The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Chris Voss with Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson

Episode Date: January 3, 2021

Chris Voss (former lead FBI hostage and kidnapping negotiator, author, and CEO of Black Swan Ltd.) sits down with Jordan B. Peterson and Mikhaila Peterson, to discuss his book Never Split the Difference, highlighting some of his guiding principles to use in negotiations at work, home, with your spouse, or even in hostage situations.Find more of Chris Voss on Instagram @thefbinegotiator, his free negotiation newsletter at blackswanltd.com, or text to sign up mobile for the newsletter in the USA to 33777” black swan method”-A special thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this episode of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. Visit www.skillshare.com/peterson to enjoy a free trial of a Skillshare Premium membership.-Are you looking for some help with your New Year's resolutions? Self Authoring helps you sort through your past to get past trauma, write your present life, and organize your mind for the future by identifying and prioritizing goals. Get 15% off Self Authoring by visiting https://www.selfauthoring.com and using the promo code “MP”-For advertising inquiries, please email [e-mail]

Welcome to season 3 episode 39 of the Jordan B Peterson podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson, Jordan's daughter. This is a very recent interview with Chris Voss. The video version of the podcast is available on my YouTube channel. I originally invited Chris Voss onto my podcast, but dad wanted to join and obviously I was thrilled with that opportunity. I love podcasting with dad. So if you want the video format, type in Chris Voss, Jordan Peterson on YouTube and I'm sure the video will pop up. Chris Voss is an American businessman, author, and the CEO of the Black Swan Group, which teaches people how to negotiate. He co-authored Never

Split the Difference, a book on how to negotiate, and a book on his experience as an FBI negotiator. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community and it's offering our listeners a free trial of their premium membership. If you find yourself scrolling through socials or on Netflix too much, something like Skillshare is a better use of your time. There are so many fascinating classes there on topics including illustration, design, photography, animation, or productivity, starting a small business, coding. I think I'm going to be taking Greg McHughan's course on productivity in the new year. Skillshare offers classes designed for real life so you can squish

your learning experience into your life without putting your life on hold. Their short classes are a great fit for a busy routine. You can create real projects, get the supportive fellow creative so you can accomplish real growth. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash Peterson, where our listeners get a free trial of premium membership. That's two weeks free at Skillshare.com slash Peterson. I also wanted to mention Dad's self-authoring program because of the New Year. With Code MP, you can get 15% off. He wanted me to mention Dad's self-authoring program because of the new year. With Code MP, you can get 15% off. He wanted me to mention it because of New Year's resolutions. And his program is absolutely fantastic. A no-frills approach to goal setting and planning your future. The Code MP works on his self-authoring

suite, which gets you to write your past, present, and future and figure out goals and how to accomplish them. That's selfauthoring.com code MP for 15% off. Great for your New Year's resolution. Hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, remember to subscribe. Very pleased to have with us today us being the K-8U leaders in Jordan, and Chris Boss, who is currently CEO of Black Swan Consulting, was formerly the FBI's talk, international kidnapping negotiated, and is the author of Never Split the Difference. Both offering the teachers, readers,

the fine-art of successful negotiation. Thanks very much for joining us today, Chris. I enjoyed your book a lot, and I'm looking forward to your stories. Yeah, thank you. It's my pleasure. It's also going to be on with you guys. Much appreciated. Why do you? I'm interested in negotiation because I'm the clinical psychologist and a lot of what clinical psychologists do is negotiate with their clients for behavioral change but also teach their clients to negotiate successfully with the people around them to get what they want.

So negotiate and negotiations very underdeveloped skill in most people. So I'm wondering how you came to develop an interest in anything, and we're both in there. Well, let me quote the great, I'd to say quote the great actor Rocky Balborg. I couldn't sing a dance. I was, yeah, I was, with the FBI, I was a SWAT guy. I had to get out of SWAT because of recurring injuries. But I wanna stay in crisis response. And so, we had hostage to go share this.

I knew they were around. I didn't know what they do. Didn't seem that hard, right? You know I could I could talk to terrorists is what I thought got into it. It was fantastic. It was you know I had to had to sort of fight my way in not really fight my way and I had to work to get in. I was eminently unqualified before it became an a go shater but our first step was to volunteer on a suicide hotline and you know the opportunity to influence people in short periods of time blew me away. Really countertuitive methods. And one thing led to another I taught negotiation at Harvard

and collaborated on book with some people and been teaching negotiation ever since. It's just been phenomenal. It's great to have a positive impact. I'm sure as you feel, you know, you have the opportunity to have a positive impact on people. It's enormously satisfying. So, why, what made you think that the skills that you would pick up as a negotiator in these pricey situations would be applicable to people in their day-to-day concerns. Yeah, you know, a great question. I mean, I suspected early on when I was volunteering on the hotline, like, is this just people in crisis?

Or is it just people? And I started using the skills of my day-to-day life, and it impacted all my relationships and made me a better hostage negotiator. And when I first started collaborating with Harvard and they invited me to come and attend the Law School's negotiation course, instructors up there were teaching and were saying like, look, man, you're doing the same thing we're doing, the stakes are different, but the dynamics are absolutely the same. And that was, you know, with sort of their blessing and their understanding,

and it upteaching that later, but the dynamics are same. It's human behavior, regardless of what the circumstances are, we're wired in certain ways, and as human beings, we all have the same wiring, as you know. and as human beings we all have the same wiring as you know. So I'm going to get into some of your, what would you call tactical strategies, I guess. And speaking of the clinical connection, I, when I was reading your book, the first thing that came to mind is that the techniques in general sounded very much like those that were put forth by Karl Rodgers to ensure successful clinical transformation and going behold about halfway through the book, you make direct reference to Karl Rodgers. And he was a great, well he was really the formalizer, I think, of the idea of

the active listening and reflection, particularly the idea that you should put yourself in the shoes of the other person, but also to ensure that you're hearing them properly, you should Repeat what they said back to them in paraphrase manner and see if you actually got the gist of their conversation, so So some degree you concentrate on that I guess in the section Well, it's not so much labeling statement mirroring I guess is your term with the parts. Well, you know, there's a couple. I mean, we've really sort of. Really defined all the different skills in real specific detail and I was one of the things that the Harvard guy said to me because. I was one of the things that the Harvard guy said to me because we're on the same path, but

FBI, we're a little bit further down it. And they said, we're both talking about the same skills you've defined them with much more clarity. Because principally, law enforcement, cops, FBI agents, we want specifics that had to do something, and then we'll take a little road test it. So, marrying versus labeling, we would call two different things and even the different types of labels and you know we take what we learn with the world learn we collected many kind of psychology and we had in neuroscience we started trying to hit very specific parts of the brain to create very specific reactions. So yeah, mirroring I would define mirroring is repeating the last one to three words of what someone just said or selected one to three words versus labeling, I'm looking for emotional nuances, dynamics. One of the things that struck me labeling is that

you know, people might respond positive to that. We should let you define it momentarily, but people should respond positive to that because it's often let you define it momentarily, but people should respond positively to that because it's often the case that when people are in a discussion or negotiating that they don't actually know what they're bringing to the table or what they want and so if they're floundering about in a somewhat emotion, written, and stressed manner. And you put your finger on what it is that they're trying to say. Then you're actually articulating something for them that's still only being processed at the level

of bodily response. And people find out a great relief if you can do it accurately, because you've summed up a very complicated set of physiological disturbances with the single adherence and kind of enable them to see the pathway forward. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you can even, it doesn't even have to be that accurate,

you know, which is the thing that neuroscientists taught us, you know, oxytocin dopamine, depending upon what neurochemicals being hit. I mean, when you're inaccurate and they correct you, they actually get ahead of dopamine, which they love. I mean, people hate being corrected, but they love to correct. It's a great way to create a bond that the other person doesn't even know as being built.

Well, and if you're incorrect and you're labeling it at least the person then has something they can object to that's going to create. You're talking about that at that, right? I'll be important to fitting somebody to say no. That was interesting. Like is it possible to describe that a little bit? Yeah, no, it's one of the craziest words and we, you know, hearing it, we're taught when we're little, you know, what's the first word every child learns? No! Yeah, and they love that word. Yeah.

Yeah. They get hammered with it over and over again. So we're conditioned that when we hear it, we've done something wrong. But at the same time, we're conditioned when we say it, we protect ourselves. So if I can get you to say no, you feel protected. You're gonna want to talk.

You're gonna feel good about the interaction. You're not gonna feel threatened. You're more likely to open up. I mean, even something as little as nobody in my company says to anybody, have you got a few minutes to talk? It's always is now a bad time to talk. Complete change in the other side of the reaction. Right.

And so you say instead, is this a bad time to talk? Right. Right. And so you say instead, is this a bad time to talk? Right. Right. Even like, I won't say, is this a good idea? I'll say, is this a dumb idea? And you'll probably go like, no, it's not a dumb idea, but here are the following problems. Here's what we got to do. I mean, it's a complete change in reaction.

Yeah. Well, you know, if you watch two-year-olds, we can know, because they really latch on to that word. It's really remarkable. And the reason for that is that it enables them to protect themselves against being hijacked by other people, right? It's actually the word that defines the boundary between them and the world and enables them to have some autonomy. It's amazing. I remember I babysabbed a little kid at point or maybe it was my old son, it might be a Julian. No, I think it was a kid upstairs,

he said he was not even the stubborn little kid. And I was trying to get him to do something just to interact with me. And I offered him a bunch of different enticements. And I mean, you as a psychologist and having trouble getting a two-year-old to cooperate, come on. Well, this was a particularly, this was a particularly getting a two-year-old to cooperate. Well, this was a particularly stubborn two-year-old,

but he felt no, their bloodline connection, is that way? No, no, no, this was truly the neighbor's child, actually. But he was willing to say no to Eminem's and ice cream, which was, he caught himself. When he noticed that he had said it, but then no was such an attractive proposition to him that he was willing to provoke even basic immediate rewards just for the thrill of being able to maintain that autonomy. some order. So I'm going to read a couple and maybe you could just describe what you mean by them. So you have tactical empathy, for example. Yeah, sure. I mean, we're trying to take, first of all, the point of calling it that was taken it out of today's common usage of empathy is sympathy or, or even compassion. Now, I would argue that I would offer that empathy is a very compassionate thing to do. But going back to the real reason I first started collaborating with Harvard, you know, they said empathy is not agreement. It's not sympathy. It's not even liking the other side. It's just completely understanding. The basis on from Rogers and psychology,

the stuff that anybody that's pursued this is study. Now let's add in neuroscience tactically. Tactically we know that the amygdala is kind of the crossroads of all our thoughts. And it's wired to be negative, 75% negative. And tactically we know that simply identifying a negative diminishes it, not denying it, identifying it. You think I'm a jerk. And I don't think you're that much of a jerk by saying that you've diminished it in the other side. So let's just put a tactical application to our empathy,

knowing that the negative emotions have four times the impact, three at least on people's thinking. So let's approach and come in through a different door. And it's tactical because, well, this is something that that needs to be clarified too, is that when you're negotiating, what is it striving to attain? Do you think it's, and if it's a win, you know, people conceptualize that the success

of a negotiation in different ways, that could be you win, which means you get what you want. It could be win-win, in which case both people get what they want. You can go beyond that, because you could say that in a really successful negotiation, people even discover new things they didn't know they wanted, and they get those two. So you know tactical towards what end if you had a philosophy of negotiation, what might that be? You know the philosophy is great collaboration which requires long term relationships and ideally every deal kicks stuff out that you didn't expect that delighted you, which is going to add to you to want to continue to deal with me. Great long-term relationship. If every

deal were in, you're delighted, you can't wait to do another one. Right, so that's absolutely crucial because it puts within a real moral framework, right? Because otherwise, you could learn to negotiate for psychopathic reasons, which would be only short-term interests of yourself. But if you put it in a framework where you're trying to set yourself up to play repeatedly with the same person or with a whole variety of different people, then an ethic automatically enters into you. Right, your reputation precedes you. I mean, you get reputation for doing nothing but good for people. People line up to do business with you. Right, exactly. And reputation is actually the marker for your utility as a long-term part. Yeah. Yep. How did that work with specifically

FDI negotiations? I mean, if you're dealing with somebody like a hostage paper, how does that end up being a winds or not? Yeah, well, first of all, a crazy thing is hostage negotiators have reputational concerns. We have repeat customers. And even if the guy that we're dealing with, even if it goes to jail, a number comes out. How we handled him is going gonna get into the media. So reputation is an immediate concern.

