The Ryan Hanley Show - #1 Negotiation Coach Share Secret to Successful Outcomes

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Why do so many of us dread negotiation? Today, Kwame Christian reveals the secrets to transforming negotiation from a battle into a collaborative solution. He dismantles the myth of innate talent, proving that negotiation is a learnable skill, honed through intentional practice. Kwame Christian is a practicing attorney, CEO, and academic who offers actionable strategies for entrepreneurs. He has developed a framework for negotiating that makes difficult conversations easier and more productive, and his innovative approach to negotiation could change the way your listeners view it. Kwame introduces his powerful "Compassionate Curiosity" framework, teaching you how to: Acknowledge emotions without letting them derail the process. Show empathy to build rapport and trust. Engage in joint problem-solving for mutually beneficial outcomes. Here's why these techniques work: Compassionate communication increases negotiation success rates by 22%. Empathy-driven negotiation leads to a 30% increase in long-term relationship satisfaction. An abundance mindset correlates with a 15% increase in creative problem-solving during negotiations.   This episode equips you with the tools to master negotiation in both your personal and professional life, transforming conflict into collaboration. 🎯 Takeaways: • Internalize your boundaries to strengthen negotiations • Develop "Compassionate Curiosity" • Embrace an abundance mindset 💬 Sound Bites: • "And we don't focus on the internal negotiation that we have to have with ourselves, and as a result, we fail in the external negotiation and difficult conversations we have with other people." • "It's about who I am and what a person like me does under these circumstances." • "As much as possible before conversations, try to figure out what boundaries might come into play." 🔗 Connect and Discover: Website: https://www.americannegotiationinstitute.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kwamenegotiates/ 📖 Chapters: 00:00 "Mastering Negotiation with Kwame Christian" 00:37 Introduction about Kwame Christian 05:37 Mastering Discipline: Habit Over Willpower 08:58 Identity-Based Habit Formation 11:06 "Living by Principles Over Belief" 15:14 "Mind and Body as Vessels" 19:56 Importance of Boundaries and Counseling 22:36 Preventing People-Pleasing: Strategic Pauses 25:48 Embrace an Abundance Mindset 28:20 "Internal Negotiation and Focused Catastrophizing" 32:52 Embrace Your Unique Communication Style 36:12 Embrace Authentic Negotiation 38:05 Equalizing Conversations: Approaching with Awareness 44:16 Effective Conflict Resolution Strategy 47:36 Understanding Others Through Curiosity 50:54 Nonverbal Cues and Persuasion Strategy 51:53 Influence vs. Mindset Autonomy 54:35 "Let Questions Do the Work" 58:11 Future-Focused Next Steps 📌 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗡: Website: https://go.ryanhanley.com/ Course Page: https://masteroftheclose.com/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ryan-hanley-show/id1480262657 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AZFuTiQsgS9hMQDDdtlOr?si=98432b7806534486 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous conversation for you with Kwame Christian. He is America's number one negotiation coach. He has the number one negotiation podcast, Negotiate Anything. And if negotiation, if tough conversations, if getting to an outcome that makes you feel confident and satisfied and fulfilled is something that you struggle with, which for so long I did. I'm a people pleaser at heart and just my default mechanism was to say yes, regardless

if whatever that person was asking for was good for me or not. And I've had to develop negotiation skills. And in this conversation, Kwame breaks down negotiation in such a simple but effective and powerful manner that even if you you shrink and shrivel and start shaking with terror at the idea of having to negotiate for something like a raise or a tough conversation with a spouse etc that this he is going to give you a framework today that you can put in place immediately that is easy to understand easy to remember and Incredibly easy to implement and is ubiquitous

Regardless of scenario and type of conversation personal business, etc You are gonna love this. There is so much value in this show today. We're gonna get to it right now I give you Kwame Christian. ["In A Crude Laboratory In The Basement Of His Home"] In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. ["In A Crude Laboratory In The Basement Of His Home"] Dude, super excited to talk to you, so glad you took some time. I want to start maybe at the end, which is why are most people so bad at negotiating anything? Like, it just seems like this is a skill that it is literally paramount to almost every conversation we have in our life,

yet we're never trained on it, and when you see people actually have some, the pressure of some type, they tend to not know what to say, not know how to, it is just a skill that we are not seemingly naturally gifted with. So why is this, why do so many people struggle with this particular skill of negotiation? This is such a great place to start, man. And especially the way that you framed it, negotiating anything, which is the name of the podcast. This is perfect.

You think I'd done this before. I know. I like great job with research. And here's the thing. I think that a lot of times we just need to break it down to the basics. And if we understand the basics, then understanding how to reverse engineer success becomes very easy. So number one, why are we so bad at this? It's because we have never had the opportunity to meaningfully practice.

You know, if I give you a bow and arrow and ask you to shoot a target, most likely you won't hit it. I know I wouldn't. I just don't have the skills. If you give me enough time and rep and put like dedicated diligent practice to it, then we could do it, right? It's the same with difficult conversations. And I think what ends up happening is that people over complicate the situation and they don't recognize that in order to be successful you just need a core set of skills. And the thing is that we have have had flashes of those skills at different times. But we need to put it together with intentionality. So we'll get to those core skills. The other thing too is that in the negotiation industry for years we have been giving

recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen. It's not an issue of people not understanding what needs to be done or said in the moment. It's that for whatever reason they cannot do or say what needs to be done or said in the moment. It is a mental and emotional issue. Everybody's going to have a unique performance gap that comes from something, right? For me, I'm a recovering people pleaser and so that's what I had to overcome. Some people have maybe childhood trauma, and then it triggers that fight, flight or freeze response. And so whenever they are in a difficult conversation, they freeze or they fight back, they're overly combative, or they are just, they placate

the other side and compromise too quickly. And so we all need to understand what's holding us back so we can put ourselves in the best position for success. And we don't focus on the internal negotiation that we have to have with ourselves. And as a result, we fail in the external negotiation and difficult conversations we have with other people. I love your point about the internal negotiation because you think about all these influencers not in a bad way, right? Like Goggins and even Rogan always you know say like on that like workout get app like they're trying to teach you jockel well they're trying to teach you discipline hard work which are

incredible things that are necessary for success and the question always comes like why is being disciplined so hard and I would have to imagine it's because we set a goal and then we don't you you know, when our mind or our lizard brain or whatever you want to call it starts pushing back on us. We have literally no idea how to negotiate with that thing that's going on up here. And like, that's the first negotiation every day. Like should I get out of bed or should I hit the snooze bar, right? Absolutely.

