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FBI Agent: The Secret Formula FBI Negotiators Use To Always Get What They Want

What's a simple negotiation trick you can try today? How can you get better at persuading others?

Chris VossguestJay Shettyhost

Aug 26, 20241h 36mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

85 min read · 17,216 words

0:00 – 1:23
Intro
1. CVChris Voss
  How do I negotiate a better salary? Bosses say, "Listen." And I said, "Ask him this question." Chris Voss, retired FBI special agent Former lead international kidnapping negotiator
2. SPSpeaker
  And author of Never Split the Difference.
3. CVChris Voss
  We don't really see the great negotiators as great negotiators. One of the greatest negotiators, gotta be Oprah Winfrey.
4. JSJay Shetty
  What are women doing wrong, or what can they do better in negotiation?
5. CVChris Voss
  You're out of order on the sequence.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Can you negotiate with a narcissist?
7. CVChris Voss
  Of course, you can negotiate with a narcissist.
8. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
9. CVChris Voss
  One of the things we advise people to do is...
10. JSJay Shetty
  We're thrilled to announce that we've reached three million subscribers. We're incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on any of our new releases. We're dedicated to bringing you the content you love. Our team carefully analyzes what resonates most with you to bring on board the best experts and storytellers to help you improve your life. Some of your favorite topics are sleep science, weight loss, physical fitness, navigating breakups, habit building, and understanding toxic relationships. Upcoming episodes include one of the biggest names in health and science, world-renowned relationship therapist, and your favorite manifestation expert is back to drop new findings. Hit Subscribe to not miss any of these episodes. If you think of someone who would love this episode,
1:23 – 4:08
Becoming a Lead Negotiator
1. JSJay Shetty
  send it to them to make their day.
2. CVChris Voss
  The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty.
3. SPSpeaker
  The one, the only Jay Shetty.
4. CVChris Voss
  [laughs]
5. JSJay Shetty
  Why did you become a lead negotiator?
6. CVChris Voss
  Originally, I was on a SWAT team. I was, uh, scheduled to be on a SWAT team with the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. I was on a SWAT team when I joined the FBI, and I re-injured my knee. And I love crisis response because I think, uh, comfortable inaction is one of the banes of human existence. We gotta make decisions. And so when I was on a SWAT team, crisis response, you gotta make a decision. You know, they can't, "Let's, let's sit back and wait and see what happens." That's not really the way you approach a crisis. So when I was on, uh, the SWAT team, you know, we had hostage negotiators. They went along with the SWAT guys. I didn't really know what they did. You know, we, we'd be out there in the cold and the rain. They'd be inside someplace warm. But I wanted to stay in crisis response. So I thought, "Yeah, you know, I could do that. How hard could it be?" It's ... My son and I, Brandon, have always joked that the Voss family motto is, "How hard could it be?" Which is, uh, similar to a redneck's famous last words, which are, "Hey, watch this."
7. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
8. CVChris Voss
  It's always gonna be more complicated than you expect. But I got into it, and I loved it. I, it's, it, uh, it was more satisfying than SWAT ever was, and SWAT was great. But hostage negotiation, when I stumbled over it, the universe sort of pushed me in that direction. It was a push that I needed, and I've enjoyed it ever since.
9. JSJay Shetty
  And you never felt scared? There wasn't the fear, there wasn't the difficulty in your mind before you got involved that this could be something that would be extremely difficult, potentially painful, challenging?
10. CVChris Voss
  No, because first of all, I was rejected for the negotiation team. I, I was, in fact, eminently unqualified. But I went to the head of the program in New York, a woman running the team, and she said, "You know, yeah, you're not qualified. Go away." But I said, "All right. So there's gotta be something I could do. What is it?" She said, "Go volunteer on a suicide hotline." I'm like, "All right." So I went to the suicide hotline to learn, not to help people. Helping people was secondary. It's good secondary. But I went there to learn, and I was fascinated by it. And so then I'm teachable. I'm coachable. I learn their process, and I saw how quickly empathy, emotional intelligence accelerated outcomes, positive outcomes. And so I wasn't scared as a hostage negotiator because I'd already learned in a process that I believed in. I knew it was a highly successful process. So when I started hostage negotiation, I just leaned into a process that I had, was
4:08 – 8:03
Suicide Hotline Conversations
1. CVChris Voss
  familiar with and had been proven to me worked.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Walk us through what a conversation on a suicide hotline sounds like, because I imagine that being highly stressful. You're dealing with someone who's in a high state of panic. There's so much uncertainty. Walk us through what that kind of a conversation looks like and what you learned.
