong. But I was willing to proceed because I needed the information.

I needed the data. You're more experienced than me in this area? So when I first moved to L.A., I had this guy advising me on PR. He was supposedly a PR group. guru and he was advised me on different approaches to people, different talking points, different stuff. And I just remember thinking like, but I'll go along because you got more experience here than I do. And the advice that he gave me was not panning out with any degree of success.

But I wanted to learn. So I went ahead and went with it. So when do you know when to walk away? I went, you know, well, all right, so there could be a variety of reasons to walk away. But, you know, if you're interacting with someone and they're on a certain path and it's just not working for you, you walk away. There's no judgment on anybody else. Just it's not working. Bad relationships. Your values don't align with somebody. You know, somebody likes a fast hustle, quick buck, you know, the approach.

There's, you know, there's gurus out there on communication that say your money's in the other person's pocket. It's your job to get your money out of their pocket. I don't align with me. I never heard that. Yeah, it's out there. If you haven't heard that thing, you're not familiar with this particular person. But it's real common.

Okay, look, you make a lot of money. You're driving a Lamborghini. You're wearing expensive clothes. You got an expensive panorai versus a cheap one. You got the great big giant panorai, which costs seven times as much versus the one that actually looks good on your arm. Okay, that's cool.

You could wear that now. Well, speaking of that, how much does appearance affect someone's perception or negotiation skills? Like, do you approach the situation differently? Or can a better appearance help you? Well, it's in short-term, long-term. Like, the flaccier somebody is,

the more chances are they're deeply in debt and they need all your money. And so, you know, I get somebody, you know, I'm, if you come walking in and you got a pair of tennis shoes on that are $12,000 shoes, like, all right, we may not align. Sure. But some people are very impressed by that. And that's a contributor to their success as they see it.

But now the people who are impressed by that, does that mean they're at a level that they haven't like, I hate to say like ascended to some, but it seems like the type of person who's impressed by those things might not be as like attuned to certain situation as someone who's... They don't have the experience maybe. Yeah. Well, maybe they haven't learned like, hey, maybe those are tells that could be a red flag. You know, a lot of those people are doing really well and are really happy. So my contention is they're not doing as well as they could. They could be doing better. But by all the external measurements around them,

they're doing great. And they're really happy. Like, you know, I've been in some of those folks' homes, and they get great homes and great places. And a lot of people, they love being around, and they're really happy. And ultimately, sort of how happy you are with your life is really the measure.

Now, do I think they could be more successful? Yeah, maybe. Do I think they could be happier? Maybe. You know, they seem pretty happy now. But them knowing what they could do is, you know, is an illusion. intangible. We got a guy that we coach a lot. We got a few really top-tier negotiator,

really successful entrepreneurial business people that we coach. And they will not go for a week without some sort of contact and coaching because their negotiation skills are at such a high level that if, you know, if Tiger Woods doesn't swing a club for a week, he's not playing as well as you could. And one of them said, I made more money being collaborative than I ever made being cutthroat. And I was really good of being cutthroat. But for whatever reason, you know, he stumbled over us. But before, he was doing really well.

You know, by all his other measures of success, external to him, he was doing really well. And when he made this switch to be less transactual and more collaborative, he, he was doing, He's got way more money, way more money. So it's hard to know. It's really hard to measure into something that you don't see it around you. You see yourself as good or better than everybody in your industry. So by all external measures, you're an A player. But for you, for what you're capable of, you're probably a C player.

What are some of the things that people could do today to improve their skills to get to that point where eventually they're the A player. You know, first of all, stop trying to overcome objections and understand objections. You know, stop selling, stop pitching. Learn to listen to listen as opposed to full listening

where you've got a list of things. You're only listening to them long enough for you to trigger the next of three responses. you have selected in advance. I run across a lot of salespeople. They know their industry. They know that I'm going to have one or three objections. They're going to ask me a question that makes it sound like they're actually interested

in my answer, but they're only interested in which of the three prescripted things they're going to say. And I walk away from those people. I had one guy I do that to me at a VIP luncheon one time asked me a question about investing in commercial real estate and I gave him an answer and bang he had a response

and that was just too quick it was just too quick and so I thought all right you didn't have enough time to actually listen to me because the problem with that is ultimately for us to have a great relationship and for you to tailor what you're doing to me you're going to have to listen to me at some point in time

no matter how smart you are, you're going to be off mark. And if you never listen, you're never going to know why. So, and actually, he's on my right side. So I answered a question, bang, another answer. So he asked me another opening a question, and I answer him, bang, he's got another answer.