It's the war within. How do we overcome that? Right? And Goggins does a great job of breaking down how he has just mastered his mind to do just incredible things. And we need to figure out what it is that we need to do internally to get to that point. And one of the things about discipline that people often overlook is that if we are doing it right, if we're doing it right, we should only be using discipline for a set amount of time until we develop a habit. And then you don't need to have discipline anymore.

You know, so for me when I'm trying to get up and go to the gym at the beginning, it was very hard. But now it's hard not to go even when I'm sick, you know. But because I remember how hard it was to get that discipline, I say, listen, no matter what happens, I'm not losing that discipline muscle. So Ryan, for me, even on those days, if I'm sick, I'm not feeling it or I'm injured, whatever it happens to be, I will still get up. I will still get dressed. I will get in my car. I'll drive to the gym, park and come back because I don't want to

lose that discipline muscle. And one of the things that happened, it happens with negotiators is that we need to get to that point where we have moved past discipline to a habit. Because I moved past discipline to a habit with the gym, we need to do the same thing. Because the difference between an expert and novice negotiator a lot of times isn't necessarily the skill. Because anybody can listen effectively, anybody can ask an insightful question, the tactics aren't hard to understand, you can read a book and implement it immediately, right? But the thing is, we don't have the discipline or the habit to do it with consistency. So for instance, listening can be easy if I

agree with everything that you say and you're very complimentary to me. But if I'm in a tough negotiation or a tough conversation, then listening becomes very very hard. But I need to utilize discipline in that moment and recognize that the everything within me, my emotions will want me to jump in, to interrupt, to defend myself or not listen or just listen to respond, not listen to understand, right? But I need to work through that in the moment and in the first few times I do it'll be hard and then it'll slowly start to get easier. But then if you do this with intentionality, then it just becomes your natural response.

Now you have the negotiation habit, so you don't need to rely so much on discipline, because it's just part of you at this point. You've intentionally programmed yourself for success. I love the part about being intentional and how we program ourselves and kind of leading into that is is part of this similar to your to your gym example, kind of reframing how we view ourselves. So like you went from being, I'm not a guy that works out to now if someone were to ask you you're like, I work out like I'm a guy that works out like you've reframed kind of who you are. Is that similar with the negotiation where, you know, I've literally heard people say like,

I can't ask for a raise, like, I'm not that kind of person, right? Where it's simply just reframing your brain to go, well, you're just telling yourself that, there's literally nothing intrinsic in you that makes you not the type of person that could negotiate something or go into that type of conversation. So is part of this working to just reframe your own self-perception that you are the type of person who's willing to negotiate and willing to push back and ask questions and going through that? 100%. When you think about what leads to habit retention, one of the best things you can do is make identity based habits, right? So for instance, they did a study where they said, okay, our goal is to try to get people to vote more or get the habit of voting.

Instead of framing it in terms of voting, they said it's more powerful to frame it as the person is a voter. You ask, what does a person like me do under these circumstances? Well, as a voter, I vote. What does somebody like me do under these circumstances? As a as a voter, I vote. Right? And so what does somebody like me do under these circumstances? As a negotiator, I negotiate. Right? So for me, I'm a husband, I'm a father, and a lot of times, I'm not feeling it. I run a business, I'm tired, right? I'm exhausted, but I know, well, what should I do under the circumstances? I'm not just going to do what

my body naturally leads me to do, especially when it's hard. I say, well, what does a good father do right now? A good father will take a deep breath, lock in and focus on his son as he talks about his hard day at school, even though there are a bunch of emails and a lot of client responses I need to have and my employees are asking for my attention. That's hard to utilize that discipline in the moment. But since I focus on my identity as a father, I'm locked in right right? And so when we put ourselves in those tough circumstances and we say hey listen I'm the kind of guy I'm the kind of person who stands up for themselves. It doesn't matter how I feel anymore It's about who I am and what a person like me does under these circumstances

So, you know Jordan Peterson he when he first came down the scene He talked a lot about and how I found Jordan Peterson was actually in a revival of my own faith. And I found he's got this incredible podcast series on Genesis. It's like 17 episodes long. They're like an hour and a half to two hours a piece. And I've listened to it three times. Now, now when he put that out, he started getting all these questions around. Do you believe in God? Are

you a Christian? You know, all these kind of stuff. Because he was coming from a psychologist, a therapist standpoint, right? That he was breaking it down as more like a playbook for personal success than really anything than religious, right? So kind of as if it were just a self-help book, like, here's how you would use these things. It's kind of, and you got all these questions. And what he said was, it doesn't really matter whether I believe or consider myself a Christian. I act as if. Because these are what I believe to be quality principles to live your life, my belief is less important than acting as if I am, right?

And I think that, I think what I hear you saying, and I love the way that you're putting this together, is like, if you're today the type of person who's sitting there and you're frustrated with your salary, or you're frustrated with your relationship, your spouse doesn't agree, you know, let's take a, what do guys want when they walk in the house, right? When they're married.

They wanna walk in, and the only thing you really want is for your wife just to turn you and go, Hey honey, how's your day? Or just, hey, wait, you know, just like, simple acknowledgement of your existence when you walk in the door. And there's nothing worse than when you walk in the door and- and look, she's busy or whatever. He's busy, whatever your status is or whatever. Like, that person is busy and you walk in the door and you've walked in the door a thousand times and they're like like, you know, whatever but guys will be like, you know, I don't know how to talk to her about that well, that's a negotiation and it's almost like Can you act as if you're the person that's willing to have that conversation?

Even if internally your body's going nuts because it doesn't want to do it, right? It's almost act as if and like your mind responds your body responds Like is that kind of how you coach people is that how you teach people like I'm so interested in this We need to understand how confidence works because like I said, I was a people pleaser I Negotiation was my escape because it wasn't until I got to law school that I took a negotiation class and I learned it was A skill not a talent I could actually get better and so I was still scared every time I was going into these competitions and because we had negotiation competitions. Yeah.

And I still did it because every time I did it, it was a vote of confidence for the man I ultimately want to become. And so we, my partner and I, we won the competition at our law school. And then that gave us an opportunity to represent the school at the American Bar Association competition in Ottawa, Ontario. And we won that too. And I did it all while scared. It's like I just got good at this, right? But what we have to do is if we act as if we are a confident negotiator, then we will take the actions that make us a confident negotiator. We often think that we need to feel confident to take action, but that's the opposite.