3. CVChris Voss
  Well, they, they get you used to it, very closely supervised, so I think I was a little unsteady at the beginning. So for whatever reason, I naturally lapsed into what I refer to as the late night FM DJ voice. And the first call, I just said, "Hello, this is helpline." Now, that has a tremendously calming effect on people. And afterwards, the supervisor said, "Your voice was great. That was great. You started out great." And I remember thinking like, "Wow, I don't, I don't even know what I did. I'm gonna have to go back to it." So you wanna start with a calming, soothing voice. And then no matter what they say, you wanna put a label. In a hostage negotiation, we called it emotion labeling. In the Black Swan Method, we just call it labeling. Put a label on emotion that you're hearing. Doesn't matter what it is, just label it. Now, since they're in crisis, the emotion's probably gonna be negative. Uh, and in point of fact, we're all driven by negative thoughts. We're 75% negative. Our survival mechanism that we wake up with every day to survive, the caveman had to be negative. The optimistic caveman said, "You know, yeah, you know, Chris walked in here yesterday, and he never came out, but I'm optimistic. I'm gonna go in today, too." And I, that guy got eaten, too.
4. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
5. CVChris Voss
  But the negative guys shied away, and we've inherited that wiring. And I remember one night in particular, this guy's really frantic. Sounded, sounded super frantic. Says, "You know, I just, I, I n- I need to put, I need your help putting a lid on this day. I gotta put a lid on this day." So I just said, "You sound frantic." And immediately he came down. There's a neuroscience reason for that now that, you know, we never knew then. Just simply calling out a negative emotion is the most effective way to deactivate it. So he came down. And then through the course of the conversation, I just used three labels. He was, he was a guy who was paranoid. He's getting a lot of support from his family. He said, "You know, I'm, I'm going on a car trip tomorrow. I just, you know, I just, you know, I... And I know my family's helping me, and, and I just, you know, I just, uh, I need my family's help, but I'm worrying about it tonight, and I can't get to sleep." So I, I hit him with a label that somebody had once hit me with in a conversation. I was telling my friend how close I felt to my family, but I didn't say it explicitly. It was strongly implied. And my friend said to me, "Sounds like your family's really close." And I remember how good it felt in that moment, and I've never forgotten that. So as this guy's describing to me how much support he was getting from his family, how they were always there for him, it sounded like they're close. So I said that exact line. I said, "It sounds like your family's really close." And I felt the strength come back in his voice immediately. So then he went on to tell me about how he'd been battling paranoia and how hard he was working, and he struck me as determined. So I simply said, "You sound determined." And he said, "Yeah," just like that. "Yeah, I am determined. I'm gonna go on that car trip tomorrow, and I'll be fine. Thanks for everything you did." Hung up the phone. That's not every conversation, but that's the way they're supposed to go. You know, you call out what you're hearing, and it really helps people sort of self-level 'cause you're a great sounding board, and you're picking out the negatives and deactivating them and the positives and reinforcing them just by observing
8:03 – 9:35
Labeling the Negative Emotions
1. CVChris Voss
  them.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. The reason why I find that so fascinating is because I was thinking so many of us deal with our friends-
3. CVChris Voss
  Yep
4. JSJay Shetty
  ... in that sort of an environment. You may get a phone call from a friend who's, like, panicking.
5. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
6. JSJay Shetty
  They've just ended a relationship. They've gone through-
7. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
8. JSJay Shetty
  ... a rejection, a failure, whatever it may be, and our gut instinct is to try and solve that problem-
9. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
10. JSJay Shetty
  ... and to fix it for them and fill in the blanks, when actually what you're saying is the ability to just notice what they're experiencing, what they're feeling, and being able to call it out and label it, as you rightly said-
11. CVChris Voss
  Right
12. JSJay Shetty
  ... that's actually giving them the tools to make sense of it for themselves.
