We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP320: Negotiations w/ Former FBI Agent Chris Voss (Business Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. On today's show, we have a really fun and exciting guest, Mr. Chris Voss. Chris is the bestselling author of the book, Never Split the Difference, and he's an expert in negotiations. Chris is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and he spent 24 years in the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit. So without further delay, sit back and enjoy this outstanding interview with Mr. Chris Voss. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we stay. the financial markets and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most.

Starting point is 00:00:38 We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Welcome to The Investors Podcast. I'm your host, Dick Brotherson, and as always, I'm accompanied by my co-host, Preston Pish. We have an exciting guest for you here today. As our listeners know, we're big on reading. And there are a few books that I read as many times, or should I say reread, as many times as never split the difference. It's by far one of the most important business books I've ever read. So with that said, ladies and gentlemen, we have the privilege of having

Starting point is 00:01:18 the author Chris Voss with us here today. Chris, welcome on our show. Thanks for having me on, man. It's a pleasure to be on it. Chris, your background, at first glance, it looks like it's as far away from business as it can get for you have experienced as a former FBI hostess negotiator. But as our listeners soon know, and I'm sure they will agree with me that it can't be more business than what you're actually doing. So perhaps the best way of explaining that is to go back to the very first hostage assignment you had back on September 30th, 1993. Could you tell us what happened? I'm working in the FBI, New York. Hostage negotiated with the FBI member of the Joint

Starting point is 00:01:58 Terrorist Task Force about 8.30 in the morning, bank alarm goes off, Brooklyn, New York. buddy of mine walks up to my desk says there's a bank robbery with hostages in Brooklyn. Let's go. Me and Charlie jumped into a car. We got out there. We found ourselves on top of the bank without realizing it. I mean, we were in the inner perimeter, which is normally where you're not supposed to start your day. But so we bail out of that Crown Vic, big four-door American-made car, low crawled to the nearest bank across the street, which is where the command post was.

Starting point is 00:02:33 and went inside and got ready to negotiate. It turned out there were two bank robbers in the bank with three hostages. We didn't know how many they were at the time. We thought maybe they were up to seven bank robbers. But we got on the phone and started to talk them out. Human interaction is just decision-making. And it's the context changes, but decision-making is the same. Whether it's business, whether it's hostage.

Starting point is 00:02:57 And you're talking about a bank robbery with hostages in Brooklyn. And the business plan that they started the day with went awry. You know, there's an American general that once said no plan ever survives the first encounter with the battlefield. You know, that sounds like people's business operations. But we got into the middle of it. And in hindsight, the bank robber on the inside was the classic CEO negotiator. He was trying to avoid being backed into a corner.

Starting point is 00:03:25 He was hiding the amount of influence that he had. and he wanted to maximize his revenue for the day. It ended up, we put a hostage negotiation team together between the FBI and the NYPD. PD had the negotiators out there. We trained together. You know, we understood the language. We didn't call it emotional intelligence back then, but that's what it is. And we spoke the same emotional intelligence.

Starting point is 00:03:48 They put a PD negotiator on first. I was his coach. The commander of the PD, Hugh McGowan, brilliant dude, brilliant man. He ran the operator. and we started to negotiate the bank robber on the other side, the first guy that got on the phone, he was really evasive in a really brilliant way. He tried to make himself look powerless when in fact he was one that had all the decision making on the other side. But he kept saying, like, you know, there are the guys in here with me, they're more dangerous than I am. You know,

Starting point is 00:04:20 I don't know what they're going to do. You know, he realized that we had snipers, you know, And if we thought he was a threat, maybe one of our snipers would shoot him. So he kept talking about how dangerous everybody else was. So he wouldn't be a threat. And the other thing that was brilliant, he did everything he could do to manage the threats. You know, I got to put you on hold for a minute. The girls want something to eat. You know, I got to put you on hold for a minute.

