FBI Hostage Negotiator: The Secret To Getting ANYTHING You Want! | Chris Voss

I don't bargain I negotiate gunman burst into the Chase Manhattan Bank in Park Slope this morning ever since negotiators have been trying to get them to give up what persuaded the government finally to come out I think it was excellent hostage negotiating have you always been so good at negotiation like nobody's always good at it nobody's always good at anything negotiation is a learned skill and it's a perishable scho most people see successful negotiations as who's the pushiest who's most demanding great negotiations just emotional intelligence people are driven more by loss than by gain cuz almost all negotiations you're pitching gain almost all sales you pitching gain knowing that that completely changes my assessment of how I'm talking to you what the value is do you think it's possible that anybody can negotiate a higher salary this is what you do you walk into his office and say this and mean it [Music] all right Chris Voss thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour really appreciate it uh my pleasure thanks for having me on so you are an FBI agent lead crisis negotiator you were for 20 years you have a best-selling book called Never split the difference and you also taught courses at Harvard on how to negotiate so I'm curious why should people care about negotiation in point of fact we're in seven or eight negotiations every day like um negotiations about collaboration first of all if you see it as collaboration secondarily most of the time people think of it as win lose beating the other side which means you're constantly repelling people with that approach and the one commodity that's always involved in negotiations is is time which is why you're negotiations all every day like my favorite example is um number of years ago I ran across a guy who started this website called Secrets said tell me your secrets anonymously I will share them with the world anybody struggling with what you're struggling with and it helps them to know they're not alone so one of the phrases I use is the most dangerous negotiations the one you don't know you're run he comes up to me and he says um I get a Starbucks coffee cup still in a rapper to prove that it was from somebody at Starbucks and the note said I give dkf to people who are mean to me so even when you're in a negoti ordering uh something at Starbucks yeah what makes it a negotiation the other side has to implement the way you asked and how are they going to know if you they put DCA how you going to know if they put in dcaf or how you going to know if they did yours right away or the person behind you they like more so they kept putting you behind them in a line like implementation is what it's about people want to implement never be mean to somebody could hurt you by doing nothing well who did you interact with in a given day that you needed him to do something for you or they just said ah you know there's nothing I could do well they hurt you by doing nothing because they didn't like the way you negotiated with them and it's constant so then the flip side is what can I do for you if they felt like it like I'm I'm getting ready to get on an airplane the other day and I asked for a different seat the guy like the way I asked so he's moving other people out of seats to put me where I wanted to go now they will never know they got moved but I got a better seat because he liked the way he approached me how yeah walks through that approach I try all the time and I always get sorry our flight's full we can't do anything yeah because you come up there and you ask the same way as everybody else did like most people most people see successful negotiations as who's the pushiest who's the most demanding like there are a lot of people out there that you know they'll go into a hotel and you might not be demanding but this is what they're used to on the other side that's the problem they're preconditioned to the demanding person or the person who's going to make a pitch you know do this for me and it'll be good for you you know I'll give you guys a five star review or all the promises that people make that they never follow through with like I I walk in and you know I'm I'm playful self-effacing humor is uh the combination of empathy and humor simultaneously so you I walk up and say look I probably feel like the biggest JK you ever saw in your life or my son when he needed to change changed his seat on an airplane one time cuz he was late he walks in he says I'm here to sign up for the mistake of the day award and I am the dumbest customer that you are going to see today and he saw the woman behind the counter smile and she finished typing and she looked at him she says all right what do you got and he had called me uh because he was supposed to fly at the LA we were teaching at USC at the time and he called me to tell me he was going to be late and he was in this great mood and I'm like you missed your flight and you're going to be late and you're really happy well as it turns out the the subsequent flight that she booked them on which with no fee first of all she didn't have to rebook them at all the amount of power the people in the airlines have on those keyboards is astonishing they can do crazy stuff if they feel like it how did you approach them did you did you walk up and go how are you today that's an indicator you got an ask in that of voice first of all secondly everybody says how are you today when was the last time you looked at him and said you know you look like it's been a tough day or you look happy or you look distracted or looks like an average day like if they're stressed walk up and they'll go how are you today cuz you're trying to push them into another mood and they feel that right away if they look stressed walk up and say tough day and they be like wow somebody just saw me and they they weren't trying to change me you know they it felt concerned with no push and no asking beted and you you begin to change things from the very beginning first of all by not approaching them the way everybody else does everybody wants a free seat everybody wants a better seat for nothing and what's your reason cuz I'm a good customer did you check my status do you see I'm a diamond member you know no they've heard that all the time and you know a lot of people will be successful with that they get 10% 10% is a throwaway 10% is the annoyance fee you're so annoying I'm going to give you 10% when I could give you 30 if I felt like it but because you're annoying and I want to get rid of you I'm going to give you 10% of a thore way just to get you out of in front of me so there's all these little things a lot of it starts with don't be the same annoying person that they've seen 10 of already that day so throughout this podcast we're going to go over a bunch of different strategies on how to negotiate and become better off because of that but I always worry when I was doing a bunch of research into you and I was drafting up the questions I kept on conflating like strategies to get what you want with some sort of manipulation right like how do you differentiate between the two because if you're employing strategies that's just not talking clearly and concisely you know without all of the added context and fluff if you're adding strategies that's like I guess embellishing something in order to get what you want how do you differentiate between the two yeah well so what's your intention to begin with u manipulation is when you're trying to get something at the expense of the other person when they find out about it they'd never do it again uh influence with somebody that you you like my Approach with people is at a bare minimum if I leave you in a better mood than when I walked up I'm happy cuz I made a deposit in the karma bank I have uh increased the chances of going to get something but I'm a very strong believer in karma um uh so it's selfish of me to try to make the world a better place it's ultimately going to come back around to me it's it's selfish of me to try to leave you in a better mood than when I walked up like I don't know how it's going to come back to me positively but it is so to start with that's my goal my goal is to leave you better than I found you you're going to sense that right away and in my Approach a lot of people can be really Charming until they don't get what they want and then they turn into vindictive jerks like when I was a cop I get somebody locked up on a way to the police station you know they're they're hitting me with tons of flattery I know they figure for some reason that between now and a police station I'm going to stop the car I'm going to open the door I'm going to take the Cuffs off them and turn them loose which is not going to happen and so they're saying all these nice things to me on the way to the police station being really complimentary and as soon as I get in the station they they saying the nastiest meanest vindictive hateful things because they use flattery they didn't get what they want but what they really wanted was something at my expense so how do you know if someone is being honest or truthful when you know you're negotiating with them I feel like if someone's flattering a lot of people would just kind of yeah flatter is a weapon and even like the way that you say tough day like when I hear that I'm like man like you know I wasn't but now I feel like I was having a tough day no you no you weren't no you weren't let's stop right there first of all no you were not because this is a pretend situation and you're not rolling in having a tough day so what you're trying to do is you're trying you're defeating it in your brain your migdal is kicked kicked into gear here's what I would I I challenge you to do whoever you run across on the outside today you're going to get a read on what's going through their mind when you walk up all you got to do is pay attention to the person all the data you need is to the day that they're having is is going to be right there in front of your face now if they look indiff say looks like an average day if they look happy say looks like you're having a good day if they look stressed do that go tough day see what happens have you always been so good at negotiation like nobody's always good at it nobody's always good at anything negotiation is a learn two things it's a learn skill and it's a perishable skill Jim Camp a long time ago referred to negotiation as a human Performance Event now he would put it in that category because at one point in time he was a football coach but in point of fact that's true so emotional intelligence is unlimited and perishable great negotiation is just emotional intelligence reading the person seeing what the possibilities are in the moment and then really where it goes has to do with what your intention are a long-term trusted relationship or am I trying to exploit you now get away with exploiting you once but you're not going to repeat with me again and so and I realize that there's no such thing as a one-off I'm I'm a big believer in karma in general and I I figure I'm going to see you again like one one of my students at uh Georgetown went in the Home Depot in my book never spit the difference there's there's a chapter on bargaining towards the end and it's called the acman bargaining method and it's ridiculously effective so he goes in a Home Depot and like he just kills him on a price just gets one of the best prices on the cabinets that you could possibly imagine from Home Depot it's got to come back a couple of weeks later because there's a problem you think they want to help him this is a guy that cut their throat before they're charging him for every dime and still dragging their feet so really aren't oneoff negotiations and so I treat everybody like I got to live with my intentions and I want them to continue to do business with me for 20 years so that strategy that you taught that he employed what were like the actual steps in him to achieve the cheapest cabinets even if it just be once I don't bargain I negotiate and I negotiate with long-term prosperity in mind so I can beat you on the price and I have in the past in one way or another it's always come back to haunt me now every now and then you're going to have somebody on the other side of the table you got to get into bare Knuckles bargaining with but that shouldn't be your default move it should be your last move what's