13. CVChris Voss
  Yeah, exactly. And it's res- it's restoring their tools, and then it's also they feel very self-empowered.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
15. CVChris Voss
  Like, the problem with giving advice is the person receiving it doesn't feel empowered. They might not be able to sort through it emotionally, and so then when you're not there, they're lost again. They didn't feel like they got to the answer on their own. A great sounding board simply helps as a guide, helps them get to the answer on their own, and then inside they say, "What? Wait, I, you know, I got here on my own once. I could do it again," whereas if you give me the advice, when you're not around, I might be lost.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Yeah, there's a famous quote that says something like, "Good leaders make you believe in them. Great leaders make you believe in you."
17. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
18. JSJay Shetty
  And this idea that-
19. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
20. JSJay Shetty
  ... if someone's really leading the conversation well, the person's walking away with self-belief-
21. CVChris Voss
  Yes
22. JSJay Shetty
  ... and a confidence
9:35 – 14:59
Negotiation Isn’t a Form of Conflict
1. JSJay Shetty
  in what they have.
2. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Before we dive into the actual tools and breaking down of a negotiation, I find that most people try to avoid a negotiation because they see it as conflict.
4. CVChris Voss
  Yes.
5. JSJay Shetty
  They see it as an argument. They see it as a potential debate, and most of us are trying to avoid conflict at all costs.
6. CVChris Voss
  Right.
7. JSJay Shetty
  And so even if it's, like, your plumber and they quote you a price, we're scared of negotiating because we're scared of that turning into an altercation.
8. CVChris Voss
  Right. Exactly.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Or if someone's trying to sell us something at a store when we- we're scared to have that conversation about a discount or whatever it may be.
10. CVChris Voss
  Right.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Walk us through that fear. What have you noticed about where does that fear come from that we all carry of, "I don't want to get into a conflict. I don't want to negotiate. I'll just go with what you want"-
12. CVChris Voss
  Right, right
13. JSJay Shetty
  ... "because it's easier to be a people pleaser"?
14. CVChris Voss
  Myself and my team, we, we believe, and we've got enough anecdotal data, that the world splits up evenly into three types: fight, flight, make friends. Assertive, analyst, accommodator, and we've seen this show up globally. It's disconnected from gender, ethnicity, religion. So two out of three don't like conflict, the analyst and the accommodator. Analyst is, um... thinks of life very much like chess, lots of moves, lots of percentages. An analyst will wanna think everything through, all the possibilities, and then put percentages on it, and conflict is one option, and it tends to be highly destructive, highly inefficient. And so the analyst doesn't particularly like conflict because it seems to be very inefficient and ineffective, and there are far more better ways to communicate. So they're avoiding conflict for that reason. The relationship-oriented person, the accommodator, conflict is just ugly. It makes them feel bad. It, it sort of pollutes their existence, and they see that as a much higher cost. They place a very high value on relationships, optimism, being very hope-based. So they're gonna avoid it for those reasons. They, you know, they want to feel connected to you, and conflict doesn't make them feel connected to you. Now, the third type, the assertive, you know, they love it. They see it as combat. They love it. They get into it. They recover from the conflict very quickly. I happen to be a natural-born assertive. Donald Trump is a poster child for assertives. It's just one of the three types and love combat, but then don't really pay attention to the long-term costs of being openly aggressive because the, you know, the, the adrenaline hit in the moment of victory tends to overshadow how the losses pile up. So we want, you know, two out of three, we want to avoid that. So the real challenge, though, is we gotta collaborate. But negotiation has this feeling to it that it's the loudest, most aggressive voice in the room. The guy who kicks the chair across the room to get his point, screams, uh, slams their hands on a table, storms out. You know, this, this thing that actually happens a tendency to pollute the collaborative environment, and we don't really see the great negotiators as great negotiators. You know, in my view, one of the greatest negotiators gotta be Oprah Winfrey. Nobody sees her as conflict-oriented. Let her list of great negotiations, her life's achievements based on collaboration and be-being very positive. And then if you were to try to consider the context of her life, having gained tremendous success in an environment filled with maybe some of the most volatile people on Earth, Hollywood celebrities. What Hollywood celebrity is mad at Oprah? You know, what rock fight has she gotten into? You know, who's thrown shade? Like, it is not there. Simultaneously, her financial success and the different phenomenal interviews she's gotten, they, they were no hold b-- no-holds-barred interviews. You know, you know, one of my favorites is, uh, Lance Armstrong interview. I, I happen to be acquainted with Lance. I like him a lot. But sh-- there was no punches pulled there. That was a negotiation going into that. So spectacular negotiation is really, uh, invisible. Well, we don't know that because it's invisible. We don't think of Oprah as a great negotiator. Warren Buffett, we don't think of him as a great negotiator, and they have to be. So that's-- we just not aware of what great negotiation really looks like because it looks like great collaboration, great navigation. As soon as you can change the definition from win-lose to great collaboration, now people are interested.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
16. CVChris Voss
  You know, I'll define negotiation as great collaboration, long-term relationship where we're both ecstatic about our success. And if you can reframe it like that, then people are a lot more interested in negotiation. I think that's one of the reasons the book has succeeded, because it's not a s-series of stories where we beat anybody. Sometimes we had to force collaboration with a highly competitive negotiator. That was what kidnapping was about. I'm gonna force the kidnapper to collaborate. I'm gonna force that guy from Al-Qaeda into a collaborative conversation,
14:59 – 21:15
How to Get Someone to Collaborate with You?