Starting point is 00:04:47 The girls have to go to the bathroom. He kept acting like he had taken great care of the hostages when, in fact, they've been very abusive to them up to that point in time. So, Chris, one of the ideas that you talk about in the book is this idea of mirroring. Explain to our audience a little bit more about this. Just repeating the last one to three words roughly of what the person has just said. Obviously, you can't repeat less than one word. You might repeat as many as five, kind of word for word. It's not paraphrasing.

Starting point is 00:05:17 You get more than five, you're paraphrasing. And it triggers an automatic response on the other side, particularly someone. who's being really guarded or really focused in what they're saying. Now, the bank robberant, in this case, he was extremely guarded and cautious about every word that came out of his mouth. And we got a little bit farther into this scenario. Now, the PD negotiated been taken off, the police department, the NYPD guy, and I'd replaced him. And I was on the phone with this guy, and it was time to confront them. And you can confront as long as you're not aggressive, about it. You got to be gentle. You got to use a good tone of voice. You know, what I would refer to is

Starting point is 00:06:00 the late night FM DJ, you know, the soothing, calming voice. So I'm using this tone of voice on this guy. I can be very assertive if I use that voice. And I said, you know, there's a van that we have out here. Now, we had his van and we knew it was his van. We just needed him to admit. So I said, we got a van out here and we've identified all of the drivers to all the vehicles except this one. And, you know, he got nervous and he said, well, we don't have a van. And I mirrored him. I said, you don't have a van? He said, we only have one van. You only have one van. He said, yeah, well, chase my driver away. Now, I've got no idea what this guy's talking about at this point. I'm actually confused. But since I know how to mirror, I'm mirroring him and he continues to

Starting point is 00:06:51 talk. He's just admitted they got a van outside. Then he admitted. that they had a getaway driver that had gotten away. He just roped into one more of his accomplices without even knowing it. The mirroring kept him talking and he was probably the most control-oriented negotiator I ever ran across. And the mirror was just brilliant at not only keeping him talking but getting him to say things that he didn't plan on saying. If you're not familiar with the concept, it almost sounds like a Jedi mind-trade kind of thing

Starting point is 00:07:23 and people might think, oh, God, like, I could so easily tell if people would be doing it to me, but at least I can say from my own experience, I've tried using it and have it done to me. It's just different. You don't know, you don't know if you do, Chris. I mean, you're an expert, but it's so subtle that it's almost unbelievable how effective it can be. I think I have a high EQ. I don't have a particularly high IQ. The high IQ and EQ people love mirrors.

Starting point is 00:07:52 Like when I run across somebody that said, man, I use it all the time, I love mirrors, that may be the only thing I do. Almost every single time, it's somebody who's brilliantly smart in all areas. And I am not. I am not a high IQ guy. Consistently, I don't know if it's a simplicity of it and the simultaneous elegance that appeal to the high IQ people. But if you're immediately attracted to mirrors, I'd be willing to bet that you tested probably really high on IQ. You just mentioned that before, Chris, that you could use the late-night DJ voice. And actually, you introduced three different types of voices in negotiation.

Starting point is 00:08:30 And that might sound a little surprising to our listeners, because most of us are probably just thinking about us having one voice and perhaps they didn't even think about in the first place that you can different types of voices. So could you lay out for us the three different types we can use and in which situation they are applicable? For instance, in this example, in this story here. The three types, first of all, the late-night FM DJ voice is really the voice of a really analytical person. You know, it's a person that likes to think things through at a measured pace.

Starting point is 00:09:05 And so consequently, that's the voice that they use. Now, the great thing about that voice is it also causes the other person to be more thoughtful to slow down, to calm down. There's neuroscience that backs that up. It has to do with mirror neurons in our brains and neurochemicals. And it's the main reason that hostage negotiators just don't get an argument. And business people do all the time. But hostage negotiators don't because a smooth and calming voice actually has an effect on the other person's brain chemistry.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Then there's the assertive voice, you know, the direct and honest voice. Like, you know, this is what I want and this is when I want it. You know, you want to make a deal. This is what I need. Again, it's a neuroscience reaction. It makes people combat it. That's not good for your negotiations. The third voice is the accommodator's voice.

