Master the ART OF NEGOTIATION and WIN Any Exchange | Chris Voss

We used to talk about this all the time. Like, what's your opening line? And we would go back and forth on a lot of stuff. Um for the longest time my favorite was, "I'm here to talk to you about coming out." Knowing that they're going to respond, "I ain't coming out." Now, my next line, which and and that's all unscripted is, "I know you're not coming out now. I just want you to know that when you do, we're going to make sure that you feel treated with dignity and respect. And I got to make sure you don't get hurt." Chris Voss, welcome to the show. Um thank you. Pleasure to be here. Dude, I'm really excited to have you on. I I'm actually a little shocked at myself that we haven't had you on sooner. I find your book, Never Split the Difference, absolutely incredible. And where I want to start, so I think I'm a terrible negotiator. So, let's start with that. We will definitely today cover some of the principles of that, but what I really want to talk about is in the book, when you're talking about some of the scenarios that you were in, where people it's a life and death situation, Right. and you're the line of defense, how do you deal with that emotionally? Like, that's My job feels high stress, but that's no one's life is on the line. How do you deal with that? Yeah, well, there's a couple things. I mean, first of all, you just don't know any better. Maybe when you first started, but not long term. Uh you know, in training in the FBI, they start out really good. Um I mean, they hit you, uh you know, with the Tyson uh line, "Everybody has a plan till they get punched." Like, the second day of the negotiation training in the FBI, they hit you square between the eyes with something really hard. Like, a real story or something like that? You know, they spend they spend the first day laying out a philosophy, which if you understand the nuances of the words, you I still completely agree with. A hostage has never been killed on deadline in the United States, ever. And so like you get kind of comfortable and you got a sense that negotiation is pretty successful overall. I mean in reality it's about a 93% success rate. Wow. And then and then the very next day they present a scenario where it looks like a hostage got murdered right on deadline, right in front of everybody. And you're just like I mean you were hit in a head words you use in the book? Because this was when I realized I don't want your job or the one that you had back then. You said she was shot twice in the back with a shotgun. Almost cut her in half Yeah. as she flew through the glass window. Yeah, and then And I thought god damn. Like I I don't know I'd find a way but Chris, I don't know how I'd come back from that. Like that would that would damage me in ways that I can't imagine. Well, that that ends up kind of getting into a secondary characteristic because then when I was running a program I went out of my way to look for negotiators that had been involved in a siege where somebody got killed. And they bounced back. Mhm. You know, typically with a success rate that that's that high if anytime you're under less than double digits of a job, sieges, whatever you want to call them probably everything you touch is going to turn out good and you're going to get a little overconfident. You know, once you start climbing past double digits, I mean odds are starting to run against you. And what happens with pretty much every time is the negotiator will be like, you know, I I didn't get into this to watch people die. I'm going to find another thing to do. Or they're going to say, I'm never going to let this happen again. And those people will double down and they'll be more courageous in s- speaking truth to command. Whether it be an ambassador or a non-sent commander and basically saying like "No, we can't do it like this." Have you ever involved in an operation where somebody got killed? Yeah. So, how did you How did you Did you need to put yourself back together or do you not react like that? Let's start with that question. Um I've been uh repeating one phrase in my head for a long time leading up to that that I didn't really realize what it meant. My old boss Gary Nesner used to always teach us best chance of success. What we're doing is the best chance of success. And so then when uh the Burnham-Sillabero case in the Philippines, a lot of people got killed. And finally it was a quick Break down. What happened? Um uh Gracia and Martin Burnham and another American citizen named Guillermo Sillabero got scooped up in a dive resort in the Philippines in a region of the Philippines that we thought was completely safe. Uh the bad guys, the Abu Sayyaf, were looking for Westerners. They'd been a siege earlier in the same year in another part of the Philippines where they looking for Americans and Westerners. They got nothing but Western Europeans. And they ultimately that that case was a train wreck which I was not involved in cuz there were no Americans there. And the bad guys ended up scoring about $20 million as a result. Oh. Which made a rival gang jealous of the score. So, they go out and they do an even more daring raid. They cross like 400 miles of open ocean on these lousy little boats. Scooped everybody up in a dive resort and ended up getting three Americans and a bunch of Filipinos. Um Sillabero ends up getting murdered by the the terrorists about uh three-ish weeks in, 21-ish days. How does a siege go on for that long? Oh, this late thing lasted 13 months. So, yeah, that was just that was just the beginning. That wasn't even the opening act. So, Did they kill them to make a point to just prove like we're serious? Well, you know, they were Western American arrogance, if you will. When Sabella finally got killed or got killed early on, you know, there had been Filipinos the bad guys were killing Filipinos regularly, like it was no big deal. And I can remember that point of time when we tried to stir up a little outrage over it. I thought, you know, we have sat here and not really said much at all while these Filipinos are getting beheaded. Mhm. Now all of a sudden we want everybody to be bent out of shape. And I remember thinking like if I if I was a host country, my reaction would be like, oh, now it's important to you? So, um, but that the group that was doing it at the time, I mean, they were they did all the bad things that that terrorist murders do. I mean, all of them. How do you So, one, was that the first time that you were on a call where somebody got killed? It's the first kidnapping that I was directly involved in where somebody or people getting killed, yes. So, when the first body shows up, what are you the one talking to them? No, we coached. Okay. Uh, one of the reasons why, you know, what I'm doing now is applicable. Uh, the the Black Swan method is based on hostage negotiation, which is universal. Human nature. Everybody's human. So, I could show up in any country. I mean, literally any country, any culture, Philippines, Nigeria, Cape Town, Baghdad. All I need to do is find somebody that's coachable. And that person probably knows the market, if you will. And I understand the human wiring. So, we put together their their their knowledge of the market in very general terms and my knowledge of how to get people to engage. And then we can negotiate anywhere. Hope you enjoy this episode brought to you by our sponsors at BetterHelp. Go to betterhelp.com/impact to get 10% off your first month. Enjoy the episode. Okay, so when the first body comes out what happens to you? It's the first time that this has gone awry. We're in the 7% now Yeah. that don't go well. It for me when I think about the way that that would like impact my mind and force me to like regroup. Did it knock you off or are you just laser focused? Well, you got to keep rolling cuz the case was still ongoing. And So no time for emotions right now. Is that what you're telling yourself? Uh Yeah, kind of probably. You know, we just I mean you got no choice. The case is still going on. You got to you got a team. You want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go as a team. You can always run screaming from the building. But really and this this is where life gets interesting for me is that by nature I would say I'm a run screaming from the building person, but I had to flip it all cuz I don't respect that. And Right. in discovering that you don't respect your initial impulse becomes a fascinating journey if you're willing to walk it. So I'm I'm always curious if if other people are having to do what I have to do to keep myself centered in there or if it's just like nah, it didn't occur to me to run screaming from the building. Well, and when you're when you're in the midst of you know, when you're in the battle I mean you can't you can't you can't bail. I mean people looking at you to lead. There are other people's lives that are still on the line. So identity. You up. You wouldn't allow yourself to do that. Probably, yeah. Good. Did you cuz I know you at least have one son. Did you teach him that? Like, "Hey, in this family we don't tuck tail. We don't run." Cuz what? Fight, flee, make friends? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, did you have those kind of conversations with him? Cuz this like I don't know how much of this is your character from birth and how much of this is you've built this incredible um value system that allows you to be in the most insanely difficult situations on planet Earth. You go into great detail about this in the book and it's so true. Most people are so uncomfortable with conflict that even when it's asking for a raise or negotiating for a car, they can't do it. They can't sit in that discomfort. Right, right, right. That's nothing compared to they just dumped a beheaded body at our feet to say, "You're not convincing." Basically. Right. not getting anywhere. That's a real life, man. Like I can I can understand why most people would not want to do that. So I'm curious and it I I find that asking people how they raise their kids often gets to what they do internally. So, what did you teach your son or sons uh about who we are as a family? Yeah, I think it was me and my father simultaneously. And you know, and everybody else is what my mother as well. Because um uh yeah, my son Brandon, who runs my company, is the best negotiator, or so I'm told. He's a star. He's really good. Um he's basically a Jersey guy. You know, he's mixed race. But he's this bizarre combination of Jersey and Iowa cuz we started sending him back to Iowa. My father's very blue blue-collar, hard worker. Expects you to figure stuff out, get stuff done. We started sending my son back to Iowa in the summertime when he was about six. So, he's so comfortable in both worlds that actually back in Iowa they like to call him Metro Jethro. Because he he he loves it there. He fits in completely. And you know, he's growing up. He's 8 years old. Uh grandpa's got him working in the business first half of the day cuz the town pool doesn't open till noon. So, he he'd have to get out of bed in the morning and have breakfast with his grandpa his grandparents. And then he'd have to get on his bike and ride to the same location as grandfather was driving to. His grandfather wouldn't give him a ride. He's like, "Look, you get on your bike, you get out there. You're supposed to be there at 8:30. Get yourself out of bed, get yourself fed. I will see you at the office." And they would leave at approximately the same time. And you know, he'd be like, "Why am I not getting a ride?" But that was just sort of the way that he grew up with you know, my my parents' help and then then at home it was always Yeah, you get knocked down, pick yourself up. He's he's got a memory from when he was playing football in uh uh he went to fifth year of high school cuz he was really young. So, there was a special program to get him ready for college ball. And he was I mean, he made a great play. Uh he's playing middle linebacker. He hustled all the way across the field, missed the tackle, just barely missed the guy. I mean, phenomenal hustle. Ended up diving through the air, landing on the ground out of bounds. And put just such effort into it and he was laying on the ground and he remembers hearing my voice in the distance go, "Great hustle. Now get up." And he was like, "All right. Well, this is the environment I grew up in." So, I think it's yeah, it's sort of a family thing that we inherited from my dad and you know, my dad picked out a woman that believed in those values and his mom believed