1. CVChris Voss
  but I'm not gonna hit back.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Walk me through how you force that person into collaboration and not hit back, because I think you're right. I think the overarching belief we have is, "Oh, we gotta beat them. We gotta find a way to get what we want from them." Like, that's what you think of a negotiation, even in normal terms, let alone those high stakes. But how do you do that in that scenario?
3. CVChris Voss
  One of my favorite conversations describing this, a number of years ago, I got hired to train a hostage negotiation team in the Middle East. And the country that I was in, um, very pro-Western country. A Muslim, you know, ostensibly a Muslim country, but really, um, tolerant of all religions, as most of them are. So you're brought in to talk to the sheikh that's, uh, the head of counterterrorism, and I'm told in advance, uh, uh, the sheikh, if we have-- if, if Al-Qaeda comes here and grabs people, or if any terrorist organization comes here and grabs people, understand the sheikh wants to kill him. The people of his country are his children, and he wants to protect his children at all costs. So you sit down with the sheikh, he's gonna wanna know how you're gonna protect his people. So I get a meeting with this guy, br-brilliant, brilliant young man. Brilliant. And he looks at me and he says, "All right. What are you gonna teach my guys to say?" And I looked at him and I said, "They're gonna say to the terrorist kidnapper on the other end of the phone, 'What you're doing is a great thing.'" And his mouth fell open. And I said, "Now I got you, 'cause you can't wait to hear what I'm gonna say next. You were so caught off guard. You were in complete curiosity mode. You're hanging on every syllable that comes out of my mouth. And that's what I'm gonna teach your guys to do." And he went, "Oh, you're hired." [laughing] But so what, what is driving the other side? In their mind, how do they see what they're doing? What do they see as a justification for it? Like, so much conflict will go away if I can simply recognize what you see as the reason for your problem without agreeing with it. Probably about two years ago, myself and a friend, uh, Nicole Benham, were hosting a room on Clubhouse. At the time, you know, the Israel-Palestine, it was, it was the, it was the watered-down version of what's going on with Hamas now. Israel had started shelling the Gaza Strip 'cause Hamas, in fact, is hiding weapons in hospitals and schools, in the press office. And Israel gets tired of it after a while. They start shelling those offices. So it's a milder version of what's going on right now. And, and, but the, the vitriol going on online was huge. And Nicole calls me up, she says, "You know, w-we, we gotta find a way to help settle this out." I said, "All right. Well, we'll do a room on Clubhouse, and we'll invite people favoring, uh, the Palestinians and people favoring the Israelis on." And they can talk it out with one rule, one caveat. Before you say whatever you have to say of, about what you think of the other side, you gotta summarize where they think they're coming from, what their point of view is. And as, as soon as you get an all clear from them, as soon as the other side effectively says, "That's right. That's how I see it," you can say whatever you want. Now, did we come to any agreements that night? No. But what was more important was there were no arguments. As soon as somebody tries to articulate how the other side sees things, it actually makes you smarter. I once heard a guy say empathy is a species of reason. You know, you're analyzing where the other side's coming from, and in attempting to genuinely analyze it, you start deactivating their reasons for the escalation. 'Cause their reasons for the escalations is to at least they don't feel heard. Let me take that one off the table, that you don't feel heard. Now we can be in a position where we could actually talk about this. So I'm interviewing, I got this, this thing on Fireside, it's a social media app. What it is is largely I have guests and it's live Q&A. Bring a woman on, head of a coffee company. And she says, "I use the Israel-Palestinian thing to, um, negotiate a resolution between two, my top executives. They're at each other's throats, and I love them both, and I can't lose either one." So remember what we did on, you did on Israel-Palestine, and I brought them in the room and I said, "Okay, you could say whatever you want about the other side, but first you gotta summarize their position. You gotta summarize how they see things and what is motivating them." And she said two things. She said, "We resolved it on the spot," and she said, "It was such a moment that I still cry when I think about it." So, you know, what's all this rambling about? Take a shot at summarizing how the other side sees things. If it doesn't solve the problem on the spot, it at a minimum brings you closer together-
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
5. CVChris Voss
  ... and we're all better off closer together.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I think it's such a powerful skill, whether it's in a marriage, whether it's in a, a friendship, whether it's in the corporate setting, it's such a need, and I find, like, as life has got faster and faster and faster, we have less and less time to summarize.