Starting point is 00:10:00 It's somebody that smiles when you talk to them. You can feel the smile when they talk. And again, there's a neurochemical reaction. And you're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind. So even if you make yourself smile, you actually make yourself smarter and consequently, the other person feels it and they get in a positive frame of mind. And so you get great collaborative negotiations when you smile. And there's actually there's a neurochemical response behind it.

Starting point is 00:10:34 There's data that backs up the truth. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo, Fjord and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year, bringing

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Starting point is 00:14:53 In your book, you talk about not getting to yes, which is a very popular negotiation book that I'm sure most people are familiar with. But you talk about getting to know. So talk to us about this idea. The problem with yes is there's always a catch with yes. You know, there's always a hidden trap. There's always a catch. And people still teach the yes momentum or momentum selling. And they refer to every yes as a micro agreement or a tie down. Well, that's a catch. You know, that's a trap. And if you get somebody into three microagreements, then they have to make the big agreement. So you start to tie them down. You take away their

Starting point is 00:15:38 autonomy. Now, people feel this. And everybody in the world has had this done to them multiple times so that instantly their intuition is getting triggered, their warning bells, their internal alarms. As soon as somebody starts to try to get them to say yes, they start thinking like, what's the trap here? What's the tie down? How is this going to back me into a corner? I mean, I literally, I've had people say to me, if I say yes to this, what does it commit me to? What have I let myself in for? So even if you're not trying to tie people down, as soon as you begin to model behavior, the tricksters are modeling, they think you're a trickster. I mean, I think it's an African saying, you know, once bitten by a snake, you're afraid of ropes. People overreact to fears. And that's what this getting to yes

Starting point is 00:16:29 problem is, every yes feels like a trick or a trap. So there's an automatic aversion to the word. Now, the insane thing is people are taught that when they say no, that they've just protected themselves from the trap. So it's the stupidest change in the question from, do you have a few minutes to talk to is now a bad time to talk? Instead of saying, do you agree, we teach people to say, do you disagree? Instead of saying, does this look like something that would work for you? We teach people to say, is this a ridiculous idea? Just switching from yes to know to start with has a massive change in a way people react. They don't feel trapped. They've been conditioned that's saying no protects them. So they relax. They calm down. They're more agreeable having said no.

Starting point is 00:17:21 You also mentioned there that if you want the other party to commit, we need for them to commit not one but three times. Could you please explain, perhaps provide an example of those three steps before you potentially close a business deal? Change your thinking, don't look at yes as agreement. You're looking for agreement. You're not looking for yes. And really, when people really agree and they feel like they agree, they don't say yes.

Starting point is 00:17:50 They say, that's right. So I might say, so it sounds like if we could work. work out all the details on this, it seems like you see some value here. You're going to say, that's right. And I might say, so that's right? And I go like, yeah, well, you know, if all the details are worked out and you meet our objectives, then this would work for us. And so now you paraphrase it. Basically, the sequence is you label what they've just said. It sounds like that if all the details are worked out, you guys can implement this process. A label starts with the terms, the words it sounds like. That's labeling. It's a verbal observation. You're not really asking a

Starting point is 00:18:33 question, you're making a verbal observation. And then whatever they respond with you, mirror, we talked about the mirror before. They may just say, that's right. You mirror, that's right. You know, you put an upward inflection on it. They're going to give you a longer answer, the longer answer is you paraphrase. Basically, you've got an agreement, three different forms based on a use of three different skills, but it's all around the same concept. So it's expanding. It's just getting so far beyond the limitations of yes, you're getting into actual collaboration. And the more words you get out of the other person's mouth, the more vested they are in the deal, the more they're going to feel like they want to do it.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Implementation is critical. In the previous question, we talked about how counterintuitive it is that we need to get to know in the negotiation. What perhaps is even more counterintuitive is the so-called accusation audit. And perhaps that's also why it's even more effective. What is an accusation audit? The accusation's audit is take an audit, take an inventory of all the accusations they might make against you. Not that you would make to them, but they would make. against you. All the insane, crazy things that's unfair, ridiculous things that they might think.

