FBI Negotiator Teaches Art Of Negotiation (Masterclass w/ Chris Voss)

how do you talk people off the ledge I mean I believe in being a straight shooter it's what I was taught as a hostage negotiator you know give me a call in 60 seconds so she died it's blunt it feels like getting hit in the face with a brick and will typically get a contract from a corporation and will simply say to them we don't do work for hire it's a soothing calming voice it's easy for Chris Voss to say you don't do work for hire am I stun he's still got it burned in his brain the moment I told him there was no Santa Claus I have no memory of that at all on my deathbed if he's standing there he'll probably say come again there's no Santa Claus first off I just want to say I'm super excited to talk to you I've done this dance with you and your team to try to get you on I'm so glad and I just have to give a quick shout out to Marshall Jones who connected us and so I'm I'm thrilled we're having this conversation yeah I appreciate Marshall for making a connection and I'm happy to be here thank you I was reading in your bio it says that Chris is a former lead FBI negotiator and dynamic speaker who debunks the biggest myths of negotiations I would just love to start there I've read the book of watch your master class I've read and watch as many things as I can watch and so I'm just coming from this from like trying to pretend I don't know anything about you so that new fans can be enrolled in what it is that you're doing so what are some of the biggest myths that people believe about negotiations we've even tried to distill down them down I think we call them our 12 Commandments of negotiation first one is Thou shalt not covet yes first of all yes is not agreement yes there's almost always counter for yes there are three kinds of yes it's commitment confirmation and counterfeit you know there's this thing out there called the yes momentum or momentum selling where you get people to say yes to the little things each one is known as a micro agreement or a tie down and then consequently you can get them to say yes to the big thing because you got them tied down you got these micro agreements well that's really bad people get started on this yes momentum nonsense I would imagine because let's say they were failing entirely they're not making any deals if you're a student in a class you'd be getting an f and somebody turns you on to the yes momentum and suddenly you go from being an F student to a d student or maybe you even become a c student you look at the distance that you improve and you and you're like wow you know I I was failing before now I'm not failing now I might even be do doing well enough to not get fired because if you're a c student in a college you're going to make your grade point you're not going to get kicked out uh you just made the minimum however from your perspective you don't understand that you are nowhere near a b student or even an a student so many people have been hustled with the yes momentum that it immediately makes people feel concerned you know if you're trying to get me to say yes to something where's this going what's this where's this taking me every group that I speak to I do a lot of keynote speeches and I'll say to them all right so you pick up the phone and the voice on the other end of the phone says have you got a few minutes to talk what's your gut reaction and everybody in the room says concerned or some people even say no well this was just a simple yes have you got a few minutes to talk and everybody's instantaneous reaction is to be concerned so if that's the case whenever you try to get somebody to say yes to to something it creates tension it creates concert it hurts your relationship it makes them hold back information so if you're learning a Black Swan method we teach you how to get out of yes and get into actual agreement that could be implemented so the first thing is Thou shalt not covet yes because you think you got a yes you do not have a deal and you're going to wonder what happened afterwards I'd like to ask you a little bit more about this because I think from my observation there's a big sales culture out there that teaches people sales people in particular that this is the way that you get to yes and you get these micro agreements yeah these little commitments that are happening and we having been perpetrated on this sales technique have grown an allergic reaction to this so much so that this is a kind of funny story several years ago my wife and I are driving a car and we're pulling up in Venice and this random guy walk in the street is trying to pick up my wife in my own car and he asks her what is your name so he asked our question she couldn't say no to but instead of saying her name she's like no and I just like my wife is Brute tell you know this is happening so every time somebody reaches out to me either in DMS or in real life I'm reluctant to say yes because I know where this is going you're going to ask me for something but yet sales culture seems to still continue down this path so despite the good work that you're doing why are we still stuck on this idea what else is like driving us towards us even though we know it's not working you know I think there's a number of things that are out there and first of all there are some people that are making deals on yes and they'll say to me like look you can't you can't tell me I'm not making deals and I say yeah let me give you the Las Vegas analogy you're playing on the 10 win table and if you learn how to do it the way I can teach you you're going to move on the 80 win table yeah on the 10 win table you're making deals and I think a lot of people especially if they view where they've come from and many people have learned the yes momentum weren't doing any sales at all beforehand and so yeah you were you were a total failure and if you go from being an F student to a c student maybe at best like look at the distance I've come you know before I was worried about staying here at all I was failing it was flunking and now not only in my past and my classes I'm not going to get kicked out of school and that's people only see the distance they've covered they make it comparative to where they've been it's very hard to see where you could possibly go and until you see somebody else that suddenly