Welcome to Season three, Episode 39 of the Jordan B. Peterson podcast, I'm Mikhaila Peterson, Jordan's daughter. This is a very recent interview with Chris Voss. The video version of the podcast is available on my YouTube channel. I originally invited Chris Voss onto my podcast, but dad wanted to join and obviously I was thrilled with that opportunity. I love podcasting with Dad. So if you want the video format, type in Chris Voss, Jordan Peterson on YouTube and I'm sure the video will pop up.

Chris Voss is an American businessman, author and the CEO of the Black Swan Group, which teaches people how to negotiate. He co-authored Never Split the Difference, a book on how to negotiate and a book on his experience as an FBI negotiator. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community, and it's offering our listeners a free trial of their premium membership. If you find yourself scrolling through socials or on Netflix too much, something like Skillshare is a better use of your time.

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That's self authoring dotcom code MP for 15 percent off. Great for your New Year's resolution. I hope you enjoy this episode if you do remember to subscribe. Very pleased to have with us today, as is Chris Voss, who's currently CEO of Black Swan Consulting, was formerly the FBI's top. Kidnap international kidnapping negotiator and is the author of Never Split the Difference. A book. Offering to teach its readers the fine art of successful negotiation. Thanks very much for joining us today, Chris.

I enjoyed your book a lot. Looking forward to stories. Yeah, thank you, it's my pleasure. It's awesome to be on with you guys. Much appreciated on. Why do you I'm interested in negotiation because I'm the clinical psychologist and a lot of what clinical psychologist do is negotiate with their clients for behavioral change, but also teach their clients to negotiate successfully with the people around them to get what they want. So negotiate and negotiations, very underdeveloped skill in most people.

Right. So I'm wondering. How you can develop a sustainable growth now?

Well, let me quote the great I say quote, great actor Rocky Balboa and I couldn't sing or dance. I was I was with the FBI was this white guy. I had to get out of SWAT because recurring injuries, I want to stay in crisis response and so we had hostage negotiators hanging around. I didn't know what they do. Didn't seem that hard. Right. I can I can talk to terrorists is what I thought got into it. It was fantastic.

It was you know, I had had to sort of. Fight my way and not really find my way, and I had to work to get in, I was eminently unqualified before I became a negotiator, but my first step was to volunteer on a suicide hotline. And, you know, the opportunity to influence people in short periods of time blew me away. Really counterintuitive methods and.

One thing led to another, I taught negotiation at Harvard and collaborated on a book with some people and been teaching negotiation ever since, it's just been phenomenal.

It's great to have a positive impact. I'm sure you feel, you know, you have a you have the opportunity to have a positive impact on people. It's enormously satisfying. So why what made you think that the skills that you picked up as a negotiator in these crisis situations would be applicable to people in your day to day concerns? Yeah, great question. I mean, I suspected early on when I was volunteering on the hotline, is this just people in crisis or is it just people?

And I started using the skills of my day to day life, and it impacted all my relationships and made me a better hostage negotiator. And when I first started collaborating with Harvard and they invited me to come and attend the law school's negotiation course. Instructors up there teach teaching, we're saying like, look, man, you're doing the same thing we're doing. The stakes are different, but the dynamics are absolutely the same. And that was what was sort of their blessing and their understanding ended up teaching there later.

But the dynamics are the same. It's human behavior, regardless of what the circumstances are. We're wired in certain ways. And as human beings, we all have the same wiring as you know. So I'm going to get into some of your. What would you call tactical strategies, I guess? And speaking of the clinical connection, when I was reading your book, the first thing that came to mind is the. The techniques in general sound very much like those that were put forth by Carl Rogers to ensure successful clinical transformation.

And lo and behold, about halfway through the book, you make direct reference to Carl Rogers. And he was a great to formalize and think of the idea of of active listening and reflection, particularly the idea that you should put yourself in the shoes of the other person, but also to ensure that you're hearing them properly. You should repeat what they said back to them in paraphrased manner and see if you actually got the gist of their conversation.

So. To some degree, you concentrate on that, I guess, in the section. Well, it's not so much labelling statement, mirroring, I guess, is your term with a parts. Well, you know, there's a couple I mean, we really sort of. Really defined all the different skills and real specific detail. And I was one of the things that the Harvard guy said to me, because we're on the same path, but FBI, we're a little bit further down it.

And they said, you know, we're both talking about the same skills. You define him and with much more clarity. Because principally in law enforcement, cops, FBI agents, you know, we want specifics on how to do something and then we'll take a normal road test it. So mirroring versus labeling, we would call two different things and even the different types of labels. And, you know, we take we take what we learn with the world, learn we collectively kind of psychology.

And we had in neuroscience, we started trying to hit very specific parts of the brain to create very specific reactions. So, yeah, I'm hearing I would define mirroring is repeating the last one to three words of what someone just said or sited one to three words versus labeling.

I'm looking for emotional nuances, dynamics.

Well, one of the things that struck in labeling was that. Now, people might respond positively to that, we should all let you define it momentarily, but people should respond positively to that because it's often the case that when people are in a discussion or negotiating that they don't actually know what they're bringing to the table or what they want. And so if they're floundering about in a somewhat emotion ridden in an express manner and you put your finger on what it is that they're trying to say, then you're actually articulating something for them that's still only being processed at the level of orderly response.

And people find out a great relief if you can do it accurately, because you've summed up a very complicated set of. Physiological disturbances began with a single utterance and kind of enabled them to see the pathway forward. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you can even it doesn't even have to be that accurate, you know, and which is the thing that neuroscience has taught us, you know, oxytocin, dopamine depend upon what neurochemicals being hit. I mean, when you're inaccurate.

And they correct you to actually get ahead of dopamine, which they love. I mean, people hate being corrected, but they love to correct it's a great way to create a bond that the other person doesn't even know he's being doped.

Well, if you're incorrect in your labeling, at least the person then has something they can object to that's concrete.

You talk about that, is that right? The importance of getting somebody to say no, that was interesting. Is it possible to describe that a little bit? Yeah, nos were the craziest words and we, you know, hearing it. We're taught when we're little. What's the first word every child learns? No, they love that word. Yeah, yeah. They get hammered with it over and over again. So we're condition that when we hear we've done something wrong.

But at the same time, we're conditioned. When we say it, we protect ourselves. So if I get you to say no, you feel protected. You're going to want to talk. You're going you're going to feel good about the interaction. You're not going to feel threatened. You're more likely to open up.