Starting point is 00:19:58 If you're in sales, you know that people don't trust salespeople. That's an accusation that they're making before you've even spoken to them. It's not fair. It's unfair. They don't even know you. How could that be fair? It doesn't matter. What are the sane, insane, insane, ridiculous accusations that they might potentially make? Now, just list them out. If they've agreed to a meeting, At some point in time, they're going to think the meeting is a waste of time. You start up by saying, like, you're probably wondering if this meeting is a wasted time. You don't deny it. You call it out.

Starting point is 00:20:28 The massive differences never deny a negative. Just call it out. And we know from neuroscience, actually, this is the way people make decisions. They have to get past the negatives. They don't ignore them. They got to deactivate it. They got to reconcile them. To some degree, they have to put them to rest.

Starting point is 00:20:47 Well, the most effective way to reconcile a negative thought is to simply state it. You know, in the United States, we've got to phrase, the elephant in the room. You know, what's the problem? The accusation is the elephant in the room. You don't get rid of the elephant in the room by either ignoring it or denying that it's there. What actually the best way to get rid of the elephant in the room is say, hey, you know, you're probably thinking there's an elephant in the room. You point it out.

Starting point is 00:21:10 You don't deny it, and then you don't follow it up, but here's why it's not there. you don't explain it away. You just call it out. It's the most effective way to deactivate negatives on earth. There's no more effective way to deactivate negatives than to simply call it out to label it and then to let that label sink in and diffuse the problem. You have a very simple technique in terms of identifying whether or not you've been successful with the accusation audit, what is it that you're looking for? What is it that you want to hear from the counterpart? Well, you know, the beautiful thing is when they stop you and they say,

Starting point is 00:21:50 no, no, no, no, you're being too hard on yourself. Now, in the interim steps, they're going to respond one of three ways to your listing of the negatives. Again, and you're not explaining, you're not denying, and you're not following on any other than a list. They're they're going to give you silence. They're going to say, that's right. Or they're going to say, no, no, no, you're being too hard.

Starting point is 00:22:11 on yourself. Let's get to it. Now, silence means you're on the right track and you haven't gone far enough. That's right. It means, of course, you nailed it perfectly. You deactivated everything. They're now ready to listen. You're trying to put them in a frame of mind where they will listen to you. And then if they say, no, no, no, no, you're being too hard on yourself. That's too much. They've actually, not only if they said that's right, but they've stepped over to your side of the table. They've embraced you. They're helping you. They're on your. your side now. You're now in complete collaboration. Those are the only three responses to the accusations order. If I was in a salary negotiation, I'd say, look, you're going to think I'm

Starting point is 00:22:53 greedy. You're probably going to think I'm self-centered. You're probably going to think I'm not a team player. You're probably going to think I'm not concerned about the future of the company. You're probably going to be shocked at how high my salary demands are. And all intents and purposes, every deal that my company negotiates, when someone has asked us our price, are we response is ridiculously high, more than you've ever paid, more than you plan on paying. And then we go completely silent. Now, we don't haggle. I say haggling is for hags. We don't bargain. We don't do that anymore. We have a price and we overdelivered. Always. And we're the most expensive and we get paid and we just raised our prices. Because what we also found out was if after I've said that my price is

Starting point is 00:23:40 ridiculously high. The person on the other end of the conversation is to stop and imagine a number higher than I had in mind. And so then when I give my number, my number is actually a relief. And we had people say to our director of sales so many times like, oh, wow, I thought it was going to be much higher than that. She started asking, okay, well, now that you know, what did you imagine? And they started quoting us ridiculously high prices. And we thought, wow, they were prepared to pay that price. So we just raised our prices. You know, if you have a lousy product, you can do this too, but you're going to destroy your business because, first of all, the price you had before, it wasn't worth what you were charging. But if you believe in over-delivering the way that we do,

Starting point is 00:24:25 then you're entitled to every penny, every dollar, every euro, whatever your means of exchanges, you're entitled to all of it. You should never cut your price. If you over-deliver, you should never cut your price. You know, it's so elegant the way that you try to prime the other person. You just let them think there for a second. And one of the favorite stories that I got from your book is the way that you can always get a late checkout of a hotel room. And I know it seems like I'm digressing here, but it's just such a neat story that I'm