the guy next to you is making deals and you never hear him ask uh send a single yes oriented question but suddenly that you know that that person is making way more deals than you are they getting appointments they're not wasting their time and you don't you don't know because it's it's not obvious but you only have a comparison to where you work I think you've talked about this before about our unhealthy addiction to yes yeah and when I talk to sales people they talk about listening with happy ears and my audience is mostly people in the creative space right right and so they there's frustrating because they thought they had a deal and then they walked away and like the clients ghosted on me because you're listening for something you you want the deal so bad that you're going to engineer or construct the conversation so that you can get the yes because you're afraid of rejection so I love your approach because it means that we don't we can actually embrace a I think you call it like a tactical no which is better than five yeses yeah and asking questions in the know well yeah and a couple things because I want to I'm going to back up just a little to what you said you know the happy years we thought we had a deal and then he goes to this you know there's a simultaneous problem out there of what we teach something called the favorite of the fool or proof of life is their deal is a deal with you there's pretty good data out there that at least 20 percent of the time you're being used for a competing bid due diligence or free consultant since we've been teaching people this methodology we think the numbers is higher than 20. it might be as high as 80 a lot of sales books realize that that's true and I can't remember the name of the book I was reading the other day but they teach sales people to say are we the vendor of choice now the idea is you're trying to find out whether or not you're the favorite of the fool are you due diligence are you pre-consulting are you a fool in the game if you don't know who the fool in the game is is probably you but notice that question is a yes oriented question are we the vendor of choice you're going to get a answer to yes no matter what if you are the vendor of choice they're going to say yes and it really hasn't taught you anything but if you're not the vendor of choice they're never gonna say no like they would be stupid to say no to you under those circumstances they've been playing you up to that point anyway if someone's been playing you either accidentally or on purpose for a while and you and you say Hey listen are are you playing me they're not gonna admit to that there's a a decent good enough Instinct that every salesperson to know that a lot of deals you know with uh with due diligence with a competing bid we're the fool in the game and they don't know how to deal with it so they're taught yes oriented question and literally in this book it said ask the client are we the vendor of choice they are never going to admit to it if if they were lying to you already it's like asking a liar are you lying to me like that that dude is not gonna not gonna tell you so the happiest thing is a real problem and there's a lot of issues that even extend beyond the problems there are with yes so that answered a question that you didn't ask can I ask you are you hearing a chime yeah I'm not sure on your end my audio engineer is going to freak out later it's like Chris tell your audio engineer that there's a thing every time I say something good we we understand this when when clients have a choice and they have many vendors they can choose from it's important to know where we stand so if people ask am I a vendor of choice you're not going to get an honest answer because people are polite they're not going to say this what is a better way to ascertain if and we do this too we ask sometimes if you need a third bid because you just need an estimate you already have an agency or a client or a vendor you want to work with I'm happy to provide a bid I just don't want to go through the exercise of earnestly going through this tell me what number you need to hit how would somebody ask that question to see like where they stand in in terms of like what the clients are considering one great thing is um and I had a salesperson say this to me once he said say the client on a scale of one to ten what's the number that percentage chance that we're going to get the deal that's a what question causes people to stop and think in their tracks yeah so they're gonna even if they're playing you they're gonna stop and think like oh wow what kind of number do I have to put out here it's not so much that they answer what the answer is it's how quickly they change like if you're the favorite they're going to go out nine out of ten eight out of ten they're going to immediately give you a very high number that question will catch them off guard enough that if they got to think about it you Houston we have a problem so this goes into a concept that I heard you talk about before like it's there's there's one way to tell the truth it's very easy to tell the truth there's many ways to lie to you and so that time to think gives them it should give you pause because you're clearly not the one yeah if there's hesitation there right and but if they should go wow you know nine ten or if they go ah you know ah why why why why why can't of course that like all that hesitation in there and trying to decide you know do I tell them the truth how do I pick this number how am I going to be convincing you know that that sort of plays into another one of the skills which is uh Dynamic silence you know you shut up now what do you do while you shut up you go to gather data with your eyes Dynamic silence is the opportunity for you to actually look at the other person and read what's going on on their face their face is going to be a direct reflection of what's going on in their brain now what if there's no reaction at all they have taught themselves to think with a blank face which means they're filtering they're considering there's stuff there there that that they're thinking about that you don't know how do you react the simple label seems like there's some stuff going through your mind right now is the label for the Blank Stare that you get on your face or that they get on their face why