wrong with that because if I you on a price and I need you for anything else you're going to pay me back with interest um at least 2x if not more over what I saved on the initial price so bargaining like crazy is a great way to defeat yourself long term and I you know if you and I get into a negotiation I'm going to want you to give me your real price you know most people make this mistake of asking for more than what they want there's a lot of advice out there you know anchor High um ask for more what you want be willing to settle for less but number one I've done this long enough that if you anchor for more if you ask for more than what you really want you've lied to me that was a lie and then it becomes very easy to excuse yourself for lying all the time one way or the other and then people eventually find out and then people know that look look you know I can't trust him he not going to tell me what he really wants what's really going to make him happy he's going to exaggerate he's going to distort everything he says to me and at some point in time I'm just going to stop talking to you period if I if I can't count on you to tell me the truth and so asking for more than what you really want by definition is a lie to begin with but you know what while we're on this topic it really got me thinking about what the future has in store for businesses because if you ask nine different experts you're going to get 10 different answers from a bull market a bare market stocks are going up stocks 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guide is completely free nets.com nets.com with the link Down Below in the description thank you netsuite for sponsoring today's podcast and now let's get back to the episode when did you realize you had a knack for negotiation I realized I en enjoyed applying emotional intelligence when I was working to become a hostage negotiator cuz when I first wanted to become an FBI hostage negotiator in New York I was rejected because in point of fact I was imminently unqualified the uh woman who was running the team I approached her she knew who I was she was in a different squad on the terrorist Task Force at the time I'm working domestic she's working International and I walked up to her and say Hey you know I'm Chris V she's yeah I know who you are um I want to become a hostage to go she and she's like yeah you and everybody else everybody wants to do it sounds easy sounds fun sounds sexy people want to sign on they want to get the t-shirt and uh then they don't want to do anything afterwards just cool thing to be say you're a hostage negotiator so she says you know just I know you were a cop were you on the hostage negotiation te with the police department I'm like nope she said you got a degree in Psychology or a related degree I'm like no she said you have anything on your resume at all that would qualify for you to be a hostage negotiator I'm like no she says well you can't forget it stop bothering me and um I'm persistent uh I'm coachable which I didn't really realize at the time and I take instruction from the right people never take advice from somebody who hasn't been where you want to go or somebody um who you wouldn't trade places with so anyway I'm coachable and I she rejects me and I say well there's got to be something you I can do she said there is go volunteer on a hotline now tell you've done that stop bothering me so I went volunteered I found a hotline happened to be the hotline that she had volunteered on and I got back to her about 5 months after I'd been on the lines and she was shocked like I I tell everybody to do that Nobody Does it and I was shocked I'm like if I ask why wouldn't I do it like why in God's name would I ask if I wasn't going to do it but in point of fact most people don't do what you tell them to do so then I got on the line and when in the training they say all right so just so you know up front all calls are limited to 20 minutes and I remember I saying like 20 minutes you got to be kidding me and they say no as a matter of fact if you're doing it right it won't take that long and so you get on the line so when you understand the actual application of empathy like it moves very quickly ridiculously fast and there's a law enforcement data that says that uh interviewers who use um active listening empathy skills actually use them get collaboration confession 14 times faster than anybody else does 14 times faster so I'm on a hotline and I'm seeing this ridiculous transformation in people and 20 minutes or less and I thought are people in crisis the only people that deserve to be understood without being judged without being given any advice one of the critical issues was never give advice ever and I started using in my personal life and it started making I don't do it all the time I'm not Flawless but it's it's transformative faster than anything else is did that negatively affect you or influence you after getting off some of those calls because I imagine that you have to have a somewhat thick skin and if I were to hear those situations I I I don't think I'd mentally be able to comprehend what these people are going through well um if you go through the training regardless and you stick to the training you're going to be fine it didn't mentally affect me and I didn't suffer burnout all all crisis hotlines the number one problem is volunteer burnout funding is close on the heels with number two but it's not number one and I wasn't vulnerable to it because I went there to learn a skill I went there as a mercenary now actually helping people I really enjoyed that I mean I got a kick out of the fact that somebody could be lost and 20 minutes later be back on better footing most people go to High lines to help and if you there to help Then You're vulnerable to the emotional burnout that you're talking about because you can't help everybody and there actually a large a significant percentage of people that call in to not be helped if there someone's genuinely in crisis they're going to listen to you but because you're supposed to listen as a volunteer there's a bunch of people out there the energy vampires people that nobody could stand they call crisis hotlines to prove that the world sucks and they're going to prove that the world sucks by abusing the person on the other end of the line so that's a source of real burnout on all on all these voluntary lines the frequent callers that are there simply to abuse you so what's the common and ineffective way that people would fail helping or attempting to help people calling on the crisis helpline versus The Uncommon and more effective thing that you can get someone off of a Ledge in 20 minutes or less yeah well the first predisposition to advice uh advice is debilitating to the other person if I'm giving you advice on an emotional level I'm talking down to you I'm saying look just be as smart as I am here's a smart thing to do why don't you do this smart thing what's the matter with you that's what advice is um and advice is frequently significantly fall flawed unless somebody's got experience doing it if they got if they've been there um if they've actually dealt with the problem and then if they've actually dealt with the problem if you don't feel emotionally connected you don't care about their advice anyway because you feel dismissed you feel talked down to uh just because advice is wrong doesn't mean it's not well-intentioned just because you shouldn't be giving advice doesn't mean that your heart is in the wrong place that you're not actually trying to help those are two separate things that are simultaneously true advice does know any doesn't do anybody any good and your heart can be in the right place why don't most people know CU empathy is invisible like we see people giving advice all the time our advice might be accurate because we're not emotionally involved we don't know all the Dynamics that are there so you don't see it in everyday life then of course in in movies and TV you know somebody give somebody else advice and they go like oh wow yeah that's insightful or they'll say something really stupid like I know how you feel I I I I suffered loss too but if I'm using empathy with you internally it's going to be landing well and unless he knows what he's looking for he's not going to see it he's not going to see it at all and it's it's it's astonishing invisible it's not cele rep but you're you're talking about using empathy instead of advice what's the difference between empathy compassion and sympathy that's a brilliant question all right so the best description of empathy is simply the transmission of information without taking a position on not saying it's right or wrong I'm saying yes or no good or bad Stephen Kyler friend of mine has written a number of great books uh anything has got Steven coller's name on it you probably ought to read it and he said empath is about the transmission of information compassion is the reaction to that transmission so what's an example of empathy so I'm with the FBI joint terrorist task force New York City at the time um uh First World Trade Center bombing subsequent plot to blow up four locations in New York City simultaneously guys who claim to be Muslims Islamic terrorist if you will to put a brand on them all of the witnesses that we uh put at trial 99% of them we a couple a couple Witnesses um testified to bargain their way into lighter sentences but the vast majority of Witnesses are there voluntarily Arab Muslims from the Middle East testifying against a a man who has legitimate credentials as a cleric an Islamic cleric he's got legitimate credentials he's been to Alazar University in Egypt uh as an expert on a religion he also was inciting others to commit um which is a crime so what are these guys thinking uh if uh Egyptian Muslim in the United States driving a cab when they said when they look at me representative of the FBI they thinking like you know you're from an anti-islamic country you know your your country no matter what you guys say he's got a history of Being anti-islamic for the last 200 years which is what I would say to him i' I'd sit down and I'd say I know you believe that the United States government has been anti-islamic for the last 200 years that's their perspective but me saying it out loud not just understanding it I got to say it out loud particularly if it's against me and they'd be shocked that I could say it and then not go but we have a First Amendment you know but we believe in freedom of religion but but but they don't care about that when I lay out your point of view the way you see it and don't explain any of it away particularly stuff that I know the negative light that you see me in what do I look like to you a straight shooter somebody you can count on somebody that tells the truth no matter what the truth is and I'm not afraid of it which gives me a massive amount of credibility and it completely changes your perspective on me do you try to then use the butt at some other points afterwards never then how do you lean the conversation away from yeah I you know you must believe this this how can you then articulate your own point across to maybe hear have them hear a different perspective well if I want if I want to share some thoughts with you I will uh I will first plan on laying it out in really small doses and I'm going to read your reaction all along the way see if I see skepticism see if you're on if you're with me uh um but I'm going to I I will ask permission to share with a no warranted question question and I'll say is it a ridiculous idea for me to share a couple Thoughts with you if the answer is yes then I'm not going to share them but if the answer is no then you'll listen to me in small doses I'm not going to try to uh make a 25o argument you know conversation should be back and forth and I should be paying attention to you and if I if I see a look on your face where you reacted like that would be what we refer to as an affect change if any expression on your face changes something has cross your mind now I don't know what it is which is why we don't teach body language if I'm really good at body language it means I'm going to be right about a third of the time which means two-thirds of the time I'm going to be wrong like a classic example I heard if somebody's listening to you and they're scowling they could be angry they could have gas H nothing alike and I'm one of those people uh if I'm listening intently to