I mean, even something as little as, nobody in my company says to anybody, have you got a few minutes to talk? It's always just now bad time to talk. Complete change in the other side's reaction. Right, and so you say instead, is this a bad time to talk, right? Right.

Or even like I won't say, is this a good idea? I'll say, is this a dumb idea? And you probably go like, no, it's not a dumb idea, but here the following problems, here's what we've got to do. I mean, it's a complete change in reaction.

Yeah, well, you know, if you watch two year olds with. No, I think they they really latch onto that word. It's really remarkable. And the reason for that is that it enables them to protect themselves against being hijacked by other people. Right. It's actually the word that defines the boundary between them and the world and enables them to have some autonomy. It's amazing. I remember I get it one point or maybe it was my son.

It might be Julian. No, I think it was babysits who's unbelievably stubborn little kid. And I. I was trying to get him to do something just to interact with me. And I offered him a bunch of different. Enticements and

you as a psychologist is having trouble getting a two year old to cooperate.

This was a particularly this was a particularly of two year old to cooperate? Come on But he took no

with bloodline connection. Is that where it was so?

No, no, no. This was this was truly, truly the neighbor's child, actually. But he was willing to say no to M&Ms and ice cream, which he called himself when he's noticed that he had said it but didn't know it was such an attractive proposition to him that he was willing to forgo even basic immediate rewards just for the thrill of being able to maintain that autonomy. Yeah.

So we should go through your technique, let's say, your technique with some order.

So I'm going to. Read a couple and maybe you could just describe what what what you mean by that. So we have tactical empathy, for example.

Yeah, sure. I mean, we're trying to take, first of all, the point of calling it that was taking it out of today's common usage of empathy, sympathy or or even compassion.

Now, I would argue that I would I would off that empathy is a very compassionate thing to do. But going back to the real reason it first started collaborating with Harvard, they said empathy is not agreement, it's not sympathy, it's not even liking the other side. It's just completely understand. The basic song from Rogers in Psychology, the stuff that anybody that's pursued, this is study. Now, let's add in neuroscience tactically, tactically, we know that the amygdala is kind of the crossroads of all our thoughts and it's wired to be negative.

Seventy five percent negative. And tactically, we know that simply identifying a negative diminishes it, not denying it, identifying it, you think I'm a jerk and I don't think you're that much of a jerk by saying that you've diminished it and the other side. So let's just put a tactical application to our empathy, knowing that the negative emotions I have four times the impact at least on people's thinking. So let's approach and coming through a different door.

And it's tactical because while this is something that needs to be clarified, too, is that when you're negotiating, what is striving to attain it, if it's a win, you know, people conceptualize that the success of a negotiation in different ways could be you win, which means you get what you want.

It would be win win, in which case both people get what they want. You can go beyond that because you could say that in a successful negotiation, people can discover new things they didn't know they wanted and you get those two.

So. Tactical, towards what end, if you had a philosophy of negotiation, what might that be?

You know, the philosophy is great collaboration, which requires long term relationships, and ideally every deal kicks stuff out that you didn't expect that delighted you.

Which is going to addict you to want to continue to deal with me, great long term relationship, if every deal were end and you're delighted, you can't wait to do another one.

Right. So that's absolutely crucial because it puts me in the real moral framework. Right. Because otherwise, you could learn to negotiate psychopathic reasons, which would be only short term interests of yourself. But if you put it in a framework where you're trying to set yourself up to play repeatedly with the same person or with a whole variety of different people, then and an ethic you are automatically into.

Right. Your reputation precedes you. I mean, you get a reputation for doing nothing but good for people.

People line up to do business with you.

Right, exactly, and reputation is actually the marker for your utility as a long term partner. Yeah, yep.

That work with the FBI negotiations. I mean, if you're dealing with somebody like a hostage taker, how does that end up being a win for that.

Well, first of all, the crazy thing is hostage negotiators have reputational concerns. You know, we we have repeat customers. And even if even if the guy that we're dealing with, even if he goes to jail, never comes out. How we handle them is going to get into the media, so reputation is an immediate concern. And and, you know, people people are so driven by where it's taken them in the long run. I mean, if somebody has a vision of the future, no matter how far down the line that vision is, that's a good thing.

Now we've got something to talk about. And my first response with a bank robber, is really going to be sounds like you want to survive. Of course they do, otherwise they'd have come out and gotten shot already. Now we'll get something to talk about.

How do you deal with the people who don't want to survive? You can pick that up pretty quickly. You know, you're going to know right off the bat if you if you're there to hear it.

And the analogy in a business world, not everybody wants to do the deal with you. Maybe they want to exploit you. Maybe they want to take advantage of you. Maybe they see it as a one off.

Maybe they're playing you for a fool. You've got to pick that up in your in your everyday negotiations as well, and you'll hear it if you're open to hearing it. Yes, it's avoiding preconceived notions is what really shut you down. Being too focused on a goal gives you gives you tunnel vision.

Well, I really like the repeated theme. Analogy. And one of the things I've lectured about is that you tell your children, it isn't important whether they win or lose, it's important how they play the game.

You do, but you do. Yeah, but you don't necessarily understand what that means, why you're telling your child that. And they might say, well, it's obviously important that I wan. So I don't know what you're telling me. But the goal of proper place to be invited to play as many games as possible not to win that game, even though you also want to win that game. So you lay out is this ethic, which is to make yourself the best collaborator's, the most desirable possible collaborator across the longest term with a large number of people.

And then you can put these techniques to use, which are being called harsh techniques of manipulation.

Yeah, well, I was going to say the big difference between manipulation and influence is really, where are you taking me? Manipulation is what I'm trying to hurt you. Influence is what I'm trying to help you. Same set of skills, but where are you coming from? Where you're trying to go?

Right, right. With the most business relationships, people get cynical about this, but most business relationships are, in fact, relationships.

You know, I was really struck by this even more so in the business world than it is in the academic world, because in the academic world, you put forward a claim, at least in the more scientifically oriented fields, the validity of your claim is dependent on the degree to which you follow proper scientific procedure. So there's an objective way of assessing your. Your ability, but in business, it's a lot softer than that in some manner because the measurement techniques for assessing the other person's ability aren't completely there.

And so relationship becomes crucial. And and it's very interesting to me to understand negotiation as the. As deep as the still makes, capitalism takes a human. Because it brings it under this. The necessity of. It shows how tightly associated successful business development is with playing the game with other people's property and. It helps you avoid cynicism about the process. I would say, yeah, no, I agree completely. I mean, our co-author, I mean a book written between myself, my son Brandon and Torah's a Tall is a brilliant dude.