It's the opposite. We need to take action until we feel confident. And so a couple of things that I like to do is I operate a lot of times on borrowed confidence. So I have a good network of mentors and friends and family members who support me. And there might be something that I want to do that's big and I'll run it by them and I'll let them know when I'm not feeling confident, where I'm feeling insecure. And then if they have confidence in me, I have so much faith and confidence in them that if they can see it in me, I'll trust their judgment over me. So I'll operate off borrowed confidence. And so the example that you gave is so powerful because for me, I don't think about negotiation in a

transactional type of way. If I'm completely honest, the word negotiation is a branding device I use to get into companies because they trust that, right? But for me, when I think about negotiation, I just say a negotiation is any time you're in a conversation and somebody in the conversation wants something. That's why we say it's negotiate anything, because we should be negotiating everything. What I'm negotiating with my kids, with my wife,

with my employees, my staff, with my clients all the time. And so I'm not doing that so I can get one over on them. I'm doing that so I can improve the quality of the relationship, address problems, solve them collaboratively, and we get better together. So to that example, if that person were to say, hey listen, I don't feel the confidence, but now after listening to this episode, I know I don't need to feel confident. I need to get an avatar for what success looks like in this situation And I'll say what would a person like that do under these circumstances Well, he would have that conversation right and I'm gonna do it while I'm scared

But the more you start to do it the more confident you will be in the future when you have to do it There's this idea Michael a singer wrote about it in the untethered Soul, it's in a bunch of other books, that essentially you're, if you believe, which I do, that you're not your mind or your body, you're this spirit inside of it, your mind and your body are these vessels keeping you alive essentially, that there's a lot of studies been done, and I used to be able to quote the study and I just can't anymore where literally your mind and your body do not know what the truth is so if you tell your mind like if you're you not you know not the voice in your head but you just I'm a confident person it's why aphorisms can work because you're literally just you're telling your mind what to be like you know your mind might be like if we get involved in

this conversation there could be conflict and cotton could live to a negative outcome, which could put me in a worse place. So no, don't do it, right? That's what your mind's telling you. But if you're just committing, you know, we're confident and we're good at negotiation. And we're going to do this, like, but we're but because we're confident because we know what we're talking about. And your mind just will go, okay, I guess that's what we are now. Like, it doesn't know the difference. You just tell it what you are, and over time, it will just start to believe you, and then, again, acting that way,

and it can be that simple. It's why, you know, I've said this the other day, like, you know, why, it's cliche, but it's also true. Why do, like, sales guys, before they walk in the meeting, have, like, mega death, or or like Wu-Tang or whatever on right like this let's just like hard like masculine let's get after it kind of music it's the it's simply just to frame your brain so that when you get out of the car to go walk in that meeting you're feeling good your chest is up your shoulders are back right

like you're just like you said you're just intentional programming. It's nothing more than that. That's it, man. And I think what we have to do is we have to recognize the power of intentional programming, right? We're being programmed all the time. Anytime you're receiving a message, it's an attempt to program you one way or another. So we have to be intentional about reprogramming our minds, right? And so for me, before negotiation, a big negotiation, before I go on stage to deliver a keynote, I still feel the same nerves and fear that I did before. I just recognize that that's a necessary part of the process and I've learned to enjoy it because it's not going away. I might as well befriend it and recognize it's a signal I'm often on the

right track. And that bass, studies have showed that listening to really aggressive music with a lot of bass gives you a lot more confidence when it comes into a difficult conversation. So blast that music. It is scientifically sound. It works. And when we think about this, what is a belief? A belief is nothing more than a thought that we have thought a number of times and we've

absorbed as our own. And so we still have the power to address those beliefs. So in my first book, when I was talking about finding confidence and conflict and I was walking through how I got confidence and I essentially turned myself into my own experiment. My undergrad degree was in psychology and so what I said is let me reverse engineer an approach specifically for difficult conversations. So I treated it like a phobia. So there's something called cognitive behavioral therapy and at its roots what you want to do is you want to identify problematic beliefs and thought patterns and then replace them with more

empowering beliefs or thought patterns. So I call these helpful fictions. Whether or not it is true, I will choose to believe it because it's helpful for me. So I say going into any negotiation or conversation, no matter what the situation is, I believe that I have the skills to connect with and persuade anybody. No matter what the circumstances are, no matter who the other person is, I can still do it. And is that always true? Probably not, but because I believe it, it makes it more likely to be true. Because when you think about the reality of self-fulfilling prophecies, we don't recognize how frequently our

Because when you think about the reality of self-fulfilling prophecies, we don't recognize how frequently our disempowering beliefs that are also untrue guide the outcomes of our interactions, right? So if I go into this conversation and I say, man, you know, Ryan's a tough one. I don't know. He's not probably not going to agree with me, but I'm still going, I should probably still have the conversation. And I come into the conversation and I'm like, well, Ryan, I've got this product for you. I wanted to say, no, no, the answer is no. Right? And we don't recognize how much

our own belief, our lack of belief had an impact on that. So it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. So understanding all of that, I create these helpful fictions to replace those negative thought patterns with precision. And you can't understand what those thought patterns are unless you go through that process of internal negotiation so we can understand really deeply what works for us, what doesn't work for us and then empower ourselves to do what it takes to get the success that we want. What role does boundaries play in all of this?

Because as I have gone through and I've talked about on the show before, I go see a counselor every other week. I've done it for almost six years. Best advice I ever got from one of my mentors was, you know, go find a counselor, someone that you can talk to that's going to help you, and just make an appointment with them every other week for the rest of your life and just consider it a monthly expense. And that's what I've done. And I'll tell you is it is the single thing That I would not remove

You know beyond the basics that I need to keep my my family alive like it is the single thing I wouldn't remove from my life and You know what I learned in through that process was as a people pleaser as well huge huge I would say I'm on the path. I don't know that I'm fully recovered, but I'm certainly on the path. One of the things that we talked about all the time was boundaries and how not having boundaries makes it incredibly difficult to have conversations in which someone wants something because as a People Pleaser, you tear down all your boundaries and you're just like, sure, whatever you want, you know, here it is. You know, even though

I don't have the time, don't have the mental energy or whatever, I'm just going to say yes, because I have no boundaries around what I'm with. So like what, how do we start to work with boundaries? What role do they play? Like, I'm very interested in, in, in how these fit into our ability to negotiate or conversate to an outcome. Yeah. I mean, good fences make good neighbors.