you're Gathering data otherwise look if first of all you should have been Gathering data with your eyes from the beginning instead of thinking about what you want to say next every moment there's a massive amount of data coming off the other side visually if only on their face you should start Gathering that data from the very beginning versus thinking about your next Point versus thinking about your re rehearsed value proposition or your arguments if you will as to why they should do what you want them to do in the negotiation is a massive amount of information there for you to start soaking up visually from the very beginning if you have a hard time reading people's faces like say your neurodivergent or on the Spectrum are there things that you can teach us so that there's clear signs that their interests are disinterested something just real tangible that we can lock down on there's a lot about Psychiatry that I don't know my understanding is somebody's on the Spectrum doesn't mean that they still aren't able to process information maybe they simply just haven't been taught how to process the information or the recognition of it because you know what what I'm offering here is you're just Gathering data with your eyes this is not an emotional reaction on your part this is a read of what's going on on the other side if you can tell what color a tree is you can gather data with your eyes somebody that's on the Spectrum can tell a green wall from a blue wall because they've gathered data with their eyes and there's a comparative there so if you're having trouble processing information emotion I would simply ask that you look at it as no different than Gathering any other data then are the labels so to speak labeling what you believe you see it seems like something is crossing your mind is not a read of an emotion it's to pull out of them what their emotion is and when how they respond to that is more data more information to process like I've got a friend of mine who runs an AI investment firm and he's got a guy that works for him that he would contend is on the Spectrum who can solve Rubik's Cubes behind his back and the guy doesn't Express a lot of emotions but if he can solve a Rubik's Cube behind his back that means that he's brilliant at Gathering data with his eyes he looked at the Rubik's Cube once and his brain processed every move he needed to make and he could do it behind his back so I would suggest that emotional intelligence in many cases is simply a matter of gathering that I like that explanation of it so in a situation going back to that one where you realize all of a sudden you're clearly not the favorite there's a long pause there's the stammering right what are we supposed to do do we give up or do we ask other kinds of questions how do we how do we respond where do we go from here how do we get back to Earth without getting killed right yeah all right so you gotta understand now you got a new landing spot if we're going to continue with the uh the space analogy your new Landing point is to position yourself for when they do need you it's something that we currently refer to as the OPA rule which is the last impression is a lasting impression as a company and as a person you know I want long-term relationships or Prosperity with everybody that I deal with that deal might not be now I want you to know that when we are good Fred that I'd be happy to do business with you when you're ready to do business with me I want to be a long-term partner where we both prosper and I can accept that you're not ready right now so what are the steps to get to that point so that the last impression the Lasting Impression is of someone that will always be there for you when you're serious about doing business with me I would probably say look it seems like you're still shopping around it seems like you're still in the information gathering phase it seems like you've got somebody else you really want to do business with there each one of these labels is designed as a diagnostic to trigger a response both verbally and Visually if you get a feel if you let your gut instinct to start making an assessment of where we are and then say look it sounds like right now you're not ready to do business with us and there's a really good chance that you don't trust me enough for me to be your trusted advisor I want you to know we'd love to do business with you and here's what a great deal with me would look like I never want there to be any doubt in anybody's mind it's what a great deal looks like to me because then not only does that leave you feeling good about the interaction with me I've just outlined my vision of prop Mutual prosperity and there's no doubt in your mind what that looks like and there's no doubt in my mind as to whether or not you had the opportunity to make a conscious decision to know what you were walking away from and having planted those two seeds that's the best possible position I can leave myself in with you for a profitable deal I'm not going to spin my wheels now but when we got traction this is what that traction is going to look like and then we end the interaction some people if someone is intentionally playing you this is very predatory behavior they're going to try to keep you in the interaction because they want more information from you they may often get very angry with you they may call you names we teach this methodology for residential real estate agents all the time they're much happier they're much more successful they're much more prosperous I teach you with a guy named Steve Shaw we got a book out called the full fee agent one of his clients walked away from a prospect we teach real estate agents to not make um listing presentations which is crazy it scares the hell out listing presentation is a due diligence process I mean it really is it's a massive waste of real estate agents talk and nobody's listing presentation is any different than anybody else's they're so common doing a listing presentation makes you look common and nobody wants to look common they had a potential client and they said you know when we're you know when we're your trusted advisor we're happy to outline our marketing plan for you but until we're trusted advisor you know we think you should go with the person that you trust and a potential client emailed them back and