I mean, I would read anything, any business book that he's written. I don't know that I'd read any of his poetry, but I'd read his business books. And one of the things that he pointed out to us is, by definition, as a species, the only ones of us that survived were the ones that collaborated were hard wired to collaborate.

So if you increase your collaboration skills, more people are going to want to do business with you. And to your point, it's not always that measurable in an immediate number. It may be a secondary and tertiary benefit, but you become wealthy by being a great collaborator.

Is there any difference between negotiating across the board with women versus men? Well, that's a loaded question, that's for sure. I know, I just. We're going to get into the differences between men and men and women.

I would love to do that because. Women picked this style of negotiation up faster than the men do. At the top end and we got some fairly qualitative data to back that up. Women are it's hard, there's so much nurture going on, it's hard to separate nature from nurture. Women are nurtured more to pick up on emotion sooner. They're they're nurtured more to pick up on soft power sooner and have an appreciation for emotional dynamics and how to use soft power.

And so that's why I think that women have a tendency to be better at this. I mean, some some of the people that are great negotiators are the biggest fans of a woman.

Would you say you have soft power? Yeah, well, a little boys and little girls, little boys are taught to fight little girls, the women and bring them up know that inevitably they're not going to be the more physically powerful.

So they are they are nurtured early on to figure out how to get things without physically fighting them.

How do you keep your emotions under check when you're negotiating?

That is the challenge. And depending upon. It was a couple of different hack's. And they all take practice just like any other soft skill. If you're genuinely curious, it's not possible to get upset if you can stay in ingenuously, genuinely curious frame of mind, you're one of the people I'm also a big fan of.

Stephen Cholerae talks about the psychology of flow, highly positive state of mind. Curiosity is positive. You're smarter, your brain is quicker. And when you're genuinely curious, you can't get angry. Interesting. Can I run across recently? Daryl Davis, Daryl Davis, black musician who taught talks Klu Klux Klan members into quitting a Klan. And I had a conversation with him about it and people say, well, how do you not get upset with these people that, you know, you're black dude?

they openly say that they want to murder you? This is well, I grew up internationally, I just look at it as a different culture and I'm just completely curious about, where they're coming from and what are they thinking about. It leaves him in a state of mind where he can deal with people that are against him personally.

But he's just curious about.

That's interesting. No. One of the most useful general psychological techniques in relationship for life, but its challenge is voluntary exploration and it's a particular physiological role of being, it's very old brain center known as the hypothalamus, which controls basic drives like hunger and thirst and temperature regulation, defense of aggression. And part of it also controls exploration. And so switching to more voluntary exploration, that's that's a mode of being that's deeply hard wired and that develops your entire being.

But if it allows you to pick up information and we are information scattered so far, and that's because you can trade information for valuable things like food, you know, so. If you. If you're in this. I was struck in your book by your emphasis on unknown unknowns, black swans you talked in the end you said, like, if you're listening very carefully to people, you can pick up these unknown unknowns. And that is a consequence of voluntary exploration and having its useful to take up on those not only for the conversation you're having presently, but because of what the consequences for that conversation might be, these conversations down the road.

And so the man you just described, you know, opens himself back and says, well, these people from a completely different culture than me, maybe there's some valuable things I can learn from them regardless of our differences of opinion. And and those things are of such value that they might be portable. And it is unbelievably useful to approach world in that matter, it's just that everyone you encounter is a gold mine of information specially. They don't bring their full of assumptions, you don't know.

And and you find out something new as a consequence. That's way better than just having your own opinions bolstered, which is reassuring but doesn't. Offer you anything new.

Yeah, all those things are completely true. I mean, and by definition, the unknown unknowns is really where the hidden stuff overlaps.

In any given interaction, the other side is hiding stuff, I'm hiding stuff. How do we know what happens when, when when the hiddens are overlap? That's why the deal can always be made better.

I like that, where things overlapped. Now, that cool is cool, I think for another practical question, I.

Practically, you guys didn't tell me this was going to be a practical interview. I thought we should have some fun.

Dad, dad's have some fun, I just asked the practical questions for people in my potcast, about the combination.

But if you're trying to like I think the one negotiation that would benefit everyone is how to go to whoever they're working for and find that one look for a raise. And I know especially if you're more agreeable, a lot of a lot of people are worried about. I have no idea where to start. So you have tips for negotiating a raise? Yeah, sure.

Get off to get raises the price term. In any negotiation, you know, your salary pays your bills, but it doesn't build your career, you know, price takes care of the immediate problems. What are your long term problems? Your long term problems are how do you build a career? Job negotiation should be about building your career, making yourself more viable to the team. And one or two things is going to happen. Your salary is going to get dragged along as a result.

Or if it's not, are more viable and you shot yourself to the highest bidder. How do you become more viable? You know, here is a phrase for every job negotiation, for every annual review.

How can I be guaranteed to be involved in the strategic projects that are critical to the company's future? Instantaneous change in the way your employer views you, because when you go in and ask for a raise. Empathy is about how does the other side, so you decide sees you as selfish. And most employers, most bosses, whenever the employee comes walking in the door, they're after something for themselves. You condition your boss that you're selfish.

You may not like that reality, but that's unfortunately the reality. When you change their conversation to how can I help us all prosper? Now suddenly your boss, your employer goes like home. Now, here's somebody I want to have around, here's somebody to make my life better, conversation is instantly transformed. Either you'll get more money, you'll have greater experiences, because also you don't want to be involved in a mundane at work. You want to if you're courageous, you want the big ticket item, you want to have an impact, and then even if they don't give you a raise, the experience of being involved makes you five times more marketable than you were before the year started.

So you your advice basically is that you will go to a much broader mindset, which is something like how can I be optimally successful in this company? And quite often optimal success is going to require is being a key player in the most important things that the company does. That's also been the allied with the willingness to take on additional responsibilities, not to see that it's easy to point people often avoid responsibility. But if you can take it on voluntarily, it's there's no difference between responsibility and opportunity.

If the company is offering the. Yeah, what is that responsibility to you now, the highest levels of your company now have an investment in making sure you succeed.

So you just gone from being maybe somebody struggling by themselves, your responsibilities are critical to the everybody's future and everybody has a stake in you doing well because that's what you've taken on. I mean, it's it's a virtuous cycle, if you will.