We have to have boundaries in all aspects of our life now There are two things that we need to do first of all We need to get clarity on what our boundaries are a lot of times We allow people to infringe on our boundaries because we have not articulated them to ourselves So we are in a conversation somebody asked for something. They're not trying to be pushy or they're infringed upon a boundary, they don't know that there's a boundary. And unfortunately, you might not either. You got this weird feeling, but you can't identify what it is and then you commit too soon and then you say, after the fact, you wake up with an emotional hangover where the feeling that made you make that decision is gone, but the decision is still there. So you're

stuck, right? So a couple tips here. First of all, as much as possible before conversations, try to figure out what boundaries might come into play. So boundaries in terms of the time that I spend with my family, boundaries in terms of what my upper and lower limit are in terms of money, whatever the negotiation might be. I want to be very clear on what boundaries might be a factor in this conversation so I can have that clarity. And then what I want to do is if there is somebody who is trying to encroach upon those boundaries whether intentionally or unintentionally, I know how I'm going to say no. I framed that beforehand so I don't need to try to find some cool way to say no, I already

know how I'm going to do it. Now if you haven't done that work and you find yourself in a conversation, then what you do is you create space between you and the person when it comes to the decision that needs to be made. So, we're going to inject time between the request and the response. So especially for us as people pleasers, we have to recognize that people pleasing pressure will come about in the moment and we will think that we're going to think that we're thinking but we're actually feeling

through the decision, right? So we're going to succumb to the pressure and not make a rational thought about it. And so what I would do is if somebody's asking me something and they say, hey, Kwame, can you do this? And I'm like, I feel that in my chest. I'm like, I'm not 100% sure what I should do. What I'll say is this, hey, thank you for asking. Can you give me a little bit more detail about what it is that you're asking for?

Right? So I'm going to gather information. I'm going to use it as an opportunity to gather the information I need to make a good decision. And then I'll say, hey, listen, I appreciate the request and the insight here too. Right now, I'm not in a position to make a decision, but let me get back to you either later tonight or tomorrow and I'll let you know. Now, if they push to make a decision at that time, then what I say is, if you need a decision right now then the answer has to be no. Right? And then people magically find a way to be patient in that situation. Right? But for me when I'm saying no, I like to use this really simple framework where it's a yes,

no, yes framework. So the first yes is to what I'm actually committed to, the reason why I'm going to say no and then the second the no is a very very short succinct no because the longer your no goes the easier it is for somebody to negotiate around it and try to find a way through it and then at the end it's a yes to the continuation of either the negotiation or for sure the relationship. So let's do a simple example. So let's say somebody reaches out to me and like 30 minutes ago they reach out and they say, hey Kwame, can you hop on a call real quick?

I want to ask you something. I'll say, hey, listen, actually, I'm going to be hanging out with my buddy Ryan. So unfortunately I have to say no, but let me know when another time is that could work for you. Really smooth, really smooth, right? And so if you understand how to say no, like the mechanics of it, and then you can prepare and understand what your boundaries are, and you're willing to give yourself time between the request and the decision, those are really

simple things you could do to really put your boundaries in place without damaging the relationship in the process. What role does like an abundance versus scarcity mindset play in our hesitancy to negotiate or say no? It's a massive role, right? Because when you think about a lot of conflicts, whether it's just interpersonal or geopolitical, it is the competition for scarce resources. If we have a scarcity mindset, then we're going to see conflict everywhere because more for me means less for you and vice versa. But for people who are negotiating, again for me, I don't want you to think about it in terms of me

versus you. It's you and me versus the problem to figure out how we can negotiate together and create us a future that works for both of us. That's the goal. But if I have this fixed pie mentality where I'm saying to myself, no no no no no no, this is a tug of war. More for this person means less for me, then I'm not even able to be, no, no, no, no, no, this is a tug of war. More for this person means less for me, then I'm not even able to be creative and collaborative in this situation. And so we have to be able to expand our mind on what works for us, what is valuable to us, what helps us to move forward, because the more paths to victory,

the more likely we are to achieve a victory. If I can see multiple ways for me to find a better position through this conversation, then I can find ways that help me to find a better position through this conversation, then I can find ways that help me in a way that are not detrimental to you and vice versa. So having an abundance mentality is necessary. And the thing is, I think when it comes to things like confidence, confidence is compartmentalized. When it comes to our mindset, like versus scarcity versus abundance, that's compartmentalized too. You might have an abundance mentality in all other areas of your life. But if you lack confidence in these difficult conversations and you have these negative

biases about conflict in general, or maybe the person you're talking to, then you're going to have a scarcity mentality as it relates to this instance. And you might not even recognize that's the thing that's holding you back. Yeah, I see this a lot in early stage entrepreneurs that are still doing B2B business development, sorry, or sales individuals where the individuals who come at a negotiation for say a larger enterprise contract, et cetera,

who have a scarcity mindset, it becomes combative. It becomes, or they cave to every demand of the customer because they're so, they're like, I'm never going to get another opportunity like this. I have to figure out, so I'll just break my boundaries, give into what they want, feel terrible about the deal, but I got the deal. Where those individuals who see the world and it's like, I'm going to have boundaries. I'm going to use the techniques that we're going to talk about in a like, I'm gonna have boundaries, I'm gonna use the techniques that we're gonna talk about in a bit and I'm gonna work through this process and it's, I love this idea of

it's me and you versus the problem, not me versus you. I love that framing, I think that's wonderful, right? Those individuals who look at that from the abundance standpoint have the ability to go, look, this is what I can do, this is how I'm able to deliver it and the price point that I'm able to deliver it at, how do we make this work? Right? And if they come back and they go, it doesn't work, then you're like, okay, maybe in the future, we can have another opportunity, right? If you get through the process and doesn't work, and they'll move on to the next one. And that, that scarcity mindset, though, if I don't get this one, everything's gonna fall apart, and my, you know, they create

all the project, all these negative scenarios out into the world they those tend to be the people who really struggle with this kind of stuff I agree I agree 100% and again that's why the negotiation has to begin within right and one of the things that I like to do before a really tough one especially if I feel more anxious before it is I would put myself through a survivability test. So you know, I call it focused catastrophizing. Because you know, if you get anxious, you start overthinking and you're like, this could happen and then everything's going to fall apart. Right? And so what I'll say is, okay, here it is.