And people are so driven by where it's taking them in a long run. I mean, if somebody has a vision of the future, no matter how far down the line that vision is, that's a good thing. Now we get something to talk about. And my first response with a bank robber is really gonna be, sounds like you wanna survive.

Of course they do. Otherwise they'd have come out and gotten shot already. Now we get something to talk about. How do you deal with the people who don't wanna survive? You can pick that up pretty quickly. You know, you're going to know right off the bat. If you're there to hear it, and the analogy in the business world,

not everybody wants to do the deal with you. Maybe they want to exploit you. Maybe they want to take advantage of you. Maybe they see it as a one off. Maybe they're playing you for a fool. You've got to pick that up in your everyday negotiations as well. And you'll hear it if you're open to hearing. It's avoiding preconceived notions

is what really shuts you down. Being too focused on a goal gives you tunnel vision. Well, I really like the repeated game analogy. One of the things I've lectured about is that you tell your children it isn't important whether they win or lose. It's important how they play the game. But you don't necessarily understand what that means. Why are you telling your child that? And they might say, well, it's obviously important

that I win, so I don't know what you're telling me. But the goal of proper play is to be invited to play as many games as possible, not to win that particular game, even though you also want to win that. So you lay out this ethic, which is to make yourself the best collaborator, the most desirable possible collaborator across the longest term

with the largest number of people. And then you can put these techniques to use, which I'll put out in being cold harsh, what, techniques of manipulation. Yeah. You know, I was going to say the big difference between manipulation and influence is really where you take in me. Nipulacen is when I'm trying to hurt you.

Influence is when I'm trying to help you. Same set of skills, but where you coming from, where you're trying to go. Right. Right. And with the most business relationships, people get cynical about this, but most business relationships are in fact relationships. You know, I was really struck by this. It's even more so in the business world than it is in the academic world because in the academic world, you put forward a claim, and at least in the more scientifically oriented field,

the validity of your claim is dependent on the degree to which you followed proper scientific procedure. So there's an unobjective way of assessing your ability. But in business it's a lot softer than that in some manner because the measurement techniques for assessing the other person's ability aren't so clearly there. And so relationship becomes crucial and it's very interesting to me to understand negotiation as the skill that makes capitalism intense a human because it brings it under the necessity of it shows how tightly associated successful business development is with playing the game with other people property. And that helps you avoid cynicism about the entire process.

Yeah, no, I agree completely. I mean, our co-author, I mean, a book was written between myself, my son Brandon and Tal Ross. Tal is a brilliant dude. I mean, I would read anything, any business book that he's written. I don't know that I'd read any of his poetry, but I'd read his business books. And one of the things that he pointed out to us is by definition, as a species, the only ones of us that survived were the ones that collaborated were hardwired to collaborate. So if you increase your collaboration skills, more people are going to want to do business with you. And to your point, it's not always that measurable in an immediate number. It may be a secondary or tertiary benefit, but you become wealthy by being a great collaborator.

Is there any difference between negotiating with women versus men? Well, that's a loaded question. Not for sure. We're going to get into differences between men and women. I would love to do that because women pick this style of negotiation up faster than the men do. Now, at the top end, and we've got some fairly qualitative data to back that up, women are, it's hard. There's so much nurture going on.

It's hard to separate nature from nurture. Women are nurtured more to pick up on a motion sooner. They're nurtured more to pick up on soft power sooner and have an appreciation for emotional dynamics and how to use soft power. And so that's why I think that women have a tendency to be better at this. I mean, some of the people that are great negotiators

and are the biggest fans of our women. Did you say you said soft power? Yeah, well, little boys and little girls, little boys are taught to fight, little girls. The women that bring them up know that inevitably they're not going to be the more physically powerful. So they are, they are nurtured early on to figure out how to get things without physically fighting them.

How do you keep your emotions under check when you're negotiating? That is the challenge. And depending upon, there's a couple of different hacks. And they all take practice, just like any other soft skill. If you're genuinely curious, it's not possible to get upset. If you can stay in a genuinely curious frame of mind, you know, the people I'm also a big fan of,

Stephen Collar, he talks about the psychology of flow, highly positive state of mind, curiosity is positive, you're smarter, your brain is quicker. And when you're genuinely curious, you can't get angry. Interesting, Kat, I run across recently, Darrell Davis. Darrell Davis, black musician who talks,

talks clue-clicks clan members into quitting a clan. And I had a conversation with him about it and people say, well, how do you not get upset with these people that, you know, you're black, though, they openly say that they want to murder you. He says, well, I grew up internationally. I just look at it as a different culture and I'm just completely curious about where they're coming from and what are they thinking about? It leaves him in a state of mind where he can deal with people that are against him personally. He's just curious about that.

That's interesting. You know, one of the most useful, general psychological techniques in relationship to life and its challenges is voluntary exploration. And it's a particular physiological mode of being is very old brain center in order to help us with control of basic dry. It's like hunger and thirst and temperature, radiation, defensive aggression, and part of it also controls exploration. And so switching to a mode of voluntary exploration, that's a mode of being that's deeply hard wired in that envelops your entire being.

But it allows you to pick up information, right? And we are information scavenging, so that's because you can trade information for valuable things like food. So if you're in this, I'm constructing your book by your emphasis on unknown, unknown, black swans in both not the end, you said like if you're listening very carefully to people, you can pick up these unknown unknowns. And that is a consequence of all in very exploration. And having it's useful to pick up on those not only for the conversation

that you're having presently, but because of what the consequences for that conversation might be for conversations down the road. And so the man that you just described, he opens himself up and says, well, these people are from a completely different culture than me. Maybe there's some valuable things I can learn from them regardless of our differences in opinion and those things are of such value that they might be portable. And it is I believe that we can be spoke to approach the world in that manner because then everyone you encounter is a goal-minded information especially they don't agree because therefore of assumptions you don't have?

And you decide if something new is a consequence, that's way better than just having your own opinions bolstered, which is reassuring, but doesn't often you think, yeah? Yeah, all those things are completely true. I mean, and by definition, the unknown unknowns is really where the hidden stuff overlaps. And any given interaction, the other side is hiding stuff,

I'm hiding stuff. How do we know what happens when the hidden's overlap? That's why the deal can always be made better. I like that, so that's where the buildings better. I like that. So now where the police are going to ask. That's cool. Now that's cool. Yeah. What is cool?

I think for another practical question on practical. You guys didn't tell me this was going to be a practical interview. I thought we were just going to have some fun. Dad, dad has fun. I just asked you practical questions repeatedly in my podcast, you've got to talk about the combinations. But if you're trying to, like, I think the one negotiation that would benefit everyone

is how to go to whoever they're working for and trying to get one money. Look for a raise. And I know, especially if you're more agreeable, a lot of people are worried about that. I have no idea where to start. So do you have tips for negotiating the raise? Yes, sure.

Get her off the, get, you know, raises the price term in any negotiation. You know, you salary pays your bills, but it doesn't build your career. You know, price takes care of the immediate problems. What are your long term problems? Your long term problems are how do you build a career? Job negotiations should be about building your career, making yourself more viable to the team. And one of two things is going to happen. Your salary is going to get drug-along as a result. Or if it's not, you're more viable and you shock yourself to the highest better. Now, how do you become more viable?

You know, he is a phrase for every job negotiation, for every annual review. How can I be guaranteed to be involved in the strategic projects that are critical to the company's future. Instantaneous change in the way your employer views you. Because when you go in and ask for a raise, empathy is about how does the other side see you? The other side sees you as selfish. And most employers, most bosses, whenever the employee comes walking in the door,

they're after something for themselves. You condition your boss at your selfish. You may not like that reality, but it's unfortunately the reality. When you change their conversation to how can I help us all prosper? Now suddenly your boss, your employer goes like, oh, now here's somebody I want to have around. Here's somebody's going to make my life better. Conversation is instantly transformed. Now, either you'll get more money, you'll have greater experiences because also you don't want to be involved in a mundane at work.

You want to, if you're courageous, you want the big ticket item, you want to have an impact. And then even if they don't give you a to, if you're courageous, you want the big ticket item, if you want to have an impact. And then even if they don't give you a raise, the experience of being involved makes you five times more marketable than you were before the year started. Yeah, so your advice basically is that you would go off to much broader mindset, which is something like, how can I be optimally successful in this company? And what optimal success is going to require is being a key player in the most important things that the company does.

So that's also going to be allied with the willingness to take on additional responsibility, not to see that as a native. It's a part of it. People often avoid responsibility, but if you can take it on voluntarily, there's no difference between responsibility and opportunity. If the company is offering, you've got. Yeah, what is that responsibility, too? You now, the highest levels of your company

now have an investment in making sure you succeed. So you just gone from being maybe somebody struggling by themselves, your responsibility is critical to the future, everybody's future, and everybody has a stake in you doing well because that's what you've taken on. I mean, it's a virtuous cycle if you want. Yes, it also makes you difficult to replace, therefore, much more effective than you salary negotiations. Amen. Absolutely. You had some really nice, very practical tips for people negotiating their initial salary. I thought two of these were really smart. One was, if you're being interviewed for a new position and you're asked to define your starting salary to offer a range to say something like, well, people in this position are often

offered $125,000 to $175,000 a year as a starting salary. And to strategically do that so that your desired salary is in the bottom end of that range. Are you going to fall for that? Well, it's a good question, yes, is the short answer according to the book, but it's interesting that you would phrase it as fall for that because that is the danger of techniques is that they can become manipulative, you know. So that's why I wanted to talk about the broader ethic. And you also mentioned that it's smart for someone who's negotiating for their first position to also negotiate metrics for their first grades,

which is even more important, right? It's like you can negotiate for how your salary is going to I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating.

I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating.

I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulating. I'm not manipulative. I mean, I'm a nice guy. What are you just talking about? What are we going to do? That is manipulative.

And from some of the talks that I've heard you give, Jordan, and some other stuff, there's always additional nuances in fact as to consider, and you want to stay off a one thing. First of all, just because what you're worth and what they can pay you might not line up. And the experience for being there may be more valuable than the dollars. I got to tell you right now, I go work for minimum wage to be more buffets assistant for a year. I will get him coffee. I would do anything and I do it. I might do it for free.

Because that will be a position where I would learn so much. So you get it's as much not handcuffing near the side and making you somebody they can't get based on the number, you're looking for a great marriage. So the range is to feel them out, understand also when you give a range and it and the other sides numbers within that range, they're going to take the end that most favors that. So if you're going to give a range, you better be willing to accept the bottom number. They're not going to get in the middle. Right. Right. One of the practical aspects of ranges.

Question I have in relation to that was exactly the minute the day I was claiming, I guess maybe you could answer it. I would be happy with something in the range of 110,000 to 150,000. And because if you have to point out that other companies are making offers in this range, you have to know for sure that other companies are making offers in this range you have to know for sure that other companies were. There's no sense, adding a falsehood to your negotiation for the purpose of picking up an advantage. That seems to me to be a very bad strategy. Falsehoods are a bad idea. I'm against any

sort of deception by co-mission or omission. So yeah, especially on that point. Now, I wouldn't say something out of it enough. This accusation audit, you should maybe talk about that a little bit. That was something I found. Now, you derived that from your analysis of courtroom behavior of lawyers. I remember correct it. Well, it added to it. I mean, you know, seeing it work in different areas,

it definitely added to our thinking. What if I could tell it, if you don't mind? Yeah, well, you know, it's, first of all, it's, you know, the lawyers would call it getting out the ugly's in advance. You know, if you got to witness that there's some ugly things about you bring it up first, that the jury reconciled themselves to it before they listen to anything else.