Yes. It also makes you difficult to replace, therefore, much more effective than your salary negotiations. Amen. Absolutely. You had some really nice. Very practical tips for people negotiating their initial salary. I thought two of these were really smart. One was if if if you're being interviewed for a new position and you're asked to define your starting salary, to offer a range, to say something like, well, people in this position are often offered one hundred and twenty five to one hundred seventy five thousand dollars a year as a starting salary.

And to strategically do that so that your desired salary is in the bottom end of that range to. Well, yes, well, it's a good question. Yes is the short answer, according to the book. But I it's interesting that you would phrase that fall for that, because that is the danger of techniques, is that they can become manipulative, you know. So that's why I wanted to talk about the broader effort. And you also mentioned that it's smart for someone who's negotiating for their first position to also negotiate metrics for their first raise, which is even more important, rights like you can negotiate for how your salary is going to increase in the future rather than how well it's going to be right at the beginning. But I like to tailor the question with you regard that offering as a range, offering of a range as manipulative.

Now, I have not manipulative I mean, I'm a nice guy. Is talking about, but I regard that as manipulative, you know. All right. So and from some of the talks that I've heard you give Jordan and some other stuff, you know, there's always additional nuances and factors to consider. And you want to stay off of one thing. OK, first of all, just because what you're worth and what they can pay, you might not line up.

And the experience for being there may be more valuable than the dollars, I got to tell you right now, I work for minimum wage to be Warren Buffet's assistant for a year. I would get him coffee, I would do anything. And I and I do it I might do it for free because that will be a position where I would learn so much. So it's as much not handcuffing near the side in making you somebody they can't get based on the number.

You're looking for a great marriage, so the range is to feel them out, understand also when you give a range and it and the other side's numbers within that range, they're going to take the end that most favors them. So if you're going to give a range, you'd better be willing to accept the bottom number, they're not right in the middle, right? Right. What are the practical aspects of Ranges, question I have in relationship to that was exactly that.

I mean, I guess maybe you could answer it. I would be happy with something in the range of one hundred and ten thousand two hundred fifty thousand. Because if you have to point out that other companies are making offers in this range, you have to know for sure that other companies work. There's no sense. Adding a falsehood to negotiation for the purpose of picking up an advantage that seems to me to be a very bad strategy, falsehoods are a bad idea.

I'm against any sort of deception by co-mission or omission. So especially on that point. Now, I wouldn't say something that I didn't know this accusation or at least can talk about that a little bit, but that was something I found now huge right now from your analysis of courtroom behavior of lawyers, if I remember correctly. Well, it added to it, I mean, you know, seeing it work in different in different areas, it definitely added to our thinking, what is the.

If you don't mind. Yeah, well, you know, it's first of all, it's you know, the lawyers would call it getting out the uglies in advance. You know, if you got if you got a witness that there were some ugly things about you, bring it up first. Let the jury reconcile themselves to before they listen to anything else. And I work with some great prosecutors when I was with the FBI Southern District in New York. Now, in business, it's understanding what the negatives are in advance, which crazy is when we begin to proactively get out in front of them, like if I get let's say you got no negative about me at all.

But I'm getting ready to say something that you're not going to like. I say, look here, you think I'm a real jerk for bringing this up. And then when I bring it up, it'll have far less impact. You'll never know what I headed you off from. And that's why we really aggressive with going after the negatives early on and calling them up.

Yes. On the accusation that allows you to lay on the table all the weaknesses of your position and your character, for that matter.

And so there's a variety of reasons that that might be useful. One is that by indicating your willingness to. I've met these folks, you showed that the faults are small enough, so that someone could admit to having them. That's the first thing. And the second thing is you show yourself as someone who's larger than their fault, because they're willing to admit to them. Right. So you minimize the faults in some sense, even though you're presenting democracy accurately, you minimize the emotional impact, you decrease the emotional impact and you increase the integrity of your own character at the same time.

And again, these are the things that should be done, honestly, not as a matter of technique, if you do an accusation on it. It should be a genuine one. And you should be doing it in part so that you this is my understanding anyway, so that you are also as well as you get, as well as you need to be of the shortcomings you have in the negotiation. Yeah,

I used to. I don't know if you remember, I remember.

I don't know if this is a technique or the CEO thing to do, but I can remember coming home and saying. I like some sort of terrible thing. This isn't exactly the same sort of terrible thing I've done. I was out drinking as we're doing this. This happened just kidding. But this actually did happen. And it would be the second thing would be smaller. And I found that that really worked on your life. Thank God that didn't happen.

That's not an accusation or just a that's an anchoring technique. correct?

Well, you know, depending upon how you deployed, it is a combination of both. Yeah. So we could talk about the anchoring technique as well.

We could I mean, it's your guys' show we'll talk about whatever you guys, maybe you got me hostage here. I'm your hostage and

it sounds like you feel like you're a hostage.

I'll take it all day long.

So what is what is the that anchoring technique could you describe that? Well, yeah, I mean, the anchoring technique and we're very you know, you can anchor on a number and we don't anchor on numbers. But I will tell you, we anchor emotionally. If somebody wants to know what somebody wants to know, what I charge for consulting. I'm going to say high more than you had, more than you ever pay. And we're not moving forward in this conversation until you asked me to give you the number and that period of time that we waited.

You're going to think of some crazy number. And when I give you my number. You're going to say like, oh, well, that isn't that bad. What comes with that? And we now made the numbers something that is irrelevant, what's relevant really in all business negotiations is delivery. And we overdelivered. So the anchoring, that was a very subtle use of anchoring or description venting there, anchoring technique occurs, imagine that you're always interpreting what's going on in the context of some sort.

And so. How big something is depends on the context, and so maybe you think a house is worth one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars and you find out the person wants two and a half million for it? Well, then if they come down to five hundred thousand, you're going to think that's pretty reasonable because they anchor you at two millions, even though you thought to begin with it was only one hundred and thirty five thousand. So that is what I did.

Nice. Very, very treacherous. And sneaky of you. Yeah. You still do that?

I don't think so. I don't think so, but I'm not as butcheous the if I we've to raise the level of your skills, we're going to get you guys more money will go offline to give you some coaching. Next time, next time, you'll be you'll be in one of five houses that you wanted to be in. You'll have studios all over the planet.

You've been Foggia in Australia.

I need help with getting along for negotiate. And I get way too angry. And my husband is he's amazing at it. Like he said, I read your book and it really is a good negotiators, my dear.

That's what he said, too. I was like, I don't get along with you very well. yeah, but look where we are. Yes. You did win that round.