said just because you wouldn't give us this presentation we have crossed you off our list now that's a very predatory move and it's a complete confirmation that they were being played because the Predator will become angry with the victim for escaping and if you ever need confirmation that they were playing you then that's when they're vindictive because you refuse to continue to be played so that's a client that you don't ever want to work with anyways right so it's not a loss in that point not only do you never want to work with those people because you know they're vindictive but it's also a complete confirmation of your gut instinct that you you know they failed they were they were they were using you for free Consulting it doesn't happen often but it happens enough that it's just there's something called the drama triangle which gives a lot of insight into manipulative Behavior the three points of the triangle the the rescue or the persecutor and the victim the persecutor the person who wants to manipulate moves back and forth on the triangle between victim and persecutor freely just to keep you off balance and when you start seeing persecuting Behavior that's that's a Hallmark of uh the manipulative of predatory human being you said a lot there allow me to quickly just play back what I heard because you're moving so fast Chris and I was thinking our audience are going to drive off the road like let me try and keep up with to what Chris is saying because you're dropping a lot of things here they should listen to this interview more than once I sure hope they do all right so when you're in a conversation and you know that there are multiple bids going on instead of asking are we the vendor of choice as a what question like um on a scale of one to ten what would you say is our percentage of getting the job and then listen to what they say if there's hesitation that's telling you you're probably not the vendor of choice right and what you want to do is to demonstrate emotional intelligence empathy and self-awareness by understanding that you're not the right choice right now for a number of different reasons and you can label those things by saying it sounds like and you follow up with a series of it sounds like statements and then you you play the high road I think you you exit with some Grace and some dignity and you establish a potential for a relationship down the line and I love the way that you think about this because unfortunately I think a lot of people in my community and just in sales in general they're so desperate for the sale right now that they'll do anything to get that sale in the moment and they're not really thinking like it's much better to have a client long term and so the thing things don't work out in this instance with whoever they chose at least you're like ending on a very high note and there's a probability that they would reach out to you again on more favorable terms next time right yeah exactly you have to maximize the likelihood that they'll come looking for you when whoever they're doing business with has has um trailed them now before we get into some of the other Commandments uh a part of the manifesto Thou shalt I I just wanted to say something I'm sure you're aware of this and I see you do this on effect for a fact on stage and in the master class you change your voice very dramatically and I think you always get a reaction from everybody so I want to just can we just talk about your voice your specific voice Chris Voss and what people can learn from how you use your voice because it's an instrument and it's an important part about communicating meaning just in the tone of your voice yeah absolutely a thousand percent and and I work on it all the time yes and like what are one of the the great examples the great communicators that I study among many Chris Rock like if you read Chris Rock's comedy routine in a month its own voice it would not be funny like Chris Rock is hysterical based on delivery Lewis Black is another guy just read anything they say in a normal tone of voice brilliant tonality brilliant pacing and the idea is comedians in many cases especially Chris Rock trying to make socially relevant comments in a way that people will absorb and listen to and accept rather than be offended by you know how how do I how do I get these ideas across and many comedians are really great social commentators we laugh at them because you know they say very insightful things about our life and our world and they say them in a way that we don't feel attacked we're detained and we laugh with them and ourselves as and and as much as at each other but really a great comedian gets us to laugh at ourselves delivery pacing changing the tone of voice Lewis Black I mean all these guys it's phenomenal so yeah I try to study great communicators as much as possible I believe this is all a learned skill because I think well I know based on people that have gained phenomenal success with the Black Swan method need to negotiate for the life you want I want people to have great lives at 350 million people in the United States and going on 8 billion people on planet Earth there's enough room out there for us you know somebody else being prosperous is not going to take away from my Prosperity I want as many people to be prosperous as possible how do I get this across as you know I try to be as at least as entertaining as I am informative when you talk about this and I'll I'll hear you I think you talk about like there are three kind of tones of voice that you want to use and when you slip into the FM DJ voice the way you say it you're actually changing your voice as you say it and if I was an audience I'd like giggle a little bit like here he goes he's going to do it so can you tell us for people who haven't read the book never split the difference or watch your master class or seen anything from Black Swan can you tell people what the tones of voice are and when you want to use it and why they're so effective sure yeah the the three basic tones of voice you know are the assertives direct and honest you know give me a call in 60 seconds so she dies that's direct and honest disordering it's clear it's blunt it feels like getting hit in the face with a brick it just feels really good to use the voice and it's just getting smacked in the face and the three