List right out every one of your fears, everything that you think might happen. Like all of the paths to failure that are just coming to mind and plaguing your mind. Cool. So what will end up happening is that you might see yourself cycling over these things for like minutes, hours, days, or sometimes weeks or months, right? And just going over it, going over it. But then when you actually write it out, then you realize actually, I've just been cycling through the same seven doomsday scenarios.

It's not that many bad things that could possibly happen. And what I'll do is like, alright pick one pick each of them And if that happens, how will you find a way to be okay? Oh Now that's interesting now it becomes a little bit fun because then I can say with each of these scenarios I can there is a path to success not just survivability. I could actually make this situation better. There's so many ways I can be fine. So it helps you to not feel as needy at the negotiation table, but it also sometimes sparks creativity and then the overthinking stops. Because now you've controlled that process, that fear process, and now you've calmed down,

you've quieted your amygdala to the point where you can actually think creatively and strategically and just doing that Helps you shift to a more mindset of them, but an abundance because you could say oh, yeah, yeah, yeah No, I'm good. No matter how this ends up I will still be good, you know and even like at the worst like the worst it could possibly be Sometimes I say well at least my wife and kids still love me. You know, I'll still be okay. Yeah, the good news is 44 years into life, there's always another opportunity. That's if I've learned anything through my life, it's been, you know, that trite kind of cliche when one door closed and other opens is a cliche for a reason. It's 100% there. Yeah.

It may not always go the way you think or the way you want but it's always they always resurface as long as you're pushing forward. Is there any public figures or politicians, leaders, etc. that you kind of that you look to as like, man, that guy, that gal, the way she operates, the way he talks, the way they approach a situation, you know, they get things done, they get it done in a way. Like, do you have any examples of that people may be able to relate to? Well, I think what would be more helpful is like picking on some like some actors, you know, some. Yeah, because I think that can be less triggering too. Because for me, what I do is I say, all right, who's winning, who's doing well, and what are some attributes that

I like to take? Because sometimes when we say oh a specific person then you Kind of get locked in with that with all that those people so I like the presence of Denzel I think he does a great way job of like Focusing on a person and having really powerful dignified presence no matter who it is that he's playing the role as like he would think about no matter who it is that he's playing the role as. Like, he... think about, um, back with Remember the Titans. You know, you could just see him walk.

And even though he was dealing with a lot of racism, there was the dignity. Like, people treated him differently just because of the way he carried himself. Right? I think McConaughey does a great job of connecting with people. Right? He's very warm. And so I love the warmth of his ability to just connect with somebody in that type of way. Any of the Bond characters have that style and charisma.

But I think also we have to give ourselves the latitude to recognize that whether it's a fictional character or a real person, we're always seeing an idealized version of themselves. And sometimes when we compare ourselves to these avatars, we actually can feel more disempowered and less confident because you're like, I'm not that smooth. I can't deliver a line like that. And one of the things that people need to recognize about negotiation, difficult conversations in general is that you will certainly make mistakes. It's not possible to have a perfect negotiation.

When I negotiate, I stumble over my words and things like that. It happens. And you will make mistakes and you can recover from those mistakes I'm afraid of offending somebody you will You will and you can recover by utilizing the same skills My mentor who taught me how to negotiate who taught me how to mediate he had a stutter He had a stutter right so he wasn't like giving an incredible like oratory display But he's able to connect empathize persuade and in his own way

So as many as much as we want to emulate people and we can see elements of people that we can try to Replicate in our own authentic way We also have to recognize that no matter who you are no matter what you look at like no matter what your background is There is a path to persuasive communication for you. You are enough as you are. And sometimes we can idealize things to the point where we actually disempower ourselves where we say, no, I'm not like that. So I can't be successful.

No, you are you and you can be successful. I think people forget that we're all one of ones, you know? And what's interesting is when you see inside the actor's studio does a great job of this. When an actor comes in and sits on that stage and they're being interviewed and talking through their life, what I find very intriguing is who they often look to as inspirations sometimes are not people that you would necessarily assume that they would look to. So it's like, you know, you could say, I can't do it. I can't be relatable like McConaughey or I don't have the poise and kind of dignified response and tone of voice

that Denzel has and I'll never have. Yeah, maybe you won't. You might be funny. You might be able to find nuance other people can't. You might have a voice inflection which is inviting in a way that is dissimilar from McConaughey but equally as engaging. And it's like what I hear you saying is, you know, maybe mimic at first to a point, but ultimately we have to find the style that allows us to be the most confident in the moment. Is that correct? 100%.

That's it. That's why I like to focus more on general principles than specifics. Because I recognize that when it comes to communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, sales, whatever it happens to be, a lot of times what the author does is they start to codify their own personality. So they're not saying this is what works in general, they're saying this is what works for me, but framing it in terms of this is what works in general. So let me give an example.

So I was talking to one of the guys on my podcast, he was a Stanford professor, but he also interestingly was about six foot six. And so he just made an offhand comment. He was saying, you know, there was only one time in my adult life that I felt small. And I was courtside at a Heat versus Knicks game and I saw Patrick Ewing and I was like, I feel tiny. And I said, out of curiosity, what impact do you think your size has in how people respond to you? I never thought about that. And now think about on the other side, one of my friends is Alex Carter.

She has a really great book on negotiation. And she wrote a post one time, she said, when I enter a boardroom, nobody sees me coming. No, seriously, I'm very small. They don't see me coming. Right? And she was talking about how her presence is different. And so what we have to do is we need to recognize that, hey, listen, when we get negotiation advice, we should understand what the underlying

principle is. So what are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to accomplish with the things that we're saying and the way that we're saying it? Because the way that it works for somebody else might not work for that other person or it might not work for you. And so that's why we have to have this playful experimentation mindset where we're saying, okay, I'm gonna try this out. See how the world responds to me. Because you need to figure out what your authentic self is

within these difficult conversations because it is 100% sure that it's gonna be different from you and it's gonna be different from somebody else and it's gonna be different from me. So we have to just embrace our authenticity and find what works for us. from you and it's going to be different from somebody else and it's going to be different from me. So we have to just embrace our authenticity and find what works for us. Yeah, it's funny. So I'm six foot four and I can tell you that everyone, I get the comment all the time like,

oh, it must be nice to be tall. When you're over a certain height, people just like want to comment on your height all the time, which I get constantly which is fine you know it's fine but there's always this implied idea that somehow being tall is this competitive advantage and I'm sure there are aspects to it where it is it also creates a lot of issues in relating to people because they have to look up at you no one wants to look up right it makes them feel small you you are the first person ever. I always tell people like, being tall is good, but except like when you're in a bar or a conference,

because you stand out above the crowd and everyone makes eye contact with you and you get all this random, awkward eye contact. And I'm like, I'm always like trying to like slump down a little bit because you're just like a thousand people, just random eye contact everywhere because you're the one head above the crowd But um, but my point saying that is is I've had to develop Mechanisms both in the way I stand how I approach people because I don't want them to feel Like they're in a position of weakness simply because I'm tall because that immediately puts them on the defensive or they become more introverted or they're less likely to you know be open and so I've developed things like