Brandon's mom believed in hard work. So, that's just kind of how he came up. Yeah, I love that value system. I'm a fan, for sure. Uh okay, so at what point do you start articulating those values out loud? And are you talking about toughness, resilience, um like what what is it? Like I read your book before I saw interviews with you. And so, I wasn't expecting the sort of East Coast uh attitude. And it was um then suddenly it asked an interesting question for me because what I'm trying to tease out is, okay, how much of like the your ability to negotiate is just this like aggressive, tough nut, you know, it's all about being hardcore, and how much of it is learned resilience and strategy. I'm a little bit of a believer in um that pretty much everything is learned. Um The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle, I think. That's the point that he tries to make. That, you know, the the human beings that we think are prodigies, they just got interested before anybody noticed. And then bang, suddenly they were good at it, but they'd been interested in practicing for a while. I think that's pretty close to being true. Um I wish I could think of his name, a documentary I saw recently on uh uh phenomenally successful uh music producer. He picked out uh the correct key when he was 3 years old when uh somebody was cleaning a piano and hit one of hit one of the the the the key. So, he probably was born with some extra. Mhm. But, um I pretty much think everything is learned. Now, how did my son learn it? Well, um right after I left the FBI, I attended a training session. And it was the first time it occurred to me, I remember saying to myself, "Leading by example is not enough." So, I don't think I ever told him anything explicitly. I think I both he myself, you know, his grandfather, we sought lead by example. You know, you want somebody to learn how to do something or to learn how to live, I mean, then set a great example, I expect them to pick it up. So, but if it's not enough, what is the magic formula? Yeah, great question. Um depend upon the age of the human being, you know, probably they got to you got to you got to find somebody else hopefully to mentor them or you got to let them find their own way. And it's going to be messy. And ideally, you've but led by example enough till, you know, some that stuff is you were talking about the age of imprinting, right? Mhm. So, by the time they're starting to get into trouble in their mid-teens or later, I mean, they're kind of imprinted. You you got to go with whatever you you put in them. And then, ideally, their mistakes um that they're going to have to make, uh ideally, they're not costly enough where they're crippled for life over it. But give them some space, make them ride their bike to the pool, pick yourself back up, Yeah. be tough, be resilient, face it. Yeah, I think all that stuff's amazing. Okay, so now And you know, and even to take a little bit further cuz you know, and um Taleb's book, Antifragile. Mhm. Great book. Post-traumatic stress growth, right? And then I'm reading an art piece about Cooper Kupp today. Who? Uh uh receiver for the Rams. Cooper Kupp? Cooper Kupp. Cooper Kupp. The guy who set all he won a triple crown this year. Everybody forgot that the guy recovered from an ACL tear several years ago. Normally the end of a football player's effectiveness, if not their career. Like normally they're never the same after this traumatic injury. Torn ACL none of these almost none of these guys are ever the same. Kupp says to himself, "This is my opportunity to rebuild myself. Get rid of my bad habits. You know, fix what I was ever doing wrong." And Rams are in the Super Bowl and he won the triple crown for receivers. I mean, he's got he's number one in all these categories. And you're and I'm like, "Wait a minute. I he tore his ACL? Nobody comes back from an ACL tear." And I'm reading that and I'm thinking post-traumatic stress growth. He made the decision not just to recover, but to be better as a result of this massively traumatic injury. That's you know, that's that's beyond resilience. That's That's what Taleb would talk about being anti-fragile. Yeah, no. I love that. Such a powerful idea that getting hurt can actually make you stronger. But in the human anyway, it comes down to your mindset, how you respond to it. So, now that's we're back in the Philippines. The first body just gets dropped off. You obviously decide that you're going to get stronger. You don't want it to happen again. How do you like are you just really good at re-centering yourself emotionally? Or have you are is it a meditative practice? Like when the body hits, I I know what that would be like for me. That rush of blood to my head where my ears almost feel like they're closing in. You can hear your heartbeat beating in your ears. Um how did you Did that happen? And you had to calm yourself down? Or does that just not happen and and you're just so laser-focused? Well, it was principally because we were still in the midst of the siege. There was still two still two Americans whose lives were at stake. And up to that point in time the inter-govern- the intergovernmental organization was probably at its worst. Like we had previously gotten through a case and everybody gotten away with kind of half cooperating and the bodies hadn't been the case we just finished just a couple of months earlier. Like nobody got killed. And it's a little bit like like success. You wouldn't, you know, a football analogy again, it's tough for a football team to repeat after they won the Super Bowl cuz people are a little more focused on their own success versus team success once they reach the pinnacle. So, the cooperation in the early part of the second case was horrible. I mean horrible cuz they'd gotten away with it previously. And there was no body count, but now there was there was people were dying. So, we really had to we got our arms more around the case. We pushed a little harder on cooperation. People got a little more serious about not cooperating. Which in the long run 12 months later was when the final round uh two out of three remaining Americans got killed in a botched rescue attempt. And that that case had gotten really ugly again at that point. Now, that one hit me harder than the first one because in the first one nobody had been cooperating with us. So, I felt less responsible for the outcome because government of the Philippines was playing games with us. You know, they they they felt out of control on the last case. So, they gave us a guy who was supposed to handle the negotiations that was just completely going missing in action on a regular basis. When he was supposed to be with us. I I he went and and they pulled him right after the first series of deaths. They were like, "All right, this ain't working out so good." So, I felt you know, we still had the case going and I hadn't got my arms wrapped around it that well. Now, 12 months later I had had my arms wrapped around it and then when Martin Burnham, when the word came in that he got killed, that that hit me. That was a That was a real I'll never forget that moment. I was I was at home in the US when I when I got the call that he'd been killed. That, for me, at the time was difficult. Uh worst moment of my professional career. One of my worst personal moments until I'm listening to a case a couple years later listening to a negotiator talk about how hard it was on him when a baby got killed in a siege. Oh, god. And I remember thinking at the time, and it was a guy I had a tremendous amount of respect for. I thought, "Hard on you?" That wasn't your relative. And then when I thought about that, I thought, "And how am I you know, feeling sorry for myself over Martin Burnham's death because he wasn't my father. He wasn't, you know, my spouse. He wasn't my brother. You know, I I got no right feeling bad about this. Or at least to the extent that his family members do." So, that, you know, that was a bit of, you know, the overall journey that put things in perspective. Like, you asked to be in the middle of this stuff. It's a volunteer job. You going to feel sorry for yourself when you volunteered? That's probably out of perspective. Why did you volunteer? You know, I I found myself I was in crisis response. I was a member of the FBI SWAT team and I had re-injured my knee and I wanted to stay in crisis response. I liked crisis response. People got to make up their mind. You know, you can't go, "Well, let's sleep on this. You know, let's give this 24 hours to think about it." You know, you can't do that. You get You know, you got to make a decision. And I've always been in favor of decision-making. So, I'd been a SWAT guy and we had a hostage negotiators and it was a little bit like what we were talking about earlier, you know. Some stuff is a lot harder than it looks from the outside. Oh, yeah. And I literally remember thinking to myself, "I talk to people every day. I can talk to terrorists. How hard could it be?" You know, my son and I joke that our divorce family motto is, "How hard could it be?" Which is a little bit like, you know, it's like a little bit like the redneck's famous last words, "Hey, watch this." Yeah. "Hold my beer." "Hold my beer." So, uh but then I got into it and I've been volunteering when I finally got trained, I got volunteered on a suicide hotline. And then when I'm in it, I'm like, "I'm a around these extraordinary people that are doing phenomenal things with words. I mean, with words. Not actual actions, just words. Making a huge difference and being in the middle of these sieges and making a difference simply by what they said. And I thought, "Nah, I You know, I could get into this. This This This could be good." And it was. And so, How does that journey begin of learning what to say? Like what are they What are the sort of magic words? Like take us back to the Philippines, the bodies start coming out. How do you talk somebody down like that? Like it It just seems like all hope is lost once they killed the first person. There's no backing out. Yeah, man, they still got more people that are at stake. And so, you you you you can't not communicate. And you know, it's kind of like any other negotiation where the other side is doing stuff that is just not in their interest, but they're absolutely convinced that they're right. I mean, these guys want to get paid. And negotiation is not what it is to you, it's what it is to the other side. You get all bent out of shape that it's a horrific horrible thing. That was something I heard you say, I think in in an interview. Yeah. So, there is no such thing as logical. There's only what matters to you. Yeah. like, oh my god, that is so true. You literally just cut through decades worth of economics textbooks that try to make people seem rational. With that one sentence. That that the second I heard you say that, I was like, oh my god, that is absolutely true. There is no such thing as logical. There's only what matters to you. Yeah. Okay, so is that like when you come into a situation like that, are you just asking yourself, what matters to this person? Yeah. Is that is that the most fundamental question, what matters? Well, then what matters and and then ultimately people make up their mind principally on what they perceive the loss to be. Um and that's that's human nature, doesn't matter the scenario. When you say the loss, the loss that led them to do this or what losing in that scenario would look like? You got to look at both. Loss that drove them to the table in the first place to take the action. And then what loss are they avoiding by the action? And you want to get in their head and find out what it is. And since what loss are they avoiding is all perception, you know, vision of the future, then depending upon how you got in their head, if you're in there by invitation, which is the whole point of empathy or the tactical application of empathy, to get in by invitation, since you're in there by the invitation, then the idea is to get them to look at another loss. So, if it's a kidnapping, it's a question that's as as seems as um merciless as "How you going to get paid if you kill people?" Now, how how we going to how we going to collaborate? You know, how much are you losing by getting rid of hostages when you could have gotten paid for them? Cuz somebody's going to scare up the money for the hostage. Right. Somebody's going to. A hostage negotiator's real job internationally is to make sure that if somebody scares up that money, that there's enough of a trail left that you can hunt them down afterwards. That's