And I worked with some great prosecutors when I was with the FBI Southern District in New York. Now, in business, it's understanding what the negatives are in advance, which crazy is when we're going to proactively get out in front of them. Like, if I get, if I get, let's say you got no negative about me at all, but I'm getting ready to say something that you're not going to like. I'll say, look, you're going to think I'm a real jerk for bringing us up.

And then when I bring it up, it'll have far less impact. You'll never know what I headed you off from. And that's why we get really aggressive with going after the negatives early on and calling them up. Yes, so the accusation audit allows you to lay out on the table all the weaknesses of your position and your character without matter.

And so there's a variety of reasons that that might be useful. One is that by indicating your willingness to admit to these faults, you show that the faults are small enough so that someone could admit to having them. That's the first thing. And the second thing is you show yourself

as someone who's larger than their fault because they're willing to admit to them, right? So you minimize the faults in some sense, even though you're presenting an accuracy, accurately, you minimize the faults in some sense, even though you're presenting an accuracy accurately, you minimize the emotional impact or you decrease their emotional impact and you increase the the integrity of your own character at the same time. And again, these two things that should be done honestly, it should be a genuine one. And you should be doing it in part so that you, this is why I was at the anyways, so that you are also as aware as you get, as aware as you need to be of the shortcomings you have in the negotiation. Yeah, I think you have to be a lecturer. I don't know if you remember. I don't know if it's a technique or just see you thing to do, but I can remember coming home and saying. I like some sort of terrible thing I had. This isn't exactly what's in. It's not sort of terrible thing I done. I was like drinking this, we're doing this. This happened just kidding.

But this actually did happen and it would be the second thing would be smaller. And I found that that really worked on getting in as high as you're like, thank God that didn't happen. That's not an accusation, Audis. That's an anchoring tip. Correct? Well, you know, depending on how you deployed it, there's a combination of both there. Yeah.

So we could talk about the anchoring technique as well. We could. I mean, as you guys just show, we'll talk about what if you guys make me tell you, you got me hostage here, I'm your hostage. And it sounds like you feel like you're a hostage. I'll take it all day long. So what is the anchoring technique? Would you describe that?

Well, yeah, I mean, the anchoring technique, and we're very, you know, you can anchor on a number and we don't anchor on numbers, but I will tell you, we anchor emotionally. Like, if somebody wants to know what I, if somebody wants to know what I charge for consulting, I'm gonna say, hi, more than you have, more than you ever paid.

And we're not moving forward in this conversation until you ask me to give you the number. Now, in that period of time that we waited, you're going to think of some crazy number. And when I give you my number, you're going to say, like, Ah, well, that isn't that bad. What comes with that. And we now made the numbers, something that is irrelevant. What's relevant really in all business negotiations is delivery. And we over deliver. So the anchoring, that was a very subtle use of anchoring or description of anchoring there.

The anchoring technique occurs. Imagine that you're always interpreting what's going on in a context of some sort. And so how big something is depends on the context. And so maybe you think a house says we're $135,000 and you find out the person wants $2.5 million for it. Well, then if they come down to $500,000,

you're gonna think that's pretty reasonable because they anchored you at $2 million even though you thought you'd begin with, it was only $135,000. So that is what I did. Mm-hmm, nice. Yeah, it's very, very trotch-ourous and sleepy of you. Yeah.

You still do that? I don't think so. I don't think so, but I'm not as the boss-ourist as everyone's. Well, we're going to raise the level of your skills. We're going to get you guys more money. You know, we'll go offline and give you some coaching. Next time, next time you'll be, you'll be in one of five houses that you wanted to be in. Next time, next time you'll be,

you'll be in one of five houses that you wanted to be in. You know, have studios all over the planet. You're being free, you know, Australia. I need help with getting along for an endotrache. I get way too angry and my husband, he's amazing at it. Like, he said, like I read your book and- Well, he's a good negotiator, he's married to you. Well, that's's he said like I read your book and well he's a good negotiator

you married to you well that's what he said too I was like I don't get along very well it's like yeah but look where we are oh yes you did you win that round okay another another hint you have neutralized the negative and reinforce the positive. What do you mean by that? Yeah, well, simply calling out the negatives has a neutralizing effect on them to some degree every time, every single time. Now, how much the effect is varies. But again, if we go back to the neuroscience stuff and the immigilist 75% negative, you neutralize

the negative, you get an opportunity for the positive to pick up some ground. If I say, it seems like you want to make a deal. If you genuinely do, then that will reinforce that feeling. It seems like it won a long-term relationship. It seems like terms are important to you. That will reinforce those positive aspects. If I say, it seems like you hate uncertainty, the anxiety that you were feeling in the moment will diminish.

How much it diminishes, I may need to neutralize it several times to get it out of the way. But again, our neuroscience wiring has laid out a lot of what people like you have instinctively come to know from your practice and your interaction with people where you guys were finding your way before we could map what was going on inside the brain. Are you married, Chris? I, there is an ex-Mrs. Voss and I'm looking for the future ex-Mrs. Voss. Ah, did your marriage fail as a consequence of important negotiation? No, you know what, it really failed as a consequence of what all relationships fail at. It's no good or no bad, but a misalignment of core values.

And there were things that were important to me that weren't important to her and vice versa. Business relationships, personal relationships. At the end of the day, it's no good or no bad on either side. It's just enough of a difference in core values that you're entitled to go your way and I'm entitled to go mine and nobody's wrong. Right, so everything's not of a difference since. The terminology for you. Right, well, you used to be, that used to be acceptable grounds for divorce. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, I'm not wrong, we just don't match up. How have the skills that you learn as a practical,

positive, legal, shader affecting your, your more intimate relationship? You know, it's helped me to be more attentive. Um, you know, it's an ongoing process. I'm still learning. I'm still making mistakes. I hope to be learning and making mistakes for at least, I say I'm a third of the way through my life, maybe another hundred you. But you know, the idea of dialing into somebody and having a better long term relationship and even thinking about that and getting better on it is very important to me. So yeah, I still make

mistakes, but you know, I don't want anybody to regret having had a relationship with me, although some do. I think that happens to everybody. How do you negotiate with someone who, say in a hostage situation, who doesn't want to talk to you or isn't communicating other things you can do to get them stopping to fight left? Yeah, well, yeah, take a step back.

If somebody's being tight-lipped, one or two things are happening. First and foremost, there's probably don't feel like talking to you is doing them any good because you're not listening. People get tight-lipped because communication isn't doing them any good. Now, they could be trapped in a corner and they could be helpless, or you could be not listening. They're three possibilities.

Another reason for being tight-lipped. Tight-lipped people trust incredibly. And they're a little bit afraid of how vulnerable they are because when they trust, they go all in. And they've been hurt, afraid of how vulnerable they are because when they trust they go all in. And they've been hurt, they've been badly hurt. So they're cautious because you resemble somebody that hurt them in the past. So if you think about what the possibilities are, first of all, you know, just adapt and begin, look, I haven't clearly, I haven't won your trust yet. Well, if it's not about trust, but they're helpless, they're going to correct. They're going to say, no, it's not

about trust. It's because there's nothing I could do. I'm trapped. There's nowhere I could go. But at that moment of time, you're now you're in dialogue, understanding what really is dialogue, even denial is dialogue. Somebody opens, somebody who gives you more than a one word response who is previously typed, lipped. Now they're testing to see if you're going to listen, if you're going to understand. Or if you're going to contradict or argue, people who are tight led with other people who are argumentative. Do you have any or could you tell us one of your, I don't know if you're a mad prophet, James Rick? Do you tell us a bit of cross-extendant watching story? Is that allowed?

Yeah, of course it's allowed, which is allowed. There I was, Tara stood left with me. Yeah, exactly. One of those. You know, two straight cases in a Philippines and we talk about both of them in the book. One, the bad guy on the other side was sociopathic, rapin, murder, and killing straight out of the movie's terrorist. The type of person that empathy is not supposed to work on. Now, when do you know when the other side feels understood,

when the other side says that's right, and a critical moment in that negotiation, and what I really was was an international negotiation coach. I'm coaching people in countries who are coachable. And I had a, I'm coaching a guy named Benji and he's eminently coachable. We summarize the bad guy's point of view. You guys have been impressed for 500 years. Americans are horrible. Philippine government is horrible.

You know, everything, everything you said, 500 years worth of emotional baggage. Bad guy literally says that's right. In that instance, a 10 million dollar ransom demand evaporated, disappeared, one off the table. A couple of months later, we're continuing in the negotiation, no more monetary demands for the hostage. None.

Non-monetary demands. Continued application of what we now refer to as tactical empathy. Hostage walks away on Monday Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, walked away. And back in the Philippines three weeks later connected back up with Benji, we're working in another case. He says, you're not going to believe we call him on a phone. The terrorists called him on the phone to tell him that he respected him. to tell him that he respected him. That's powerful stuff because we were engaged with the same group again.

And the guy, the terrorist, the social path that called to express his respect for how he was treated had lost everything in the negotiation. They wanted 10 million, they got zero. So that stuff works, it works on everybody. It always leaves you better off. Does that mean that the,

this terrorist wasn't actually interested in the 10 million? He was actually interested in being understood. But what would you take away from that? You know, around and away through, you know, what the other side is always interested in being understood but we should take away from that. You know, around and the way through, you know, what the other side is always interested in is the best they could do. One of the things that I learned about

and really kidnapping negotiations globally, kidnapping is a commodities exchange. They're a businessmen on the other side. And what they're really interested in is the best that they could do. And the best you could do is often define to buy how you feel during the process of the outcome. So they want a $10 million or the best that they could possibly do. What is $10 million buy? In this instance, $10 million buys you influence.

They started asking for other things that bought them influence. Let's get certain intermediaries involved, certain politicians. We want access to people. If we have more money, what do we spend that money on? Ultimately, guns. What do guns get you? Guns get you influence. Ultimately, people want soft power. So when they started looking for something else after having their anger being deactivated,

they also sort of lost control of their operation, which created the circumstances of our hostage walking away. Good things, it sounds ridiculous. Good things fall out of the sky if you let them happen. And that's one of the reasons to engage in this approach to negotiation, because something good is going to happen if you give it the opportunity. Tell me what your company does.

Exactly. I mean, if you were hired by a business, yeah, well, we coach, we get hired by businesses all the time, but we really coach high performers to better lives. You coach the high-performance specifically? Well, yeah, I mean, the people that are drawn to us are the high performers. And our marketing is, we're pointed much more at individuals and companies. Again, we coach companies, but companies by and large are relatively dysfunctional. Daniel, coil in the culture code, I think you pointed

out the stat that only 6% of corporate executives could actually recite their corporate values. Well, at 40% of managers have negative net value in company. Yeah, there you go, right? Yeah. So, you know, these are people that are struggling with themselves, they're alone new training. But we coach people into that are making better lives for themselves and their families that are top performers. I mean, typically, people that we coach in negotiations are cutting two or three life-changing deals a year as opposed to one every five or six years. Everybody that's that we coach that we were coached last year are wealthier right now than they were a year ago. How did they find well black swan LTD is the website BLACK SWANLTD.com.

You know, the first step is a book, which, you know, you were kind enough to look through and appreciate and recognize how much that, you know, we're in sync with on our thinking. And then come to the website, we got free stuff downloaded, subscribe to our newsletter, it's free, it's actionable. Give us a chance to put your family in a bigger house,

send your kids to a better school. Your book is titled Never Split the Difference. So I always thought negotiation meant somebody has a point to do here and somebody has a point to do here and do watch you find male ground What exactly do you mean by never split the difference? You know, it's it's a two-way street

But splitting the difference first of all is a fool's errand for a number reasons compromise You know do you compromise your principles? You know, there was a There was a cartoon about Maridol a married couple a long time ago. Husband and wife are talking to each other and husband says, let's compromise. That way we'll both be unhappy. You know, compromises the way to guarantee that you're both unhappy. Now, some people have saved a little great negotiations where both sides of a little unhappy. Is a great marriage, were both sides of unhappy?