And so I just turned away. Just turn my back on him, and I didn't speak to him again. Because he's not going to listen to me. And so when a point in time that's coming, that I will have need, I will need him to have listened to me isn't a how.

How do you approach that then in dating and relationships? Is it the same thing where if you just want to listen to the other person? It takes practice because, again, it takes a lot of practice. Because most people don't listen

so you're not, you don't know what it's like to be listened to. And people that cared about you probably didn't listen to you. Now, they didn't know they were doing that. You know, the classic parent response, how was your day, what'd you learn from it? Kid comes home, yeah, and so you learn from your mom or your dad,

probably your mom. Mom wants to genuinely show interest, want to encourage you, wants to keep you to think. How is your day? You answer, what'd you learn? She didn't listen to your answer. So why do kids, mom says, how was your day, fine. What'd you learn?

I forget. Why do kids do that? because they've been conditioned that mom ain't going to listen to the answer. She's going to move to the second question without having shown that she comprehended the first part at all. Or how was your day? It was horrible the teacher picked on me. Well, you know, teachers don't pick on you.

You know, what did you do to cause that? You know, then it's judgment and advice. But again, no listening whatsoever. So we got tons of people that were training. that the kids are opening up to them in ways they never opened up to them. Or their parents, conversely, open them up to them in ways that they never opened up to them. Two days ago in Arizona, we're doing this training again. Under Joe Polish's umbrella, we got this special event called Golden Swan.

And we got people asking a very specific question, triggering answers you're supposed to listen to. And this one guy was talking about, is my mind? mom had been a listen, moved in with him. She was, hadn't been as well, and she felt very disconnected. She's angry all the time, and it was a tough cookie to begin with. I mean, mom's, mom's tough cookie.

Not a hugger. So he asks a question, and it's usually what do you love about something? Because you want to put somebody in a very specific frame of mind. They open up very genuinely. And she's kind of fighting all the genuineness. Like, it's one of the rockiest versions of this conversation I'd ever heard. And he tried really hard to get it open up and want to make it feel appreciated

and wanted to, you know, trigger her to blossom a little bit. And it didn't go that well. And so the next morning, he gets up to leave to come to this training, and she comes up to him and gives him a hug. She hasn't hugged him in years. He can't remember the last time she hugged him. but the conversation overnight when you sleep on stuff

it bakes into your brain it's a critical aspect of learning which is why two-day seminars are better than one-day seminars because you sleep and you come back the next day but the conversation of being genuinely heard

without being judged, criticized, advised, sunk into her overnight and he comes walking in the next day he goes, I don't remember the last time my mom hugged me So I know how I got off on that tangent.

What about negotiating in a relationship where you feel like you don't have the upper hand? There's no such thing as the upper hand. There's a phrase I learned a long time ago, the secret to getting the upper hand in a negotiation is given the other side the illusion of control. But what's the upper hand in a relationship? Like, if you got the upper hand,

How does that leave the person a long term? Well, I can provide a scenario maybe. So, like, let's just say that there is a woman in a relationship and she's, like, incredibly attractive and she's earning a ton of money. And she's, like, a super successful lawyer and these super high, I don't know, specific jack. Yeah, okay. And then you have this guy that she may be met, you know, four months earlier. They were kind of friends, you know, he got into a relationship,

whether he's not doing a whole lot with his life. Like, I feel like in any situation, the woman would generally have the upper hand because she's able to not only threaten, but actually act out on leaving the relationship. Whereas for the guy, there's, like, kind of an imbalance of power. Maybe the guy has more to lose in that case. Yeah.

Yeah, well, first of all, like, if she feels, if she feels like she's got to threaten, like, what kind of a relationship is it? if he's worried about being threatened, what does he bring it to the table? Like, what's his value to her? How's he making her life better? Now, maybe he's making her life better.

And if he's making her life better, if he's paying attention to her, like, I can't promise you, if he's actually paying attention to her. And, you know, there's this issue, like, how long does a man actually court a woman? And I see over and over again, long-term relationships.

Like, the minute you stop courting her, you're in a downward spiral. What do you mean courting? Make a time for complimenting her, opening doors for the same kind of behavior that you engaged in the first six months you were together. You know, are you paying attention to it?