basic types correspond with the three basic types of how people approach conflict fight flight make friends we have more than enough data to support our hypothesis that the world splits evenly into thirds not just the U.S not just North America and a third of us like that voice a third of us feel good in that voice it's our natural default voice and and that voice is always counterproductive like every time I've slipped into my natural assertive mode here's what happens the people on my side of the table love it they love it it makes it feel good just standing up for us yeah and the other side always feels smacked around like it is always counterproductive always always always because the impact on the other side is the important issue so the second voice you accommodate his voice a smiling voice the relationship oriented voice the happy tone voice like that's a ridiculously effective tone of voice and about a third of the people out there fall into the category that we call accommodators they are very hope based very positive very optimistic happen to often be short on detail and the clinging to hope it's it's one of the reasons why and if it's a third of the human beings out there it's one of the reasons why I believe the phrase hope is not a strategy is so prevalent because the other two types the assertives in the analysts a title people that operate specifically on Hope and if it's one in three people you get smacked around with the shortcomings of Hope alone you got to come up with a phrase for it hope it's not a strategy and then the analysts tone of voice who's most naturally the late night FM DJ voice now that's just a downward reflecting voice it's a soothing calming voice it's what I was taught as a hostage negotiator the analysts got to be careful that they may have this downward inflecting voice that ends up being totally cold and distant it can feel very empty so the late night FM DJ voice is is the analyst boys with just not cold and distant definitely downward inflecting you don't have to be a man you don't even have to have a deep voice Sandy high in one of our our great instructors because women ask her all the time when she's teaching the women's Power Hour she said just drop your chin when you talk and if you drop your chin when you talk it automatically downward and flexed and it gives other the person on the other side gives them a feeling of confidence that you feel very confident in what you've said and it's also a great way to take in a movable position in a negotiation without the other side feeling attacked because sometimes you got to take in a movable position now I'll give you an example we in our contracts we do not allow work for higher clauses because work for hire gives away the ownership of your intellectual property and that's what we sell or intellectual property and we'll typically get a contract from a corporation containing Awards per hire clause and will simply say to them we don't do work for hire now that's different from asking them to take the closet or making the case to take the Clause out because if I ask for it to be taken up there's some natural reciprocity triggered if I ask I owe that's a human nature Dynamic reciprocity Robert cialdini's book on the psychology of influence reciprocity is one of the six tools of influence so I need to get the Clause taken up and I don't want to ask for it and so if I simply say we don't do work for a hire it's not a threat it doesn't land as a threat and then I'll go dead silent and I'll wait and they'll say oh well we'll I'll have it taken out I don't know for that for having accomplished that change and if they don't say I'll have it taken out then I'll say doesn't sound like we're in a position to do business at this time because if they can't take it out which they can but if they won't there's no long-term relationship here for us and we are always in it for the long haul so those are the three basic voices for people to deal with assertive is always counterproductive the accommodate his voice is almost always helpful and the analyst voice occasionally when you got to draw a firm line without making the other side feel attacked is a great voice for that I think a lot of people in the creative space don't have the confidence or the competence that you have Chris and for you to be able to say that they're easy for Chris the world's best negotiator can say that and walk away from gigs because he knows another client will come and so what what they tend to do is they get real tense and without knowing it I think they speak in this sort of voice and they have really rough relationships it's hard to build rapport it's hard to connect I advise them based on what you say now I used to call it my flirting voice and I'd flirt with men I'd flirt with women but people find that term to be offensive so the speaking smile The Smiling voice The accommodator Voice it works wonders at delivering bad information and asking questions that you're too timid to ask but what happens is they inadvertently switch into assertive voice and it starts to feel like a lot of friction happening between two people and we know this oftentimes the client has way more leverage than you especially if you're a young business needing work right right how do you talk people off the ledge because they always throw this at me well easy for you to say because you're X Y and Z it's easy for Chris Voss to say we don't do work for hire do you have any advice for those people small Stakes practice for high stakes results like nobody deploys a great negotiation skill in the midst for the first time in the midst of a big negotiation and you can practice this stuff you got seven eight nine times a day to practice these tones of voice and these approaches small Stakes practice every single day just to learn the voice with your Lyft driver wherever you are the Starbucks Barista like every single human being is an opportunity for you to increase your emotional intelligence if you just bring it on and start to practice it you know as a movie outside all the time Man on Fire Denzel Washington and as he's teaching this a little girl in a movie to swim she says I'm not any good and he says there's no good or bad there's only trained that untrained and that's pretty that's pretty much accurate you know at one point in time Tiger Woods