That's a definition of long term unhappiness. So besides knowing what you want, don't compromise and meet in the middle. You're both gonna be unhappy. Now, what the other side wants may be even better than what you had in mind. A colleague, a friend of mentor, somebody we do business with, a guy named Dan Sullivan, recently wrote a book called Who Not How. He coaches the greatest entrepreneur in the world. He heard me give a talk and he decided how he was going to take a position with his partners on

his book to you. The book that he just put out, the people that he collaborated with, he gave them every dime. Because I said sometimes what the other side wants, give them what they want. The guys that he collaborated with on that book, giving them every dime from the book because the amount of business that's going to develop for his company, which is going to be huge. They are killing themselves for him. I was on a conference call with them Ben Hardy and Tucker Maxx, Tucker Maxx is a famous author in his own right.

Tucker says Dan got every drop of our blood on this book. Dan gave them every dime from the book because he knew how much it was going to bring him long term. So, never split the difference also the other side given their position and they will kill themselves for you. Yeah, so it's interesting because compromise is a reasonable way of construing negotiation, I think. If you're deadlocked and you have to make a decision, and there's also a time pressure. So then it seems to me under those circumstances that would be a reasonable heuristic to say, well, we'll expect the difference. You will won't be unhappy.

No, I dare you. I dare you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me develop that out for a moment because there is something about negotiation that is, that is, it's inextricably associated with compromise. I don't think that's the best way of conception, conceptualizing negotiation as such. See, because people are going to listen to this podcast and they're going to think, no, no, no, sometimes you have to split the difference. No, my okay. I knew you would send me out. I want to push you on that because push me. Don't push me.

Give me a hug. No, no, I'm going to go with the push, I think. We can hug at the end if it all goes well. So, look, if you're negotiating with your child, seven years old, and he wants to go to bed out 9.30, and he wanted to go to bed at 8.30. So what's wrong with splitting the difference?

Why not in that situation split the difference? OK. See, I'm just, I don't think it's reasonable to throw out the idea that qualifies as sometimes I'm a weird politician. That you're name calling. Had there you, what do you call me? Any names now? Well, maybe I'm just digging, maybe I'm just digging up the reasons for the marriage.

Clash. No, sorry. Anyway, do you do you think there are any circumstances under which the proper way of conceptualizing negotiation is as compromise? So here is the first problem with compromise and I I know you're familiar with Danny Cannonman's prospect theory, lost things twice as much as an equivalent game. The downward spiral we get into compromise, let's say you and I meet in the middle. Neither one of us are gonna felt we met in the middle

because I'm a human being and I'm wired so the lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain. And I believe Professor Connell actually gave and Nobel Prize winning behavior like anomics theory. I think he said that he thinks it's actually five to seven times as much and he and Amos Tversky just said twice as much so they got fewer arguments. So let's say we meet in the middle, let's say you give in 10. Emotionally you felt you gave 20 and you're not going to feel whole until you hit me for 20. Now, you've hit me for 20. I'm not going to feel even tell I've hit you for 40. This is guaranteed downward spiral.

Because we're human, it's impossible to compromise in a way that we both feel is fair. Even the numbers are exactly the same. Okay. So then you, it seems to me like you were making the case that a negotiation that ends in compromise actually failed. Amen. Okay. Well, that's, that's what we're thinking about. compromise actually fail. I am a man.

Okay, well, that's that's what we're thinking about. Yeah, because that would mean that neither party was able to switch the conceptual framework around so that both walked away in rich. Exactly. You're both going to walk away feeling hurt. And she's a recipe for bad bad than it and a system. Does that imply, let's say, then in business negotiation, if you can negotiate an arrangement where you both walk away and rich and you have to default to compromise, if you should probably walk away. Yeah, no deal is better than a bad deal. Well, okay, so my question, I actually agree just from looking at you're not going to call me names like your dad. No, no, no, I'm I'm a very nice person. That's not even true. My dad is a nice person. I know, I'm just teasing the both of you.

I was looking forward to talking to you guys because I knew it was going to be fun. Yeah, this is I was looking forward to talking to you guys because I knew it was going to be fun. Yeah, this is fun. I'm glad that that weird film is happening. So I found that when I'm trying to negotiate things, I'm angry unless I change my mind or get what I want, which I think is what you were saying. Interesting thought. Yeah. I've never felt okay with a compromise. So I kind of get what you're saying from there. Now, putting a toddler to bed, my go to is, hey, you're free. And I'm older than you. And eight of us is the bedtime.

Yeah, it's just forward. It's authority. And it doesn't work. Yeah, it's authority. So that's my go to now Andre my husband negotiates with the three-year-old and I go you're insane for negotiating with three-year-old but he can talk her into deciding she wants to go to bed at eight which is ideal but when do you use authority or do you just think that's a bad tactic? Well, using authority is bad for a long term. And because if it's with your children,

you're conditioning them that they can't win without authority. Now, I would ask you to consider, in your interactions with your children over bedtime, you're trying to get them to go to bed or you're trying to get them to think. And I would offer the larger views to get them to think. And then at what age, how do you stimulate that thinking? Three is a little early, four to five.

But you're really teaching your kids to think all along the way. You're showing them core values. And if you're getting your way with your kid based on authority, what kind of a core value are you showing them? Now there are times, children need discipline, human beings need boundaries because it makes them feel secure, stability. And you could say that about 50 times. Everybody needs stability. Predictability. Predictability turns into trust. You know, your kids need to know

if you're going to settle line and how you're going to set that line. And then are you going to encourage him to think and become better people? And we have, a lot of people use numbers but the difference in their interactions with their kids. And we get funny feedback like, you know, I've cut 15 minutes off bedtime, or you know, 20 minutes off preparation time to go to bed. And then the interactions with the children are different.

This is human nature stuff. This is really about human nature How about business stories Let's let's walk through let's walk through like a particularly successful transformation Something like that. Wow. Yeah Well, the first one that springs in mind You know because my students at the business schools were my clients, my customers, I was coaching them into better deals.

One of my students is doing a negotiation to come on with a company and he's the best person for the job. He's worth more than what they're offering and what the job is worth more than what they're offering. He said, where at any end pass, I can't get any more out of it. I said, write down a list of questions that you would ask, where the answer would be yes, that would prove your case.

Now flip all those questions on its head and make every one of them a no oriented question. And you'll be shocked what you can get away with getting somebody to say, no, you know, do you, do you want me to fail? You want to lose the best person for the job. Do you want the person who takes his job to fail? He flipped all his yes questions to no questions.

He came back to me, said the salary offer that they put on the table was so much higher than what they were authorized to do. They had to go to the CFO to give permission to do the deal. Now the job negotiation. Young man is a top analyst in his company making out loads of money first company. Wants to go back and renegotiate his compensation package. The important thing here too is the other side didn't, doesn't feel beaten.

He goes to his boss and he says, you know, I'm earning more, more, more for you than anybody else is. I deserve a race and his boss says, yeah, you know. Those are all true, but I don't see how I can give you a raise. It's fair to everybody else who's been here longer than you. And put more of their life into this company than you. So you come back to me in two weeks. If you can come up with a plan that shows how we can do this fairly, I'll give you the

race. Welcome to season three episode 39 of the Jordan B Peterson podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson, Jordan's daughter. This is a very recent interview with Chris Voss. The video version of the podcast is available on my YouTube channel. I originally invited Chris Voss onto my podcast, but dad wanted to join and obviously I was thrilled with that opportunity. I love podcasting with dad. So if you want the video format type in Chris Voss Jordan Petersen on YouTube and I'm sure the video will pop up.

Chris Voss is an American businessman, author, and the CEO of the Black Swan Group, which teaches people how to negotiate. He co-authored Never Split the Difference, a book on how to negotiate, and a book on his experience as an FBI negotiator. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community and it's offering our listeners a free trial

of their premium membership. If you find yourself scrolling through socials or on Netflix too much, something like Skillshare is a better use of your time. There are so many fascinating classes there on topics including illustration, design, photography, animation, or productivity, starting a small business, coding. I think I'm going to be taking Greg McHughan's course on productivity in the new year. Skillshare offers classes designed for real life so you can squish your learning experience into your life without putting your life on hold. Their short classes are a great fit for a busy routine. You can create real projects, get the support of fellow

creatives so you can accomplish real growth. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash Peterson, where our listeners get a free trial of premium membership. That's two weeks free at Skillshare.com slash Peterson. I also wanted to mention dad self-authoring program because of the New Year. With code MP you can get 15% off. He wanted me to mention it because of New Year's resolutions and his program is absolutely fantastic a no-fills approach to goal setting and planning your future The code MP works on his self-authoring suite which gets you to write your past present and future and figure out goals And how to accomplish them that's self-authoring comm code MP for 15% off great for your New Year's resolution Hope you enjoy this episode. If you do, remember to subscribe. Very pleased to have with us today us being the K-DU student, Jordan Peterson.

Chris Boss, who is currently CEO of Black Swan Consulting, was formerly the FBI's talk international kidnapping negotiated and is the author of Never Split the Difference, book offering the teachings, readers, the fine art of successful negotiation. Thanks very much for joining us today Chris. I enjoyed your book a lot, and I'm looking forward to your stories. Yeah, thank you.

It's my pleasure. So I'll still be on with you guys. Much appreciated. Why do you, I'm interested in negotiation because I'm the clinical psychologist and a lot of what clinical psychologists do is negotiate with their clients for behavioral change, but also teach their clients to negotiate successfully with the people around them to get what they want. So negotiate and negotiations very underdeveloped skill in most people. Right. So I'm wondering how you came to it without an interest in anything. We'll go from there.

Well, let me quote the great, I'd say quote the great actor Rocky Balborg and I couldn't sing a dance. I was with the FBI, I was a SWAT guy. I had to get out of SWAT because of recurring injuries. But I wanna stay in crisis response. And so, we had hostage to go share this. I knew they were around. I didn't know what they do. Didn't seem that hard, right?

I could talk to terrorists is what I thought. Got into it, it was fantastic. It was, you know, head to sort of fight my way in, not really fight my way. And I had to work to get in. I was eminently unqualified before we came in a girl shater. But my first step was to volunteer on a suicide hotline. And, you know, the opportunity to influence people

in short periods of time blew me away. Really countertuitive methods. And one thing led to another. I taught negotiation at Harvard and collaborated on book with some people and been teaching negotiation ever since. It's just been phenomenal. It's great to have a positive impact. I'm sure as you feel, you know, you have the opportunity to have a positive impact on people.

It's enormously satisfying. So why, what made you think that the skills that you would pick up as a negotiator in these crisis situations would be applicable to people in their day-to-day concerns? Yeah, you know, a great question. I mean, I suspected early on when I was volunteering on the hotline, like, is this just people in crisis?

Or is it just people? And I started using the skills of my day-to-day life, and it impacted all my relationships, and it made me a better hostage negotiator. And when I first started collaborating with Harvard, and they invited me to come and attend the Law School's negotiation course, instructors up there were teaching and were saying like,

look man, you're doing the same thing we're doing. The stakes are different, but the dynamics are absolutely the same. And that was sort of their blessing and their understanding and it kept teaching there later, but the dynamics are same. And that was, you know, with sort of their blessing and their understanding, ended up teaching there later, but the dynamics are same. It's human behavior, regardless of what the circumstances are,

we're wired in certain ways. And as human beings, we all have the same wiring, as you know. So I'm gonna get into some of your, what would you call tactical strategies, I guess. And speaking of the clinical connection, when I was reading your book, the first thing that came to mind is that the techniques in general sounded very much like those that were put forth by Carl Rogers to ensure successful clinical transformation. And lo and behold, about halfway through the book, you make direct reference to

Karl Rogers and he was a great, well he was really the formalizer I think of the idea of of the active listening and reflection particularly the idea that you should or put yourself in the shoes of the other person but also to ensure that you're hearing them properly you should repeat what they said back to them in paraphrase manner and see if you actually got the gist of their conversation. So, to some degree, you concentrate on that, I guess, in the section, well, it's not so much labeling statement mirroring, I guess, is your term? We have parts. Well, you know, there's a couple. I mean, we've really sort of. Really defined all the different skills in real specific detail.