OK, another another hint you have, neutralize the negative and reinforce the positive. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, well, simply calling out the negatives has a neutralizing effect on them to some degree, every time. Every single time. Now, how much the effect is varies.

But again, if we go back to the neuroscience stuff in the amygdala. Seventy five percent negative. You neutralize the negative. You get an opportunity for the positive to pick up some ground. If I say seems like you want to make a deal, if you genuinely do. Then that will reinforce that feeling. Seems like you want a long term relationship. Seems like times are important to you. That will reinforce those positive aspects. If I say seems like you hate uncertainty.

The anxiety that you were feeling in the moment will diminish how much it diminishes, I may need to neutralize it several times to get it out of the way. But again, our neuroscience wiring has laid out a lot of. Would people like you have instinctively come to know, from your practice in your interaction with people, where you guys were finding your way before we could map what was going on inside the brain?

Are you married? Chris?

I mean, there is an ex Mrs Voss, and I am looking for the future ex Mrs Voss.

Did your marriage fail as consequences of poor negotiation? Now, you know what, it really failed as a consequence of what all relationships fail, that it's no good or no bad, but a misalignment of core values.

And there were things that were important to me that were important to her and vice versa, business relationships, personal relationships, at the end of the day, it's no good or no bad on either side. It's just enough of a difference in core values that you're entitled to go your way and I'm entitled to go mine and nobody's wrong.

Right. So irreconcilable differences. It's an analogy for it, what you used to be that used to be acceptable grounds for divorce.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you're not wrong. I'm not wrong. We just don't match up.

How have the skills that you learned as a tactical hostage negotiator affecting your more intimate relationships? You know, it's helped me to be more attentive. You know, it's an ongoing process. I'm still learning, I'm still making mistakes, I hope to be learning and making mistakes for at least. I say I'm a third of the way through my life, maybe another hundred years.

But, you know, the idea of dialing into somebody and having a better long term relationship and even thinking about that and getting better on it is very important to me. So I still make mistakes. But, you know, I don't I don't want anybody to regret having had a relationship with. Although some do,

and that happens to everybody. How do you negotiate with someone who say in a hostage situation who doesn't want to talk to you or isn't communicating other things you can do to get them stoppings and tight lipped.

So, yeah, take a step back if somebody is being tight lipped. One or two things are happening, first and foremost is probably they don't feel like talking to you is doing them any good because you're not listening. People get tight lipped because communication isn't doing them any good. Now, they could be trapped in a corner and they could be helpless. Or you could be not listening. There are three possibilities. Another reason for being tight lipped, tight lipped people, trust, incredibly. And they're a little bit afraid of how vulnerable they are, because when they trust, they go all in. And they've been hurt, they've been badly hurt. So they're cautious because you resemble somebody that hurt them in the past. So if you think about what the possibilities are. First of all, just adapt and begin, look, I haven't clearly I have won you trust yet. Well, if it's not about trust, but they're helpless, they're going to correct, I'm going to say, no, it's not about trust, it's because there's nothing I could do.

I'm trapped. There's no way I could go. But at that moment in time you're in you're now you're in dialogue, understanding what really is dialogue, even denial's dialogue. Somebody opens, somebody who gives you more than a one word response, who's previously tight lipped.

Now they're testing to see if you're going to listen, if you're going to understand. Or if you're going to contradict or argue, people are tight lipped with other people who are argumentative.

Do you have any or could you tell us one of your I don't know if you get a of what to go out.

Yeah, your courses allowed, which was terrorist left to be terrorist. Exactly one of those.

You know, two straight cases in the Philippines, and we talk about both of them in the book.

One, one the the the bad guy on the other side was sociopathic rape and murder and killing straight out of the movies, terrorist. The type of person that empathy is not supposed to work on. Now, when do you know when the other side feels understood, when the other side says that's right and a critical moment in that negotiation. What I really was, was an international negotiation coach. I'm coaching people in countries who were coachable. And I'm coaching a guy named Benji, and he's eminently coachable.

We summarize the bad guys point of view. You guys have been pressed for five hundred years, Americans are horrible, Philippine government is horrible, you know, everything, everything you said 500 years worth of emotional baggage. That guy literally says. That's right. In that instance, a 10 million dollar ransom demand evaporated, disappeared off the table. A couple of months later, we're continuing in the negotiation, no more monetary demands for the hostage, none. Non non monetary demands, continued application of what we now refer to as tactical empathy, hostage walks away.

On Monday, Thursday, the Thursday before Easter walked away. I'm back in the Philippines three weeks later, connected back up with Benji worked on another case. He says, You're not going to believe me. Call me on the phone. The terrorists called him on the phone. To tell him that he respected him. That's powerful stuff because we were engaged with the same group again. And the guy, the terrorist, a sociopathic called. To express his respect for how he was treated.

Had lost everything in the negotiation, they wanted 10 million, they got zero. So that stuff works, it works on everybody, it always leaves you better off.

Does that mean that a terrorist wasn't actually interested in the 10 million, he was actually interested in being understood, but would you take away from that?

You know, on the way through what the other side is always interested in is the best I could do. One of the things that I learned about in really kidnapping negotiations globally, kidnapping is a commodities exchange. They're businessmen on the other side. And what they're really interested in, is the best that they could do. And the best you could do is often defined by how you feel during the process to the outcome. So they wanted ten million dollars or the best that they could possibly do.

What is ten million dollars by in this instance? Ten million dollars buys you influence.

They started asking for other things, bought them influence, let's give certain intermediaries involved certain politicians, we want access to people. If we have more money, what do we spend that money on? Ultimately, guns, where guns get your guns, get your influence.

Ultimately, people want soft power. So when they started looking for something else, after having their anger being deactivated. They also sort of lost control of their operation, which created the circumstances of our hostage walking away.

All good things, it sounds ridiculous, good things fall out of the sky if you let them happen. And that's one of the reasons to engage in this approach to negotiation, because something good is going to happen if you if you if you give it the opportunity.

Tell me what your company does exactly the way, you were hired by by a business.

Yeah, well, we we coach we get hired by businesses all the time, but we really coach high performers to better lives.

You coach the high performers specifically.

Well, yeah, I mean, the people that are drawn to us are the high performers, and our marketing is appointed much more than individuals and companies. Again, we coach companies, but companies, by and large are relatively dysfunctional.

Daniel Coyle and the Culture Code, I think you pointed out the stat that only six percent of corporate executives can actually recite their corporate values,

while 40 percent, 40 percent of managers have negative net value to the company.

Yeah, they go, right. Yeah. So these are these are people that are struggling with themselves, let alone new training.