exactly why you give a bank teller bait money. You don't want the bank teller to get shot over money. Now, you also don't want the bank robber to leave the bank with the entire contents of the vault. You give them enough money so the bank teller doesn't get shot, the bad guy leaves, and you chase him down afterwards. That's the way to save lives and put the bad guys out of business. So, you want to get them focused back on the money again. And then if they kill more hostages, it's their loss. And that's when they start to think like, "All right, well, maybe we made our point." You know, let let them let them let them feel that way. Who cares how they feel as long as you get what you want. And that's the idea to try to re-engineer the outcome. That's really interesting. That um is Is an easy position to take because it definitely makes them feel like we're a game, this is a game, or they're a chip versus like you almost have to divorce yourself from their humanity and meaning the hostages. I can't even think about them as people right now because that may stop me from actually getting them back. Is that do you approach it that way or are you trying to hold front and center this is somebody's mom, daughter, whatever and keep that front of mind? Like how do you what's the best tactic? Well, you you know, you you actually you learn the success tactic tactic again and I learned it from Gary. The process is you you you lower their value as a bargaining chip, you increase your value as a human being to the bad guys. So, that decreases the chances not only the bad guys will kill them but also you impact how they're treated in the meantime. That's incredibly shrewd. So, how do we lower their value as a bargaining chip? And then how do we increase their value as a human without the person feeling like they're being manipulated? That's always the fine line. Right. Right. Well, it's one of the reasons for potentially for a proof of life question. Not necessarily that you getting proof of life but you making them thinking about them as a human being. Mhm. Like all right, at this point in time we got to know hostage is still alive. What's uh you know, Martin Burnham's favorite thing to do with his kids first thing in the morning. And by asking that question you force a thought pattern into the bad guys. Cuz they were kids at one point in time. You know, um terrorists really bad guys it's not that they're completely lacking in emotion, they're completely lacking in certain emotions, which means they've had some emotional experiences. You want to see which ones are there that they resonate positively with. You know, one of the crazy things that I learned a long time after the fact is terrorists got moms. I mean, you'd be shocked at the emotional vulnerability across the board to the power of a well-crafted message from a mom. Really? I mean, and if like the first we found this out and again, my boss Gary Noesner, he had a great feel for this. One of the midst of the first case, the Jeff Schilling case, which bad guy, nobody died, hostage walks away cuz the bad guys got so um disorganized and disheartened and 2 months after the case, the the the serial killer terrorist on the other side calls the negotiator that I coached to congratulate him on how effective he was. Not in a rage, but to to literally say, "You know, you're really good at what you do. Wow. They should promote you." So, in the midst of that one, bad guys are threatening that they're torturing the American. Not that they're going to kill him, but they're torturing him. And the State Department is like, "You know, we got to get this torture threat off the table." And I remember thinking like, "You're not really bent out of shape unless you're being made to look bad here." Cuz having an American tortured overseas makes you look bad and that's what you're concerned about. I'm like, "All right, so we'll see what we can do." And I talk I talked to my boss Gary and I'm like, "All right, so how do we go from release him release him to be nice to him?" This is absurd. And uh you know, Gary says to me, says um "Tell him that his mom is worried about him." I can remember literally in that moment like I held the phone away from my head and I remember looking at the phone and I thought to myself that is the dumbest effing thing I have ever heard in my life. And I kind of rolled my eyes and and I used to ignore so much of what Gary told me anyway. You know, he was good. He gave me a lot of rope. And so I go, "Okay. We'll see if we can work that into the conversation." Cuz I want to make him feel like I was paying attention to him. So we coach up the negotiator the next day and you know, we got the negotiation operation center set up and we got sheets of paper with dialogue and we're going to be there with him the whole time. We're You can hear tone of voice. When you get the cadence, you got a pretty good idea what's being said just based on tone. And we tell him he says, "You know, you got to work this mom thing into the conversation." And he looks at us like "You're kidding, right?" I'm like, "Yeah, you know, just find a way to work it in." So he's on the phone with the bad guy and we're we're all but getting him to come right out that they're not torturing him cuz they're not. I mean, there's no need to, but it makes him look good to claim they are. And and Benji says to the bad guy says, "You know, his mom's worried about him." And the sociopathic terrorist on the other end of the phone literally says "His mom knows about this? You tell her he's okay." Wow. And we're like, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard." And you know, we're on the other side of the clock in Manila. You know, we're 12 hours on the other side of the clock. So it's the middle of the afternoon for me. It's middle It's 1:30 in the morning for Gary. And I'm like, "I got to get this out of the way. I mean, I I I have to get this out of the way." So I immediately call Gary and I wake him up in the middle of the night. You know, he always took the calls. 1:30 in the morning, his phone rings and I hear him, "Hello." And I go, "Do you always have to have to be right?" And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I go, "I don't know how you knew that this guy was going to resonate with the mom stuff, but it worked perfectly." How did he know? Did he say? You know, a great gut instinct, but once we started looking for it, then it would show up in case after case. And which is really hard, you know, once I was looking for that dynamic, every terrorist got a mom. And if you had to bet, it's a good bet that they're bonded to their mom. Like physically, they were born. They had to have a mom. Mom was probably nurturing, all the different stuff that bent them out of shape and turned them into the twisted human being that they became. I didn't have any anything to do with mom. So, they still got deep inside, you know, first year of their life, they were nurtured by mom. Mom did everything she could she possibly could. Even terrorists got moms. And I saw this show up a couple times later on, and I started realizing it was probably if I you took me to Vegas, which I live there now, and you said, "Place a bet. Is this guy going to resonate emotionally with the mom?" And I'd say, "Based on our data, we got an 85 to 90% chance that the mom is a button we can punch." And so, then in subsequent cases, knowing this, I'd bring it up with ambassadors or or, you know, FBI headquarters or the White House. And they'd all react the exact same way that I did. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. That ain't, you know, they're inhuman." Uh that ain't ever going to work. And we saw I saw evidence of it in 20 12 when um son of Al-Qaeda, uh the group in in uh Iraq that was chopping people's heads in 2012, 2014, 2014 time frame. Um Uh their name will come to me after the fact. But there was uh there was one case there where the mom card got played really strongly. And the head of head of the group responded. And I remember thinking like, "I've been tell you know, I know this sounds crazy, but we see it over and over and over again." So there's a common humanity thread to every human being regardless of circumstances. That's really interesting. So we've got the mom thread. We've got What are some of the other threads? A desire to be heard, They want to be heard. want to be in control. Like what are what are some known knowns when you roll up on average, the sort of 80, 85% range, when you roll up, you know, okay, mom, probably going to be a button. They want to be in control. They want to be heard. Um Are there any others? Sense of loss. And you know, an idea of some sort of a loss. Loss is a strongest be true uh behavior trigger of human nature, period. Period. How do you track that down? Um well, first of all, it's it's like you know what you're looking for to begin with. And it's not really active listening, it's proactive listening. And there's certain things are the tactical application of empathy. What do we know to be true? What do we got to bet on? Loss is the primary the biggest impact on decision-making of human beings across the board. Danny Kahneman, 2002 Nobel Prize winner behavioral economics, loss weighs twice as much as an equivalent gain for people. Period. If you're human, you're wired that way, which makes it the biggest trigger in thinking. So, if they're engaged in a behavior that we don't understand, they perceive the loss. And we got to start, you know, sniffing around for it, looking for the hints. Knowing it's there. And then consequently, you're going to get them change their mind about something, you reformulate the loss. If I say to you, "If you do this, there's a 90% chance you'll fail." Like, "I'm not doing that." But if I say, "Do this, there's, you know, you got a 10% chance to success." Ooh, that sounds and lands completely different. 10% I could succeed. 10% I'm a winner. I'm in the 10%. You know, it it lands differently. But if you want to make sure they don't do it, "90% chance you'll fail here." I'm not doing that. I'm not taking that risk. That's too far against me. I mean, that will shut somebody down for sure. 10% success might move them forward. But I guarantee you I shut you down with a 90% failure rate. There is no difference in those numbers. Exact same numbers. And so you start to see it across the board and like, all right, so we're going to get them to change their mind, we just change the frame of the loss. You're in a merger and an acquisition negotiation. Entrepreneur, sole proprietor is trying to sell his company. Wants to get, you know, whatever, um, 10x EBITDA. Cuz a buddy of his got 10x. Now, the person buying his company wants to take him wants him to take a lower multiple, so that in 2 years, he retains a piece, and he makes 30, 40, 50, 100 million dollars more by taking less now. Guys thinking is lost I you know I can't I can't take a million dollars less for this. I can't take nine when I should take 10. I'll lose a million dollars. Take nine, take a piece. You're willing to risk a hundred million dollars seven years from now. You want to lose a hundred million dollars over a million dollars now. And they'll be like, "No, that's crazy. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard." You just reframed what the loss is. And that's where you get people to change their mind because of whether it's a terrorist thinking we have lost you know we've been harmed in the past. We've lost our homeland. You know we've lost our identity. Terrorism is about choosing violence as a way to make up for loss. Interesting. I have never heard that before. Uh is that universal? Um it's the universal driver of human decision-making. Now how they're looking at the loss, you know you know there's kind of three groups that are out there that you see over and over again. You know lethal triad they called it the charismatic leader, the sociopathic um middle men, you know the number twos, captains lieutenants, and then the inadequate followers. There was a terrorism book from way back when called Crusaders, Criminals, and Crazies. Uh friend of mine Tom Strentz wrote a book called The Bad, The Man, The Sad. So it kind of breaks down into you know the complete charismatic leader. Maybe he believes in a cause, maybe just believes in himself. The criminals aren't involved. They're just doing it because it's a way to combat the status quo and continue to commit crime. The people that are looking for identity, you know it was harsh to describe them as the our followers. But they're sad. You know, they looking for an identity and the leadership has convinced them that they've been harmed by this perceived loss and they have to make up for it. So, it's kind of packaged along those lines. And is that who's going to be there actually doing the hostage part? So, you're not dealing with the charismatic leader, you're dealing with the sad underlings? Principally, the sad underlings are their implementers. Because they're the cannon fodder for the leader. You know, the the leadership, whether it's a charismatic leader or a sociopathic enabler. Who are they going to put at risk? Who are you going to send out to conduct a kidnapping? Who's going to Who's going to hold the hostage? Who's going to be the hostage's jailer? That's the worst job on their side, you know, to have to sit around with a hostage day after day. It's a It's a It's you know, you're not You're not giving that to your talented people. How did these guys 13 months? Yeah. How did they not just get bored and wanted to end? Um they're prepared for a little longer siege. They've got a vision of a big payoff in the end. That $20 million payout the year previous painted visions of wealth. Which means if they don't get their 20 million, they're losing. So, you'll stay in the game longer because of this perceived loss. And are you guys letting food get in or have they stocked up enough food to get through all this? Well, we're trying to We're trying to get stuff in. Um you know, didn't know this was going on at the time, but um Dan Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down, wrote an article in Vanity Fair probably about a year after this case went down revealing a whole bunch of information that I was not privy to in the case. So, according to Dan Bowden, who evidently has great resources in the US government, not in the FBI, there were unnamed government agencies that were setting in sending in food deliveries with informants that had tracking devices in them. Oh. That again, according to Dan Bowden in his article in Vanity Fair, you know, I am quoting a publicly source. I am not quoting pri you know, secret government information. That there were food deliveries that were being made with trackers on them. Okay, so that starts getting complicated with all kinds of different agencies pulling in different directions. Right. Um what is all this like seeing people beheaded, uh recognizing the sad, the mad, the sad? Yeah, like there, huh? Thank you, Tom Streithorst. I'll I'll try to remember it better, but um what is all of this revealing to you like about humanity? Do you Do you have a a look at humanity like this is crazy, that this is ugly? Are you optimistic? Like I mean, you've seen some gnarly [ __ ] Like what does this give you a takeaway? Cuz you said I could drop you anywhere and you know enough about human wiring Right. to to go into this. Yeah. And it does not paint a pretty picture with the ways in which we are manipulable. Between this is all about loss and just reframing the loss, completely reframing like the fact that we would do this kind of crazy [ __ ] over loss, that my mother is going to like trigger some very strange reaction given the circumstances. Like how do you conceptualize of human nature at this point? Well, yeah, I'm first of all, I'm very optimistic. Um you know, to me it's relief that we're kind of that we're kind of all wired the same. Interesting. You know, this Even though it means that we are all then in Oh God, who was it? Solzhenitsyn, I think, that said either Solzhenitsyn or Frankl that evil runs through the center of every human heart. I wouldn't go that far. I think um the the the capability of doing something that appears to be very evil and heartless when people get really scared and afraid for their own survival. I am I am somewhat like when people start getting really afraid for their own survival. People's ability to discard the humanity of people around them as a defense mechanism. You know, that saddens me to some degree. Um but it it is. So you know, don't curse the darkness, get a flashlight, figure it out, get night vision goggles. You know, just there's certain things that simply are. Mhm. Um but they're they're consistent. So if I understand what is and it's consistent and you don't get it doesn't do you any good to get angry at people for having a propensity to to do really bad things inadvertently or just out of self self-protection. And but maybe it makes it more forgivable to know that when backed into a corner, people are more scared rabbits than they are predatory wolves. So most people are not predatory wolves. They're they're they're out there. But the vast majority of people are not. Have you come across predatory wolves? Well, I you know, I think you know, the guy in the in the um the the Schilling case who was on the on the other end of the phone. Yeah, he was he was a predatory wolf. I mean, he was a bad guy. He was the one that was batting people? Yeah. And then then the crazy thing was I mean it's really interesting the way that plays out cuz in the second case instead of being in charge of the negotiations second case he's in a charge in charge of the hostages. Same guy? Same guy. He got He got demoted. From negotiator to jailer. Okay. But the hostages loved them. Cuz he he understood that a a hostage who was so spiritually broken that they couldn't get up off the ground was a logistical problem. Cuz they were on the run for most of the 13 months. They were moving from place to place. They were staying ahead of drones. They were staying ahead of patrols. sitting in in one house and you guys are surrounding it. Nah, nah, no. Kidnapping's a mobile operation. Wow, I've had the wrong impression this whole time. Well, there's there's two kinds of cases I could be working. I could be working a contained case like what you're talking about where they're not getting away. Or I could I could be working the uncontained, you know, to use real simple terminology. So, you know, talking with Gracia Burnham uh the American who lived, she got shot by friendly fire in the leg and she survived. Phenomenal human being and her kids whom I'm acquainted with um are wonderful people. Every every member of her their family, wonderful human being. And that's the father that got killed, right? Yeah. Now, she's telling us about this after the fact cuz we're always de- debriefing hostages who survived cuz we want to understand the dynamics behind the scenes. Number one, number two our survival debriefings happen to be great stress debriefings for them. Two kinds of interviews, information gathering and stress debriefing. Why is it a stress debriefing? What do they get out of it? Um you know, the opportunity to talk somebody through a horrific situation from beginning to end and for the listener to be genuinely curious as opposed to trying to extract information. Like an interview of a released hostage by an investigator is exhausting. I mean exhausting. And they don't like it and it sucks the life out of them. If they sit we sit around and we ask them questions about what was the experience like? What were the bad guys what were they like? How did you survive? You know, what emotional triggers did you go through? It's very cathartic for the hostage. So we're talking to Gracia Burnham and like you know, of your captors what was your reaction to this guy this guy this guy? And we bring up the sociopathic murderer. And she said yeah, we kind of liked him. I mean he could tell when we were really down and if he sensed that I was really down he would say, you know, I'll take her down to the river, you know, give her some time alone. Let her clean herself up, you know, just just give her a break. Take it a little bit easier on her. This is the guy that was beheading people. Yeah. Because So weird to me. he's responsible for moving these people if they need to move in a hurry. See this this is something that from a what what are humans like? Chris Voss let us answer the question what are humans like? So it is really strange to me that a human can in one scenario be beheading people and then get a slightly different job description and be like all right, take them down to the water and let them wash. Um that does say to me that the line of evil runs through every human heart. How does that not say it to you? Do you think that it is that not the predictable part? Like you just of course like that makes sense. He's going to have bonded with them cuz that's his job now. with them. He's He's He's To him, they're a commodity that he has to be able to move in a hurry. And so, he's just letting him go down to the river so they they will move quickly when he needs them to. Exactly. Yeah, he knows he's got to he you know, he he doesn't want them like happy to be there. But, if they're completely disabled emotionally, they're going to be disabled physically. Mhm. And if a military patrol comes too close, they're not going to be able to bug out of there in a hurry. And this is a valuable commodity he's got to take care of. And so, he he's agnostic. Now, some of the other captors are messing with them cuz they're bored and they're inadequate followers and they're inadequate human beings. And that's a completely different approach, which is what most hostages go through on a regular basis. You know, the people Out of boredom, they just start [ __ ] with them. Yeah. And what does that take the look of? Throwing rocks at them? You know, I've I've heard plenty of stories in you know, in in some of the rougher kidnappings in South America where just for entertainment, they'll put a rifle to somebody's head and pull a trigger on an empty chamber just to watch them flinch. Just. And you know, cuz they got nothing better to do. Mental health is a huge priority in my life and I encourage everyone to prioritize it. And one of the best ways to follow through on healthy mental health habits is by working with a licensed therapist. Better Help is available for clients worldwide. You can log in to your account anytime and send a message to your therapist. Better Help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy and free to change therapists if needed. It's more affordable than traditional offline therapy and financial aid is available. Better Help wants you to start living a happier life today. Visit betterhelp.com/impact. That's better h e l p and join the over 1 million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. And with a special offer for our Impact Theory audience, you can get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/impact. Again, that's betterhelp. com/impact. Take care and be legendary. What do you take away from that? Like that's so sadistic. Yeah. So, have you read um Solzhenitsyn's book uh the Gulag Archipelago? I have not. Oh my god, read it, Chris. I'm so curious to know what you think about this. So, it's interesting. I I am not yet sure I understand what you have taken away from all of these people. I have thankfully not encountered anything like this. There was one guy in high school that people said he beat kittens to death. And I remember thinking, "Oh my god, that's so dark." I almost couldn't allow myself to believe that it was true. So, I was like, "Ah, maybe he's exaggerating, whatever." So, anyway, that always stuck in the back of my head. Did that guy really beat kittens to death? So, that just freaks me out. But, when I read the Gulag Archipelago and it's basically Solzhenitsyn screaming for like a thousand pages. It's unreal. Cataloging the cruelty that befell him, the way that people turn on each other, the way that you could get a prisoner to turn into a guard and that they would then be cruel to other prisoners just as a way to like get themselves out of it. And that so easily we could turn on each other and pluck, you know, fingernails and just torture people, cruelly kill them, uh send them away to, you know, these prison camps that were almost certainly death sentences. And it was like Jordan Peterson introduced this idea to me, which has been useful. He said, "Don't think of yourself as the one that hides Jews in the attic. Think of yourself as a Nazi guard." Huh. And I was like, "Whoa." Because you want to talk about something I just always No way. Like I could never ever ever." And then when you allow yourself to go, "Do I have weakness inside of me?" I do. And is there a threshold at which just to save my own family that I would do something horrendous? I worry that I would. And so hearing Solzhenitsyn basically say, "You're all capable of it. We're all capable of it." And it's like, "Oh, man." So when you talk about somebody going from Cuz