And I was one of the things that the Harvard guy said to me, because we're on the same path, but FBI, we're a little bit further down it. And they said, you know, we're both talking about the same skills. You've defined them and with much more clarity. Because principally, law enforcement, you know, cops at the agents, you know, we want specifics that had to do something and then and we'll take it and we'll road test it. So, mirroring versus labeling, we would call two different things. And even the different types of labels. And we take what we learn.

With the world learn, we collected many kind of psychology and we added neuroscience. We started trying to hit very specific parts of the brain to create very specific reactions. So yeah, I would define mirroring as repeating the last one to three words of what someone just said or selected one to three words. Versus labeling. I'm

looking for emotional nuances, dynamics. One of the things that struck labeling is that you know people might respond positive to that. We should all let you define it momentarily, but people should respond positive to that because it's often the case that when people are in a discussion or negotiating that they don't actually know what they're bringing to the table or what they want and so if they're floundering about in a somewhat emotion, rhythm, and stressed manner and you put your finger on what it is that they're trying to say, then you're actually articulating something for them that's still only being processed at the level of bodily response. And people find out

a great relief if you can do it accurately because you've summed up a very complicated set of physiological disturbances with a single utterance and kind of enabled them to see the pathway forward. with a single utterance and kind of enable them to see the pathway forward. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you can't even, it doesn't even have to be that accurate, you know, which is the thing that neuroscientists taught us, you know, oxytocin dopamine, depending upon what neurochemicals being hit. I mean, when you're in accurate, and they correct you, they actually get ahead of dopamine dopamine which they love. I mean people hate being corrected but they love to correct. It's a great way to create a bond that the other person doesn't even know it's being built. Well and if you're incorrect and you're labeling at least the person

then has something they can object to that's going to be. You talked about that at that right? I was the important to getting somebody to say no. That was interesting. Like, is it possible to describe that a little bit? Yeah, and I was one of the craziest words and we, you know, hearing it with taught when we're little, you know, what's the first word every child learns? No! Yeah, and they love that word. Yeah. Yeah, they get hammered with it over and over again. So, we're conditioned that when we hear it, we've done something wrong. But at the same time, we're conditioned when we say it, we protect ourselves.

So if I get you to say no, you feel protected, you're gonna wanna talk. You're gonna feel good about the interaction. You're not gonna feel threatened. You're more likely to open up. I mean, even something as little as nobody in my company says to anybody, have you got a few minutes to talk? It's always is now a bad time to talk. Complete change in the other side reaction.

Right. So you say instead, is this a bad time to talk? Right. Right. That is so. Even like I won't say is this a good idea. I'll say is this a dumb idea? And you'll probably go like no, it's not a dumb idea, but here are the following problems. Here's what we got to do. I mean, it's a complete change in reaction. Yeah, well, you know, if you watch two-year-olds,

we can know, because they really latch onto that word. It's really remarkable. And the reason for that is that it enables them to protect themselves against being hijacked by other people, right? It's actually the word that defines the boundary between them and the world and enables them to have some autonomy. It's amazing. I remember my baby sat a little kid at my point or maybe it was my old son. If I didn't be in Julian, no, I think it was a kid I was babysitting. He was probably the stubborn little kid. And I was trying to get him to do something just to interact with me. And I offered him a bunch of different enticements.

And I mean, you as a psychologist have trouble getting a two-year-old to cooperate. This was a particularly stubborn little two-year-old. But he felt no, no, bloodline connection. Is that why it was so? No, no, no. This was truly, stubborn little two-year-old, but he felt no, or their bloodline connection, is that way? It was so... No, no, no, no. This was truly the neighbor's child, actually. But he was willing to say no, the M&M's, and ice cream, which was, he caught himself when he noticed that he had said it, but no, it was such an attractive proposition to him that he was willing to

promote even basic immediate rewards just for the thrill of being able to maintain that autonomy. Yeah. So we should go through your technique, let's say, your techniques in with some order. So I'm going to read a couple and maybe you could just describe what you mean by them. So you have tactical empathy, for example. Yeah, sure. I mean, we're trying to take, first of all, the point of calling it

that was taken it out of today's common usage of empathy is sympathy or even compassion. Now, I would argue that I would offer. That empathy is a very compassionate thing to do. But going back to the real reason I first started collaborating with Harvard, they said empathy is not agreement. It's not sympathy, it's not even liking the other side.

It's just completely understanding. The basis on from Rogers and psychology, the stuff that anybody that pursued this is study. Now let's add in neuroscience tactically. Tactically we know that the amygdala is kind of the crossroads of all our thoughts and it's wired to be negative, 75% negative. And tactically we know that simply identifying a negative

diminishes it, not denying it, identifying it. You think I'm a jerk? And I don't think you're that much of a jerk by saying that you've diminished it in the other side. So let's just put a tactical application to our empathy, knowing that the negative emotions have four times the impact, to read at least on people's thinking.

So let's approach and come in through a different door. And it's tactical because, well, this is something that that needs to be clarified too, is that, when you're negotiating, what is it that's striving to attain, do you think it's, and if it's a win, people conceptualize that the success of a negotiation in different ways, that could be you win, which means you get what you want,

it could be win-win, in which case both people get what they want. You can go beyond that because you could say that in a really successful negotiation, people even discover new things they didn't know they wanted and they get those too. So, you know, tactical towards what end if you had a philosophy of negotiation, what might that be? You know, the philosophy is great collaboration, which requires long term relationships. And ideally, every deal kicks stuff out that you didn't expect that delighted you. Which is going to add to you to want to continue to deal with me.

Great long-term relationship. If every deal were in, you're delighted. You can't wait to do another one. Right, so that's absolutely crucial because it puts within a real moral framework, right? Because otherwise you could learn to negotiate for psychopathic reasons, which would be only short-term interests of yourself. But if you put it in a framework where you're trying to set yourself up to play repeatedly with the same person or like a whole variety of different people, then an ethic automatically

enters into you. Right, your reputation precedes you. I mean, you get reputation for doing nothing but good for people. People line up to do business with you. Right, exactly. And reputation is actually the marker for your utility as a long term part. Yeah, yep. How did that work with

specifically FBI negotiations? I mean, if you're dealing with somebody like a hostage taker, how does that end up being a winds or now? Yeah, well, first of all, a crazy thing is hostage negotiators have reputational concerns. You know, we have repeat customers. And even if even if the guy that we're dealing with, even if it goes to jail, number comes out.

How we handled him is going to get into the media. So reputation is an immediate concern. And, and, you know, people, people are so driven by where it's taking them in a long run. I mean, if somebody has a vision of the future, no matter how far down the line that vision is, that's a good thing.

Now, we get something to talk about. And my first response with a bank robber is really going to be, sounds like you want to survive. Of course they do. Otherwise they'd have come out and gotten shot already. Now we'll get something to talk about. How do you deal with the people who don't want to survive? You can pick that up pretty quickly. You know, you're going to know right off the bat.

You get, if you're, if you're there to hear it, and the analogy in the business world, not everybody wants to do the deal with you. Maybe they want to exploit you. Maybe they want to take advantage of you. Maybe they see it as a one off. Maybe they're playing you for a fool. You've got to pick that up in your, in your everyday negotiations as well. And you'll hear it if you're open to hearing it.

It's avoiding preconceived notions is what really shuts you down. Being too focused on a goal gives you tunnel vision. Well, I really like the repeated game analogy. You know, one of the things I've lectured about is that you tell your children it isn't important whether they win or lose, it's important how they play the game. But you don't, but you don't necessarily understand what that means, why you're telling your child that, and they might say well it's obviously important that I win, so I don't know what you're telling me,

but the goal of proper play is to be invited to play as many games as possible, not to win that particular game, even though you also want to win that. So you lay out this ethic, which is to make yourself the best collaborator, the most desirable possible collaborator across the longest term with the largest number of people. And then you can put these techniques to use, which I'll put out them being cold harsh, what, what, manipulative techniques of manipulation. Yeah, and you're going to say the big difference between manipulation and influence is really where you take and me. Nipulacin is when I'm trying to hurt you. Influences when I'm trying to help you. Same set of skills, but where you coming from or you're trying to go. Right. Right. And with the most business

relationships people get cynical about this, but most business relationships are in fact relationships. You know, I was really struck by this. It's even more so in the business world than it is in the academic world because in the academic world, you put forward a claim, and at least in the more scientifically oriented field, the validity of your claim is dependent on the degree to which you followed proper scientific procedure. So there's an unobjective way of assessing your ability. But in business, it's a lot softer than that in some manner because the measurement

techniques for assessing the other person's ability aren't so clearly there and so relationship becomes crucial. And it's very interesting to me to understand negotiation as the skill that makes capitalism intense a human because it brings it under the necessity of it shows how tightly associated successful business development is with playing the game with other people property. It helps you avoid cynicism about the entire process. I would say, yeah, I agree completely. I mean, our co-author, I mean, a book was written between myself, my son Brandon at Tal Ross. At Tal is a brilliant dude. I mean, I would read anything, any business book that he's written. I don't know that I'd read any of his poetry, but I'd read his business books. And one of the things that he pointed out to us is by definition is the species,

the only ones of us that survived were the ones that collaborated were hard wired to collaborate. So if you increase your collaboration skills, more people are going to want to do business with you. increase your collaboration skills, more people are gonna wanna do business with you. And to your point, it's not always that measurable in an immediate number. It may be a secondary or tertiary benefit, but you become wealthy by being a great collaborator. Is there any difference between negotiating

with the cross-the-board with women versus men? Well, that's a loaded question. I'm sure. I mean, I just. We're going to get into differences between men and women. I would love to do that because. Women pick this style of negotiation up faster than the men. Now, at the top end, and we got some fairly qualitative data to back that up.

Women are, it's hard, there's so much nurture going on. It's hard to separate nature from nurture. Women are nurtured more to pick up on a motion sooner. They're nurtured more to pick up on soft power sooner and have an appreciation for emotional dynamics and how to use soft power. And so that's why I think that women have a tendency to be better at this. I mean some of the people that are great negotiators and are the biggest fans of a woman. Did you say you said soft power? Yeah, well, little boys and little girls,

little boys who taught to fight, little girls, the women who bring them up, know that inevitably they're not going to be the more physically powerful. So they are, they are nurtured early on to figure out how to get things without physically fighting them. How do you keep your emotions under check when you're negotiating?

That is the challenge. And depending upon, there's a couple of different hacks. And they all take practice, just like any other soft skill. If you're genuinely curious, it's not possible to get upset. If you can stay in a genuinely curious frame of mind.

You're one of the people I'm also a big fan of, Stephen Collar, he talks about the psychology of flow, highly positive state of mind, curiosity is positive, you're smarter, your brain is quicker. And when you're genuinely curious, you can't get angry. Interesting cat I run across recently, Darrell Davis. Darrell Davis, black musician who talks clue-clicks clan members into quitting a clan.

And I had a conversation with him about it and people say, well, how do you not get upset with these people that you know, you're black, dude, they openly say that they wanna murder you. He says, well, I grew up internationally. I just look at it as a different culture and I'm just completely curious about where they're coming from and what are they thinking about. It leaves him in a state of mind where he can deal with people that are against him personally, but he's just curious about. That's interesting. One of the most useful general psychological techniques in

relationship to life and its challenges is voluntary exploration. And it's a particular physiological mode of being, it's very old brain center in order to hide the telomis which controls basic dryets like hunger and thirst and temperature, regulation, and defensive aggression. And part of it also controls exploration. And so switching to a motor voluntary exploration, that's a mode of being that's deeply hardwired and that envelops your entire being. But it allows you to pick up information, right?

And we are information scavenging, and that's because you can trade information for valuable things like food. So if you're in this, I'm constructing your book by your emphasis on unknown unknowns. Black swans in both men, at the end, you said, like if you're listening very carefully to people, you can pick up these unknown unknowns. And that is a consequence of all the very exploration and having it's useful to pick up on those not only for the conversation that you're having presently, but because of what the consequences for that conversation might be, the conversation is down the road. And so the man that you just described, he opens himself up and says, well, these people are from a completely different culture than me. Maybe there's some valuable things I can learn from them regardless of our differences in opinion. And those things are of such value that they might be portable.