didn't know how to swing a golf club somebody trained him you know everybody was a complete and total novice with no experience at some point in time they just got the repetition repetitions in they you know they went to a coach they were they were shown how to do it properly and then they started to execute so that they got enough practice in so that they could then perform on a big stage or in the midst of a big negotiation Michael Jordan got cut from his basketball team when he was a sophomore like everybody started out as just another schmuck some somewhere and then they decided that they were willing to put in the practice willing to put in the time and you see it over and over and over again and it's not just putting in the time but how you put in the time there's a great book The Talent Code by Daniel Court you know there's a phrase It's not practice that makes perfect it's perfect practice I believe at the beginning of it he talks about a video where this this young girl is trying to teach her how to play teach yourself how to play a song on a piano and she was going really slow and every time she made a mistake she stopped and she backed up and she took her time to execute properly and then every single time she executed it properly she doesn't know but there's a neurosynaptic phenomenon going on in her head where first the neural connection is being made and then every time you repeat the repetition there's a substance called myelin that's wrapped around the neurosynaptic connection which just like electricity every time you insulate a wire it conducts the electricity more efficiently and so every time you go slow well you start to pick up speed but you focus first on executing properly before you even focus on finishing the execution you know you take your time to get the repetition down and across the board universally human experiences everybody started out at not being any good at it at all they just decided to learn I have to quickly share an experience my my son had a brilliant piano teacher prior to that he was trying to practice the whole song and he was not great at playing the whole song so his piano teacher said just practice that one part until you feel really good about it and that changed the way he played and then he was able to play for longer periods of time and hit the notes where he's supposed to hit him and he to this day loves playing piano like non-stop can you give us some examples like what somebody could do in their everyday interaction so they get good at this yeah well you you can even do it in your head if you hear it in your head properly um you know and I'm a big fan of Andrew huberman and his podcast and his Neuroscience podcast and I'm fairly certain it was on his podcast where he said that when you hear something in your head like if you hear your head saying something the same mental neural connections are triggered as when you actually speak which is why many great athletes imagine themselves doing something well and subsequently they do it better they don't rehearse themselves missing the shot they rehearse themselves in their head making the shot you know you have control over the rehearsal in your head if you go I can just see myself losing my cool again will you just rehearsed losing your cool but if she can go back and imagine yourself saying a combo if you can imagine yourself reacting calmly keeping your cool that's practice you could do that in a crowded Subway you can Retreat into your head and imagine yourself doing it properly what most people do is they rehearse doing it wrong I just see myself next time I talk to my sister I'm she's gonna set me off I'm gonna start screaming at her again that's a rehearsal to do it wrong and you can control that that film that movie that recreation in your head if you choose to and so that that's a place to start you can you can then practice Out Loud by yourself at home gonna make you feel like a psychopath gonna make you wonder if the neighbors could hear you hopefully they do here yeah and hopefully they do think you're a psychopath maybe then they won't steal your newspaper quick personal question for you here as a master negotiator how is it negotiating with your family with your spouse and your children I'm curious because I think I'm a pretty good negotiator and then when it comes to my wife's like it's not there's a whole different Dynamic there well it's are you negotiating with someone or against if you're with negotiating with them what they say using these negotiation skills is is thought provoking and it's encouraging because they're hoping to work it out with you long term what really happens with family and people were close is one of two Dynamics usually both there's inadvertent wounding from the past that we have no idea about like we don't know right and people we have a long-term relationship with we probably hurt them and we have no idea we did and they're still stinging from that then the other potential issue is are we walking the talk am I negotiating with you to get you to shut up or am I negotiating with you so that we can collaborate that we can climb towards a goal together and do you trust me to go on a climb with you what have I done in the past have I have I paid lip service to it and dismissed and placated you you got a lot of history with people and you hope to have a long future with them so they're they're comparative of your walk and your talk is going to be very important that's what makes dealing with family difficult those two Dynamics do you find yourself emotionally getting involved in it with the history because you've yeah you've been there many times yeah before everybody gets triggered and plus like I said if they've hurt me in ways they got no idea I'm getting them mad about stuff that they don't even know they should that I'm angry about like that that's the unfortunate portion of the Human Experience like we know of stuff that if they pointed out to it we'd say yeah you know I'm guilty of that and there's other stuff that they point out and you're like I got no memory that even happened and you've been carrying this for how long like I don't even know I did that and I'm not 100 sure it was me and I I've seen that happen with a lot of people right you know I see having my son my son Brandon Braden negotiator he's still got it burned