When's the last time you took her out on a date? You know, people are talking about secret to long-term relationships, you know, long-term marriages. No matter how many kids you got, you got to have a date night. You know, that's an aspect. of continuing to court.

All of the communication a man used to woo her, did you stop six months in, a year in, three years in? You know, interesting, which is very common. In Neil's book, he talks about, girl has been married three years, most likely if she's going to cheat to cheat on a spouse. Why? Dude's not paying attention to her anymore.

He's, you know, he's treating her like she's part of the first. furniture. When was the last time you bought her a gift spontaneously? Brought her flowers. Did anything, got her anything if it wasn't a birthday. Bought her flowers for any reason if it wasn't a birthday or a special occasion. I mean, courting, you're constantly, you're bringing her flowers. You're thinking of ways to surprise her, keep her engaged, make her feel valued.

Just the same way you did the first month, first six months. So if you're doing that, like you've got an advantage with a beautiful, successful. attractive woman because ain't no other guy out there doing that. They're giving her six months of attention, and then they're going back to watching a ballgame. Yeah, I would agree with that completely. Okay, what about negotiating in a relationship if there's a situation like the woman gets emotional over something

that's like relatively small? Because this is something I know is very common. A lot of the male viewers, maybe even female viewers, they're familiar in their own relationships with something like this, where they're getting like thrown off by something that's small and the guy is trying to understand, you know, like how would you even... Maybe it's all about the woman here.

Also, the guy could be emotional. Well, that's small to you. I mean, what's small to you? If you're upset about something and I'm communicating to you that it's a small thing, what am I communicating to you? It's more of a talking down. Yeah.

Like, even if it is for me to communicate to you that it's a small thing, it's talking down. It's not complimentary, it's not supportive. So small things are usually indicators accumulations of other stuff. And so there's been a bunch of stuff that's accumulated,

and the human being on the other side is focusing on an individual triggering event when a point of fact, there's a bunch of stuff that have contributed to it. I mean, the realization that, I mean, that's kind of human nature. I'm an assertive. And what does that mean?

means I snap at people occasionally. And to people that work for me, like the fifth thing that's gone wrong on a day, you're probably getting a text for me that's going to be pretty harsh, they're pretty critical. And I've come to find out, you know,

the first thing that went wrong in a day, I have to watch myself because a succession of day where a number of little things have gone wrong, whoever happened to be the unfortunate recipient to be part of the fifth little thing is probably going to trigger my anger and frustration from all the stuff that happened that day.

And so me just being aware of that, you know, I'll call them back. I'll follow on. I'm like, look, I overreacted. This was a small thing. But I got a, and this has been a whole accumulation of stuff that's not your fault. So I, you know, I will try to at least own it.

But the flip side is, if somebody's been triggered over a small thing, that's the tip of the iceberg. It's been a bunch of things that has gone. bad. And so your job is to recognize that if, if in fact, a thing that is manifested in itself is small, there's been a whole bunch of other stuff that have gone into that. And so consequently, it's not really small for the other side. Do you think that compromise is essential in a successful relationship? I think compromise is a guarantee to make both people unhappy. So there should not be

compromise. Right. You should take the time to find out what's going on with the other side. because compromise is a guarantee is you know is guaranteed to make both people unhappy and so how good of a strategy said see but i feel like compromise is is essential in making both people happy let's just say give me an example let's just say macy feels like italian food tonight and i feel like sushi my compromise could be like okay how about this uh we'll flip a coin if its heads we'll do sushi if it's tails we'll we'll do yours and maybe we end it there and then the coin flip determines what we do separate from us

and there's no emotion on the cutting flip or the compromise could be okay how about this we do you know Italian food tonight or sushi tonight and then we'll switch then the next day we'll swap and then that way we both get what we want and there's a bit of give and take okay so first of all that's more collect

first of all that's the spirit of collaboration to start with sure so that's a step in a right direction but if I want to do Italian tonight and you say okay you know I lose a coin flip I don't know I'm going to want to do

Italian tomorrow night so I'm not going to like it but the idea that you want to collaborate to start with and then you're concerned about the other side's happiness to start with so you know why should you want to tell you

what kind of a day has it been like what do you feel like when you if you want Italian food like if I'm going to eat Italian I need comfort food and I may not need it tomorrow or it's been a long day I've been worn out and my girlfriend Wendy and I we got a Italian place we love and when I go there you know it's been a tough day and I'm I'm that's for me I'm down for them yeah so if you if you get a taste for something at a given point of time, it's going to be a reaction to your day. You're going to guarantee me tomorrow's going to be exactly like today. So your heart's in the right place.