you I have a resting serial killer face I'm looking at you like I'm thinking about eating you with a nice keante and some fava beans like I scare people I listen so intently so if you thought I was angry and then you proceeded as if you were correct in that assumption then we're going to get off track really fast I see something cross your mind I'll say looks like something just crossed your mind and you're very likely to tell me exactly what it is because I recognize because I'm watching I'm paying attention and you appreciate the fact that I saw that now with something cross your mind if I keep going you're distracted by what just crossed your mind and you're going to miss everything I say so I got to stop there and find out what's going on that's why you I'm going to I'm going to proceed in my thoughts a little bit at a time and I'm going to make sure that we're in alignment the whole time or do my best to keep us in align what's something unexpected that you learned about human nature in the process of negotiation that people are driven more by loss and by gain cuz almost all negotiations you're pitching gain almost all sales you're pitching gain if I'm trying to get you to do something at all if I'm trying to get you to give me a cup of coffee I'm pitching gain if I want an upgrade in my hotel room for free I'm pitching gain I'll give you guys reviews but the vast majority at least 70% of our behavior is driven by trying to mitigate or avoid a loss so if knowing that then that completely changes my assessment of how I'm talking to you uh where we're going what the value is in those cases where they try to get what they want has there ever been a situation where a hostage taker has gotten away well all right so there's there's there's two kinds of quote hostage situations there's you know sort of domestic us which is contained known location and it's kind of self-defined you know where they are they're in a bank we got the banks surrounded they're contained he's in his house you know where he is got the house surrounded that contained and then kidnappings tend to be uncontained unknown location we don't know where the bad guy is we don't know where the victim is domestic us kidnappings are extraordinarily dangerous vast majority of the time you're never going to see the hostage they're going to die there's nothing you could do about it International kidnappings whole different ball game vast majority of the time it's going to be a ransom ransom's going to Ransom the hostage out they're going to come out and a ransom's going to get them out now International kidnapping then essentially the way you got to work it if you're going to work it where you really want to bring not just a bad guy to justice but his whole operation then you use the ransom as bait same reason you give bait money to a bank teller bad guy comes in to rob the bank you don't give the bank teller access to the Vault you give the bank teller stack of money few hundred maybe a couple thousand you got the serial numbers recorded there may be a die pack the money hands it to the bad guy bad guy doesn't shoot the bank teller nor take him or her hostage bad guy leaves a bank small amount of money if the die pack explodes as die pack all over him if it doesn't explode he goes back to his Hideout divides the money up with his buddies they go out and they spend the money you trace the money you take everybody not just a not just a bank robber that's the best way to work international kidnapping you get enough evidence in the kidnapping to indict the bad guy you lengthen the process out you get a lot communication which gives you a lot of evidence a lot of information you get them indicted ultimately you ID them ultimately either they end up in a US jail depending upon the country uh in the Philippines if you get away with kidnapping there and the US has got you indicted quite likely the Philippine government is going to find you you when I think of those situations I often revert back to movies where they know how to ask for like I want this airplane and I want these bills and I want a car to meet me at this location like how accurate is that to real life like can there be a series of requests that give that person a high likelihood of just disappearing not inside the United States CU you US law enforcement has learned a lesson first of all like we won't even let them get in a car to go to the airport and plan to assault them let's say we never plan on letting them get to the airport as soon as a guy comes out of a contained location more people are at risk and the Civil liability as a result is indefensible and there's one thing that gets us law enforcement's attention it's civil liability so the minute that thing goes mobile no matter how smart we think our plan is and maybe every now and then somebody might think that they can let them get away with that but it's going to go bad and extra people are going to get killed or even hurt and the lawsuits can bankrupt the city let alone a police department so you don't let people go mobile domestic us now there aren't the same rules in other countries they don't have the same civil liability they don't Comm their law enforcement is not trained to the same level they take chances that would uh shock you and it's mostly in what we would refer to as the developing World M like you're not going Mobile in the UK and I doubt if there's any Western European country that would let you go mobile yeah again you see stuff like that happen in the Philippines you see it happen in Brazil where they may have very uh well equipped robust law enforcement that's poorly trained they don't have a great jail system and they don't have their Judiciary is not as effective like the entire structure rounding it he's not as robust and as effective as as the US is you know in those countries something every now and then goes mobile cuz they just they want to be over and they want to get a chance of killing a bad guy and they don't pay a high price for killing innocent civilians in a crossfire can you walk us through a specific scenario that that you worked on that went in your mind very well but you know what while we're on the topic if you've ever run a business before you know that handling the back office finances could be a headache you have countless cards receipts and payments to keep track of and then as your team grows you add even more company cards receipts and payments to keep track of it could be a real nightmare but it doesn't have to be with her sponsor ramp ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket with ramp you get full control and insight into company spend you can issue cards to every single employee with customized limits and restrictions and you can automate expense reporting so no more chasing receipts and endless expense reports because ramp software 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all and there may not be one that happens in the US in five years cuz the bad guys know the police run away and so they're going to get out of there they might take hostages to get into the Vault but they know in a very short period of time cops going to be there and they're smart enough not to stick around so the bank robbery with hostages that I negotiated the Chase Manhattan Bank you know last century they got trapped inside NYPD FBI showed up we put together combined team the commander of uh the NYPD negotiators took responsibility to run the negotiations I took the coaching and then with my hotline experience you know I just started laying uh empathy on him and I had a bad guy out about five 90 minutes later what did that person feel like they got in exchange for giving themselves up you got to live not only did he get to live but his biggest concern was he didn't want to to take a beating when he stepped out the front door when he was satisfied that he wasn't going to get killed his next most urgent concern was whether or not he was going to get beaten badly and then he was concerned about how much jail time he was going to do I was working on this guy to let a hostage go which as you could imagine I should be doing right I'm a hostage negotiated we got to get hostages out one of the other members of the team his gun instinct told him that this guy wanted out more than anything else so I'm sitting on the phone I'm talking to him people are handing me notes and somebody hands him on me a note says ask him if he wants to come out and in in the minute I switched from you know working on getting a hostage out and I said you want to come out and he says I don't know how I do it which is a great big giant yes if I can give him a plan and so now this is a 180 degree turn on the conversation and so I start going back and forth with him and his concern about jail time keeps coming up up and the abuse that he knows is taking place inside which he won't say but he's kind of alluding to being held accountable and and finally the last step because I was just I was and I listen to him I didn't argue with him you know I used this the same voice I knew from the hotline and uh the next note I get is tell him you meet him outside and that's a face-to-face surrender buau does not advise doing face to face surrenders police departments do it all the time and now it was kind of a crazy scramble cuz we're like oh holy [ __ ] I got to get outside and then I didn't have any ballist SWAT teams got you know the bank surrounded I got no ballistic gear they can't let me go out there to the front of the bank with our ballistic gear so you know I'm buying a bulletproof helmet here and buy buying a bulletproof vest there and then you know they get me decked out and I get outside and then um they they need me to go voice to voice with the guy so they got a they got a speaker uh with with a speaker setup and they go like all right so you're not going to actually go to the front door you got to talk him out into the arms of the SWAT T and so you got to lay out to him exactly what it's going to look like step by step you know you paint a picture paint a picture of him not getting hurt so I I lay out you know there's going to be two SWAT guys standing out there they're not going to grab you come out with your hands up move really slowly and just as soon as you step out the front door move to the right and there'll be a police officer named Bob and Bob's going to start talking to you and you move over to the right and then back into this doorway and that's where you meet Bob so like okay we're going to do this he's getting ready to come out like at the time we got no idea how many bad guys were inside we're being told by the other bad guy that there's seven of them and that they're from different countries and they're all really dangerous dudes which is not the case but we don't know that at point of fact there's only two guys inside but we got this first guy coming to the door we don't know what the hell's going to happen we don't know how his buddies are going to react we don't know what's going to what's going to go we just know somebody inside is going to come out and we got we got to take that thread and we got to go ahead and pull it so he comes to the front door and he can't get out because it's SWAT team's standard operating procedure to lock the door from the outside so nobody makes a run for it unexpectedly you know somebody decides the rabbit you know they come out the door and they make a run for it SWAT ain't ready for that that's not a good thing so they forgotten that they locked the door they chained the door from the outside so then everybody's like what do we do what do we do uh SWAT Commander uh everybody keeps their head SWAT Commander sends two guys forward behind a bull a ballistic shield to unlock the door and only unlock the door and they do it perfectly and uh bad guy comes out surrenders I've always been curious now you mentioned he was afraid of doing jail time can they ever negotiate jail time as uh you know someone taking hostages be able to lie I'm guessing that the FBI or the negotiators would be able to lie to the the domestic terrorist all right so I mean first of all it's a good guess it's wrong but it's an understandable guess so to your question M any agreement made under duress is not an enforceable agreement but we wouldn't do that because it end up being a lie now what's wrong with lying so hostage taking as a coping mechanism to survive a situation they've learned and you don't want them to learn the