I'll lean against a wall or I'll if I'm in a conference setting I'll try to find a chair or a seat or something that I can kind of lean on or rest on just to bring my eye level down a few inches so that now that person sees me at eye level and we can have a much more um it feels like we're on even ground versus them looking up at me and that immediately creates a dynamic and it's there's so much to what you're saying and how you have to and coming back to this idea that we haven't talked about yet and then and I do want to get tactical and talk about your your framework next but it's almost like every time we go into one of these conversations, be they business oriented or otherwise, we have to go in almost with a

wide open sense of awareness of the situation, of the other individuals, of their body language, of how you're presenting yourself, because it's not just the things you say, it's everything that you do and how you present yourself. Is that, you know what I mean? Like that's a tough thing. 100%, and this is a perfect example, Ryan, a perfect example, because there are no absolutes in this. So you could say, okay, well, look at the studies.

The average CEO is six foot two, but the average man is five foot nine, and we're including women in six foot two, so even the women are abnormally tall as CEO. So therefore, it is good to be tall. CEO is six foot two, but the average man is five foot nine and we're including women in six foot two. So even the women are abnormally tall as CEO. So therefore it is good to be tall, right? That doesn't tell the whole story, right? So we have to understand that the world will respond to us differently because of who we

are, whatever it happens to be. You know, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's fair, sometimes it's unfair. But what you need to do is understand what that is and then adjust yourself to get the outcomes that you want. Because instead of saying, well, it's unfair that people feel intimidated by me. I'm such a nice guy. That doesn't matter. What does matter is what you need to do in order to get the outcome that you want.

That's a great example, man. Let's get into your framework. Let's get a little tactical. Talk me through. You know, I come to you and you know, I'm struggling. I have some, you know, negotiation is part of my job. Maybe I'm not able to communicate with my spouse properly or my partner. Like, and I just feel like this is a skill I have not learned. How do you start to take me down the path? And how do I work through this to start becoming a better negotiator? Yes, okay, man. So this is exciting. And let me know I'm down for this. If you want to take me down the path and how do I work through this to start becoming a better negotiator? Yes, okay man. So this is exciting and let me know I'm down for this. If you want to create a scenario based on the demographics

of your listeners and we want to do a role play, we can do that too to keep it real as well. So it's called the compassionate curiosity framework. So let's bring in two quotes then I'll break it down. So one quote Leonardo da Vinci says, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And so what you'll see here is that I have spent years simplifying this so people would actually use it because a lot of times you have somebody who's a negotiation expert coming in and they'll talk about all these different tactics, but under duress, people aren't going to remember them and put them into practice.

So I give people one thing and then I help them to understand how to use it. And then the next thing is Bruce Lee's quote, I don't fear the man who knows 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times and compassionate curiosity is your nonviolent compassionate kick that you'll use in your conversation. So here, let's break it down. So step one is acknowledge and validate the emotions and beliefs and conclusions of the

other side. So we're acknowledging and validating. Then number two is getting curious with compassion, asking open-ended questions with a compassionate tone to gather information, build rapport, build trust and empathize. And then number three is using joint problem solving. So again, it's not me versus you, it's you and me versus the problem. We're using future-focused problem solving to figure out what our relationship or the deal looks like going into the future, right? So if there's any element of emotionality or I

feel like the person isn't feeling heard, then I'm going to use step one, acknowledge and validate the emotions. Hey, it sounds like this has had a significant impact on you or I can tell that this is something you really care about or correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like this has been a really frustrating situation. Whatever it is, I'm going to label the emotion because it'll lower the emotional temperature of the room. Then when I see you feel like we've gotten to a point where emotions are manageable, then I'm going to get curious with compassion to gather information. Then when I have enough information and everybody's at a place where emotions are manageable, then we're just going to work together

and figure it out. And so sometimes you might be in the problem solving phase and then somebody gets emotional. Then we just cycle back to number one. So it's a flexible framework that helps you to understand what to say and when to say for maximum impact. Well, I love that. I think, you know, I know for myself,

I'm way more willing to give when I feel like the other person understands. They may not, they don't have to agree, but at least understands where I'm coming from. I know I immediately open up in those scenarios. And so that that part makes complete sense. You know that, could that also be like, what I'm hearing you say is this is that accurate kind of like a almost like a reframe and acknowledgement kind of thing like This is what I'm getting and then they can tell you know that that's not actually it, but you're at least

What you're trying if I'm hearing Craig we're trying to do is just help them feel understood on like like yes Like you know what they're actually about or what they're actually trying to do. Exactly, because if you don't make them feel understood, then they're gonna spend the rest of the conversation trying to make you feel understood on whatever that point happens to be, right? So that's why ignoring emotions is so problematic. If I see that you're struggling emotionally or you're feeling something

and I pretend like it's not there, then in your mind, you're gonna be like, he doesn't get it, I'm gonna turn the volume up. And it makes things worse, right? So you're just paying the person the respect to say, hey, listen, I see you. And we have to remember, acknowledgement does not mean endorsement. It's highly likely that you don't agree with what they're saying. And so when you're summarizing, I would just say, hey, so correct me if I'm wrong, but

it sounds like from your perspective, your frustration comes from this and this. So I'll show that I understand. I might not agree, but like you said, so many times just showing that you understand is enough. And if you're really disciplined with this, Ryan, you can find that a lot of our conflicts are just issues of understanding and respect. Sometimes the person doesn't even want you to do something. They just want to feel heard.