I don't know I don't read that guy like you obviously were in the mix and so I could just be totally misreading this. But when I hear the guy in one kidnapping time is beheading people, "Hey, no problem." And the next is like letting them go down to the river, that to me is more of a mother moment than it is a This guy's a logistical genius and he knows I have to like keep them to a certain level of prime Maybe he is. Maybe he is. You heard first-hand experience. But to me, I just hear when you're in a different role, and I don't know how real the Stanford prison experiment is and if it's ever been replicated, but I'm sure you've heard that classic thing where they had some students they said, "You guys are the guards. You guys are the prisoners." But they were classmates. And within 3 days they had to shut the experiment down because the prison guards started acting so abusively towards the prisoners, even though they were randomly assigned, that they ethically they just couldn't continue. And so that's what I hear in this story. And I'm not sure if that means that you have a way more optimistic view because you're just a better person than I am or I don't know. That's really interesting. flawed person. Yeah. It's very intriguing. What do you believe to be true about the individual? Are we capable, are all of us capable of great kindness and great evil or it's a spectrum and some of us are tighter on the scale? What what is true of humans? Yeah, you know, um, I think it's a spectrum. Um, you know, just because you can get some people to do horrific things doesn't mean you can get everybody to do horrific things. It, you know, it's kind of in the in the environment and then things go a little at a time, you know, the the the boiling frog analogy. Can't drop a frog in a boiling water, but you can start them out in warm water and raise the temperature and they'll stay. You know, the degree of change is and then as we as we grow, um, and go through life then then what have what have we experienced that we failed? Everybody fails. Everybody goes down a tubes. Everybody's got something who's got a moment where they were fragile or they did something that they they they uh, probably deeply regret. Now, again, are you do you become a better person as a result and forgive yourself uh, for failing to step up? You know, what do you do as a result? You know, everybody's going to do stuff where they failed themselves, where they were fragile, they made a bad decision. They were heartless either intentionally or accidentally. Like how do you how do you how do you pick it up after that? Is what the real issue is. And how do you pick yourself up? Like for me, it would be I would assess what I believe to be right, true aren't quite there, but I would figure out what what do I want my values to be? What do I aspire to be? And I would have to reorient myself towards aspiration. So, I failed and I would be very careful not to allow the failure to become what I perceive of myself. You're Thank you for letting me talk through something I've never had to articulate. But, here is a really interesting idea that I've had on my mind lately that you can who you believe yourself to be is a frame of reference unto itself. Yeah. And you see things and experience things through that frame of reference, what you believe to be true about yourself. If you believe yourself to be capable, if you believe yourself to be a good person, you will act accordingly and view your actions accordingly and view as you imagine the future, you will imagine, "I'm going to be successful." You'll have optimism. "I'm going to handle this well." Because that's your frame of reference. But, if something happens that knocks your frame of reference, a failure or whatever, then suddenly your frame of reference shifts in an instant. "I'm a failure. I'm a loser. I'm not good at this." And as you imagine the future, the future is bleak. And all of it is suddenly neurochemically real and you were there. And what I have found interesting is if I ever find myself going to a dark place and it feels heavy and it feels like um I'm pessimistic about the future, I say there is a single phrase that I will say to myself and it changes my neurochemistry in like 4 seconds. Yeah. And that's remember who you are. Yeah. Now, what's interesting is I know that's a game. I know it's a gimmick cuz I'm I'm not anybody, right? I am I am the person who can be confident and I am the person who can be scared. I am both of those things. But, somehow along the way that phrase triggers a neurochemical state for me and I can shift myself out of a negative viewpoint and get there. And so, as I think about like okay, you fail and this big traumatic thing happens to you. How do you grab the right, and maybe we need to debate this idea of frame of reference, but how do you grab a hold of the right frame of reference, which is going to completely distort good or bad what you see, think, and feel. Yeah, I think it very definitely gets back to cuz when you're saying remember who you are it's like remember what your core values are. You know, get back on track. Sometimes I refer to that as two lines of code. You know, computer code. Everybody got two lines of code somewhere very deep in their brain which kind of drives who they are. God knows what it is in some cases or how I got that. Like how did how did those two lines of code How did the two lines of code that I believe probably drive me how did they get in my head? I I don't know. Do we all literally have two lines of code? Is there Is there a duality or cuz I think it's probably pretty simple. Okay. For whatever it is. It might either be like life, you know, it doesn't matter for some people and you know, then then when they do something wrong, well, it doesn't matter. Let it go. Or look, um you're a good guy. Like that doesn't mean you're perfect. Or be a good person. Or you can succeed. You know, I don't remember My mom whispered that in my ear at some point in time when I was three. I don't know I don't know how I got it in there. I don't know exactly what it is. But I you know, I think it would it would gives me the ability at some point in time pick yourself up and get and learn from this. You know, you you're you're not here to be to take up to use oxygen. You got a purpose. Whatever it is. You know, you're you're spiritual outlook on life. Um the bigger picture. You know, we talked about uh in Never Split the Difference, you know, finding out somebody's religion. What is it that they believe in that's bigger than them, that they would you know, they they would work forever and be happy and one another person would consider it to be um a disparaging uh and ruining their life. Like, how do how do people take the exact same circumstances seen completely differently? Now, it's maybe it's a two-line of code or if they got defeated and they and they never got up. So, yeah, I I guess, you know, mine's got to be largely optimistic, whatever it is. Um and that's so then when, you know, I find myself curled up in a fetal position, uh unable to get off the floor, eventually I'm going to say, "Look, it's time to get up." And get smarter. Time to get up and get smarter. Smarter. Okay. So, let's talk about what makes somebody a good negotiator. What does the smarter look like? So, if all of this is about two lines of code, like so much of your book revolves around, once you understand how people are wired, once you understand what their religion is, once you understand their two lines of code, we become controllable isn't the right word, but we become movable. Influenceable, if that's a word. So, how do we begin to suss that out? So, when you're sitting across the table, and I like I know that a lot of this deploys against business negotiations, but I want to keep it when lives are on the line. So, ultra-high stakes, literal life and death. What are you asking? What are you looking for? How much of Like, the fact that you guys have these teams and everybody's broken up, okay, you're looking for positive statements, you're looking for negative. Walk us through that. What what's the setup? And then how are we going to tease out this information? Well, yeah, the setup is yeah, we you know, we're we're going to pull together a team because there's so much in what's said and the way it's said. Even more in the way it's said. But there's just there's more information coming off a person if even if you can't see him. There's more information that you can keep up with if you're not trying to respond. And then, you know, you formulate a statement in your mind in the amount of time that you're formulating a statement, you're not listening. So, there's just more data there than one person can handle. So, we built a team concept and we had different people listen for different things. And the more we thought about it, like how long did the conversation go? How much profanity, which is, you know, emotional adjectives. How many emotional adjectives were in there? Negative emotional adjectives. As there's few as the conversations get longer and there's fewer negative emotional adjectives, you're making progress. It's never a straight line, so it's going to go and come. So, you know, what's our pulse? What's our frequency? And then would people really start listening for the nuances? And you you get five people together. I mean, if you want to listen for everything, you probably need at least five people keeping track of everything. And it then then then the patterns start to emerge really fast. Or like in the in the Tractor Man siege in DC in Tractor Man? Yeah, the way Lloyd Watson drove a tractor to the middle of Washington DC in 2003 just before the beginning of the first Iraq war. And his family had been crushed by that tobacco industry settlement. They were no longer able to farm and sell enough tobacco. You know, I don't know, but this the tobacco industry settlement ended up crushing his family business. He tried to protest in DC a couple times, got legal permits to protest, nobody cared. You know, save the tobacco farmer. That ain't exactly a hashtag that's real popular. Yeah. And it's not their fault that that's how they grew up making a living, which was completely legal, acceptable, and nothing wrong, and then the world suddenly decides it's a bad thing. So, he protested a couple years in a row, nobody cares. So, he rolls back into DC now with his tractor and and his and his trailer and his his 4x4 and claims he's got bombs. Which gets everybody's attention. Has a way of doing that. You'll get somebody's attention. But, working a case, park police negotiators were backing him up, were coaching him, were doing all the analysis for him. You know, we're the team that we put up around him cuz we work a a good team. And we get to the point where he's found a face-saving way to surrender. You know, he said, "I was in the 82nd Airborne. The 82nd Airborne parachutes behind enemy lines, and you're there for for 72 hours with no backup, you can withdraw." So, basically, he's agreed to come out after 72 hours. Now, the problem is he's a volatile dude, and since we don't know for sure whether or not he's got explosives, in a fit of rage, if he goes a wrong direction, the sniper's got a green light on him. And we're thinking like, all right, we got to keep this guy from getting himself killed. Cuz when you're in a rage, you're going to do something stupid, and there's a very specific protocol where we suspect the explosives might be, and if he makes a move for the explosives, we cannot wait and find out if they're there. And so we're thinking like, we got to get this guy out of here in less than 72 hours cuz that's just too much for for stable behavior. We cannot expect him to stay cool for 72 hours. So, there's a disagreement within in the negotiation cell as to when he said he's going to come out. And I look at the negotiators and I go, "When's When's Dwight coming out?" They go like, "He's coming out tomorrow." And I said, uh I don't think he is. I think we're still 36 hours away, you know, we're not we're not 8 hours away. Well, we'll call him and ask him. And I'm like, "Ho ho ho ho ho Before we call him, in the event he's not coming out tomorrow morning, what are we going to say to get him to change his mind?" And we've heard all this military stuff, all this hyper-masculine stuff. And buried in the military jargon and the hyper-masculine stuff, there hints of his religion, which is Christianity. Just hints of it. Just hints. And Winnie Miller, a female negotiator on my team, sitting in the back of the room. And we're What do