We coach people into. That are making better lives for themselves and their families that are top performers. I mean, typically people that we coach in negotiations, are cutting two or three life changing deals a year, as opposed to one every five or six years.

Everybody that's that that we coach. Then we were coaching last year, are wealthier right now than they were a year ago. All

How do they find me? Well, Black Swan, LTT is is the website Blayse, KSW and LTT dot com. You know, the first step is a book which you were kind enough to to look through and appreciate and and recognize how much you, we're in sync with on our thinking. And then come to the website, we got free stuff downloaded, subscribe to our newsletter, it's free, it's actional.

Give us a chance to put your family in a bigger house, send your kids to better school.

Your book is titled Never Split the Difference. Yeah, so I always thought negotiation meant somebody has a point of view here and somebody has a question here and what you find middle ground. What exactly do you mean by never split the difference?

You know, it's it's a two way street. But splitting the difference, first of all, is a fool's errand for a number of reasons, compromise. You know, do you compromise your principles? You know, there was there was a cartoon about Myrdal, a married couple of long time ago. Husband and wife are talking to each other and the husband says, let's compromise that, we will both be unhappy. You know, compromise is the way to guarantee that you're both unhappy. Now, some people say, well, a great negotiations where both sides are a little unhappy is a great marriage. Both sides are unhappy.That's the definition of long term unhappiness. So besides knowing what you want. Don't compromise and meet in the middle. You're both going to be unhappy. Now, you know, what the other side wants may be even better than what you had in mind.

A colleague, a friend, a mentor, somebody we do business with, a guy named Dan Sullivan recently wrote a book called Who Not How You Coach is the Greatest Entrepreneurs in the World. He heard me give a talk and he decided how he going to take a position with his partners on his book deal.

The book that he just put out, the people that he collaborated with, he gave them every dime. Because I said sometimes what the other side wants. Give them more what they want.

The guys that he collaborated with on that book, giving them every dime from the book because the amount of business is going to develop for his company, which is going to be huge, they are killing themselves for him.

I was not I was on a conference call with them. Ben Hardy and Tucker, Max Tucker. Max is a famous author in his own right. Tucker says Dan got every drop of our blood on this book. Dan gave them every dime from the book, because he knew how much it was going to bring him long term. So never split the difference. Also the other side, given that position and they will kill themselves for you.

Yeah. So it's it's interesting because. Compromise is a reasonable way of construing negotiation. I think if. You deadlocked and you have to make a decision and. And there's also a time pressure. So then it seems to me under those circumstances, that would be a reasonable heuristic to say, well, we'll split the difference, people will be unhappy. No.

There, you know. No, no, no, no. Let let me develop that out for a moment, because there is something about negotiation that is that is inextricably associated with compromise. I don't think that's the best way of conception, conceptualising negotiation as such. See, because people are going to listen to this podcast and they're going to think, no, no, no, sometimes you have to split the difference. No, my OK. I knew that.

I want to push you on that because personally, I don't push me.

Hug me, give me a hug. No, no.

I'm going to go with the push. I think we can hug at the end if it all goes well. So. Look, if you're negotiating with your your your child. Seven years old and he wants to go to bed at. Nine thirty, and you wanted him to go to bed at eight thirty. What's wrong with splitting the difference? Why not, in that situation, split the difference? OK, see, I see, I'm just. I don't think it's reasonable to throw out the idea that compromise is sometimes... You shout your name calling How dare you or you call me any names now?

Well, maybe I'm just thinking maybe I'm just picking up the reasons for the marriage clash.

Not so. Do you do you think there are any circumstances under which the proper way of conceptualizing negotiation is about compromise?

So here is the first problem of compromise, and I know you're familiar with Danny Kahneman, Prospect Theory "lost things twice as much as an equivalent" game. The downward spiral we get into compromise, let's say you and I meet in the middle, neither one of us are going to felt we met in the middle. Because I'm a human being and I'm wired, so the loss thinks twice as much as an equivalent gain.

And I believe Professor Kahneman actually gave a Nobel Prize winning behavioral economics theory. I think he said that he thinks this actually five to seven times as much and he and Amos Tversky just said twice as much so they get few argument. So let's say we meet in the middle, let's say you give in 10. Emotionally, you felt you gave 20 and you're not going to feel whole until you hit me for 20. Now, you've hit me for 20, I'm not going to feel even, till I've hit you for 40 this year in a downward spiral yet because we're human.

It's impossible to compromise in a way that we both feel is fair, even if the numbers are exactly the same.

OK, so then you it seems to me like you would you're making the case that a negotiation that ends in compromise actually fail.

I am in Amen. OK,

well, that's that's worth thinking about. Yeah, because that would mean that neither party was able to switch the conceptual framework around so that both walked away in Rich. Exactly. Both are going to walk away feeling hurt. It is a recipe for bad bad that they cannot sustain. Does that imply, let's say then in business negotiation, if you can't negotiate an arrangement where you both walk away enriched, and you have to default to compromise, if you should probably walk away?

Yeah, no deal is better than a bad deal.

Well OK, so my question, I actually agree, just from looking at

you, not going to call me names like your dad. No, no, no. I'm

I'm a very nice person. That's not even true. My dad is a nice person. I know.

I'm just teasing the both of you. I was looking forward to talking to you guys because I knew it was going to be fun.

Yeah, this is what I'm worried about with this seconds ago.

So I found that when I'm trying to negotiate things, I'm. Angry unless I changed my mind or get what I want, which I think is what you were saying, interesting point here, I've never felt OK with a compromise. So so I kind of get what you're saying from there. Now, putting a toddler to bed, my go to is, hey, you're free and I'm older than you.

And eight o'clock is the bed time. Yeah, it's just our authority and it doesn't work its authority. So that's my go to Andre. My husband negotiates with a three year old and I go, you're insane for negotiating with three year old. But he can talk her into deciding she wants to go to bed at eight, which is ideal. But when do you use authority or do you just think that's a bad tactic?

Well, using authority is bad for a long term and in it, because if it's with your children, you take, you're conditioning them that they you can't win without authority.

Now, know, I would I would ask you to consider in your interactions with your children over bedtime, you're trying to get them to go to bed or you're trying to get them to think. And I would offer the larger view is to get them to think. And then at what age, how do you stimulate that thinking? Three is a little early, four to five.

Are you really teaching your kids to think all along the way you show them core values and if you get in your way with your kid based on authority, what kind of a core value are you showing? Are there times and children need discipline, human beings, human beings need boundaries because it makes them feel secure stability.