in his brain the moment I told him there was no Santa Claus I have no memory of that at all he can do you're so cruel like every detail of that moment and he he got into a fight at school with some kids kid told him there was no Santa Claus and my parents told me this is Santa Claus my parents aren't liars and he gets into a fight with this kid he's outlining this all and he told me this just about two years ago he goes remember when you told me there was no Santa Claus I'm like no and he goes how can you how could you not remember that and he describes it and improve the detail I'm like yeah all right well you got me there kid so we you know because you told him that he got into a fight at school he got into a fight at school because he was defending his father's honor because he felt that his you know his father's not a liar and basically kids calling his father and he comes home and he stops in the Hall of the house and he goes dad is there a Santa Claus and I go no and then I continued down the hall yeah he's left there with this dilemma of how did how do I how do I how do I reconcile all this that and that's the moment in his life that you know it probably on my deathbed if he's standing there he'll probably say tell me again there's no Santa Claus you know okay now knowing what you know now because the the memory is a little fuzzy for you like I don't remember saying that if somebody runs up to you with an urgent problem like this how should you respond well all right so uh give me a concrete example well literally like your son comes up to you it's like Dad is there Santa Claus and then you're kind of like expedient manner you answer no how do we apply the Black Swan Chris Voss technique when somebody comes at you with a problem like that yeah well I mean I believe in being a straight shooter I mean and I think you know you know what however the mythology and the Santa Claus you know because you know as parents we paint this thing we get our kids going we want to be happy about Christmas you know those of us that do it and plenty of us do but I mean an important fact long term you want your reputation to be a straight shooter so somebody hits you with something where the truth is gonna hurt the truth is probably going to hurt you more it's going to hurt them you know most people lie to say themselves not to save somebody else but you earn yourself long term like tell the truth tell it gently be Straight Shooters are people who tell the truth with emotional intelligence everybody loves a straight shooter as somebody who's too direct and too honest her blunt force trauma and telling the truth but they're not being careful about their tonal voice and they're not giving somebody at least a brief opportunity to embrace themselves and so there's a difference between being blunt and being a straight shooter and a straight shooter tells the truth gently with emotional intelligence doesn't leave things out doesn't deceive by the literal truth doesn't deceive by Omission you know lets people know really what the truth is that's the best currency to be across important I like that I appreciate that I'm wondering if in a situation like that if you could just slowed him down a little bit by asking them a question like what's going on do I need to know something about this question yeah there's you know there's always a way to rehearse something and go back and do it better it rarely is there not a way that you can improve because clearly it creates some kind of emotional scar because prior to that moment of you telling him the truth you told them the opposite of Truth which is you created the fantasy that Santa Claus exists before right yeah yeah at least I contributed to it without question I'm not sure but I guarantee you I've played along I want to get to another commandment but maybe I'll I'll Tee It Up here I love how you talk about doing an accusations audit and you use it often in the role plays I've I've read about it I've seen you do it it's wonderful uh if people aren't familiar with this it's kind of like what happens to Eminem's character an eight mile B rabbit he brings up everything that's nasty about what the other person is going to think of him and he totally defuses the situation and leaves the other person speechless yeah the accusations ordered as a strategic move is probably one of our single most powerful bundled strategies that's out there yeah it's either diffusion the emotional uh the negative emotions that are there are those that might be there both of those are scary but diffusing ones that might show up scares the hell out of people because they think they're going to plant negatives by trying to defuse them and you can't it's just when you really understand the Dynamics of the negatives and the positives in people's brains in a way that you deal with them and it's it's completely counterintuitive because most people are used to deny negatives like I don't want this to sound disrespectful you know it's almost a comedy routine the very next thing is going to sound disrespectful right well the two and people are used to reacting to that and so I teach them to say this is going to sound disrespectful and they go like oh no no I said that before and it backfired no you didn't you said I don't want to sound disrespectful the first part of that is a critical issue as to how you Tee It Up So the accusations audit is going after everything negative everything everything everything everything and being very proactive about it and it is insanely effective because it clears people's heads human beings are largely negative in their reactions the data qualitative and quantitative is more than enough to support that up to 75 negative and most people ignore the negative and simply try to overcome it by being positive and that's an extremely inefficient approach it's far more efficient to Simply deactivate the negatives you don't get rid of the elephant in the room by saying I don't want you to think there's an elf in the room you get people you say look there's an elf in the room and then people go like yeah but it's not that bad but if you say I don't want you to think there's an Elephant Room people go are you crazy there's an outfit right there what are you are you lying to me are you are you oblivious are you stupid what's going on here so the accusations