police are going to lie threat to the hostages is always higher if there's more than one because the bad guys figure they got at least one disposable hostage and so you might be tempted to to make a point if you've been lied to by the cops before so that for a bunch of other reasons why the lying is a really bad idea you would think a lot of and that actually is the first thing that when you're training negotiators you got to teach them like we're we're not lying we're not and then you give them a number of examples why it's a bad idea so if you can't lie what do you say to someone who says you know I'll come out if my jail time is reduced and and and so and as we're talking about this I mean this all this stuff has direct translation to business in personal life too because the problem is uh first of all if you've lied what happens when the other side eventually finds out like people people you do business with people in your family what happens when they find out that you lied to them like you're done like you're done and so if somebody would to say to me in in a hostage situation you know I'll come out if you promise to reduce my dip my jail time I'm probably going to say some of the effect of you want me to lie to you now in a in a in a hostage Siege many cases they'll throw something like that out to see if I'll lie my currency is credibility authenticity it was with the bureau it is in my personal life it is in my business life if I say it I'm going to do it even if you've given me reason to not trust you there's a pretty good chance I'm going to do it anyway which I'm cautious about what I say I'm cautious about making commitments I'm very cautious about commitments and promises because I plan on keeping them so I'm I'm I'm cautious like you may have I say you know I'll say you know let let me look over the proposal and if it works for me we'll make it happen or somebody approached me uh to do a speaking gig a couple of months ago said are you available on a state I looked at my calendar I said yeah you know I'm I'm available on aate you know let's talk about it the response was okay so you're committed all right so let's start talking and I said and I came back to him said no no no no I said I was available I never said I was committed you know we got to talk about what this is and sometimes people inadvertently jump the gun but then a lot of people just want to see if you're going to lie because they're better at lying than I am and it's a test I always look at I always look at the temptation to lie as a test and if they're if they somebody very man manipulative person since I'm not a liar I'm not good at it and if you're good at it then you're going to spot it if you're if one of your methods of operation is to lie then you're just testing me working at kidnapping in Saudi 2004 time frame al-Qaeda in uh Saudi which no longer exists is a completely different world different government um in Saudi these days than it was back then but the bad guys al-qaeda's got this guy Paul Johnson and it looks very much like they're going to kill him on Deadline if not slightly before I want to make an appeal through the Arab media I want uh Paul Johnson's wife to be interviewed in the Arab media and we're we're going to prep her for it and I'm going to ask her to make some points some very respectful points and how do you tell the inarguable truth like you don't say Paul's innocent you say Paul's not your enemy those are two different things innocence is a judgment like Paul Johnson was there to try to help the people in the country that's why he was there in the first place you're not going to try to make make that point you can simply say Paul's not your enemy so we're going to want her to get in an Arab media not American media arir media and make a few points like that and I'm talking to her and Paul's um boss good man very protective of Paul's wife for good reason cared about both of them deeply and looks at me and says if she does this is this going to save his life I don't think it is I think it's it's one of the longest shots we could ever take I'm not trying to pitch that you know slim and N give me Slim I didn't say that and I said it's probably not within reach and he says I didn't think so I just want to see if you'd lie to me we'll do it and she made the pitch it was powerful they killed Paul slightly before deadline how do I know it was slightly before deadline because they put a video of his up his not his Mur they put it up on Deadline and for them to have committed the ACT them invid it and put it up out in the media it had to have taken place before the deadline was was over but because she was so genuine and so respectful of their culture and even of the bad guys the Arab media broadly was very critical of the bad guys and it was the first time that the Arab media had been critical of the bad guys as opposed to the Americans what role does silence play in a negotiation like that like that or like in any negotiation I guess like in any any really intense negotiation like that silence gives people a chance to think like silence is really important and even if you want to talk all the time you want a chance to think if I say something that I want you to think about I should shut up after I say it otherwise I'm I'm keeping you from thinking about it and some people find silence to be ridiculously respectful and I didn't really uh appreciate the full extent of it the world splits up pretty evenly into thirds in in ter terms of how you approach conflict and they fight flight make friends assertive analyst accommodators who are good examples of each Donald Trump is a great example of an assertive uh Warren Buffett is a great example of an analyst and I would say Richard Branson is probably a great example of a an accommodator very relationship focused person very hope F focused person like hope almost as as a detriment to implementation and almost always uh smiling and um Pleasant friendly so the world splits up pretty evenly into thirds now the analyst I'm listening to Lex Friedman's podcast and he's talking about silence and Lex is a very analytical guy and he says there's a Shar of intimacy in silence like if we can be silent together I feel like I'm bonding with you I feel like there's this great shared intimacy and it never even occurred to me that be an an analyst besides wanting the opportunity to think could feel like they were connecting with me through the silence and so that you know that's one of the reasons that it can be so valuable what about humor what about yeah like joking around with someone in a negotiation or in a in a tense situation do you ever find that that could be beneficial and just lightening the mood a little bit or do you feel like sometimes it's more inappropriate than not well if it's if it fits contextually like first of all there's a difference between telling jokes and being humorous and so if it fits contextually not in a high-intensity business interaction like if I can make fun of myself with you that's probably pretty effective like I can make fun of me in a way that if you said it I'd be offended so if I get you to laugh with me at me it's frequently very powerful that's really interesting it seems like a lot of the Common Thread that I see is just stripping away the ego and being very very humble uh approaching the conversation with humility like laughing at yourself saying is it so ridiculous if I suggest this yeah and and kind of like softening the blow rather than as you said when you're providing advice it kind of seems like you're establishing an inequity between you and the person you're talking yeah know that's well said a lot yeah a lot of is getting your own getting out of your own way getting your ego out of the way getting self-gratification out of the way and then yeah softening the blow I mean you you want me to tell you the truth you just don't want to feel like it's a brick in the face what if they don't want you to tell you the truth what does that tell you about them that's the issue uh if they don't want you to tell want you to tell them the truth what are your prospects for a long-term relationship like those th those and I'm a Believer in long-term relationships of trust like if if if I'm a complete sociopath and all I care about is making money long-term relationship ship of trust are more profitable than any other kind of relationship with the least amount of work it's hard to come to that conclusion because you know the the big victories are celebrated kind of like winning the slot at the slots at Vegas you know there's there's all sorts of celebratory things around big victories and those are seductive and you forget about how few times they actually happen and I I you know for me in that context I think the Vegas slots are a great example because I've read in um reliable sources not put out by the gambling industry that the casinos understand the algorithm and they got to let you win at least once in every 84 polls to keep you there and so then then all the lights Flash the bells ring you know the sirens like this massive celebration of the victory when in fact you fail 83 out of 84 tries so the celebratory victories are like that too they're very seductive and when you realize that you want long-term relationships where you you know the money comes frequently without a lot of Maintenance that's how you make money and so then getting back to your original question what if somebody doesn't want me to tell them the truth well the prospects for a long-term relationship here are very poor and I value my time so you don't want me to tell you the truth then we're not going to last and what about verbal fluency in terms of having good dialogue being able to I guess negotiate something how important is that I know some people you've spoke with Jordan Peterson before right he is incredibly verb fluent able to string his sentences together and articulate his thoughts incredbly well is that important at all how do you keep up with Jordan like in terms of in conversation or just like well listening to him how easy is it to keep up with him I can't listen to him on double speed that's for sure I mean it takes all of my concentration to be on him it depends on the topic I think you know like if it's something that's a little bit out of my wheelhouse I definitely have to one exit if it's something I'm more familiar with I can I can digest it fairly well right all right so you're talking about a podcast which is an interview that you can control the speed of and you can go back to MH but live and in person oh yeah and and and so that's like the ridiculous shortcoming which is why I love to listen to and be interviewed his thoughts are so rich that live if he says something that triggers your thinking right you're going to miss the next 10 things he says and that's why I love listening to getting him interviewed you his interview on Le Freez podcast is brilliant Lex interrupts occasionally and asks him a brilliant question Lex is far more well read than I am and then I actually just listened to him being interviewed at genius Network just a few days ago by Joe poish my friend Joe poish and it's a great interview and then having heard the two interviews then of course I get to contrast some of the things he said in one versus the things he said in the other so then then that's the conversation to learn from versus a negotiation which should be a collaboration now if you get Jordan to slow down uh you could take those skills and make a great negotiation but you'd have to get him to slow down significantly it's interesting you talk about negotiation in terms of collaboration how important is being able to read people when you're trying to find a Common Thread or do you think that that's just kind of like them putting up an abstraction of themsel and then you're not really negotiating at that point well I try to read emotions more than anything else and then if if I'm guessing then I'll verbally guess and I'll say like seem like something just crossed your mind instead of seems like you something made you angry because I'm I'm going to want to know what it is so you you want to you you want to pay attention to the um that they are giving off um physical Clues to thinking but you want to be careful that you don't assume what that clue is you want to find out so she just be attentive and be willing to be corrected or enlightened or figure it out and then at some point in time if if