And it is I'm going to be useful to approach the world in that manner because then everyone you encounter is a goal-minded information, especially they don't bring because therefore of assumptions you don't have. And you can find out something new as a consequence. That's way better than just having your own opinions bolstered, which is reassuring, but doesn't offer you anything yet. Yeah, all those things are completely true. I mean, and by definition, the unknown unknowns

is really where the hidden stuff overlaps. And any given interaction, the other side is hiding stuff, I'm hiding stuff. How do we know what happens when we, when, when the hidden's overlapped? That's why the deal can always be made better. I like that. So that's where the buildings overlap. That's cool. Now that's cool.

Yeah. That is cool. Now that's cool. Yeah. What is cool? I think for another practical question on practical. You didn't tell me this was going to be a practical interview. I thought we were going to have some fun. Dad, dad has fun. I just asked you practical questions repeatedly in my part, Pat, you've got to get about the combinations. But if you're trying to, like, I think the one negotiation that would benefit everyone is how to go to whoever they're working for and trying to get one money, look for a raise. And I know, especially if you're more agreeable, a lot of people are worried about that, and have no idea where to start. So do you have tips for

negotiating the raise? Yes, sure. Get her off the get you know Raises the price term In any negotiation, you know Your salary pays your bills, but it doesn't build your career You know price takes care of the immediate problems. What are your long term problems? Your long term problems? Or how do you build a career? Job negotiations to be about building your career, making yourself more viable to the team. And one of two things is gonna happen.

Your salary is gonna get drug-along as a result. Or if it's not, you're more viable and you shock yourself to the highest better. Now, how do you become more viable? He is a phrase for every job negotiation, for every annual review. How can I be guaranteed to be involved in the strategic projects that are critical

to the company's future? Instantaneous change in a way your employer views you. Because when you go in and ask for a raise, embodies about how does the other side see you? The other side sees you as selfish. And most employers, most bosses, whenever the employee comes walking in the door, they have to something for themselves. You condition your boss at your selfish. You may not like that reality, but it's unfortunately the reality. When you change their conversation to how can I help us all prosper? Now suddenly your

boss, your employer goes like, oh, now here's somebody I want to have a round. Here's somebody's going to make my life better. Conversation is instantly transformed. Now, either you'll get more money, you'll have greater experiences, because also, you don't want to be involved in a mundane at work. You want to, if you're courageous, you want the big ticket item, if you want to have an impact.

And then, even if they don't give you a raise, the experience of being involved makes you five times more marketable than you were before the year started. Yeah, so you your advice basically is that you would go off to much broader mindset, which is something like, how can I be optimally successful in this company. And what optimal success is going to require is being a key player in the most important things that the company does. That's also going to be allied with the willingness to take on additional responsibility, not to see that as a native.

It's a part of it. People often avoid responsibility, but if you can take it on voluntarily, there's no difference between responsibility and opportunity. If the company is offering you, yeah, what is that responsibility to? You now, the highest levels of your company now have an investment in making sure you succeed. So you just gone from being maybe somebody struggling by

themselves, your responsibilities are critical to the future, everybody's future, and everybody has a stake in you doing well because that's what you've taken on. I mean, it's a virtuous cycle if you want. Yes, it also makes you difficult to replace and therefore much more effective than you salary negotiations. Amen, absolutely. You had some really nice, very practical tips for people negotiating their initial salary. I thought two of these were really smart.

One was, if you're being interviewed for a new position and you're asked to define your starting salary, to offer a range, to say something like, well, people in this position are often offered $125 to $175,000 a year as a starting salary. And to strategically do that so that your desired salary is in the bottom end of that range. Are you going to fall for that? Well, that's that. Yes, darling. Well, it's a good question to guess, is that short apps are according to the book.

But it's interesting that you would praise it as fall for that, because that is the danger of techniques is that they can become manipulative, you know? So that's why I wanted to talk about the broader ethic. Yeah. And you also mentioned that it's smart for someone who's negotiating further first position to also negotiate metrics for their first grades, which is even more

important, right? It's like you can negotiate for how your salary is going to increase in the future rather than how what it's going to be right at the beginning. But I like Michaela's question. Would you regard that offering as a range, offering other range as manipulative? Now, I'm not manipulative. I mean, I'm a nice guy. What are you just talking about? What are you going to do that is manip manipulating. You know, all right. So and from some of the talks that I've heard you give Jordan and some other stuff, you know, there's always additional nuances and factors to consider. And you want to stay off of one thing.

Like, first of all, just because what you're worth and what they can pay, you might not line up. And the experience for being there may be more valuable than the dollars. I got to tell you right now, I go work for minimum wage to be more buffets assistant for a year. I will get him coffee. I would do anything and I do it. I might do it for free because that will be a position where I would learn so much. So you get it's as much not handcuffing near the side and making you somebody they can't get based on the number,

you're looking for a great marriage. So the range is to feel them out, understand also when you give a range, and the other side's numbers within that range, they're going to take the end that most favors that. So if you're gonna give a range, you better be willing to accept the bottom number. They're not gonna get in the middle.

Right, right. What are the practical aspects of ranges? Question I had in relation to that was exactly the magnitude of the day. I mean, I guess maybe you could answer it. I would be happy with something in the range of 110,000 to 150,000. And because if you have to point out that other companies are making offers in this range, you have to know for sure that other companies were. There's no sense adding a falsehood to your negotiation for the purpose of picking up an advantage. That seems to me to be a very bad strategy. Falsehoods are a bad idea. I'm against any sort of deception by co-mission or omission.

So yeah, especially on that point. Now, I wouldn't think of something out of it in no. This accusation audit, we should maybe talk about that a little bit. That was something I found. Now you derived that from your analysis of courtroom behavior of lawyers. I remember correctly. Well, it added to it. I mean, you know, seeing it work in different areas, it definitely added to our thinking. What is it, David? If you don't mind? Yeah, well, you know, it's, first of all, it's, you know, the lawyers would call it getting out the ugly's in advance. You know, if you got to, if you got a witness that there's some ugly things about you bring it up first, that the jury reconciled themselves to before they listened to anything else. I work with

some great prosecutors when I was with the FBI Southern District in New York. Now, in business, it's understanding what the negatives are in advance, which crazy is when we begin to proactively get out in front of them. Like if I get, if I get, let's say you got no negative about me at all, but I'm getting ready to say something that you're not gonna like.

I'll say, look, you're gonna think I'm a real jerk for bringing this up. And then when I bring it up, it'll have far less impact. You'll never know what I headed you off from. And that's why we get really aggressive with going after the negatives early on and calling them up. Yes, so the accusation order allows you to lay out

on the table all the weaknesses of your position and your character without matter. So there's a variety of reasons that that might be useful. One is that by indicating your willingness to admit to these faults, you show that the faults are small enough so that someone could admit to having them. That's the first thing. And the second thing is, you show yourself as someone who's larger than their fault because they're willing to admit to them.

So you minimize the faults in some sense, even though you're presenting them accurately. You minimize their emotional impact, or you decrease the emotional impact, and you increase the integrity of your own character at the same time. Again, these two things that should be done honestly, not as a matter of technique. If you do an accusation audit, it should be a genuine life. And you should be doing it in part so that you, this is why I was at the end of it. So that you are also as aware as you get, as aware as you need to be of the shortcomings you have in the negotiation. Yeah, I think you have to be a lawyer. I don't know if you remember. I don't know if this is a technique or just you will think to do, but I can remember coming home and saying. to do, but I can remember coming home and saying, I like some sort of terrible thing. I had this isn't exactly what's in it. It's not sort of terrible thing I done. I was like drinking

as we're doing this. This happened just kidding, but this actually did happen and it would be the second thing would be smaller. And I found that that really worked on getting in as I said, okay, that's not your like thank God that didn't happen. That's not an accusation, or that's an anchoring technique. Correct? Well, you know, depending on how you deployed it, there's a combination of both there, yeah. So we could talk about the anchoring technique as well. We could, I mean, as you guys have shown,

we'll talk about what have you guys made me tell you. You got me hostage here, I'm your hostage. And it sounds like you feel like you're a hostage. I'll take it all day long. So what is the anchor in tech, can you describe that? Well, yeah, I mean, the anchoring tech, and we're very, you know, you can anchor on a number

and we don't anchor on numbers. But I will tell you we anchor emotionally. I, if somebody wants to know what I, if somebody wants to know what I charge for consulting, I'm going to say, Hi, more than you have more than you ever paid. And we're not moving forward in this conversation until you ask me to give you the number. Now in that period of time that you that we waited, you're going to think of some crazy number. And when I give you my number, you're going to say like, ah, well, that isn't that bad. What comes with that. And we now made the number something that is irrelevant. What's relevant really in all business negotiations is delivery.

And we over deliver. So the anchoring, that was a very subtle use of anchoring or description of anchoring there. Anchoring technique occurs. Imagine that you're always interpreting what's going on in a context for some sort. And so how big something is depends on the context. And so maybe you think a house says we're $135,000. And you find out the person wants $2.5 million for it. Well, then if they come down to 500,000, you're gonna think that's pretty reasonable because they anchored you with two million,

even though you thought you'd begin with, it was only 135,000. So that is what I did. Mm-hmm, nice. Yeah, it's very, very troturous and sleepy of you. Yeah, you still do that? I don't think so. I don't think so, but I'm not as the bosser is. Well, we're going to raise the level of your skills. We're going to get you guys more money. You know, we'll go offline and give you some coaching. Next time, next time you'll be,

you'll be in one of five houses that you wanted to be in. You know, have studios all over the planet. You're being free. You're being Australia. I need help with getting along for an endotrater. I get way too angry and my husband is amazing at it. Like she said, like I read your book and- Well, he's a good negotiator. He's married to you. Well, that's what he said too.

I was like, I don't get along with you very well. I was like, yeah, but look where we are. Oh, yeah. Yes, you did. You'll be winning that round. OK, another hint you have. Neutralize the negative and reinforce the positive. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, well, simply calling out the negatives has a neutralizing effect on them to some degree every time, every single time. Now, how much the effect is varies. But again, if we go back to the neuroscience stuff and the immigilist 75% negative, you neutralize the negative, you get an opportunity for the positive to pick up some ground. If I say it seems like you want to make a deal, if you genuinely do, then that will reinforce that feeling. It seems like it won a long-term relationship. It seems like terms are important to you. That will reinforce those positive aspects. If I say,

seems like you hate uncertainty, the anxiety that you were feeling in the moment will diminish. How much it diminishes? I may need to neutralize it several times to get it out of the way. But again, our neuroscience wiring has laid out a lot of what people like you have instinctively come to know from your practice and your interaction with people where you guys were finding your way before we could map what was going on inside the brain. Are you married, Chris? I, there is an ex-Mrs. Vos and I'm looking for the future ex-Mrs. Voss. Ah, did your marriage fail as a consequence of important negotiation? No, you know what, it really failed as a consequence of what all relationships fail at.

It's no good or no bad, but a misalignment of core values. And there were things that were important to me, that weren't important to her and vice versa. Business relationships, personal relationships. At the end of the day, it's no good or no bad on either side. It's just enough of a difference in core values that you're entitled to go your way and I'm entitled to go mine and nobody's wrong. Right, so everything's not a difference. Right, so everything's a lot of differences. It's a good terminology for you. Right, well, you used to be, that used to be acceptable grounds for divorce. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, I'm not wrong, we just don't match up.

How have the skills that you learn as a practical hospital, hospital, shelter, effective, youive, you're more intimate relationships. You know, it's helped me to be more attentive. You know, it's an ongoing process. I'm still learning. I'm still making mistakes. I hope to be learning and making mistakes for at least. I say I'm a third of the way through my life, maybe another hundred years. But, you know, the idea of dialing into somebody and having a better, long-term relationship and even thinking about that and getting better on it is very important to me.

So, yeah, I still make mistakes, but, you know, I don't want anybody to regret having had a relationship with me. Although some do. Ha ha ha. And that happens to everybody. How do you negotiate with someone who, say in a hostage situation, who doesn't want to talk to you, or isn't communicating? Other things you can do to get them stoppedings or pay left. Yeah, well, yeah, take a step back. If somebody's being tight-lived, one or two things are happening.