Starting point is 00:24:56 really sorry, but I had to ask you to tell that and then ask for people to test it out themselves. I absolutely love this. So please go ahead, Chris. Yeah, and it's so ridiculous, too, because like I'm in a hotel the other day and I didn't get a late checkout and I called down from my room and I go like look I need a

Starting point is 00:25:12 late checkout I go like you know we can't give you one we could give you one for $75 charge and I'm thinking like you know do I really have to do this because I didn't do it right because I know that they're going to give it to me so I got lazy and so I said okay thank you very much and I hung up the phone

Starting point is 00:25:29 and I walked down to the front desk and I walked right up to the person I'd just been on the phone who just denied me a late checkout. And I looked at this young lady and I said, I am getting ready to ruin your entire day. You know, her shoulders went down. She slouched. She looked down. She took a deep breath. And she said, okay, what is it? And I said, I need a late checkout. She goes, oh, oh, okay, sure, sure. She said, we're four o'clock. You want four. Here, you can have it right away. This is a person on the phone when I didn't do it right, the priming that you talked about.

Starting point is 00:26:07 You know, we referred to this also as emotional anchoring. But in emotional anchor in advance, she just told me no. I had to save my time in the very beginning if I had just done it right from the beginning because now I had to walk down to the front desk and I had time to walk back. But I got lazy. You know, I didn't want to take the other person's emotions into account. I got very self-centered. I was just focused on what I wanted.

Starting point is 00:26:28 And it took longer. And as soon as I took the other person's emotions into account, I said, myself tons of time. So these different techniques that you talked about, Chris, how important is it that you sit in front of that person? And how much can you do, say, over the phone? Well, with practice, you can handle it all over the phone. I mean, there's a massive amount of information comes from somebody's tone of voice when

Starting point is 00:26:53 you practice listening for it. So it's only practice. You know, a hostage negotiator does everything. We never looked at anybody. What did that mean? just got in our practice. I get used to hearing everything. And with practice, you can't. I mean, it's all there. The brain is capable of processing the data with the practice. Your gut instincts, your subconscious processes a massive amount of information. I mean, a mind-boggling amount of

Starting point is 00:27:24 information, which is why as soon as people start listening to their intuition, their intuition actually it's very good. It's just their brain interpreting data. All the data is there. You just got to give your brain the chance to do it. Interesting. So, Chris, because this is an investing podcast, we've covered prospect theory and loss aversion multiple times and how to use those concepts whenever we want to invest in the stock market. But how can we use these concepts in business in negotiations? loss aversion so then as you know lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain and in reality is loss is the overriding factor in human decision making how do you factor that into business principally in a business negotiation the real enemy is the status quo getting someone to change

Starting point is 00:28:13 what they're doing they're more likely to change to avoid a loss how do you get them to think about the loss you can't say look you're going to lose all this money if you don't do this what you have to do is a little bit of what we talked about before. You got to use a good how question or what question. You know, what happens if you do nothing? What are the consequences of inaction? If you're ready to return that you're offering is 15%, or let's say it's 7%, you know, whatever your percentage is, you can say, hey, look, make this decision and your rate of return will be 7%.

Starting point is 00:28:46 Or you can say, stay where you are, do nothing. and it will cost you 7% every day. While you're sleeping, it's going to cost you 7%. That's making a decision to avoid a loss. Instead of making a decision to accomplish a gain, do this and gain 7%, you say do nothing and lose 7%. The second one has a higher compliance rate.

Starting point is 00:29:15 Now, does it work every time? Nothing works every time. You have to go with what has a high. highest compliance rate and loss aversion has the highest compliance rate. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up and customers now expect proof of security just to do business.

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Starting point is 00:32:40 the income fund fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right, back to the show. So, Chris, one of the really fascinating parts that you talk about in the book is using odd or numbers that just seem like they're, that they've been calculated, if you will. Talk to us about why this works so well. They feel more solid to the other side. They feel more thought through. And even number feels like a soft number, like an estimate, like a temporary place. The pricing around the world is triggered to that.