But what's causing the other person who want to tie in? Or what's causing you to want you what you want? So then those moments are not going to repeat. So take the time to find out what's going on with the other side. Now, it's not a restaurant example, but there was one of the students in my class at Georgetown, they're in a negotiation over what kind of a Christmas. tree to get. Guy wants an artificial tree for all the practical implementable reasons. We can buy a gorgeous tree and we're going to have the same gorgeous tree every year.

So we only got to buy it once. There's all these massive practical reasons for the artificial tree. And his wife wants a real tree and will not talk about it. She just unreasonable, emotional. No, got to be a real tree. So he says, you know, he's going to try to understand because if you genuinely understand someone, there's a really good chance all they want to be is understood

and then they'll agree with you. So he's going to try to genuinely understand. And he's thinking about it a little bit. If somebody's really digging in, they can't really explain, probably goes deep with them. So you want to go deep, which means what does it mean to go deep? Start looking back in a timeline. Go back in time.

And he says to her, it seems like he had real trees grown up. And she says, yeah, she says, and the smell of a real tree and the feeling of family, I will never forget the way it felt for my brothers and sisters and I to be around a real tree

and the smell of that triggers how close we were as a family every time I smell a real tree. And I want that same experience for our kid. What kind of tree you think they got? Really good artificial tree with a scent. One of those ones with a scent next to it. The plug-ins.

That's the most scramble compromise right there. Yeah, they got a real tree. Yeah. Yeah. And he was like, holy cow, I had no idea the broader emotional point here. And what was going on for you emotionally and what was driving you emotionally. And I want our kids to on our kids. to on a deathbed, remember what Christmas was like.

So that's what? And what do you do when both parties feel like they don't want to compromise? Or they both feel like he feels just as strongly as like, well, when I was growing up, we never had the real tree. And we always had the art of it. That's a hypothesis. Yeah. That's hypothesis. You can run those in your head all day long.

Like maybe you run into that. small percentage of the time. Let's say you run into it, 75% of the time. What's the flip side? 25% of the time you came up with a great solution that both of you loved. So no matter what the percentage is, there's no downside to finding out

where the other side's coming from. Because even if they don't get their way, they feel hurt and respected, which makes them want to continue to communicate with you. Now, speaking of more practical applications for this in just everyday life, do you think it's possible that anybody can negotiate a higher salary? Don't negotiate salary and negotiate your career. Why is that? Salary pays your bills.

It doesn't build your career. And so empathy is about how does the other side see it. So you go in asking for a higher salary, number one. What did you just ask for? I want to get paid more and do the same amount of work. How does that sound to a boss? I think it could sound appealing if the person is willing to walk away. I said, hey, I'm going to get my two weeks notice.

Wait a minute. It could sound appealing. I work for you. I've been working for you for a year. And I come to you and I say, look, I want to get paid more for the same amount of work. I think it depends on the leverage that employee has. If that employee is irreplaceable. That never sounds good.

It doesn't sound good. Because what I just said to you is what I want is going to make your business less profitable. How do you like that? I would look at it objectively and just say, well, can't. Really? How many employees do you have? Well, really just not, I wouldn't even call Jackson. So you would encourage anybody that works for you to ask for more money and do no more work?

I'm not saying they would get it, but I'm saying if they have. Wait, wait, wait, wait, now we're, now we're, you said you'd look at it objectively and they reject. Yeah. Yeah. So I, but here's where I would be on it. In a way. Here's where I would be in. In a way.

If someone, if someone comes and they're irreplaceable and they say, hey, I need. X, Y, Z, or I will stop. There's going to be a point. So what's your relationship, if your irreplaceable employee, threatens you like that? At a certain point, it just doesn't make sense anymore. But up until that point, that's not what I asked you. What's your relationship with that employee

if they got to come in and make that kind of a threat? I think it just depends on the context. What context is it not bad? It's not bad. How are you looking out for them? How are you mentoring them? How are you growing them? If they got to come up to you and say, give me a raise or I quit, which is a threat.