First and foremost, it's probably they don't feel like talking to you is doing them any good because you're not listening. People get tight-lipped because communication isn't doing them any good. Now, they could be trapped in a corner and they could be helpless, or you could be not listening. They're three possibilities. Another reason for being tight-lipped, tight-lipped people trust incredibly. And they're a little bit afraid of how vulnerable they are because when they trust they go all in.

And they've been hurt. They've been badly hurt. So they're cautious because you resemble somebody that hurt them in the past. So if you think about what the possibilities are, first of all, you know, just adapt and begin, look, I haven't clearly, I haven't won your trust yet. Well, if it's not about trust, but they're helpless, they're going to correct them and say, no, it's not about trust, but they're helpless, they're going to correct. They're going to say, no, it's not about trust. It's because there's nothing I could do.

I'm trapped. There's nowhere I could go. But at that moment of time, you're in, you're now you're in dialogue, understanding what really is dialogue, even denial is dialogue. Somebody opens, somebody who gives you more than a one word response, who's previously typed, lipped. Now they're testing to see if you're going to listen, if you're going to understand. Or if you're going to contradict your argument, people of tight lip with other people who are argumentative.

Do you have any or could you tell us one of your, I don't know if you're a mad prophet, but you tell us a bit of cross-extend, which you started. You got a loud. but he's also been a hostage in the middle of the watching story. Is that allowed? Yeah, of course it's allowed, which is allowed. There I was, terrorists that are left to me. Yeah, exactly. One of those. You know, two straight cases in a Philippines, and we talk about both of them in the book.

One, one, the, the, the bad guy on the other side of sociopathic, rapin, murder,' killin' straight out of the movie's terrorist. The type of person that empathy is not supposed to work on. Now, when do you know when the other side feels understood, when the other side says that's right, and a critical moment in that negotiation,

what I really was was an international negotiation coach. I'm coaching people in countries who are coachable. And I had a, I'm coached in a guy named Benji and he's eminently coachable. We summarize the bad guy's point of view. You guys have been impressed for 500 years. Americans are horrible. Philippine government is horrible. You know everything everything you said 500 years worth of emotional baggage. Bag guide literally says that's right. In that instance a 10 million dollar ransom demand evaporated disappeared one off the table. A couple of months later we're

continuing in the negotiation no more monetary demands for the hostage. A couple of months later we're continuing in the negotiation no more monetary demands for the hostage. None. Non-monetary demands. Continued application of what we now refer to as tactical empathy. Hostage walks away on Monday Thursday, the Thursday before Easter. Walked away. I'm back in the Philippines three weeks later, connected back up with Benji, we're working in another case. He says, you're not going to believe we call him on a phone. The terrorists called him on the phone to tell him that he respected him. That's powerful stuff because we were engaged with the same group again. That's powerful stuff because we were engaged with the same group again.

And the guy, the terrorist associate, had the call to express his respect for how he was treated, had lost everything in the negotiation. They wanted 10 million, they got zero. So that stuff works, it works on everybody. It always leaves you better off. Does that mean that the, this terrorist wasn't actually interested in the 10 million? He was actually interested in being understood. But we can take away from that. You know, around and away through, you know, what the other side is always interested in is the best they could do. One of the things that I learned about

in really kidnapping negotiations globally, kidnapping is a commodities exchange. They're a business man on the other side. And what they're really interested in is the best that they could do. And the best you could do is often define to buy how you feel during the process of the outcome. So they wanted $10 million or the best that they could possibly do.

What is $10 million buy? In this instance, $10 million buys you influence. They started asking for other things that bought them influence. Let's get certain intermediaries involved, certain politicians. We want access to people. If we have more money, what do we spend that money on? Ultimately guns, what do guns get you? Guns get you influence. Ultimately people want soft power. So when they started looking for something else after having their anger being deactivated,

they also sort of lost control of their operation, which created the circumstances of our hostage walking away. A good thing, it sounds ridiculous. Good things fall out of the sky if you let them happen. And that's one of the reasons to engage in this approach to negotiation, because something good is going to happen if you give it the opportunity. Tell me what your company does. Exactly. I mean, you were hired by a business. Yeah, well, we coach, you know, we coach, we get hired by businesses all the time, but we really coach high performers to better lives. You coach the high performers specifically?

Well, yeah, I mean, the people that are drawn to us are the high performers. And our marketing is, we're pointed much more at individuals and companies. Again, we coach companies, but companies buying large are relatively dysfunctional. Daniel, coil and the culture code of thinking pointed out the stat. That only 6% of corporate executives could actually recite their corporate values. Well, at 40% of managers have negative net value in company. Yeah, there you go, right? Yeah.

So, you know, these are people that are struggling with themselves, the low-new training. But we coach people into that are making better lives for themselves and their families that are top performers. I mean, typically people that we coach in negotiations are cutting two or three life changing deals a year as opposed to one every five or six years. Everybody that's that we coach, that we were coacheded last year are wealthier right now than they were a year ago. How did they find me? Well, Black Swan LTD is the website, B-L-I-C-K-S-W-A-N, L-T-D dot com.

The first step is a book which you were kind enough to look through and appreciate and recognize how much that, you know, we're in sync with on our thinking. And then come to the website, we got free stuff downloaded, subscribe to our newsletter, it's free, it's actionable. Give us a chance to put your family in a bigger house, send your kids to a better school. Your book is titled Never Split the Difference. So I always thought negotiation meant somebody has a point to do here and somebody has a point to do here and do watch you find male ground. What exactly do you mean by never split the difference? You know, it's a two-way street. But splitting the difference, first of all, is a full-o'-zaron for a number of reasons.

Compromise. You know, do you compromise your principles? You know, there was a cartoon about Marital, a married couple a long time ago. Husband and wife are talking to each other, and the husband says, let's compromise. That way we'll both be unhappy. You know, compromise is a way to guarantee

that you're both unhappy. Now, some people have said, well, great negotiations were both sides are a little unhappy. It is a great marriage. Were both sides run happy? That's a definition of long-term unhappiness. So besides knowing what you want,

don't compromise and meet in the middle. You're both gonna be unhappy. Now what the other side wants may be even better than what you had in mind. A colleague, a friend, a mentor, somebody we do business with, a guy named Dan Sullivan, recently wrote a book called Who Not How? He coaches the greatest entrepreneur in the world. He heard me give a talk, and he decided how he was going to take a position with his partners

on his book to you. The book that he just put out, the people that he collaborated with, he gave them every dime. Cause I said sometimes what the other side wants, give them what they want. The guys that he collaborated with on that book, giving them every dime from the book because the amount of business that's gonna develop for his company, which is gonna be human.

They are killing themselves for him. I was on a conference call with them Ben Hardy and Tucker Maxx, Tucker Maxx is a famous author in his own right. Tucker says Dan got every drop of our blood on this book. Dan gave them every dime from the book because he knew how much it was gonna bring him long term. So never split the differences also the other side, given their position, and they will kill themselves for you.

Yeah, so it's interesting, because compromise is a reasonable way of construing negotiation, I think. If you deadlock and you have to make a decision, and there's also a time pressure. So then it seems to me under those circumstances that would be a reasonable heuristic to say, well, we'll split the difference. You will both be unhappy.

No, I dare you. I dare you. No, no, no, no. Let me develop that out for a moment because there is something about negotiation that is in its negotiation. It is, it's inextricably associated with compromise. I don't think that's the best way of conceptualizing negotiation as such. See, because people are going to listen to this podcast and they're going to think,

no, no, no. Sometimes you have to split the different. No, my, okay. I knew that was going to be a- I want to push you on that because. Please me, how don't push me, hug me, give me a hug. Ha ha, no, no, I'm going to go with the push I think. We can hug at the end if it all goes well.

So. Look, if you're negotiating with your, your, your child. Seven years old and he wants to go to bed out 9 30 and you want him to go to bed at 8 30. What's wrong with splitting the difference? Why not in that situation split the difference? Okay see I'm just I don't think it's reasonable to throw out the idea that qualifies is sometimes how much you know that your name calling had there you what you call me names now well maybe I'm just digging maybe I'm just digging up the reasons for the

marriage flash no sorry Anyway, do you do you think there are any circumstances under which the proper way of conceptualizing negotiation is as compromise? I so here is the first problem with compromise and I know you're familiar with Danny canoman's prospect theory, lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain. The downward spiral we get into compromise, let's say you and I meet in the middle. Neither one of us are gonna felt we met in the middle because I'm a human being and I'm wired so that lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain.

And I believe Professor Connan actually gave, and Nobel Prize winning behavior, economics theory. I think he said that he thinks it's actually five to seven times as much, and he and Amos Tversky just said twice as much, so they got fewer arguments. So let's say we meet in the middle, let's say you give in 10. Emotionally you felt you gave 20, and you're not gonna feel whole until you hit me for 20.

Now you've hit me for 20. I'm not going to feel even tell I've hit you for 40. This is guaranteed downward spiral. Because we're human, it's impossible to compromise in a way that we both feel is fair. Even the numbers are exactly the same. Okay, so then you, it seems to me like you would, you're making the case that a negotiation that ends in compromise actually failed. I, I, I, amen. Okay, well, that's, that's what we're thinking about.

Yeah, because that would mean that neither party was able to switch the conceptual framework around so that both walk away enriched. Exactly, you're both gonna walk away feeling hurt. It is a recipe for bad, bad, bad, that, that, that is a system. Does that imply, let's say, then in business negotiation, if you can negotiate an arrangement where you both walk away and rich and you have to default to compromise,

if you should probably walk away. Yeah, no deal is better than a bad deal. Well, okay, so my question, I actually agree just from looking at you're not gonna call me names like your dad No, no, no, I'm I'm a very nice That's not even true. My dad is a nice person. I know. I'm just teasing the both of you I was looking forward to talking to you guys because I knew it was gonna be fun Yeah, I'm glad that that weird thing was So I found that when I'm trying to negotiate things, I'm angry unless I changed my mind or get what I want, which I think is what you were saying.

Interesting. I've never felt okay with a compromise. So, so I kind of get what you're saying from there. Now, putting a toddler to bed, my go to is, hey, you're free and I'm older than you. And eight of us is the bedtime. Yeah, it's just forward. It's authority. And it doesn't work. Yeah, it's authority. So that's my go to now, Andre, my husband, negotiates with a three year old and I go, you're in same her negotiating with three-year-old, but he can talk her into deciding she wants to go to bed at 8, which is ideal.

But when do you use authority? Or do you just think that's a bad tactic? Well, using authority is bad for a long term. And because if it's with your children, you're conditioning them that they, you can't win without authority. Now, I would ask you to consider, and you're interacting with your children

over bedtime, you're trying to get them to go to bed or you're trying to get them to think. And I would offer the larger views to get them to go to better. You're trying to get them to think. And I would offer the larger views to get them to think. And then at what age, how do you stimulate that thinking? Three is a little early, four to five. But you're really teaching your kids to think all along the way. You're showing them core values.

And if you're getting your way with your kid based on authority, what kind of a core value are you showing them? Now, there are times, children need discipline, human beings, human beings need boundaries because it makes them feel secure. Stability. You could say that about 50 times. Yeah, Everybody needs stability, predictability. You know, predictability turns into trust. You know, your kids need to know if you're gonna settle in and how you're gonna set that line. And then are you gonna encourage him to think

and become better people? And we have, a lot of people use numbers but the difference in their interactions with their kids. And we get funny feedback like, I've cut 15 minutes off bedtime or 20 minutes off preparation time to go to bed. And then the interactions with the children are different. This is human nature stuff.

This is really about human nature. How about business stories? Let's walk through, let's walk through, like a particularly successful transformation that you see on the client. Something like that. Wow, yeah. Well, the first one that springs in mind,

because my students at the business schools were my clients, my customers, I was coaching them into better deals. One of my students is doing a negotiation to come on with a company and he's the best person for the job. He's worth more than what they're offering and the job is worth more than what they're offering. He said, where at any impasse, I can't get any more out of it.