You can say that about 50 times, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Everybody everybody needs stability, predictability. You know, predictability turns into trust.

You know, your kids need to know if you're going to settle line and how are you going to set that line and then are you going to encourage them to think and become better people? And we have, a lot of people used to never split the difference in their interactions with their kids. And we get funny feedback like, you know, if I cut 15 minutes of bedtime or, you know, 20 minutes of preparation time to go to bed.

And then the interactions with the children are different, this is this is human nature stuff. This is really about human nature.

How about business stories? Let's let's let's walk let's walk through like a particularly successful transformation that she defines. Something like that.

Wow. Yeah, well, the first one that springs to mind because my students at the business schools were my clients, my customers, I was coaching them into better deals. One of my students is doing a negotiation to come on with a company and he's the best person for the job, he's worth more than what they're offering and what the job is worth more than what they're offered.

This is where an impasse. I can't get any more. I said, write down a list of questions that you would ask, where the answer would be. Yes. That would prove your case. Now, flip all those questions on its head. And make every one of them a known oriented question. And you'd be shocked what you can get away with, getting somebody to say no, you know, do you want me to fail? You want to lose the best person for the job?

Do you want the person who takes this job to fail? He flipped all his yes questions to no questions. He came back to me, said the salary offer that they put on the table was so much higher than what they were authorized to do. They had to go to the CFO to give him permission to do the deal. Now, the job negotiation. Young man is a top analyst in his company, making all loads of money for his company.

Wants to go back and renegotiate his. His compensation package, the important thing here, too, is the other side doesn't feel bitten. He goes to his boss and he says, you know, I'm earning more and more for you than anybody else is. I deserve a raise and his boss is, yeah, you know. Those are all true, but I don't see how I can give you a raise, it's fair to everybody else who's been here longer than you, and put more of their life into this company than you, you come back to me in two weeks.

If you can come up with a plan that shows how we can do this fairly, I'll give you the raise. It comes back two weeks later. The boss said, did you come up with a plan? And he said no. The boss said, why not, he says, well. You make a great point, there's no way to do this it's fair to everybody else. And the boss said, yeah, but it's not an issue of fairness to everybody else, it's an issue of how profitable you are for the company.

And he gave them the deal. Gave them a better salary compensation, which was his boss's idea, because he deactivated the negative thinking he had in his head, which was interfering with it, and he came back to us and he said, this is going to change my life.

And that's the kind of stuff we get from our our clients all the time.

How big is your organization? Right now, we've got 15 people in the company

and do they all do coaching of the sort that you've been describing?

Now we've got we've got five coaches. And we've got some business development people, you know, we've got backoffice people that keep our coaches in our business development, people on tap, got a great team.

Sure, sure, sure. I'm. If I came to you for your services. How would we start the process? What would happen and what I have to become , like a specific business case, or are you treating me as an individual more broadly?

It both. We do both. We get we get a lot of people that will come to us for coaching and specific deals. And we'll build a strategy in that's going to that's going to accelerate it to its best outcome. In a third of the time, probably less, now, the best outcome might be that you stop wasting your time in this deal and move on. There's a there's a phrase in sales, it's not a sin to not get the deal.

It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal

Yeah, yeah. Right. Absolutely not. That's yeah. Those are the deals where the terrible ones are where it looks like something might happen.

Yeah. Why people say hope is not a strategy. Hope might just kill your profitability because you're never going to get the deal. So we'll coach you to a specific deals and typically almost everybody that we've coached in a deal not only wants more for them, but they want more for people in our company. We just want executives who've been coaching for a year, just signed up all of these executives for individual coaching because we're making them so much money.

Yeah, well, one of the things you mention here, too, is that, you know, when the person you're negotiating with says, no, that isn't necessarily such a bad thing and you should stop thinking that bad things would just scare you. And one of the advantages to know also. No, it's true. No tells you what a dead end actually is.

And so if it's genuine, no, you don't have to go sniffing down that trail anymore, and that can stop you from death by hope, which really can really get.

That's right. They give you the magic words. You hit the nail on the head. Yeah. Not wasting your time. And since since we've really and this has been since the book came out, it's something we call proof of life or the favorite of the fool. If you don't know who the fool in the game is, is probably you.

If you're the fool in a game, you got to find out, get out of the game, go play with somebody else. At least 20 percent of all business opportunities are fool in the game. What would happen if you got rid of 20 percent of the deals, where you just spinning your wheels? You don't even have to get any better. You just get rid of the stuff that's killing your time. Certain things like that can really accelerate your success.

Any tips on how you might identify pitfalls like that? I mean. A clear failure is most of all in some sense, as we do, we've been studying around that definition of failure as principle. It's it's chasing the thing that they never appear. How do you how do you start understanding when you should quit?

Well, the more focused in the business interaction, more focus, somebody is on price like right off the bat, if the pushing a really, really hard for price.

Ninety percent of the time, you're the competing bit, you know and the world is even though I live in Vegas, the world is Las Vegas rules, you've got to get off of the out of the game where you're winning 15 percent of the time and you've got to get into the game where you win in 70 to 75 percent of the time.

The more they're pushing you on price, it's a data point, you're competing bid. So that's your first instinct.

So you're second fiddle right there

right, now. Now, the next thing is I asked somebody what we refer to as a vision in question if they had any intention of moving forward with you.

Which makes you the favorite. Then you say, all right, so how would where would, how would we move on from here? If they are a complete loss for words, then they have no intention of moving along with you because they didn't envision it before the comment.

That I really like that. So that's pretty smart. So you ask the person discussing the situation with. What how they would envision this relationship if it was successful. And if they can't tell you anything, then. Then it isn't obvious at all what they're doing in the negotiation. They might be doing what you said what regards to the price, they're playing you off against their their true supplier. That's right. So what you're negotiating, that's such such a useful way of thinking about that, I mean, you know, when you're starting a business with someone, it's pretty self evident that you need to develop a shared vision.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be undertaking that adventure, let's say. It's really easy when you have a business to think that what you're doing is selling. Now you have a product and you sell it, but it's much more useful, I think, to think about it as if you are expanding your business and taking on your new buyer as a partner, because that's actually what you're doing, if works property. So you're inviting them into your business, and that means your business has to shift and change and so does theirs, and you both have to see that as a positive thing.

And if that is happening. Then the sale is going to occur. Because you're actually not selling, you're actually trying to build a relationship.