They have to get more money out of you by threatening you. What's your relationship with them? I would hope that it would be a relationship. Hope is a drug, not a strategy. So the alternative is what? Pay the person the maximum that you could possibly pay? Salary doesn't build your career. It pays your bills.

salary is a contract for what you've done in the past where you agreed to do so we had an agreement as to what you were going to do and how much I was going to pay you for it and so you're coming to me a year later and you're telling me that agreement's flawed

right so what kind of a relationship would we get so is the better alternative to say we can work on this salary pays your bills it doesn't build your career So it's better to go and say, hey, I'm willing to do this on top of it. No, no, don't offer it because you don't know for sure what the boss needs.

Yeah. So this is a great question, first of all. And the way I'm reacting to you is just I want people to really think this through because empathy is about how's the other side reacting? How do they see it? Now, the vast majority of employees only walk into the boss's office to get more. that doesn't say every time you walk into the boss's office, you're not asking for more for yourself,

but how common do you think it is for an employee to walk in and say, boss, how can I do more for the same amount of money? Right. Nobody says that. So bosses, employers are conditioned because they're human, then employees are selfish. Because you don't walk into the boss office, say, hey, look, I want you to know,

I think you're doing a great job, consequently. Well, still paying me the same amount of money, how can I take on more responsibility? Because that's the only way you make the company more profitable if you're in there for Sally. But if you're, so then the game changing question, walk into the boss's office and say, how can I be guaranteed to be involved in projects that are critical to our strategic future? And we think the reaction to that is. Very positive. Yeah, and why?

Because I want to be a team player. I don't want to be a diva. I want you to have a better life. If they're critical to our strategic future, I didn't come in to make my life better. I came in here to make our life better. And I want to play in a big game. Now, first of all, you've got to mean that.

Like, there are a lot of people that do not want to play in a big game. They want to do the same amount of work. They want to show up almost on time. Don't want to kind of want to, I don't want to actually be on time. I want to almost be on time. And I don't actually want to stay to five. I want to kind of make it seem like I stay to five. And that's a lot of people.

They, they're not looking to really make everybody's life better. Like, you've got to want to play in a big game. A friend of mine's head of an international bank. The head of an international bank. And that has been his question in every job that he's, walked into in every annual review. He wants to consistently be involved on the most important projects going.

Want to help in what will matter to everybody. Now, has that made him immune in his career? No. Things have still gone back from him. Nothing makes you immune. What you want to work is what's going to work more than anything else. He and I grew up in the same small town,

went to the same high school. He went to a smaller school than I did, which means no alumni connections. His degree was underwhelming, tiny little school in Missouri. You never heard of, so you're not going to be impressed. Like Harvard, you went to Harvard? Whoa, that's a tough school to get into.

And you got a great alumni network and you got all these connections. And theoretically, you learned a lot. That in school he went to. Head of an international bank, very high emotional intelligence, is consistently involved in making everybody's life better around him. And has it not been immune from career pimples? falls. I'm giving his sales training to a company on Zoom during a pandemic, all the sales team and the CEO was there. And in front of the CEO, one of the people says, how do we get more money

out of this guy? How do we negotiate a raise with him? He's right there. And I know everybody's holding their breath, waiting to see what I'm going to say. And I say, this is what you do. You walk into his office and say this and mean it. How do I be involved in product checks? to critical to our strategic future. And before anybody could say a word, he said, I wish everybody would walk into my office and say that. That's how you get welcomed them into the boss's office.

Now, one of the two things, one of a couple things happen. You might not get involved in a critical project, but you've signaled to the people that lead your organization that you wanna make a contribution. And they're gonna start paying attention to you. And if you're not ready,

you've told them that you wanna be there, so they're gonna wanna see how cultureable you are. Can they get you ready? that's one possibility. Another possibility, they'll throw you in a game, which means you better want it. Like, you know, a lot of people say,

I want to be an A player, but they're not willing to do A player work. You know, I'm on time. I'm almost on time. The A players are in the office usually at least 10 minutes early, show up for meetings early, and never late.

Like you could wind, you could set your watch based on their predictability. That's what an A player does. They never show up late. Ah, you know, sorry, ran over, you know, traffic. Traffic. Yeah, no, no, no.

If it was traffic, you'd have told us 15 minutes ago because 15 minutes ago, you knew you couldn't be here on time. So you get in a big game, got to be ready to go. Or what, you get in a big game, and a year later, they don't give you a dime for it.

What happened? You just have career accomplishments that have made you more marketable and the boss that doesn't appreciate you, and there are plenty of companies out there that do not appreciate their employees. Walk.