audit is really about attacking the elephant in the room or the elephant that could be in the room it's very counterintuitive it's like that you can keep the elephant from coming in a room in the first place and it works we got more than enough ridiculously successful clients that we have coached we got the data we had the coaching experience over and over and over and I think that's one of the differences in a black swollen group of the people that are out there talking about how to philosophically do things we have the most robust coaching practice of any of our competitors chaldini doesn't coach you know pick anybody that you might go through Robert Greene doesn't coach we got a thriving coaching practice of satisfied clients implementing our ideas and making a lot of money and the accusations audit is really one of those things that makes a huge difference proactively diffusing negatives not letting them come in a room so for people who don't know what the accusation audit it's where you imagine the worst things that the other person is going to say about you and then you just bring them up front right yeah you say and and it's a slight adjustment on a label I might say it it it seems like you're angry to this is probably going to make you angry it seems like you feel like you're wasting your time is I might be you're probably going to feel like you're wasting your time in every given meaning that you go into at some point in time the other side's going to wonder whether or not they're wasting their time right and among the accusations artists we're going to throw right away is look it's probably gonna you're probably gonna ask yourself if you're wasting your time probably going to feel like you're wondering why you're talking to me in the first place you're probably going to say that what I want's unfair you're probably going to think I'm greedy and then I'm going to shut up and let this stuff sink in and then you decide whether or not you're going to proceed and it's just a great way to get on track quickly without letting people's negative emotions create an incredible friction and slow everything down what's the Neuroscience behind this I find that whenever we verbalize whatever our fears our emotions are they tend to reduce the amount of pain that we feel around these things is there Neuroscience that backs up what you're saying yeah there's been a number of experiments with people in fmris where they've used a device such as throwing them showing them a picture put them in a negative mindset they see the reaction and they simply ask people to to identify their emotion to label it and very consistently when people label it it diminishes that activity and whatever sort of the part of the brain is lit up it's been shown to be on a regular basis consistently over and over and over again calling out negatives labeling them whether you're labeling your own or labeling them in someone else it consistently shows that it diffuses it so as a person who's like I'm an introvert and when something comes up I feel more tense and anxious just when I'm feeling something but I just don't say it so part of it is just like what are you feeling inside and should you say this and if I say it then all of a sudden it goes down and it creates a healthier relationship because otherwise I start to resent people for things I've not even communicated to them so it begins with us and then now we can apply the same feeling or the same understanding when we're talking to prospects right well sick absolutely perfect now I think you have to run right do you have to leave right now right so yeah yeah and then I also like to tell people how they could follow up with me first yes please the best way to follow up with a Black Swan group learn as much as possibly that you can from us is to subscribe to our newsletter The Edge and the way you subscribe to our newsletter you say how do I do this well here's how you do it you go to our website black swannltd.com b-l-a-c-k-s-w-a-n-l-t-d.com upper right hand corner is a tab for the newsletter The Edge subscribe give us your email address it's free it's complimentary it's actionable and concise you get the weekly article one article not ten and you're trying to figure out which one to read one emailed to you at 7 30 in the morning on Tuesday Monday's an admin day month Monday's you know clutter day Tuesdays get down to business day it'll help you get your brain teed up on negotiation give you ideas you can use that day and it's a gateway to everything we have we got a lot of stuff we got training announcements we got a variety of ways to help you get better negotiation and the edge is a gateway to all that stuff it's a gateway to the gold mine so the best absolute best thing to do is subscribe to the edge and for the listeners we'll include the links in the description so you'll figure that out by just clicking on the links I think you're doing something later this month with Mark Cuban on the Black Swan Network do you want to talk about that a little bit yeah it's on Fireside we there's a brand new social media platform that's an interactive podcast called Fireside it is amazing and what it does is it fills a great Gap in the negotiation training Journey that you might be on and it's kind of the intermediate phase we're not quite ready to go to the in-person training or maybe you just need made a weekly refresher on the in-person training because you're like Tiger Woods you're afraid what's going to happen to you if you don't stay sharp and it's an interactive podcast what does that mean we got I do a podcast I have a topic people that are listening get a come up and ask questions directly of me or whoever might be on and on June 30th we have a free episode now this is normally a subscription-based episode it's an annual subscription it costs a lot it's 120 a month or there's an annual price for less but on June 30th myself and Mark Cuban who's co-founder of the Fireside app along with Fallon fatimi Mark and I are going to have a conversation about negotiation on June 30th and it's going to be free you don't have to subscribe you get a sample what it's like to be on the Fireside platform and you can download Fireside out of your app store f-i-r-e-s-i-d-e Fireside perfect okay now Sarah please I am Chris Voss and you're listening to the Future foreign