you look uh if you talk to somebody long enough you're going to draw a pretty good beat on them but it's it's going to take a while are women better at reading people than men women have more of a head start at doing it than men do women are socialized nurtured to develop soft skills typically far sooner than men are you know seven-year-old gets into a fight comes home crying what's Dad likely to say what' you do or go back and kick his ass don't ever come home crying again you know be a man stand up for yourself little girl gets into a fight with a boy maybe she whoops his ass which pre pre-adolescence is pretty likely she comes home happy that she she kicked the little boy's ass what Mom what's mom going to say probably you won't always be bigger than he is there will come a time when that's not going to work you need to start learning your soft skills now so I think women are nurtured to learn soft skills before boys are at the top end there's no difference in ability all you got to learn is to want to be emotionally intuitive and men can learn that as as easily as women can women typically have a head start on it so in terms of emotional intuition because I'm pretty interested in the whole dating aspect like how would you say you can assess or improve your emotional intuition how do you have some sort of metric where you can say I am pretty emotionally illiterate well uh so first of all everybody's emotionally illiterate to start out with like uh there's an interesting book out there the Talent Code by Daniel Coy that contends that everything is learned they were all kind of blank slates when we're born and I'm a definite subscriber to that emotional intelligence there's no limit to it if you start paying attention to it so to get to your question if you feel like you're emotionally illiterate just you know just pay attention and actually be interested any other person and then pay attention to their reactions and continue to be interested and the more interested you are the more in interested you are the more interesting you are Neil Strauss uh friend of mine wrote a book called the game which is the secret underground Society of pickup artists and so Neil is physically like this geeky guy little you know he's not a bodybuilder he's not a handsome dude very successful writer was a very successful Rolling Stone magazine writer couldn't get a date so here's about people that are that are the underground pickup artist Society some of them take him under his wing because they say to him we think you actually like women like there are a lot of people that are in this that they don't like women and God knows what's wrong with them you know but there these goofy guys and everybody's a goofy guy that like them and so here are the secrets to picking up women according to Neil Strauss if you really listen to the book first of all take a shower don't stink have good personal hygiene secondly wear at least wear clothes are match and we wear clothes that might actually look good on you you know learn how to dress develop an actual sense of style and thirdly actually be interesting be able to hold a conversation don't be boring so you want to get laid be well-groomed be well-dressed and be a decent conversationalist and you'll meet girls and the you know the majority of guys that can't meet girls they're like yeah you know why should I have to go to all that trouble but the the third kicker on that is actually be interesting now most guys in social situations are not actually interesting and so you know most guys say wellow you know the good-looking guy gets the girl well from a woman's point of view if all the guys you talk to are boring then he might as well be goodlooking as a default mechanism because he ain't going to have anything to say he's not going to entertain me he's still going to sit there and stare at the the TV on Sunday and not say a word to me so he might as well be pleasant to look at so Neil who's not a tremendously physically attractive dude goes out and starts he gets Playboy Playmates phone numbers he interviews Britney Spears she connects with him there's this Great Clip when he's on Jimmy Kimmel I've saw that yeah is it Jessica Alba was it Neil comes out and he's like this goofy guy wrote the game and Kimble's kind of offended by him you could tell he's even kind of more offended that this goofy looking dude supposedly does well with chicks and Kimel starts to make fun of him so Neil doesn't rise to it he just turns and starts talking to Jessica Alba and in a very short period of time Jessica is ignoring Kimmel to talk to Neil like completely cut him out you could see Kim was kind of you know he's kind of confused as to what's going on but instead of Neil opposing him he just like you know what you want you want to smart off to me I'll do it right in front of you yeah why do you think that book got backlash because I remember I read that book uh I must have I must have been like 16 17 years old uh maybe 18 somewhere around there like the mid 2000s the book came out the game but I remember also people really not liking that book and feeling like like it was manipulative or if you have this like strategy you're not truly being your authentic self and it all seems kind of contrived that like I'm going do this or I'm G to throw a neg out there and I'm gonna you know talk they do this it there it doesn't have that Whimsical magic of just like spontaneity well who's the backlash from and did they bother to read the book cover to cover CU if you read it cover to cover you find a guy who's struggling to be effective socially and genuinely care about people and ultimately you know at the end of the book A bunch of people Crash and Burn around them and Neil gets tired of the life and he doesn't Crash and Burn and he cares about people so if you read the book cover to cover and you actually paid attention to what was in it you react the way that you did but if you didn't read it or you just want to criticize any any it any way like I would imagine that if you read it cover to cover maybe you still criticize it but how is it marketed you know Neil isn't control how the the publisher markets it um and then of course what percentage of people that read it criticized it like we give outsized weight to critics when they're in the minority I'm not going to let them stop me from the positive impact fact friend of mine um Eric Barker I like giving credit what credits do Eric Barker writes a Blog that I'm still a subscriber to barking up the wrong tree and he's written two books the first of one uh barking up the wrong tree the science of success X says that for every hater you're going to have 10 supporters so don't be scared of the haters as a matter of fact the more haters you got multiply that t tan you're doing pretty good what do people criticize you for anytime I'm in favor of something which is the post that I make the only time I'm critical that comes critical I'm tend to be critical of the media because they're instigators the vast majority of the Legacy Media are professional instigators I put up a post in celebration of a Jewish holiday and people like well aren you you know what's the matter AR you like Christians uh put up a post in celebration of a Muslim holiday I try to respect all religions and usually if I put up Post in favor of one religion than people in other religions like what about us and I I don't remember what this one was but um for some reason they were like why didn't you recognize this for the military too the American Military and somebody that was following along says well as a matter of fact he did a month ago he just missed it you people want to find a reason to throw rocks without without really getting into it which was why you know the 1% is not worth paying attention to although really really quick I just want to say before we go into that for those that aren't aware I got a coffee company it's called bankroll coffee.com and our goal is to bring you the highest quality coffee at the most affordable price but in doing so I defined the right e-commerce platform to use and that of course is where our sponsor Shopify is there to help Shopify is the number one checkout on the planet with less cards going abandoned and way more sales going for example Shopify is a service called shop pay that lets customers save their email address credit card shipping and billing information which boost conversions up to 50% and if you're into growing your business your Commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are strolling or scrolling whether that's on the web in your store in a feed or anything in between all in all nobody is selling better than Shopify so if you want the same checkout the bankroll coffee uses sign up for a $1 trial period at shopify.com all lowercase again that shopify.com to upgrade your selling today shopify.com with the link Down Below in the description thank you to Shopify for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast how do you prevent your ego from getting in the way of having difficult conversations or maybe hearing something that you don't like hearing uh yeah that's a legitimate problem um and there are different at different times there different mechanisms uh one of the guys on my team uh Derek gone is always coaching people to stay curious be curious you can't be angry and curious simultaneously curiosity is a superpower it's a ridiculous superpower you can survive anything with curiosity like anything and I see you go like anything man search for meaning uh which is a book everybody should read about surviving the Jewish concentration camps written by a Survivor and once I read it I now realize why by and large anybody that survived the concentration camps will not talk about it because if they survived somewhere along the line they did something they deeply regret because it turned everybody into animals and survival moment to moment was at risk anyway uh in this book he points out the author points out and forgive me for forgetting his name the people that survive psychologically if they got to the point where they just let go of the horror that happened moment to moment and they just got actually curious as to what was going to happen next they stopped being afraid of whether or not they were going to die they figured they would and so they were just kind of like I wonder what the hell's going to happen next because I can't believe anything I saw today and after the fact the ones that cultivated genuine curiosity in the most horrific circumstances one could possibly imagine were the ones that came out the other end psychologically the most intact now if that is not a testament to curiosity nothing is how do you C curate curiosity in your own life day practice it it it any emotional intelligence skill is a matter of practice and being willing to learn it being open to learning it especially if it's counterintuitive especially for whatever reason your amydala kicks into gear and starts telling you it's a waste of your time part of me wonders I mean if if you're practicing curiosity you're kind of like feigning curiosity so it's not authentic which is good to practice it right because then maybe eventually you will become truly authentically curious at the same time if you have a conversation with two people that are just wildly curious like how is that yeah how do you go from from Faking to you know the old phrase fake it to you make it well I don't believe in faking it to begin with right right yeah you know that's a really interesting question and my best answer is to I don't know that trying to teach it to yourself is Faking It And and fake it till you make it also like what's your intention to begin with um are you faking it because you're trying to deceive or are you are you trying to learn and the real difference is why I got a real problem with fake it till you make it as a phrase being misinterpreted they're seeing now because great much greater understanding of how the brain actually works and you imagining doing something the parts of your brain that are triggered when you do it are the the same the same so if you can imagine yourself being curious it teaches you to be curious the Elon Musk nuring thing that they got going on like these guys if anybody knows how the brain actually works they're closer than anybody else does and the reason why they're making the neuralink work um I can't remember the guy's name who's recently in the media