And then we try to problem solve or we tell them that they're wrong. And now we get in this unnecessarily unproductive Conversation for so many conversations if you just stick with Labeling acknowledging and validating emotions and getting curious sometimes the problem just magically disappears And so that's why I tell people again at home. I'm using this at work with my team I'm using this when I'm negotiating for like big deals for the American Negotiation Institute, I'm doing this.

Back as a lawyer, I was doing it. And for me as a mediator too, I was doing this too. We just adjust how it sounds and how we approach it based on the circumstances. That's it. And so even at the highest level of business, this will get you through 90 to 95% of your toughest negotiations. And then when you need something a little bit extra, you sprinkle that on top of compassionate curiosity.

Because a lot of times people might say, well, I use this sales tactic, it didn't work. I use this negotiation tactic, it didn't work. It's because you didn't take the time to create the conditions for persuasion. The person is still triggered. they don't feel understood, you didn't listen to them, so you're trying to solve the wrong problem and you wonder why the tactic doesn't work? If you just start here, this solves the majority of problems. Guys, stop right now if you didn't pick up

on what Kwame just said and rewind like 30 seconds, because I think you just hit on one of the core issues that so many people, they jump right into solving the problem versus even understanding. And I'll give you just a quick example. At my previous startup that I had, our biggest client made this huge deal out of something that my service team thought was a tiny little deal. And there's all this back and forth and this big email train and finally, and then all

of a sudden I get, Hey, hey, you know, hey, Ryan, we and forth and this big email train and finally and also I get hey Hey, you know, hey Ryan, we got this problem. Can you jump in right? So now I'm CEO I jump in and I get on the phone with the guy and I was like so What I've taken so far is Your you know what? I'm you know, you're upset about the way that this situation was handled and he did a little thing And I said, okay, so what I What I'm hearing is you want this this COI practice built kind of custom, I'm talking about insurance, it was an insurance business sorry, built kind of custom for you

right and and I saw like once once I had like kind of framed that I understood the problem for him he literally came back to me he goes you know what I'm just glad you called it's really not that big a deal like we're good, man. And the call was over. It was over in like 10 minutes. And we didn't have to do any additional work. We didn't have to change anything. There was this mistake on my team that they made

that we fixed, right, and whatever. And he really just wanted me to know that this problem happened, and he really didn't want that problem to happen again. That was all he wanted me to know. And if I had gone, I could have come in and been like, look, we're going to create this custom process for you and blah, blah, blah. A ton of work for us. And it wasn't even what he really wanted. Right? Like that was the, you know, so it's just this guys, this is freaking important

to understand the person that you're on the other side with. I mean, just understand again, going back to like the personal side, understand your kids, understand your spouse, and most of the problems will go away. I wanna dig into the curiosity part, because I think that part is where I know I sometimes will fumble, like how do we, when we're asking, one, I think open-ended questions tend to be a problem. A lot of sales tactics, like if somebody goes out

and buys some $97 course, it's all just like, ask this question, then this question, and a lot of them and buys some $97 course, it's all just like ask this question and this question, and a lot of them tend to be like closed questions, information gathering stuff, like maybe break down what an open-ended question is and how do we position that in this kind of curiosity framework that you're talking about? Yeah, so a couple of things. Let's first break down why it's so hard to do, because it sounds super easy like oh ask a question okay I got that. So the reason I called it the compassionate curiosity framework was because it's I want that to just be in

your mind about your tone. Because for me as a lawyer, lawyers are taught to ask questions but cross examinations sound very different. The people don't feel comfortable, they don't feel vulnerable, they don't feel psychological safety. So they're not going to share information. So the tone that we bring, the energy that we bring to the conversation is very important. And then a lot of times people, especially who are in sales or trying to get something done in the business world, they'll ask questions but they don't ask questions with true humility. They ask questions that are overly strategic,

where the person says, this is clearly a trap, right? You know, imagine if you're walking through the mall and somebody with a clipboard bro anytime you see a clipboard Somebody with a clipboard sir. I've got a couple questions. So how are you today? Great. So tell me about your insurance service Okay, great. You know, it's like I I see this is a trap man Yeah I see this is a trap and and so for me what I do with this whole framework My goal is to follow the 70-30 rule where I'm getting the other side to speak 70% of the time I'm only speaking 30% of the time makes my job easier. I gather more information. They feel liked appreciated Respected and validated which makes them trust me more which makes them share more information. It makes them more persuadable

It makes everything easier and you're less likely to make a mistake. So I like to ask questions in the framework of the funnel technique. So I'll ask very broad and general questions at the very beginning. So like when I was a mediator, I would say, so tell me how we got here. I read the case file. They might've been litigating for 18 months, but I want to hear how you say it from your own words, go wherever you want to want to go right and then I'll get more precise with my questions as I go throughout the funnel and so this might still seem like well how do I how do I know what the follow-up question is? You don't. You have to make a read. So I pay attention to five things. It's pace, tone, repetition, and body language and

I forget the other one but pace, tone, repetition, and body language. And I forget the other one, but pace, tone, repetition, and body language are the main things. Volume, volume. I'm going to pay attention to deviations. So if the person is talking at this pace, but then all of a sudden they slowed down at that point, I don't know what that meant, but it means something. My next question comes there, right? Or they're talking like this, showing their hands all the time.

And then they talk about this one issue and then they cross their hands and lean back. That meant something too. So we get more precise with the questions that we ask and we allow them to let us figure out what is most important. We're not going to try to force them into a specific direction toward the end of the funnel. Now we can ask questions that are a little bit more geared toward persuasion But we have to earn earn our work right there

A lot of times the biggest mistake people make is that they try to persuade too soon But for me, I want to approach this conversation in a way where somebody doesn't say man Kwame is a wizard here He convinced me he persuaded me. No, no, no, no. I want people to say hey I had a conversation with Kwame and then I made a decision, I had a conversation with Kwame and then I made a decision. Or I had a conversation with Kwame and then I changed my mind. I want them to own it. And so you just give them space to share, but it cannot be too calculated. Then it just doesn't feel right. Yeah, you can't change people's mind. No.

They have to change their own mind. You can help them get there, but there's no changing someone's mind. You're not gonna do that. It's their decision on whether they change their mind or not. There's no... To your point, I love these questions where they'll present some amazing life scenario. Like, what if all your wildest dreams come true and money rained down from the sky, and you had this amazing house and car and you know all the...