That's when you walk. Because if they don't want to actually pay you what you're worth and they don't want to give you opportunity, these are bad strategies. And this company is coming to an end somewhere along the line. Somebody's going to buy them. They're going to go bankrupt, likely going to be bought and taken over by somebody else.

and what happens every time a company is bought and taken over, vast majority of the people there are either shown the door or hit the door in the first year, which means that your time there is coming to an end anyway. You might as well pad your resume with accomplishments, which makes you more marketable to the employee that's going to appreciate the fact that you did that. They're not all going to appreciate you.

But you got to remember, salary pays your bills, it doesn't build your career. As soon as you want to build your career collaboratively with your employer, now that's a whole different world. And you may not end up the head of an international bank. You're going to do well. How does all of this affect your parenting style? Every parent is flawed.

Like you do the best you can to smooth it out. Parenting, problems with parenting like the problems with any way. relationships around people a lot is you will always inadvertently wound people that the more time you spend with somebody you're going to accidentally hurt them and you're never going to know and then because you did it by accident and then there even matter at you because you hurt them and you didn't know so just the acceptance that you're a flawed human being and that you're trying to get it right and you're not always going to get it right. Is there anything that you've learned from being a parent that's changed your insight into human nature or behavior, perhaps?

I'm sure, you know, like I like to think I'll be smarter next week than I am right now about human nature. So when did that start? Yeah, I'm sure it's an ongoing process and I got no shortage of ongoing stupidity. Yeah. I'm also curious how much the average hostage negotiator earns. It seems like such a specific, skilled career. It's within law enforcement. You don't get it paid any different to be in a hostage negotiation

and you do any other job. Oh, wow. You know, like if they give overtime, you might get overtime. Other guys might not get it. Wow. But vast majority of agencies, law enforcement agencies, it's an additional duty. You volunteer for it and you do it because a daily, you know,

you prefer soft power. Last question for me. How do you keep improving your skills over time? I think one of the big advantages I have is I'm surrounded by people that are as fascinated by this as I am. And so we talk about it all the time. You know, Derek, head of my coaching, you know, I mean, call him with the attention of just having a personal conversation and we'll end up talking about negotiation because we both love it so much. And I think that makes the biggest difference discussing it with people that are into it who see things slightly differently than you or they're a different type. Like this deep dive into human nature and factoring it into your whole life is a cool thing.

How cool is it? There's a guy that I'm coaching currently who makes a lot of money and is a good person and is successful by anybody's measure of success, including Elon Musk. And he just thought that there was, you know, something I'm missing here. Started coaching him. And one of the things he said to me recently was, I now realize I was that I was, you know, seeing the world in black and white and I now see a world of color, which makes it a much more enjoyable life for him. He's having a, he's having a great time. So if the possibility is that you see in a world of black and white, you want to see it in color, come to our website, BlackswanltD.com.

We got a bunch of ways to get you started for free or little or no cost. Like the book, the book's 20 bucks. You got to read the book. And I heard something just a couple days ago that said, you don't really know a book until you've read it three times. And the first is just the introduction to it. You finished it and you go back and read it again. You were smarter than you were the first time, which is why, you know, no man steps in the same river twice. It's not the same man.

So if you're interested, if this sounds like it would be enjoyable, if you're wondering how much better you could possibly be, if you see the world in terms of leverage and arguments and logic and win-lose, you're seeing the world in black and white. You don't know it, and you might be happy there. If you're happy there, stay there. That's cool. You want to have more interesting life,

increase the depth of your relationships and make more money, then start learning our stuff. At some point in time, we're doing a, you want to come in person, we're doing a negotiation mastery summit in Louisville, St. Patrick's Day, March 16th and 17th. The St. Patty's Day is one of the two days.

You make quantum leaps forward in two-day immersion trainings. It'd be awesome if anybody that wants to get themselves, get themselves ready for it. And it's not cheap, we're not giving those tickets away. They're expensive. But there's plenty of things that are little or no cost you can avail yourself of off the website,

subscribe to the newsletter, books 20 bucks, and apply this stuff. And at some point of time, you know, when you catch on, it's fine. It is so much fun to get better at negotiation collaboratively. start by going to our website Black SwanltD.com That was an incredible

I loved it That was a masterclass in it of itself Yeah, geez Thank you guys so much All the information is down below in the description Thank you so much for doing this man I really really really

I enjoyed the conversation Very much so Until next time