is quadr plgic you know they start these nerve implants in with people who problems are so horrific they can't make their life any worse and they find out the part of the brain that imagines moving some moving a a mouse is the same part of the brain where you would put your hand on it and move the mouse so imagining doing something is the same as practicing doing it so are you really faking it or are you trying to teach yourself to do it if you're trying to teach yourself to do it you're not faking it you're you're but emulating in your mind before you've built the Habit is not faking it it's teaching yourself what about intuition where does that play in like let's say everything on paper looks good to you looks perfect but deep down there's something telling you it's wrong or it doesn't feel right if you can separate your intuition from your fear centers principally you're mdala then your intuition is a ridiculously phenomenally astonishingly effective supercomputer so at a bare minimum biology of belief again I'll forget the author's name he puts his stat out the conscious mind processes roughly 40 bits of information per second whatever a bit is yes no on off you know the binary a syllable maybe that's a bit a second the subconscious mind 20 million 500,000 to one ratio that's what feeds your intuition so as a supercomputer you're intuition is capable of doing 20 million bits of information per second that's massive that's why if you're actually listening to your intuition you know your subconscious processes all this data and then if that's a genuine feeling that's coming from your gut you're probably good now if it's your amydala and that's a big challenge sorting those two out if your amydala is got you scared concerned that's highly inaccurate so sorting the two out and then even to take it a step further there's emerging data that there are quantum processes that your brain is capable of so 20 million bits of information per second is probably an underestimation of what your brain can do if it has Quantum Computing capacity which then which I believe I believe actually that's probably very likely true it's one of the reasons why psychologist know neuroscientists see the Mind Body and the brain is three separate entities so how is the mind a separate entity from the brain unless there isn't some Quantum connection working there which makes it a larger entity than we can currently measure how do you separate fear from intuition how do you know yeah it's a challenge like so first of all do you have any actual experience in in the area are you assessing something that's completely new to you well if it's new to you you got no experience you got no intuition for it and it's more than likely your fear centers that are overriding things but that is the challenge and so as you go through life you got to ask you know is this a feeling or is this a voice is it a voice in my head that's telling me this am I hearing imagining somebody criticizing me for doing this if I am I imagining somebody telling me I'm wrong well it's probably your amigdala but is it my gut is is my gut reacting to this and sometimes I'll ask myself is this my gut and then frequently if it's my gut like I've engaged in um professional relationships with people where they gave me strategic advice and I can very specifically remember thinking like I don't think this going to work but I'm willing to go ahead and gather the data and find out and and I can't think of a Time when I really felt like something wasn't going to work when I was wrong but I was willing to proceed because I needed I needed the information I need the data you're more experienced than me in this area it's when I first moved to LA I had this guy advising me on uh PR he's supposedly a PR um Guru and he was advising me on different approaches to people different talking points different stuff and I just remember thinking [Music] like but I'll go along cuz you have more experience here than I do and the this the the advice that he gave me was not panning out with any degree of success but I wanted to learn so I went ahead and went with it so when do you know when to walk away I you know uh well all right so there could be a variety of reasons to walk away um but you know if you're interacting with someone and they're on a certain path and it's just not working for you you walk away it's no judgment on anybody else just it's not working bad relationships um your values don't align with somebody you know somebody likes a fast hustle quick Buck you know uh the approach there's you know there gurus out there on communication that say your money's in the other person's pocket it's your job to get your money out of their pocket that don't align with me so never heard that I yeah it's it's out there if you haven't heard that thing you're not familiar with this particular okay person but it's real common okay look you make a lot of money you're driving a Lamborghini you're wearing expensive uh clothes you got an expensive panai versus a cheap one you you got the great big giant panai which costs seven times as much versus the one that actually looks good on your [Music] arm okay that's cool you could you could wear that now well speaking of that how much does appearance affect someone's perception or negotiation skills like is it is it do you approach the situation differently or or can a better appearance help you well it's it's in shortterm long term like the flashier somebody is the more chances are they're deeply in debt and they need all your money and so you know I get somebody you know I'm if if you come walking in and you got a you got a pair of tennis shoes on that are $112,000 shoes like all right we may not align sure but some people are very impressed by that and and that's a contributor to their success as they see it but now the people who are impressed by that does that mean they're at a level that they haven't like I hate to say like ascended to say but it seems like that the type of person who's impressed by those things might not be as like attuned to certain situation as someone who they don't have the experience maybe yeah maybe they haven't learned like hey maybe those are tells that could be a red flag you know a lot of those people are doing really well and they're really happy um so my contention is they're not doing as well as they could they could be doing better but by all the external measurements around them they do great and they're really happy like you know I I've been in some of those folks homes and they got great homes and great places and a lot of people they love being around and they're really happy and ultimately sort of how happy you are with your life is is really the measure now do I think they could be more successful yeah maybe do I think they could be happier maybe you know they seem pretty happy now you know but them knowing what they could do is you know is an illusion is an intangible we we got a guy um that we coach a lot we got a few really top tier negotiator Entre really successful entrepreneurial business people that we coach and they will not go for uh a week without some sort of contact and coaching because their negotiation skills are at such a high level that if you know if Tiger Woods doesn't doesn't swing a club for a week he's not playing as well as he could um and one of them said I made more money being collaborative than I ever made being Cutthroat I was really good at being Cutthroat but for whatever reason you know he stumbled over us but before he was doing really well you know by all his other measures of success external to him he was doing really well and when he when he made this switch to be less transactional and more collaborative he's got way more money way more money so it's hard to know it's really it's really hard to measure into something that you don't see it around you you see yourself as good or better than everybody in your in your industry so by all external measures you're an a player but for you for what you're capable of you're probably a c player what are some of the things that people could do today to improve their skills to get to that point where eventually they're the a player um you know F uh first of all um stop trying to overcome objections and understand objections you know stop selling stop pitching um learn to listen to listen as opposed to full listening where you got a list of things you're only listening to them long enough for you to trigger your the next of three responses you have selected in advance I run across a lot of salespeople they they know their industry they know that I'm going to have one or three objections they're going to ask me a question it makes it sound like they're actually interested in my answer but they're only L interested in which of the three prescripted things they're going to say and I walk away from those people like I I had I had one guy do that to me at a VIP luncheon one time asked me a question about investing in commercial real estate and I gave him an answer and bang he had he had a response and that was just too quick it was just too quick and so I thought ah all right you didn't have enough time to actually listen to me cuz the problem with that is ultimately for us to have a great relationship and for you to tailor what you're doing to me you're going to have to listen to me at some point in time no matter how smart you are you're going to be off Mark and if you never listen you're never going to know why so uh and actually he's on my right side so I answer the question bang another answer so he asked me another openend question and I answer him bang he's got another answer and so I just turned away just turned my back on him and I didn't speak to him again cuz he's not going to listen to me and so when a point in time that's coming that I will have need I will need him to have listened to me isn't oh how how do you approach that then in dating and relationships is it the same thing where if if you just want to listen to the other person it takes practice because again takes a lot of practice because most people don't listen so you're not you don't know what it's like to be listened to and people that cared about you probably didn't listen to you and they didn't know they were doing that you know the classic parent response how was your day what' you learn from it kid comes home yeah and so you learn from your mom or your dad probably your mom mom wants to genuinely show interest wants to encourage you wants to keep you to think how was your day you answer what you learn she didn't listen to your answer so why the kids mom says how is your day fine what' you learn I forget why do kids do that cuz they've been conditioned that Mom ain't going to listen to the answer she's going to move to the second question without having shown that she comprehended the first part at all or how was your day it was horrible the teacher picked on me well you know teachers don't pick on you you know what did you do to cause that you know then it's judgment and advice but again no listening whatsoever so we got tons of people that we're training that the kids are opening up to them in ways they never opened up to them or their parents conversely open them up to them in ways that they never uh open up to them uh two days ago in Arizona uh we're doing this training again um under Joe polish's umbrella we got this special event called Golden Swan and we got people asking a very specific question triggering answers you're supposed to listen to and this one guy was talking about um his mom had been listen uh live moved in with him she was uh uh hadn't been as well and she felt very disconnected she's angry all the time and was tough cookie to begin with I mean mom's mom's mom's tough cookie um not a hugger so he asked a question uh and it's usually what do you love about something because you want to put some put somebody in a very specific frame of mind they open up very genuinely and she's kind of fighting all the genuiness like it com is one of the rockiest versions of this conversation I'd ever heard and he tried really hard to get her to open up and want to make her feel appreciated and wanted to you know trigger a blossom a little bit and it didn't go that well and so the next morning he gets up to leave to come to this training and she comes up to him give gives him a hug she hasn't hugged him in years he can't remember the last time she hugged him but the conversation overnight um