we say? What do we say? What do we say? And Winnie goes, "Tell him tomorrow's the dawn of the third day." Because, you know, in the Christian religion, Jesus crucified on Friday, he gets up on Sunday. That's 48 hours. That ain't 3 days. That's not 72. It's 1 day to Saturday, it's 2 days to Sunday. So, we're thinking about this and we're like, "Yeah, okay." Dawn of the third day. So, we call him back on the phone. They go, "Dwight, when you coming out? You coming out tomorrow, right?" He goes, "No, I'm not coming out tomorrow." And then the negotiator brilliantly, cuz deliveries is important as awards, she brilliantly says, "The white." "Tomorrow's a donor, the third day." There's this long silence on the other end of the line. He goes, "I'll come out tomorrow." Now, she saved his life cuz I promise you the 24 more hours he'd have cracked and he'd have made some move where the sniper would have taken him out. And we did not want that to happen. By this point in time, we're talking to this and this this poor schmuck has just been crushed. He's tried to get the world's attention. We don't think he's got bombs, but we don't know he doesn't have bombs and we can't take that chance. We got to get him out of there before he gets himself killed. And so that was kind of you know, here's a guy doing something that looked really bad, but there was still possibly to your point, what's inside somebody? You know, what are those kernels those grains that are still in there that maybe we can uncover them, maybe we can reach in and reach. And and and we got him out. He came out, didn't nobody nobody got hurt. Okay, so that was a case of literally knowing their religion and also there's something in there about knowing that he needs to save face and the military thing about 72 hours and having an honorable exit and all of that. Um how do you tease out this stuff? So, somebody that wants to use this in their real life. Yeah. The most interesting thing that you cover in the book in great detail is how you begin to like pull this information out. You mentioned earlier, but it's worth noting that the name of your company is Black Swan and the whole idea of it's the unknown unknowns. The tiny little things that make all the difference, yeah. And so, how do you get to that? Well, yeah, again, what are you listening for? You're Now now I know what to to tell you to look for. You know, look for the hints of loss. You know, what impacted their identity? Look for the narratives. That they're telling themselves? That they're telling themselves. You know, how does this make sense to them? You know, what's the trigger here? What's the opening question? Do you have a standard opening question that you ask them to get them to start talking? Yeah, you know, you know, one one of a couple things. Um which is like how every negotiation should go. Script out your first two or three lines and then you're into an ad-lib from that point on. You got to prepared it's a dance, let the other person lead. And they'll take you where you want to go. Give them a chance. And the opening is going to be some catch them off guard and expression of concern for them. And we used to talk about this all the time. Like, what's your opening line? And we would go back and forth on a lot of stuff. Um For the longest time my favorite was I'm here to talk to you about coming out. Knowing that they're going to respond I ain't coming out. Now my next line, which and and that's all I'm scripted, is I know you're not coming out now. I just want you to know that when you do we're going to make sure that you feel treated with dignity and respect. And I got to make sure you don't get hurt. And now we're off to the races wherever he wants to go. But I put a vision in his head with that statement. It doesn't matter what he says. He said I got a chance to draw that picture. And then a buddy of mine, super talented guy, Vince D'Afonzo. He says, I want to call in and say are you okay? Cuz they're expecting us to call in and ask about the hostages. But are you okay? Now I'm I'm in a confrontation in a parking lot here in LA about two months ago. Really? Yeah. Just on a personal level. Yeah. Okay. And um this guy honks at me. You know, he's clearly bent out of shape. And I you know, I'm I'm not being aggressive and I'm in a parking lot and and I happen to be standing I think I'm out of his way, but he wants to park where I am. And he honks at me and he drives by me. He happens to be a black dude, doesn't really matter and he's running his mouth as he goes by. And it clearly something has got him wound up before he ever saw me. And for whatever reason I'm there at the wrong time. Now, I ain't letting this pass and I'm also not getting into a fight with this guy. You're not letting it pass that he honked at you and was aggressive? Uh yeah and and he's running his mouth as he goes by. You know, he's about 5-6 ft away and as it turns out we're both headed to the same restaurant anyway. But I'm like I'm just in a mood like I you know, I'm I'm not the type to let this pass for a whole variety of reasons. So of course I walk right over to his car. And as he's getting out and he's glaring at me, I'm like, "Are you okay?" He was, "Yeah, of course I'm okay. You're in my way." I said, "Yeah, no no no, seriously seriously. Are you okay? Are you okay?" And he was so caught off guard by that that it initially deactivated him. He said, "Yeah, well you know, I'm trying to I'm trying to park, you know, you're in the way." I'm like, "Yeah yeah, man. Oh man, I'm so you know, I'm so sorry. I That was stupid of me. I didn't I didn't I was trying to look at the at the front of the um the store to make sure I was at the right place." And now he he's come down about halfway. You know, he's clearly he's coming down and I again, this dude has been triggered by something he's carrying inside him before I'm even on the scene and I'm not going to aggravate this. So we both of course we both head to the same restaurant door at the same time. So, I go to hold hold the door for him, and he's he picks up his phone and acts like he's not going in. He is not going to accept a gesture of kindness from me. Right. And then I go inside, and you know, my girlfriend is there, and she's like, "Is Is everything okay? You know, did What did we do wrong?" And he's like, "Oh, you you got You guys didn't do anything wrong." And so, he lurks outside the restaurant till I'm getting ready to leave, but decides to come in at the same time that I'm leaving cuz it's a takeout. And I go to hold the door for him the second time, and he walks through. So, he goes from being combative and calling me names and refusing to walk through the door when I'm being polite and not accepting a gesture of kindness from me, to now I, you know, I haven't been confrontive combative, but I kind of have been confrontive, but confronted him about is he okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? And saying it in a way where I gently genuinely meant it. When I get ready to leave the second time, he's good with accepting a gesture of goodwill from me. I hold the door, and he comes through. All right. So, from a technique standpoint, you knock him off guard by asking him if he's okay. And be genuinely concerned and let it come across in my voice. Cuz I didn't plant that anger in him. I may, you know, I inadvertently added to it. But he rolled into this. You know, I There's a phrase that I've seen, which is like, if you understood half the stuff that people are struggling with, you take it a lot easier on them. Like this dude is struggling with something before he shows up. It's a nice car. You know, I'm I'm judging from his demeanor. You know, he's a black guy. He's He's a white-collar dude. He's got He's in a nice car. As I recall, it was a nice Jeep. You know, everything about him is just like another regular guy making probably a pretty good living, and something is eating him up before he even shows up there. And I happen to be there at the moment when inadvertently, you know, I add to it. By standing in his way. So, for you, the idea of not letting it go, you weren't you confronted him like you said, but it wasn't I don't know. It Is there emotional gratification to you just to engage? Like, or you said I I'm not going to let it go for a whole host of reasons. So, now I need to understand what reasons are those. Is it Did that feel like an affront to you in some way? And now you just need to engage. You need to like lower his anger and that gives you the the sense of justice? Like, I'm not sure. Cuz I If you had gone up to him and been like "Listen, asshole." That I would understand. Dumb, but I would understand. But What's your problem? Yeah, but if Is it emotionally Are you looking for emotional catharsis in the confrontation? And is it catharsis that you get by helping him come down? Well, I could promise you that this is mostly selfish. Okay. You know, there's almost a joke out there, the myth of altruism. You're not helping people cuz you care about people, you help them cuz it makes you feel good. Therefore, it's very selfish to be altruistic. That's so You can get into a whole circular argument over all this and knock yourself out unnecessarily. So, it it does make me feel good to to help somebody out. Um So, yeah, I get it I get a I feel genuinely better about it. Part of my philosophy is life, you know, I I didn't invent this phrase, leave people better than you found them. You know, you're making the world a better place. I'm also a very strong believer in karma. The more positive stuff I do, the more positive stuff comes back to me. I think there's actually There's more and more reason to believe that there's something to this energy feeling karma. There's probably science behind karma and it probably in fact impacts how people react to us and what comes our direction and what we repel. We know we attract You put out positivity, you're going to attract positivity. I'm also naturally born assertive type. Somebody runs their mouth at me, I'm not good at letting that go. I'm also not interested in making it worse. You know, um what's that? You make a speech when you're angry, it's the greatest speech you'll ever regret. I'm not looking I'm not looking to make it worse. And I know that, you know, if I got my negotiator hat on, you know, I I can leave this guy better off. And probably in that particular moment, I've talked my way out of confrontations that I did not start. Other times, I've talked my talked people out of confrontations that I've seen in public that I had nothing to do with. Cuz I just didn't want to see it go down the tubes. When somebody's hyped up, they feel an injustice has been done, what's the path to helping them out of that? I'm a train I'm on a train in Jersey on a Saturday morning a couple years ago. And bunch of regular folks on a PATH train headed into Manhattan. And I see this again, and skin color's got nothing to do with it. Could be Irish, could be Jewish, you know, they're just they're just human beings. See what looks to be like a basically a hard-working blue-collar black guy sitting on a on on a train. Another hard-working decent human being, black female sits down next to him. I mean, just slams in onto the There's like about 6 in. She plants herself, shoves him forcefully to the side, and says, "I said excuse me, move over." And I And you know, I I see this poor guy. He's just sitting there minding his own business. Probably struggling with whatever he's doing. And I can see her pushing him, and she's got something she's struggling with on a completely separate And I can see this getting ready to go bad. Cuz at some point I'm on the other side of car. At some point of time he's going to get pushed to his limit. Cuz he was sitting there minding his own business. And no matter how he reacts, unless he gets up and walks away, he's going down over it. There ain't no excuse for pushing back physically with a female under any circumstances. L- legally, morally, however you look at it. And I'm looking at this poor bastard and I'm thinking like I don't want to see this guy go down. So I walk across the train and I lead with I'm sorry. And when I'm sorry is the first thing out of your mouth, it startles people in a really good way. Like, what are you sorry for? And I And And I'm going to personalize myself. I go, I'm sorry. I'm Chris. And I hold out my hand, which he refuses to take. And he snaps back, Chris, I'm not looking to meet you, Chris. Now, I'm pointing the fact he has met me. He's using my first name. I went from being this bozo on the other side of the train