I said, write down a list of questions that you would ask, what the answer would be, yes, that would prove your case. Now flip all those questions on its head and make every one of them a no oriented question. And you'll be shocked which you can get away with getting somebody to say no. You know, do you want me to fail? You wanna lose the best person for the job.

Do you want the person who takes this job to fail? He flipped all his yes questions to no questions. He came back to me, said the salary offer that they put on the table was so much higher than what they were authorized to do. They had to go to the CFO to give permission to do the deal. Now the job negotiation.

Young man is a top analyst in his company making uploads of money for his company. Wants to go back and renegotiate his compensation package. The important thing here too, is the other side doesn't feel beaten. He goes to his boss and he says, you know, I'm earning more for you than anybody else is, I deserve a race.

And his boss says, yeah, those are all true, but I don't see how I can give you a raise. It's fair to everybody else who's been here longer than you and have put more of their life into this company than you. So you come back to me in two weeks. If you can come up with a plan that shows how we can do this fairly, I'll give you the raise. Hmm.

He comes back two weeks later, the boss said, did you come up with a plan and he said, no. And the boss said, why not? He says, well, you make a great point, there's no way to do this. That's fair to everybody else. And the boss said, yeah, but it's not an issue's fair to everybody else. And the boss said, yeah,

but it's not an issue of fairness to everybody else. It's an issue of how profitable you are for the company. And he gave him the deal, gave him a better salary compensation, which was his boss's idea, because he deactivated the negative thinking he had in his head, which was interfering with it. And he came back to us and he said, this is going to change my life. And that's the kind of stuff we get from our clients all the time.

I think it's your organization. Right now we've got 15 people in a company. And do they all do coaching of the sort that you need to scribe? No, we've got, we've got five coaches and we've got some business development people. You know, we've got back office people that keep our coaches and our business development people on tech. You got a great team. Sure sure sure. So if I came to you for your services, how would we start the process? What would happen?

What would I have to come to you with like a specific business case or are you training me as an individual? More broadly? Both. We do both. We get a lot of people that will come to us for coaching and specific deals. And we'll build a strategy in that's going to accelerate it to its best outcome in a third of the time, probably less.

Now the best outcome might be that you stop wasting your time in this deal and move on. There's a phrase in sales, it's not a sin to not get the deal, it's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's a, yeah, those are the deals where, the terrible ones are where it looks like something might happen. Yeah, why people say hope is not a strategy, hope might just kill your profitability

because you're never gonna get the deal. So we'll coach you through specific deals. And typically almost everybody that we've coached in a deal not only wants more for them, but they want more for people in our company. We just want executive, we've been coaching for a year, just signed up all of his executives for individual coaching because we're making them so much money. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, one of the things you mentioned here too is that, that no, when the person you're negotiating with says, no, that isn't necessarily such a bad thing and you should start thinking that it's a bad thing so it doesn't scare you.

Right. It's one of the advantages to no also. No tell, it's true. No tells you what a dead end actually is. And so if it's genuine, no, you don't have to go sniffing down that trail anymore. And I can start you from death by hope, which really can really get faster. That's right. You have these magic words. You hit them down on the head. Yeah, not wasting your time. And since since we've really, and this has been since the book came out, it's something we call proof of life for the favor of the fool.

If you don't know who the fool in the game is, it's probably you. If you're the fool in the game, you got to find out, get out of the game, go play with somebody else. At least 20% of, 20% of all business opportunities are fool in the game. What would happen if you got rid of 20% of the deals where you're just spending your wheels? You don't even have to get any better. You just get rid of the stuff that's killing your time. Certain things like that can really accelerate your success.

Any tips on how you might identify pitchfiles like that? I mean, a clear failure is merciful in some sense, as we've been starting around that definition, clear failure is merciful. It's chasing the thing that never appears that kills you. How do you start understanding when you should quit? Well, the more focused in a business interaction, more focused somebody is on price, How do you start understanding when you should quit? Well, the more focused in a business interaction, more focused somebody is on price, like right off the bat, if they're pushing

you're really, really hard for a price. 90% of the time you're the competing bit. And the world is, even though I live in Vegas, the world is Las Vegas rules. You gotta get off of the, out of the game where you're winning 15% of the time and you gotta out of the game where you're winning 15% of the time and you got to get into the game where you're winning 75% of the time.

The more you're pushing you on price, it's a data point, you're competing bit. So that's your first instinct. So you're second, you're second, then right there. Right. Now, the next thing is, I, you ask somebody,

well, we refer to as a vision in question. If they have any intention of moving forward with you, which makes you the favorite, then you say, all right, so, how do we move on from here? If they are at complete loss for words, then they have no intention of moving on with you because they didn't envision it before the conversation. I really like that. So that's really smart. So you ask the person discussing the situation with how they would envision this relationship. If it was successful and if they can't tell you anything then then it isn't obvious at all what they're doing in the negotiation. They might be doing what

you said with regards to price. They're playing you off against their true supplier, etc. Right. Right. So what you're negotiating that it's such a useful way of thinking about that. I mean, you know, when you're starting a business with someone, it's pretty self-evident that you need to develop a shared vision. Otherwise, you wouldn't be undertaking that adventure, let's say. It's really easy when you have a business to think that what you're doing is selling. You know, you have a product and you're selling it, but it's much more useful, I think, to think about it as if you were expanding your business

and taking on your new buyer as a partner, because that's actually what you're doing if it works properly. So you're inviting them into your business and that means your business has to shift and change and so does theirs and you both have to see that as a positive thing. And if that isn't happening, then the sale isn't going to occur. Because you're actually not selling, you're actually trying to build a relationship. Right, right. And you know what, even if they want to proceed with you, you might not want that relationship. That's part of it too.

Yes, absolutely. They lay out a vision where, you know, what they're doing is not good for you. Oh, yeah, I mean, that's where yes is a big problem, but you end up with, I mean, I, I, I had a business deal arranged with a large corporation in the United States. 10 years ago, we were thrilled about it. And then the CEO got fired the week later, and the deal just fell apart. We'd be negotiating it for about a year and a half. And it was literally on his desk to sign, and he was replaced. And so it just killed it.

But a month and a half later, we were unbelievably relieved because we realized that we would have had to live done. All sorts of work for the company that we would have never got paid for. And it would have taken on every responsibility. It was completely in commensurate with the rewards. And so that was a good situation where yes would have been a catastrophe. So I guess party what you have to do is not assume that no is a disaster and not assume that yes is a blessing. You have to sit back and see if the vision as you pointed out is, is worthy of pursuing that you're both committed to it. Yeah, what's the how? What's the how? How is this?

How is, yes, is nothing without how? I mean, how is everything? Or yes, it's even dangerous without how? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, yes, without how is a train wreck coming at you is, however long that relationship lasts, it's going to, it's going to be blood money, it's going to be painful, it's going to take years off your life. You're going to want that time back. Yeah, exactly. An opportunity you wish you didn't have.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we have those occasionally. That's why we decide, you know, we have bad relationships. So. Look, I used to. I did a lot of executive coaching. And like you, I.

My clientele were. High performance. You know, I'm not going to be able to like you, my clientele were high performers. We asked the companies with whom we worked to send us their high performers and we would increase their productivity. Now I basically worked for the individual, not for the company. Right. And my goal was to make their life better on the assumption that that would make them more productive. And so I did counter into it and things for example with the lawyers I worked with most of them took far more vacations after they worked with me for a few months. but their productivity went up, but our strategy, my strategy, was to help the person to develop an overarching vision for their life that was well balanced and iterable.

If your life has to be sustainable, if it's allowed, it has to be sustainable, if it's to loud, it has to be sustainable. If it's not sustainable by definition, it needs to downhill. And to be sustainable, it has to be developed in a variety of areas. You can't sacrifice one thing to another, two great areas all part across time. How much do you think success in business and success in negotiation is dependent on the development of a global vision for for what constitutes a successful life. Because if you're negotiating you need to know why do if they feel it's taking them someplace wonderful.

Yes. And they won't do the simplest things that they feel are either useless or taking them to a bad place. Yes, well, thank God for that, right? Because why should you do something less it's taking you somewhere better? Right. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the vision drives decision.

Where's this taking us? And that is almost all, and that's in the head anyway. That is so, you know, if interacting with me just makes you happier. To start with, you're going to want more of it. If you know that I'm dedicated to your success as well as my own, then you can trust me with your secrets

and we'll come up with a better deal. Because you see that I'm a great long-term partner. What's a long-term relationship I'm dedicated to you being happier. I mean, it's one of the reasons that people in my company are it's we love working together because we love helping people plus we're all helping each other to a better life. Yeah, so I was going to ask you about your vision.

Like, if you had to articulate your vision, what would that be? What would the articulation be? The vision for me, for my life or for the people that have worked with? Well, both of them are interested in both of those. Your life specifically, but obviously because you work with these other people, your vision of yourself has to have their, has implications for how you interact with them. For first of all, for people to be happier in their day-to-day interactions.

And what do you mean by, what do you mean by happy? I have a specific reason for asking this, because you already mentioned that people are much more adverse to loss than they are thrilled by game. Right. So a lot of times when people talk about happy, what they mean is less misery. Rather than more positive emotion, they mean less misery, less uncertainty, less pain, less threat, less fear. Right, right. So when you say happy, do you mean happier, do you mean more secure and?

Yeah, I mean, we are across the board, the people that we work with, that I work with, that we coach, we enjoy what we're doing. We don't feel like we're doing anything anybody's expense. Right. We don't feel like we're exploiting anybody. Our clients on a regular basis are not just making more money, but enjoying their jobs more. And we, weekly, we had a meeting earlier today where we were sort of wrapping up 2020, where we completely pivoted our business, had a ball dealing with the crisis because we work so well together as a team and are

actually serving more people and you know it's not our primary objective but we're more profitable this year than we were last year which means we get to do more next year and we get to meet more cool people the people the people that we mean on a regular basis who want to get better and want to make the world a better place are fun people to be around. Oh, yeah, that's even a deal. That's an idea. Yeah, so, you know, I mentioned Dan Sullivan earlier.

He's an interesting cat. You know, everybody in Stephen Kotler, I get interactions with Steven Kotler, one of the most interesting guys on a planet, because he's about making a world a better place. He's a fun people to be around. You're a fun. You're fun. You're fun.

I think it's fun. I'm fun when I'm on. I'm not fun when I'm not on. What's your first thing? I think it's actually time. And I think we're done. I'm not fun when I'm not alone. Question questions. I think I think it's actually time. And I think I think we're done. So thank you so much for coming on. I was incredibly interested to talk to you.

I really like the fact that I really like I've never spent the difference. That really resonated with me because whenever I do some sort of compromise, I feel like I'm lost. I also really enjoyed the if you know that never, if you know, never put the difference, then maybe you don't want to, if you can't come to a compromise and make those people happy, maybe you don't want to be in a relationship with that person. I think that's really valuable. Where, you mentioned a couple places people can find you. What are your social media experiences? All right, so I'm at the FBI negotiator on Instagram,

but really the best way for us to help people as much as they want, we got we got a free negotiation newsletter we put out. It's not so important that it's free, what's really what's best about it, it's concise short read, I mean some people put out newsletters and there are 15 articles, you don't know what to do with. The newsletter is a gateway to everything we have. And if I may, for the website is blackswanltd.com, BLACK SWA, SWANltd.com, we've got a text to sign up function also, which is simple. It only works in the U.S. and I'm sure you've got a global audience. But in the U.S., if you text to the number 33, triple seven, 33777, send a message, black swan method, three words,

capitalization doesn't matter, space between each word, you'll get a dialogue box back if you want, only if you want, sign up for the newsletter. Well, help you. We'll move you forward. We we love helping people provide have just had more fun and have more. I'm sorry. I was great meeting you. That was an absolute pleasure being on with both of you guys. Lovely talking to you. Yeah, good luck. I hope that you do continue succeeding in your attempts to help people, helping yourselves and by helping to make the world a better place, but shade is that my sound. Unless it's replaced by a better philosophy, it's a pretty good one.

It'll do. Yeah, it'll do it. It'll do it. Yeah, lot of pleasure. Thanks guys. .