when you sleep on stuff it bakes into your brain it's a critical aspect of learning which is why two-day seminars are better than one day seminars because you sleep and you come back the next day but the conversation of being genuinely heard without being judged criticized advised sunk into her overnight and he comes walking in the next day go I don't remember the last time my mom hugged me so I don't know how I got off on that attention what about negotiating in a relationship where you feel like you don't have the upper hand uh there's no such thing as the upper hand there's a phrase I learned a long time ago the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control but what's the upper hand and in a relationship like if if you got the upper hand how does that how does that leave the person long term well I can provide a scenario maybe so like let's just say that there is a woman in a relationship and she's like incredibly attractive and she's earning a ton of money and she's like a super successful lawyer in these super high very specific Jack yeah okay and then you have guy that she maybe met you know four months earlier they were kind of friends you know he got into a relationship with her he's not doing a whole lot with his life like I feel like in any situation the woman would generally have the upper hand because she's able to not only threaten but actually act out on leaving the relationship whereas for the guy there's like kind of an imbalance of power maybe the guy has more to lose in that case yeah yeah well first of all like if she feels if if if feels like she she got a threaten like what kind of a relationship is it or if he's worried about being threatened what does he bring it to the table like what's his value to her um how's he making her life better now maybe he's making her life better and if he's making her life better if he's paying attention to her like I can promise you if he's actually paying attention to her and you know there's this issue like how long does a man actually Court a woman um and I see over and over again long long-term relationships like the minute you stop courting her you're in a downward spiral what do you mean courting making time for complimenting her opening doors for the same kind of behavior that you engaged in the first six months you were together uh you know are are you paying attention to her when was the last time you took her out on a date you know people are talking about the secret to long-term relationships you know long-term marriages no matter how many kids you you got you got to have a date night that you know that's an aspect of continuing to court all all of the communication a man used to woo her did you stop 6 months in a year in three years in you know interesting which is very common in in Neil's book he talks about girl has been married three years most likely if she's going to cheat to cheat on her spouse why dude's not paying attention to her anymore he's you know he's treating her like she's part of the furniture when was the last time he bought her a gift spontaneously brought her flowers spont did anything spont got her anything if it wasn't her birthday bought her flowers for any reason if it wasn't her birthday or a special occasion I mean courting you're constant you you're bringing her flowers you're thinking up ways to surprise her keep her engaged make her feel valued just so just the same way you did the first month first six months so if you're doing that like you got an advantage with a beautiful successful attractive woman cuz ain't no other guy out there doing that they're giving her six months of attention and then they're going back to watching a ball game yeah I would agree with that completely okay what about negotiating in a relationship if there's a situation like the woman gets emotional over something that's like relatively small because this is something I know is very common a lot of the male viewers maybe even female viewers they're familiar in their own relationships with something like this where they're getting like thrown off by something that's small and the guy is trying to understand you know like how would you even is all about the woman here also the guy could be emotional to other what what's small to you if if if you're upset about something and I'm communicating to you that it's a small thing what am I communicating to you it's more of a talking down yeah like even if it is for me to communicate to you that it's a small thing it's talking down it's not compliment it's not supportive so small things are usually indicators of accumulations of other stuff and so there's been a bunch of a stuff that's accumulated and the human being on the other side is focusing on an individual triggering event when in point of fact there's a bunch of stuff that that have contributed to it I mean the realization that I mean that's kind of human nature um I I'm an assertive and what does that mean that means I snap at people occasionally and the people that work for me like the fifth thing that's gone wrong on a day you're probably getting a text from me that's going to be pretty harsh or pretty critical and I and I've come to find out you know the first thing that went wrong in a day I I have to watch myself because in in succession of day where a number of little things have gone wrong whoever happened to be the unfortunate recipient to be part of the fifth little thing is probably going to trigger my anger and frustration from all the stuff that happened that day and so me just being aware of that you know I I'll I'll call them back I'll follow on I'm like look I overreacted this was a small thing but I got a this and this has been a whole accumulation of stuff that's not your fault so I I you know I will I will try to at least own it but the flip side is if somebody's been triggered over a small thing tip of the iceberg there been a bunch of things that has gone bad and so your job is to recognize that if if in fact a thing that is manifesting itself is small there's been a whole bunch of other stuff that have gone into that and so consequently it's not really small for the other side do you think that compromise is essential in a successful relationship I think compromise is a guarantee to make both people unhappy so there should not be compromise right you should take the time to find out what what's going on with the other side cuz compromise is is a guarantee is you know is guaranteed to make both people unhappy and so how good of a strategy that see but I feel like compromise is is essential in making both people happy let's just say give me an example let's just say Macy feels like Italian food tonight and I feel like sushi my compromise could be like okay how about this uh we'll flip a coin if it's heads we'll do sushi if it's Tails we'll we'll do yours and maybe we end it there and then the coin flip determines what we do separate from us and there's no emotion on the coin flip or the compromise could be okay how about this we do you know Italian food tonight or sushi tonight and then we'll switch then the next day we'll we'll swap and then that way we both get what we want um and there's a bit of give and take okay so first of all that's more col first of all that's a spirit of collaboration to start with sure so that's a step in the right direction but if I want to do Italian tonight and you say okay you know I I lose the coin flip I don't know I'm going to want to do tan tomorrow night so I'm not going to like it um but the idea you want to collaborate to start with and you're concerned about the other side's happiness to start with so you know why does she want a Tian what kind of a day has it been like what do you feel like when you if you want Italian food like if I'm going to eat Italian I need comfort food and I may not need it tomorrow or it's been a long day I've been worn out and my girlfriend Wendy and I we got aali place we love and when I go there you know it's been a tough day and I'm I'm that that's for me I'm down for that yeah so if you if you got a taste for something at a given point in time it's going to be a reaction to your day you got you're going to guarantee me tomorrow's going to be exactly like today so your heart's in the right place but what's causing the other person to want aali in or what's causing you to want you what you want so then those moments are not going to repeat so take the time to find out what's going on with the other side now it's not a restaurant example but there was a uh one of the students in my class at Georgetown they're in a negotiation over what kind of a Christmas tree to get guy wants an artificial tree for all the Practical implementable reasons we can buy a gorgeous tree and we're going to have the same gorgeous tree every year so we only got to buy it once like there's all these massive practical reasons for the artificial tree and his wife wants a real tree and will not talk about it she just unreasonable emotional no got to be a real tree so he decides you know he's going to try to understand because if you genuinely understand someone there's a really good chance all they want to be is understood and then they'll agree with you so he's going to try to genuinely understand and he's thinking about it a little bit if somebody's really digging in they can't really explain probably goes deep with them so you want to go deep which means what does it mean to go deep start looking back in a time like go back in time and he says to her uh seems like you had real trees grown up and she says yeah she says and the smell of a real tree and the feeling of family I will never forget the way it felt for my brothers and sisters and I to be around a real tree and the smell of that triggers how close we were as a family every time I smell a real tree and I want that same experience for our kids kind of tree you think they got really good artificial tree with a scent one of those ones with the scent next to it the the plugins that's the most scramble compromise right there they got a real tree yeah yeah and he was like holy cow I had no idea the the broader emotional Point here and what was going going on for you emotionally what was driving you emotionally and I want our kids on a deathbed remember what Christmas is like so that's why and what do you do when when both parties feel like they don't want to compromise or they both feel like he feels just as strongly as like well when I was growing up we never had the real tree and we always said the art of that's a hypothesis yeah that's a hypothesis you can run those in your head all day long like maybe you run into that um a small percentage of the time let's say you run into it 75% of the time what's the flip side 25% of the time you came up with a great solution that both of you loved so no matter what the percentage is there's no downside to finding out where the other side's coming from because even if they don't get their way they feel Hur and respected which makes them want to continue to communicate with you yeah speaking of more practical uh applications for this in just everyday life do you think it's possible that anybody can negotiate a higher salary don't negotiate salary negotiate your career why is that salary pays your bills it doesn't build your career and so you empathy is about how does the other side see it so you go in asking for a higher salary number one what did you just ask for I want to get paid more and do the same amount of work how does that sound to a boss I think it could sound appealing if the person is willing to walk away said hey I'm going to give my two weeks notice wait a minute it could sound appealing I work for you I've been working for you for a year and I come to you and I say look I want to get paid more for the same amount of work I think it depends on The Leverage that employee has if that employee is irreplaceable that never sounds good it doesn't sound because what I just said to you is what I want is going to make your business less profitable how do you like that I would look at it objectively and just say you would really how many employees you have well really just not I wouldn't even call Jack so you would encourage anybody that works for you to ask for more money and do no more work I'm not saying they would get it but I'm saying if they had wait wait wait wait now now we're now we're you said you'd look at it objectively and then reject yeah so I I but here's where I would be on