Right, right, and you know what, even if they want to proceed with you, you might not want that relationship. That's part of it, too. Yes, absolutely. They lay out a vision where, you know, what they're doing is not good for you.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's where yes, it's a big problem. But you end up with I mean, I, I, I had a business deal arranged with a large corporation in the United States ten years ago. We're thrilled about it. And then the CEO got fired a week later and the deal just fell apart. We've been negotiating it for about a year and a half and it was literally on his desk to sign and he was replaced.

And so it just killed it. But a month and a half later, we were unbelievably relieved because we realized that we would have had to have done all sorts of work for the company that we would never got paid for and would have taken on a responsibility, was completely incommensurate with the rewards. And so that was a good situation where, yes, would it be a catastrophe. So I guess partly what you have to do is not assume that no is a disaster and not assume that yes is a blessing.

You have to sit back and see if the vision, as you pointed out, is worthy of pursuing and both committed to it.

Yeah, what's the how, what's the how. Yes is nothing without how. I mean, how is everything.

Or yes, it's even dangerous about how.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, yes, without a How is a train wreck coming at you is however long that relationship lasts, it's going to it's going to be blood money.

It's going to be painful. It's going to take years off your life. You're going to want that time back. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. An opportunity you wish you didn't have. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we have those occasionally. That's why we decide, you know, we have bad relationships.

So, look, I used I did a lot of executive coaching, and like you, I my clients were high performers. We asked the companies with whom we work to send us their high performers and we would increase their productivity. Now, I basically work for the individual, not for the company. Right. And my goal was to make their life better on the. Assumption that that would make them more productive. I did counterintuitive things, for example, with the lawyers I worked with, most of them took far more vacations after they were with for a few months, but their productivity went up.

Yeah, but our our strategy my strategy was. Help the person develop an overarching vision for their life. That was well balanced and iterable you know, if your life has to be sustainable, if it's if it's if it's to lab, it has to be sustainable. If it's not sustainable, by definition, it means you downhill. And to be sustainable, it has to be developed in a variety of areas. You can't sacrifice one thing to another to break your all heart across time.

How much do you think success in business and success in negotiation is dependent on the development of a global vision for what constitutes a successful life? If you're negotiating, you need to know why you negotiate, and that's a deep question why?

Yeah, I think completely, you know, where is this taking me and vision drives without a decision, right. It's astonishing what people will do if they feel it's taking them someplace wonderful. Yes, and they won't do the simplest things that they feel are either useless or taking them to a bad place.

Yes, well, thank God for that. Right. Because why should you do something? Take me somewhere better,

right, Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the vision, the vision drives decision. Whereas it's taken us. And and that and that is almost all, and it's in the head anyway way that is so, you know, if interacting with me, it just makes you happier to start with, you're going to want more of it, if you know that I'm dedicated to your success as well as my own. Then you can trust me with your secrets. And we'll come up with a better deal, because you see that I'm a great long term partner. What's the long term relationship? I'm dedicated to you being happier. I mean, it's one of the reasons people in my company and we love working together because we love helping people.

Plus, we're all helping each other to a better life.

So I was going to ask you about your vision, like you're articulate your vision. What would that be?

The vision for for, for me, for my life or for for the people that I work with? Well, both both of the interests, both of those your life specifically, but also that obviously because you work, these are the people your vision of myself has to have their. Has implications for how you interact with them.

So first of all, for people to be happier in the day to day interactions.

Jane, what do you mean by what do you mean by happy? I have a specific reason for asking. Yes, you already mentioned that people are much more averse to loss than they are thrilled by. Right. A lot of times when people talk about happy, what they mean is less misery. Rather than more positive emotion, like they needs less uncertainty, less pain, less threat, less fear. That's right, you're right.

So when you say happier, do you mean happier? Do you mean or you mean more secure and.

Yeah, I mean, here we are across the board. The people that we we work with, that I work with that that we coach. We enjoy what we're doing. We don't feel like we're doing anything but his expense. Right. We don't feel like we're exploiting anybody, our clients, on a regular basis. Are not just making more money, but enjoying their jobs more.

And we weekly we had a meeting earlier today where we're sort of wrapping up 20, 20. Where we completely pivoted, our business had a ball dealing with the crisis because we worked so well together as a team. And are actually serving more people. And you know, it's not our primary objective. But we're more profitable this year than we were last year. Which means we get to do more next year and we get to meet more cool people.

The people that we meet on a regular basis who want to get better and want to make the world a better place are fun people to be around.

Oh, yeah, that's a good deal. That's the deal. Yeah,

so I mentioned Dan Sullivan earlier, he's an interesting cat, you know, everybody is Steven Kotler. I get interactions with Steven Kotler, one of the most interesting guys on a planet, because he's about making the world a better place. Is it fun people to be around.

You're fun. Am I fun? I think you're fun. I'm fun when I'm on, I'm not fun when I'm not on. questions?

I think it's time. Do that, so thank you so much for coming on, I was incredibly invested. I really like the fact that. I really like I've never seen one that really, really resonated with me, because whenever I do some sort of compromise, I feel like I've lost lot. I also really enjoyed the. If you know that never no, never saw the difference, then maybe you should just walk away. And I think that's really important to know that maybe you don't want to if you can't come to a compromise and that those people you don't want to have a relationship with that person.

I think that's very valuable. Like where you mentioned a couple places people can find you. What are your social media? So I'm at the FBI negotiator on Instagram. But really, the best way for us to help people as much as they want, we we've got a free negotiation newsletter we put out. It's not so important that it's free, what's really what's best about it, it's concise, short read. I mean, some people put out newsletters and or 15 articles.

You don't want to do it. The news alert is a gateway to everything we have, and if I may for the website is Black Swan, LTE.Com.blackswanlte.com. We've got a text to sign up function also, which is simple. It only works in the US. And I'm sure you've got a global audience. But in the U.S., if you text to the number three, triple seven three three seven seven seven, send a message, Black Swan Method three words, capitalization doesn't matter.

Space between each word. You get a dialog box back if you want. Only if you want to sign up for the newsletter will help you. Well, moving you forward, we we love helping people provide. Just have more fun and have more. Or Vimont and. It's great. It was an absolute pleasure being on with both of you guys. Lovely talking with you. Yeah, good luck. I hope that you do continue succeeding in your attempts to help people help themselves and by helping to make the world a better place.

But as shady that might sound unless it's replaced by a better philosophy, it's a pretty good one.

It'll do. Yeah, it'll do it. It'll do. Yeah. And my pleasure. Thanks, guys.