Starting point is 00:33:21 You can't buy anything for a dollar or for your, or whatever your unit of exchange is. You can't buy it anywhere. It's always an odd number. It works everywhere. Every society on earth uses odd numbering in their pricing because it feels better to the other side. And then you start to kick it up to the next level. Like I've got a colleague that's selling some training for $55 a person because he's gotten

Starting point is 00:33:46 out of the 1999, $149, or the dollar $49. You know, he's gotten away from numbers that are in with nine. So he likes 55 and it just feels like something about that makes it work for the pricing that he's doing. So this isn't pricing globally. Just take advantage of it in your negotiations. We always coach people to make counteroffers in odd numbers and certainly your last offers got to be in an odd number.

Starting point is 00:34:13 That is a great point because it seems like you can't do anything. more, like giving everything away and, you know, and 53 cents. Absolutely love those examples. And I think that to our audience, you know, they're listening to you and like you heard you saying, well, you know, in our company, we don't really hackle. And they might look at you and say, well, I'm not crest. You know, I don't have any hostess negotiation skills. Perhaps they think luckily, they have a very different background.

Starting point is 00:34:38 And they're used to negotiations where at the end of the day comes down to which slice of the pie you're getting and the counterparty is getting. And so they might feel that from time to time they're being forced into some real bare-knuckle bargaining. One of the things really picked out from your book was at the FBI, you learned this model called the Ackhamen model for those type of situations. Could you please explain to us how to use that system? Accomen model is the most effective bargaining system out there, bar none, when you get into bargain. It's based on a dynamic of three again. You see the dynamic of three in human nature prop up over and over again.

Starting point is 00:35:16 So it's based on you're going to plan out for three rounds of bargain. You come up with a target price and you're going to allow yourself to be moved into that target price in three increments. Your increments have to be decreasing increments. Every move that you make has to be smaller than the one before. The other side will feel the increments getting smaller. They will feel victory every step of the way, but they will feel each victory was harder and harder one. So that if you get to your number, they felt like they got everything they could. And that number then becomes a tremendous victory for them, which if they don't take it,

Starting point is 00:36:00 they've lost it. Again, this is this loss aversion. People don't want to lose victories. You want to make them feel like they won because they're more likely to stick to it. So the principal concepts are three rounds of decreasing increments, decreasing incremental changes. Critical that each change is in a decreasing increment. Use of odd numbers. And then in between those three, the other side has to counter. Otherwise, you're bargaining against yourself, which is what everyone in the world is trying to get you to bargain against yourself, which you cannot do, because you're taking

Starting point is 00:36:39 yourself hostage and you're losing. So the other side's got a counteroffer. And then you have to apply lots of paraphrasing, summarizing, tactical empathy in each round, which also, again, makes the other side feel like they've worked really hard for the outcome. Plus, there's a very real chance that they'll settle on your number sooner. You might not even get to your third number. A lot of people come to the table with Ackerman, they're going to come in with an offer that's roughly 65% of where they want to be. And then with enough tactical empathy, they end up right at that number. I mean, they're shocked. I mean, shocked. No shortage of people using Ackerman have ended up at their first number because they put so much tactical empathy in with that

Starting point is 00:37:33 number that they never had to come off. Our listeners might be a bit overwhelmed right now, They listen to this interview and they're like, Chris is right. I need to do these, you know, 12 different things next time I go to meeting and they're already, you know, they're too confused. So it's kind of like analysis paralysis. So if we can just give them like one thing where like this is effective, this is simple, try it out. If you just have to mention one thing, what would you recommend people starting with sort

Starting point is 00:38:03 of to apply these techniques in their daily lives? I'll mention one thing and I'm going to give some people some guidance. on how to work it all into their repertoire, because you can if you break it down into small things. And that's why I love about you wanting to start with one small thing. The other thing that's great about this, too, is as soon as you begin to improve at all, the biggest jumps of improvement are at the beginning, like with any skill. So it's just get a little bit better, and you're going to see a rate of return. It's huge.