to Chris. And I said, look, man, I just don't want to see anything bad happen to you. That's all. And I go back to the other side of the train. And I can see the wheels in his head turning a completely different way. And I can see from the look on his face he's thinking like this is stupid. This is just dumb. And he sits there for a few more seconds and he gets up. He doesn't stay in the ward and he gets crosses the car to get away from this girl. And that was it. You know, two people living their lives being triggered by something got nothing to do with one another and a potential conversation between just two regular people getting ready to go bad. He just needed an intervention to rethink what was going on. So, did that work because of the idea of trying to So, you talk about Daniel Kahneman and thinking fast and thinking slow, and you're trying to shock him out of the sort of emotional moment and get him to think more deeply about the situation? I'm look Well, I'm looking I'm definitely looking for a thought pattern interrupt. It's not where I'm not threatening. And and I'm trying to trigger an emotional moment, which very much as you talked about earlier, triggering a brain chemistry, the neurochemicals. We got to get some different neurochemicals coursing through the brain. Get somebody thinking again. Cuz like if if you were to think about that dispassionately, if somebody's a jerk to me in public, which I didn't do anything to cause it. Like this person walked into the situation by being eaten up by their own amygdala before I even got got here. Something else has been triggering them. They're struggling with something. If I were to completely understand, I'd walk away. And you need to get somebody in that mindset. Like, look, I didn't do anything wrong. This person's been out of shape, you know, they're struggling with something. If they had time to tell me, I'd I'd I'd I might give them money. But instead, it's turned into a confrontational thing. In the moment, people are the negative neurochemicals are triggering them. And again, if you you make a speech when you're angry, it's the greatest speech you'll ever regret. You don't do smart stuff when you're mad. Very true. But you have said that you if you can control the anger, that it can actually be useful in a negotiation. And I'd love to know it to a higher level. What does that mean? Well, anger and this is what a lot of people miss about anger. Um like if you're if you're if you're if you've been shattered, if you're fra- fragile, if you're laying on the floor and you can't get up, if you're in the depths of sadness, anger will get you out of it in a heartbeat. And I've actually used it some in the past. Um, if I if if for if something has made me incredibly deeply sad, loss of a loved one. I pulled myself out of it and I can feel the neurochemical change. I think of somebody I'm really mad at. Or someone or something that has made me intensely angry. And I'm instantly lifted out of sadness, grief, despair. The problem that most people don't see is that doesn't lift you to your highest level of performance. Like in on a grading scale of A to F. Like if you're in the in the F emotionally. Anger will will instantly bring you up to a C level performance, maybe even B minus. Now you won't know how much more room there is at the top. All you know is in comparison the anger pulled you out of your depths. So you're capable of much more, but if you got no way of knowing that. You don't know that that the really the next level up is the state of flow is human beings highest performance level. Steven Kotler's got a lot of research on it. People are doing stuff that they should not be able to do just because they've gotten into flow. That's highly positive. That ain't There ain't no anger in flow. Flow is highly positive. It's borderline euphoria. You know, Evil Knievel crashed his motorcycle trying to jump the the fountain at Caesar's Palace in 1970 something. Um, Mike can't think of Mike's last name before they tore the fountain down and an X Games athlete does a backflip on his motorcycle over Caesar's Palace fountain. Flow. What are you capable of in flow? The first kid and I again, it's in Kotler's book, The Rise of Superman. Who jumped the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. Anyway. Did it with a broken ankle. Crazy. Cuz he was in flow. Not only did he do it with a broken He did it several times that day. He was in flow. Nobody had ever done that before and he did it with injuries that should have put in anybody else, you know, in in a hospital bed. But he's in flow. It's highly positive. So, we don't know that if the anger has lifted us out of our depths. You can lift yourself out of the depths with anger. You probably can't lift yourself out of the depths as quickly with a positive emotion. So, that you know, there's a sequencing. There's a staging there. But you cannot get to your peak performance in a negative state of mind. And anger's a negative state of mind. So, as somebody who knows the power of emotional control, how do you get to your ideal state of mind? I've read Waiting um Not Waiting for Superman, Becoming Superman. of Superman. The Rise, thank you. Steven Kotler's book, I've read that. I'm very familiar with the ideas that he puts out around flow. Um but let's say that we're in a negotiating situation, our anxiety spikes massively, or we're in a big confrontation in a parking lot, anxiety's up. How do you bring that down, recenter, and get to your best self? You know, some of some of the the mantras that you were talking about, you know, who am I? Remember who you are. It's a great mantra. You have You have to have There has to be some preparation in advance. You know, and then you have to have found some success with it. You know, you're not going to try anything if you haven't applied it successfully. You're not going to try it when it's really important if you haven't applied it when the stakes are low. It's like, so what are you doing first thing in the morning? You know, am I lucky to be up or oh God, is it another day? Is the day a gift? What's the difference between adventure and ordeal? Only you're the way that you perceive it. I threw that out on my Instagram a couple of months back. You know, what's the difference between adventure and ordeal or stress and stimulation? You know, and I got a bunch of neuro cows. Stress is cortisol, you know, people want to give me the I know the neuroscience. The answer is how you filter it. Completely. You know, how how do you look at it? Is it happening for you or to you? Are you lucky to be here or or you're unlucky? I'm in a negotiation a couple years ago with somebody whose values I detested. And thinking about this person made me angry every time. hostage or business? Business negotiation. But you still despise was a liar. Person Person lied. Had no problem lying. And uh they you know I got an ex-girlfriend that once said to me, you'd sooner get your arm torn off than tell me a lie. And I remember thinking at the time well, the words I find highly complimentary, but the way that you said it makes it sound like an insult. Like that's, you know, yeah, but wait a minute. You said that like it's a bad thing. So, integrity is really important to me. So, when I deal with somebody who lacks it they're going to trigger me. And if they're triggering me negatively, I'm having trouble prepping for the conversation. Cuz I'm dumber when I'm angry. And then I remember the only person reason this person is persistent in these negotiations is because my company is a success. And in point of fact, I'm lucky to be in this conversation. And as soon as I did that, I reframed that I was like I instantly I found myself in a in a different frame of mind. So, you know, you got to find a phrase. Tony Robbins says, I think he's the guy that said, you know, does life happen for you or to you? Life is happening for you, for you. Like, wow. I don't have to do this, I get to do this. You know, however do you reframe that? Which takes some practice. Pick Pick out your phrase. Practice it up a little bit. Because your your negative circuitry is going to kick in. The The default circuitry for human beings is negative. Interesting. We inherited from the caveman and the optimistic caveman got eaten by the saber tooth and the negative pessimistic caveman made a run for it or killed it. But the optimistic guy was like, you know, yeah, you know, I I got this. I know I you know, this this thing it it look it's not you know, it just needs a How hard could it be? How hard could it be? Just needs a hug. Yeah, so the negative caveman that we were gifted with the wiring of our ancestors and the negative guy survived. It's interesting how much you've leveraged an understanding of human nature to get people where you want to go. I want to talk about some of your open-ended questions. I think these are really powerful. So, the the way that why questions are accusatory Mhm. but how questions invite people to do the thinking for you and explain that. Like the Explain the power of how. Yeah, it well, it to use common common phraseology, it triggers slow thinking or in-depth thinking. You know, because it's logistical? Uh yeah, you know, how how largely is implementation or logistical is another How's this going to get done? Um it feels differential. So, I'm going to kill these [ __ ] if you don't give me $20 million right now. And you say, I'm not supposed to do that. Go to the bank. Call the president. Do whatever you need to do. This is somebody's life. Give me the $20 million right now. How am I supposed to do that right now? You want me to call the president? You want me to go to the bank? Do they not just keep screaming? Yes, that's exactly what I want you to do. All they got to do is come down a little at a time. Now, I'm not resisting. I'm an implementation. And it triggers in-depth thinking. Any point of fact, those are legitimate questions. You know, the ask a question that the whether the other side likes it or not is actually a legitimate question. Not resisting. I'm asking in a way where I'm differential. I'm not saying I ain't doing it. I'm asking for your help. Now, how you respond to that is going to tell me where this is really going. You know, there's 93% success rate means 7% of the time it ain't going to go anywhere. This is nothing but bad. I got to know which one I'm dealing with. And some of you know, my how and what questions early on and occasional the the strategical use of why's, surgical use of why. I got to diagnose what I'm really dealing with. And I got to do it in a way where you're not feeling like you're being diagnosed. But, you know, I cuz I got to do everything I can do to avoid triggering you, but I got I got I got to get a diagnostic on what I'm actually dealing with to begin with. And how do you handle telling people no in a way that doesn't shut them down? Yeah, you know, a friend of mine here in town, Ned Colletti, used to be the GM for the Dodgers. Brilliant negotiator, good guy, like him a lot. Ned is still around. Uh, still affiliated with the Dodgers. First year he was, uh, GM, they went from worst to first. That's a sign of a capable GM. You know, and and we're talking about this one time and Ned said that someone had taught him to let out no a little at a time. I'm like, that's exactly what we're doing. Like, you have to be able to say no to people. What your job is to not let them get blindsided by it, where they feel like they were clotheslined and caught off guard. So, you let it out a little at a time. And how am I supposed to do that? Is really a way to get the other side thinking about the difficulty of the situation, about the difficulty of the ask. And it's the first way to start letting no out. "That's really going to be hard?" Further down the line, we're going to get there. But first, I really kind of need the how question is designed to get stop you in your chat in your tracks and get you thinking. It's calibrated, which is why we call them calibrated questions, to start to trigger a state change in the other side. Now, we got to let out a little more no and a little firmer way as we go along. Then, we got we we got a whole succession of ways to eventually, ultimately, if forced into it, to say no. Which then also is not, "No!" It's no. But we don't need to go, like if if you hear no from me or my side, we've been hinting at it for a while. So, you're not going to be feel blindsided by it. You you're going to you're and we're going to continue to demonstrate collaboration. Cuz I you know, I don't want to go all the way to no. If we're talking, there's a reason for us to talk. The adversary is a situation. So, if there's a reason for us to collaborate and talk where we can both be better off, I also don't want to let out no too quickly cuz there might be a better way and I want to discover that. So, let's let me let me let me start telegraphing that there are problems here, inviting collaboration, see if we can tease out a solution before this thing goes down at tops. Have you ever had a negotiator hostage taker give you an answer to something that you were like, "I actually don't have a rebuttal to that. We should try that." Not yet. Yeah, I was I'm running these scenarios through my head and I'm like, "What would I do if they like offered a suggestion?" I'm like, "Yeah, like actually sounds Maybe we should try that." Like how do you cuz there are scenarios where you end up paying apparently $20 million. Well, we we first of all, it wasn't a US who paid that or anybody on a US side. So, the US would never do that. Uh correct. The US US does not pay ransom. Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be bait money go down range. Meaning you give them money that you know you're going to take back? Or you're going to trace. Like like money is ridiculously easy to trace. Like ridiculously easy. And it could be a very smart move. It's like a jack injecting dye into their financial circulatory system. Where they buying weapons? Who they paying safe houses for? They got a larger criminal network. Terrorists are not supported by the Red Cross. They're supported by a larger criminal network of illegal arms dealers and illegal this and illegal that. And you want to know who they're buying their guns from. And the best way to find out who they're buying their guns from is to give them some money that you could trace and find out where it goes. Follow the money, as they said a long time ago in in the Watergate scandal. That's a tremendous investigative tool. And if you there was a in 2000 that was exactly what happened because there was a criminal gang out of Ecuador that had been taking hostages on oil platforms every year about October. And they were a combination of former terrorists and criminals. And so the third time it went down, a payment was made because they if they had assaulted the the oil platform, they'd only got the kidnappers who were the low end of the food chain. But they made a payment and they ended up dismantling the gang in its entirety and they never hit again. Oh. Over 50 people were rounded up because they were tracking the money. Tracking the money, the whole organization was dismantled as a result of the ransom payment. So it became a great way to take out a criminal organization that had been operating completely freely prior to that. And a rescue would have only taken out the bad guys on a platform. It would not have taken out the whole organization. They took the whole thing down and these guys never resurfaced as an organization again. So going back to the magic words that you use as a negotiator, why is getting them to say no more important or better, much better if I remember your words correctly Yeah. than yes? Yeah, it's it's shocking. Um and a friend of mine that I'm flattered that we're acquainted Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab's podcast. well, amazing guy. Brilliant neuroscience stuff. Uh met him for the first time recently. We sit down at lunch and I'm like all right, so I don't know what the neuroscience behind this is. But people feel safe and protected when they say no. They feel better. They're more likely to collaborate. And then plus we know weird. Well, the other thing that's crazy that we know for sure is like when you're exhausted mentally, you could still say no. Mhm. But yes is hard. Yes is hard or even as answering how. Like if if you uh if if you're tired and one of my colleagues did this to me recently and I could instantly tell the difference. They wanted to follow up with me when I was exhausted and I knew that if they'd asked me, "What are you thinking?" What? Great question, trigger deep thinking. I didn't have the mental gas in the tank to answer that question. But they answered me a question that was built around no and I went boom boom boom boom boom. I laid it all out. I was like, "Wow." I don't I don't know how that happens. I just know it does. And we've seen time after time if I need to close a deal at all especially if I know that you're tired instead of saying, "Do you agree? Do you want to do this? Are you in favor of this?" I say, "Do you Do you disagree? Is this a bad idea? Are you against this? Is this ridiculous?" And you'll either go, "No, let's do it." Or you'll go, "No, but here are the problems." And you'll lay them all out for me. And feel no obligation. Which means you're going to lay them out to me honestly. Like if I say, "Do you agree with this?" You're going to afraid to say, "Yes, but here are the problems." cuz you feel that yes is an obligation. And you're going to be worried about digging yourself deeper in by saying anything after that. But having said no you feel you have no obligation. Think it might be that simple. So, you will you will lay the rest of the stuff out not being worried about digging yourself into a hole. It's really interesting that some part of our brain is tracking the even though it's not like obviously a contract, but that some part of our brain is like yeah, we've just agreed to that and now I have a sense of obligation and they have the right to like take me to task on it. Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and we stumbled over that one by by accident and it is just the the good and the bad about getting people to say no is it makes such a huge difference in all interactions that sometimes that's the only thing somebody learns. And we're like look, there is so much more here. Like I know you're making a lot more money now. And you're doing better than anybody that you see around you. But you're not doing as good as you could be doing and you cannot stop there. But a lot of people, I see it all the time. They just learn how to trigger no instead of yes and they're instantly significantly more successful. And they quit there. They don't keep going. All right, what then if you were going to bring this all together? If no is that first bit that shows people like whoa, you can frame this in a new way. What are the the few key tenants of like all right, if you had to bestow quickly upon somebody what the core tenants of the Black Swan way are? Yeah, you know, let the other side go first. Um and then you know, the cliche, the other side's got to talk five times as much as you. Not twice as much, five times as much. It doesn't mean that you go uh that you go mute. You drop in occasionally. You let the other person know that whatever they're thinking is it's okay to share it. Like one of our favorite things, you got to have some go-to labels. Go-to labels? Yeah, the label is one of our negotiation techniques. Seems like, sounds like, looks like, feels like. No matter what anybody says, you can say "Seems like he had a reason for saying that." Like no matter what they say. "I hate you and everything you stand for." Seems like he got a reason for saying that. It's disarming. They'll talk with you about it. "I want to do business with you and I want to deal with you right now." Seems like he had a reason for saying that. "Well, yeah, here's why I want to do business with you." Um one one of my son came up with again, like brilliant guy. We you know, we would not be our team without him. Clients call on a phone. Say, "How are you today?" "How are you today?" is a diagnostic. They want to know if they could talk if you're in a mood to talk about what they want to talk about. Brandon's response is, "Seems like you got something on your mind." "Yes, as a MATTER OF FACT." YOU KNOW, cuz they've been they've been planning this call. "How are you today?" is not like genuinely how some people really want to know, but most people want to know, "Are you prepared to listen to what I have on my mind?" "How are you?" is a temperature check. Are you in a bad mood? Cuz I'm wasting my time. You're in a good mood, we could talk. And you don't the only pushback you ever got on that was he had a guy say, "Yeah, you know, there's stuff I want to talk about. Really, I want to know how you are today." So Brandon said, "Yeah, I'm good, you know." And talked about it and then they got down to business. So, you know, the more you encourage the other side to talk, the more likely it is that you're going to get to this moment of collaboration quicker. Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. How do you get something better? You get the other side to talk. You spend a lot less time talking and appreciate that they're bringing something to the table that you could use. The black swan, the tiny little thing that's going to change everything. You trigger that, you're going to make great deals. And that's it. That's we've got our our basic principles. Chris, I found your book just so interesting and it makes me want to really go back through this stuff over and over and over picking up the different using how's, watching out for your why's, getting people to know, getting them to talk more. Um it's really incredible that this stuff works in the most tense situations possible. That you can use it in the board room. I am definitely going to be using it with my team, with my wife. Uh it's it's about human wiring. Yeah. That's that's what I find so interesting about Yeah, thank you. Pleasure, man. And I'd like to offer way for people want more from the Black Swan Group, how how do they get it? You tell me. You know, we got everybody's got a newsletter. Um everybody's got a free newsletter. That's not what makes ours valuable. Ours is concise. Like most newsletters, you got 10 choices. Ours is complimentary, but the value is the fact that it's concise. You're going to get one scenario, specific application. And plus we got a whole library. We got job negotiations in the past. We got leadership application, whatever you need. So, the Black Swan website is blackswanltd.com. Upper right hand corner of the the home screen is a tab for the blog. The blog is the edge. Sign up for the edge. You get an email to you on a Tuesday morning after you got Monday behind you, but it's concise. And it's free. And a lot of people get a long way. It's a great compliment to the book. We got a bunch of other stuff that's free, too. You You take the free stuff. You know, buy the book, take the free stuff, see where that gets you. Yeah, if it's for you, then you can dig in and learn more. Would it be crazy to get people to sign up for something free At all. Now, now we've got them. Now we've got them. Somehow I'm compelled to say no, and I feel so much better I feel secure. I feel safe. I have this feeling of safety now. It's like drinking a Starbucks latte. There's a funny comedic video along those lines recently. So you know, you're safe if you drinking a latte. The The police aren't going to beat you up if you're if you're drinking a Starbucks. That's the key. That's hilarious. All right, anything else you want to uh people with? They're going to the newsletter, they're going to sign up for the edge, they're ready to rock and roll. Anything else? Go through your catalog of podcasts and go back and listen to the stuff you haven't listened to yet. Very kind. I will say read your book, Never Split the Difference. It is phenomenal. Speaking of which, guys, the book really is amazing. The tactics, I haven't started deploying them yet, so I can't swear they work, but when you hear the stories, it is very compelling. And as I ran through them in my own mind, it actually did make me feel differently. Uh so, I invite you guys to try the stuff out. And like you said, don't just stop at getting people to say no, dive into this stuff because the ability to um help people get to and he he's very careful to talk about this in the book, that you're not trying to get people into where they're losing, but you are and you're not trying to get win-win either. He's careful to talk about that as well. Uh but you're getting them to a place where they feel good at the end of the exchange. Um it's really some pretty powerful insights into human nature. For that, Chris Voss, I thank you very much for coming on the show Thanks, brother. and uh for being a part of this. And to all of you at home, I hope that you enjoyed this and you got as much out of it as I have. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.