Is that a life you would want? And you're like, you're like, I mean I would be an idiot if I said no, so but I don't, you know now I feel like a jerk because you're obviously taking me down a path. Like, that's not gonna get me to change my mind because you said it feels boxed in. I used to teach my sales team this idea which I found was the hardest aspect of sales to teach someone, which was silence is a weapon. I was like, guys, I was like, shut the up. Stop talking.

Because, you know, for two reasons. One, if I'm just peppering you in the head in a sales call with my features and my benefits and all the things I can do and all the solutions I think you should have and blah blah blah and my background and my expertise and how many products I have or whatever. Like the other person is just waiting for you to finish. They're like I'm the one buying here like what you know what and the other part is psychologically and you can push back on this if it isn't true but from what I've read if there's silence someone's gonna fill it.

It is very awkward to sit in silence. So if you can ask a succinct, thoughtful, open-ended question, and then just be quiet. Don't give context, don't give all this, just ask the question and be quiet. They will fill it and give you things that you didn't think you could otherwise even get out of them, just by being quiet.

100%, man. And I think a lot of times, of times it's the again it goes back to discipline. You have to learn how to become comfortable in that situation or accept it because you need to know what's happening and I think when people understand what's happening beneath the surface it makes them feel a little bit more comfortable letting that ride. Yeah. So in my keynotes one of the things I would ask them to do and I would say listen if you actually know the answer, you can't play this game. Okay, so I'd say, okay, when did Abraham Lincoln die? And so I'll look in the audience and people would look around, and then I'd get a guess, right? And so I said, think about what happened. So you're in your mind, you're saying, well, all of this started in 1776. He wasn't the first one. He was like, 2016,

right? Okay, so they did was maybe sometime in the mid 1800s. What's happening? We're thinking, we're thinking, if I interrupt you, you might still be in the early 1800s. And so when you ask a question, the person can't help but answer it in their mind. They're thinking about how to articulate it to you. And so you need to let your question do the work. You're undermining your own work. Right.

It's like cleaning up a mess and then just making the same mess over it. Because sometimes we have to just let that ride and we let them off the hook. Because I'll give an example. What I do, I turn it into a meditation because sometimes it can be awkward. So I remember I was in the meat. I was a mediator in this really tough situation and this person was Retaliated against somebody who who did something wrong to him. So he thought but it turned out The first person didn't do anything wrong. So he just attacked

So he was realizing oh, no, I'm the bad guy in this situation So I set it up brought the information and everything and then I asked him a question. And he sat back and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and I counted, and I counted to 43 seconds, Ryan, 43 seconds of silence. And what was happening, I call it turning the Titanic. When your mind has been operating in a very specific way the whole time, you're heading to an iceberg, but you are like hell bent on hitting that iceberg. And it takes a long time for that big ship to change.

And so sometimes it can be a very awkward amount of time, but you led that ride, and then he changed his mind, right? He changed his mind, I didn't do it. And so we undermine all of our good work by not letting that silence ride. Another sales cliche is when you've struck oil, stop digging. And I find that so many people will blow sales or blow meetings or negotiations because they don't realize they've already gotten

what they want. So how do we know that we've gotten or we've hit a resolution point? How do we know like, we're not going any further, right? Like this is the moment where we kind of... it's either this or we're not moving forward, right? Like how do we find that moment and kind of, quote unquote, close that deal, you know, using business parlance? Yeah, well, I think a couple of things. First, again, we have to start inside and figure out what it is that leads us to oversell in our previous situations, right? There might be some kind of insecurity, right? In this conversation, I might not have fully articulated how awesome I am to the other person. And so, it might be ego driven. It's like, wait, I haven't proven

to you how well I know the product. I know it so well. I need to sell you on those things, right? And so, whatever it is, different people have different reasons for manifesting that behavior. That's the first thing. And I think we have to have clarity on what we need to get to in order to get the outcome that we want. And a lot of times it's a lot less than our emotions would lead us to get, right? So I'll give an example too. With me and my wife, and we've been married for 14 years, I realized that for me, I want us to be aligned on every single issue. And so I'll go back to conversations, not necessarily because I'm mad or anything,

but I'll be like, hey, let's,'m mad or anything, but I'll be like, hey Let's we you still think this and I still think this how can we get on the same page and she's in her mind. She's like We're done with this like Problem has been solved and so I realized that those situations Oh, this is still a little bit of the lawyer in me needing to still be right on issues that are irrelevant here And so right what I figured out is like in those moments, I just need to journal. I just need to talk to myself and figure it out. And so we need to understand what enough is.

What is enough? And then when we believe that we've gotten there, then we need to transition into next steps. So the negotiation shifts, because a lot of times in sales, our goal is to generate interest. Interest has been generated. We understand that we're going to move forward. Now with negotiation, we

might still need to negotiate the details. So I'll say, okay, let's talk about next steps. So what would be a good time or we could use the assumptive close. So would Friday be a good time for us to get this signed? Whatever it happens to be. But we have to transition into that future portion. And that's why step three is so important. Like I said, it's future focused problem solving. Because if I stay in the now, I might navigate this conversation in a way that just satisfies my emotional needs right now. I might be focusing more on my ego than the outcome.

So we have to focus on the future and figure out what our next steps are. Kwame, dude, I could talk to you all day, man. You got an open invitation to come back whenever you want. This is phenomenal. I could go all day. I appreciate the hell out of you. This is such an important topic and I love the podcast Negotiate Anything. I love that you've taken it out of so many I think of the people in your space tend to focus on us on sales or business which is incredibly important. Don't get me wrong. But man, every interaction is in some way a negotiation, or so many of the interactions we have in the day,

and being able to, I think part of entrenching that confidence in us is throughout the day feeling like we get to outcomes that we can live with that are enough and not feeling like we're getting stepped on and this is such a huge part of that. So for people who wanna go deeper into your world, where can they find you? Where can they find the podcast? Where do you want them to go from from this conversation? Hey, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. That means a lot to me. And yet we're on every social media

platform. So we're YouTube podcast, you can get negotiate anything there. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, we will get tick tock as well. I will bite the bullet on that. But yeah, just follow us. We want to share as much as we can. And then if you ever need consulting or you're looking for a training keynote, that's also what we do as well. Incredible, man. Appreciate the hell out of you. Wish you nothing but the best. And I look forward to the next time we chat. Likewise, brother. Thank you. Appreciate it. in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home