Starting point is 00:38:36 The first thing to do is really, you know, just let the other side go first. and try to paraphrase whatever they've said. Don't argue, don't counteroffer. Don't make your value proposition. I mean, they got a pitch. They want to make it. Make an effort to hear them out. If you've heard them out really well, they're going to say that's right.

Starting point is 00:38:54 A bunch of your deals will make themselves as soon as your counterpart says that's right. Now, how many of them will it make? It doesn't matter. Because now those are made. and you don't have to put any more work on. You just put a whole bunch of time back into your life. So make an effort to just summarize, paraphrase what the other side has said, get a that's right out of somebody before you do anything else.

Starting point is 00:39:24 Whatever percentage of deals will make themselves on a spot, now you can put a little more effort into the other deals. But just get a that's right out of somebody. So, Chris, instead of saying, do this one thing, How about what would you say is a common mistake that you see a lot of people make? Being a yes addict. I mean, just like, do you have a few minutes to talk? Does what I said make sense?

Starting point is 00:39:48 Have I got that right? I mean, there's so many ways that people are addicted to yes. And the problem is, again, just because you like hearing it, you got to remember, the other side feels like you're trying to trick them, trap them, tie them down. So every time you hear the delightful yes, which makes me, you hear the delightful yes, which makes, makes you feel like the angels are singing. The other side feels like they're being trapped. They're being tricked. They're backing themselves into a corner. So it's good for you. It's horrible for them. This whole yes thing. I mean, get out of yes. I mean, just stop trying to get people

Starting point is 00:40:23 to say yes. You'll change your conversation. Plus, you'll find if you're no longer looking for yes, you're actually listening. You're paying attention to what they're actually saying. You're actually having a conversation as soon as you get out of yes, all your interactions will improve. Chris, this has been absolutely amazing having a chance to speak with you. And I'm sure the audience would like to learn more. So first of all, where can I learn more about you, but also your company, Black Swan Group? The best place is just go to the website, Black SwanltD.com, B-L-A-C-S-W-A-N-L-T-D dot com. and the website is a gateway to everything.

Starting point is 00:41:04 We have a lot of free content. We got a lot of stuff that you can get for free. The newsletter is free. You can go to the website and sign up. We've got PDF guides. You know, we got a negotiation preparation guide. We got a lot, a lot, a lot of free tools that you can use to get a long way. You combine it with the book.

Starting point is 00:41:24 You're going to put yourself in a position to make a big difference in your life starting this week. and you can begin to make small little improvements every day. And in a very short period of time, you're going to find that negotiation is fun. And you're very effective and you've got more time. And before we just let you go, the one last thing I wanted to ask you, Chris, is that some people are my thinking, why is it called Black Swan Group? There's a really interesting story to that name. So I don't know if I could briefly ask you to mention why is it called Black Swan Group.

Starting point is 00:41:59 Yeah, the impact of the highly improbable, the little things that you wouldn't imagine make all the difference in the world. You know, originally the black swan was in 16th century Europe that there were only white swans. And people thought, you know, there's no such thing as a black swan. A black swan would be a game changing, a world changing event. And then they discovered black swans in Australia. And people were like, holy cow, there are black swans. It's phenomenal. This is crazy.

Starting point is 00:42:27 And this metaphor has been applied to modern day times to the little things that make all the difference. And in negotiations, these tiny little steps make all the difference in the outcome. You uncover things that'll change everything. Find the black swans in a negotiation and come up with better deals than you ever imagined you could get. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time out of your business schedules to be speaking with us here on the MSS podcast. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me on. All right, as we're letting Chris go, we're now ready to answer a question from the audience,

Starting point is 00:43:02 and this question comes from Mark. Hi, Preston. Hi, Stig. It's Mark Ginnings calling from the UK. I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you for a fantastic and informative show. I've been listening now for the last six months or so, and I've really picked up a lot of tips and really appreciate it. I wonder if you could possibly help me as I'm starting to put together a little bit of a portfolio. and I came across something in a book I'm reading called The Naked Trader