it said in a way here's where I would be it if someone if someone comes and they're irreplaceable and they say hey I need XYZ or I will stop there's going to be a point relationship if you're irreplaceable employee threatens you like that at a certain point it just doesn't make sense anymore but that's not what I ask you yeah what's your relationship with that employee if they got to come in and make that kind of a threat uh I think it just depends on the on the context and what context is it not bad it's not bad how are you looking out for them how are you mentoring them how are you growing them if they got to come up to you and say give me a raise or I quit which is a threat they have to get more money out of you by threatening you what's your relationship with them I would hope that it would be I would hope yeah hope is Hope is um a drug not a strategy so the alternative is what pay the person the maximum that you could possibly Sal doesn't build your career it pays your bills salary is a contract for what you've done in the past what you agreed to do so you we had an agreement as to what you were going to do and how much I was going to pay you for it and so you're coming to me a year later and you're telling me that agreement's flawed right so what kind of a relationship will we got so is the better alternative to say we can work on Sal pays your bills it doesn't build your career so it's better to go and say hey I'm willing to do find out no no don't don't offer cuz you don't know for sure what the other what the boss need yeah so like so this is a great question first of all and the way I'm reacting to is just I want people to really think this through because empathy is about how's the other side reacting how do they see it now the vast majority of employees only walk into the boss's office to get more that doesn't say every time you walk into the boss's office you're not asking for more for yourself but how common do you think it is for employee to walk in and say boss how can I do more for the same amount of money right nobody says that so boss's employeers are conditioned because they're human that employees are selfish because you don't you don't walk into the boss office say hey look I want you to know I think you're doing a great job consequently while still paying me the same amount of money how can I take on more responsibility cuz that's the only way you make the the company more profitable if if if you if you're in there for salary but if you're so then the the the gamechanging question walk into the boss's office and say how can I be guaranteed to be involved in projects that are critical to our strategic future now what do you think the reaction to that is very positive yeah and and why because I want to be I want to I I want to be a team player I don't want to be a diva I want you to have a better life if they're critical to our strategic future I didn't come here to make my life better I came in here to make our life better and I want to play in a big game now first of all you got to mean that like there are a lot of people that that do not want to play in a big game they want to do the same amount of work they want to show up almost on time don't want to kind of want to I don't want to actually be on time I want to almost be on time and I don't actually want to stay to five I I want to kind of make it seem like I stay to five and that's a lot of people they they they not looking to really make everybody's life better like you got to want to play in a big game friend of mine's head of an International Bank the head of an International Bank and that has been his question in every job that he's walked into and every annual review he wants to consistently be involved in the most important projects going want want want to help in what will matter to everybody now has that made him immun in his in his um career no things have still gone B for him nothing makes you immune what you want to work is what's going to work more than anything else he and I grew up in the same small town went to the same high school he went to a smaller School than I did which means no alumni connections his degree was underwhelming tiny little school in Missouri you never heard of so you're not going to be impressed like Harvard you went to Harvard whoa that's a tough school to get into and you got a great Alumni network and you got all these connections and theoretically you learned a lot that a school he went to head of an International Bank very high emotional intelligence is consistently involved in making everybody's life better around him and has not been immune from career pitfalls I'm uh given a u sales training to a company on Zoom during the pandemic all the sales team and the CEO was there and in front of the CEO one of the people says how do we get more money out of this guy how do we negotiate a raise with him and he's right there and I know everybody's holding their breath waiting to see what I'm going to say and I say this is what you do you walk into his office and say this and mean it how do I be involved with projects to critical to our strategic future and before anybody could say a word he said I wish everybody would walk into my office and say that that's how you get welcomed into the boss's office now one or two things one of a couple things happen you might not get involved in a critical project but you've signal to the people that lead your organization that you want to make a contribution and they're going to start paying attention to you and if you're not ready you told them that you want to be there so they're going to want to see how culturable you are can they get you ready that's one possibility another possibility they throw you in a game which means you better want it like you know a lot of people say I want to be an a player but they're not willing to do a player work you know they on time I'm almost on time the a players are in the office usually at least 10 minutes early show up for meetings early they're never late like you could wind you could set your watch based on their predictability that's what an a player does they they never show up late ah you know sorry ran over you know traffic traffic yeah if it was traffic you'd have told us 15 minutes ago cuz 15 minutes ago you knew you couldn't be here on time so you get you get in a big gang got to be ready to go uh or what you get in a big game they don't and a year later they don't give you dime for it what happened you just have career accomplishments that have made you more marketable and the Boston doesn't appreciate you and there are plenty of companies out there that do not appreciate their employees walk that's when you walk because if they don't want to actually pay you what you're worth and they don't want to give you opportunity these are bad strategies and this company is coming to an end somewhere along the line somebody's going to buy them they're going to go bankrupt likely going to be bought and taken over by somebody else and what happens every time a company is bought and taken over vast majority of the people there are either shown the door or hit the door in the first year which means that your time there's coming to an end anyway you might as well pad your resume with accomplishments which makes you more marketable to the employee that's going to appreciate the fact that you did that they're not all going to appreciate you yeah but you got to you got to you got to remember salary pays your bills it doesn't build your career as soon as you want to build your career C collaboratively with your employee employer now that's a whole different world and you may not end up the head of an International Bank or you're going to do well how does all of this affect your parenting style uh every parent is flawed like you do you you do the best you can to smooth it out parenting problems with parenting like the problems with any relationships we around people a lot is you will always inadvertently wound people that the more time you spend with somebody you're going to accidentally hurt them and you're never going to going to know and then cuz you did it by accident and then they're even matter at you because you heard them and you didn't know so just the acceptance that you're a flawed human being and that you're trying to get it right and you're not always going to get it right is there anything that you've learned uh from being a parent that's changed your insight into human nature or behavior perhaps I'm sure you know like I I like to think I I'll be smarter next week than I am right now about human nature so when did that start yeah I'm I'm think I'm I'm sure it's an ongoing process and I got no shortage of ongoing stupidity so yeah yeah I'm also curious how much the average hostage negotiator earns it seems like such a specific skilled career it's within law enforcement you don't you don't get it paid any different to be in hostage negotiation and you do any other job oh you know like they if they give overtime you might get overtime other guys might not get but vast majority of uh agencies law enforcement agencies it's an it's an additional duty you volunteer for it and you do it cuz a daily you know you prefer soft power last question for me how do you keep improving your skills over time I think one of the big advantages I have is I'm surrounded by people that are as fascinated by this as I am yeah so we talk about it all the time you know you ER the head of my coaching you know I may I may call him with the attention of just having a personal conversation and will end up talking about negotiation because we both love it so much and I think that makes the biggest difference um discussing it with people that are into it who see things slightly differently than you or they're different type like this deep dive into human nature and factoring it into your whole life is a cool thing uh how cool is it there's a guy that I'm coaching currently um who makes a lot of money and is a good person and is successful by anybody's measure of success including Elon Musk and he just thought that there was you know there's something I'm missing here started coaching him and one of the things he said to me recently was I now realize I was seeing the world in black and white and I now see a World of Color which makes it a much more enjoyable life for him like he's having he's having a great time so if if the possibility is that you're seeing a world in Black want you want to see it in color come to our website Black Swan ltd.com we got a a bunch of ways to get you started for free or little or no cost like the book The book's 20 bucks you got to read the book and I heard something just a couple days ago that said you don't really know a book until you've read it three times and the first is just the introduction to it you finished it and you go back and read it again you were smarter than you were the first time which is why you know no man steps in the same river twice it's not the same man so if you're interested if this sounds like it would be enjoyable if you're wondering how much better you could possibly be if you see the world in terms of Leverage and arguments and logic and win lose you're seeing the world in black and white you don't know what and you might be happy there if you're happy there stay there that's cool you want to have more interesting life increase the depth of your relationships and make more money then start learning our stuff at some point in time we're doing a uh you want to come in person we're doing a negotiation Mastery Summit in Louisville St Patrick's Day March 16th and 17th the St Patty's Day is one of the two days you make Quantum leaps forward in two-day emersion trainings it'd be awesome if if anybody that wants to get the themselves get themselves ready for it and it's not cheap we're not giving those tickets away they're expensive but there's plenty of things that are little or no cost you can Avail yourself of off the website subscribe to the newsletter books 20 bucks and apply this stuff and at some point at time you know if when you catch on it's fun it is so much fun to get better at negotiation collaboratively start by going to our website black1 ltd.com that was an incredible thing love that's like that was a master class how to do that thank you guys so much all the information is down below in the description thank you so much for doing this man I really really really enjoy the conversation very much next time