Starting point is 00:43:30 just in regards to using shorts as a balancer for my portfolio. Now, at present I run indexes like the FTSE 100 and so on, but I've seen that there's something called the S-UK-2, which shorts twice the value of the FTSE-100. And I'm wondering, is it possible to create an all-weather portfolio between special types of ETF traded funds, but in opposite correlation of each other. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:44:04 We previously here on the show talked about the all-weather portfolio, but just quickly to sum it up for everyone to follow. It's an approach that Reddally was made famous, and you're basically taking a combination of different asset classes, stocks, bonds, commodities, and gold to make sure that your portfolio can perform in all seasons of the financial market. But to your question whether or not you can use shorts in an all-weathered type of portfolio, the answer is yes in theory, but it's likely not as effective in reality. You could perhaps even consider diversifying out of the Futsi for that reason alone,

Starting point is 00:44:40 for instance, into global equities. So you're based in the UK, so that's why you refer to the Futsi, but for all our American listeners, the argument is basically the same if they would do it to the Dow or the S&P 500. Shorting is generally quite expensive, so limiting exposure to equities in general will be a cost saver and then invest into an asset class with a yield and shorling does not have a yield that is inversely correlated instead. That way you can have your cake and eat it too. If you want to have a more neutral exposure to the stock market, there's also a different option even though it's outside the scope of the other weather portfolio.

Starting point is 00:45:17 If you think that one stock will relatively outperform another, but you just don't know, you'd don't want to count on the tailwind of the stock market to help you do so, you can go long individual stock in, say, for instance, Bank of America, and then short Wells Fargo. That way, even if the stock market tanks, you can make a profit if you write about the relative performance of the two stocks. And if you want, you can even do the same thing with two different ETFs, which this sounds like Mark is probably more would be getting at, given that you mainly invested in indexes. Generally, I would say that anything that involves shodding, though, is a bit more sophisticated

Starting point is 00:45:52 and for the vast majority of investors, I would much rather recommend that you diversify into different assets and asset classes rather than into shodding if you want to lower your volatility. Yeah, so for me on this, I am very worried of doing anything short these days. And the main reason why is because you have central banks and governments around the world that are demonstrating a desire to print and to print at no holds bar. I mean, it is just, it's very different than the cultural setting that we had during the Great Depression, which was let the businesses fail. and if you've taken on too much leverage, you should fail. I just think culturally, everyone's looking at the government and saying, why aren't you printing more? And that's pretty much seen collectively across both parties and on Wall Street, pretty much anywhere you go, anywhere in the world.

Starting point is 00:47:00 That's pretty much the mindset. So my opinion is that we might have these deflationary liquidity crunches. that are going to manifest themselves, but I kind of suspect that governments around the world are going to step in and print at unseen levels. And so when you think about how a short performs, it's in nominal terms. So if they're nominally just adding more and more Fiat units into the system,

Starting point is 00:47:32 I'd be very concerned having a long-term short position in pretty much anything. So I don't know that I can really help you with a response because I'm really kind of just, it's hard for me to see past what I just described. And so hopefully between my response and Stig's response there, Mark, we got you something that was of some kind of value. For asking such an awesome question, which this is an awesome question, and I think it's something very important for people to be thinking about, especially during these times. We're going to give you free access to our TIP finance tool, which helps you find just fantastic companies that are pumping out some good free cash flows and that are trading on the market for a good price.

Starting point is 00:48:18 Not only can you do that, but then you can look at how correlated those picks are to other picks that you have in your portfolio, and that includes ETFs and stocks. So it also has a momentum tool and all sorts of things that help you and assist you with your financial journey. So really excited to be able to give that to you. And for anybody else out there, if you want to get a question played on our show, go to Asktheinvestors.com. And if your question gets played on the show, you get a free subscription to our TIP finance tool.

Starting point is 00:48:44 All right, guys, Preston, I really hope you enjoyed this episode of The Investors Podcast. We will see each other again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. making any decisions consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or re-broadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP320: Negotiations w/ Former FBI Agent Chris Voss (Business Podcast)

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