7. CVChris Voss
  [laughs]
8. JSJay Shetty
  And so what we end up doing is we just end up reading someone else's summary, right? That's what we're doing online on social media, is we're reading someone else's summary and analysis of a highly complex situation.
9. CVChris Voss
  Right.
10. JSJay Shetty
  And more often than not, we're reading the summary that supports our viewpoint-
11. CVChris Voss
  Right
12. JSJay Shetty
  ... not the viewpoint of the other.
13. CVChris Voss
  Right.
14. JSJay Shetty
  And so now we have less time, we're reading someone else's words, which means we're not even doing the complex computation-
15. CVChris Voss
  Right
16. JSJay Shetty
  ... of trying to understand and comprehend
21:15 – 25:10
How Do You Slow Down?
1. JSJay Shetty
  what someone's going through.
2. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Hey, you're just catching me as I have my midday pick-me-up. I'm sure you've heard about Juni. Radhi and I put all of our love into creating this amazing drink. It's full of nootropics and adaptogens, great for that little boost of energy, enhanced focus, and a happy mind. And guess what? It's only five calories and absolutely no sugar. I hope you're gonna try it out. It's available right now at Target. If you're a Target shopper, head there right now. And at Sprouts as well this summer. Go grab your Juni. How do you encourage people in this busy, fast-paced, you know, we're trying to be efficient environment to actually slow down and embody these skills that actually require us to use our brains?
4. CVChris Voss
  Most of the time we, you gotta walk somebody through something-
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
6. CVChris Voss
  And, and coach them into applying it because we don't see it around us is w- the first problem, is we're not seeing anybody do this effectively.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Exactly. That's a great point. Yeah.
8. CVChris Voss
  So we got, we got no models for it.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yep.
10. CVChris Voss
  You know, all we got is models for, um, instigators, the, the, the professional agitators.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
12. CVChris Voss
  Professional agitators are everywhere. They're not a majority, but there's enough of the agitators out there that they tend to get t- tend to get a lot more of the traction.
13. JSJay Shetty
  How would you define a professional agitator, just for people to... I, I totally agree.
14. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Well, it's, it's those in the media that are clickbait oriented, agitation oriented. It's highly profitable short term. You know, you're, you're getting advertising dollars based on how many views, how many clicks you're getting. And it's so overwhelming, and we're so tired of it. The, the other thing we're, we're so tired of it, I think, you know, one of the things that I'm more, most fascinated with right now is, you know, the Hawk Tuah girl.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
16. CVChris Voss
  Like, people are so tired of negativity that anything that's, like, positive and fun and refreshing and catches them off guard, I su- I, I checked her Instagram today, she's got, like, two million followers with 36 posts, and she's been there for 15 minutes. But I think it's we have such an appetite for something that's not negative and not designed to be, uh, agitating. And a s- very small number of agitators can turn a peaceful demonstration into a raging mob.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
18. CVChris Voss
  And so then they get clicks over that. And most of our media is guilty of that. N- you know, nobody's got, neither the left nor the right has a monopoly on agitation. So y- Fox is guilty of it, CNN is guilty of it. And they get, they get short-term profits. They get a lot of clicks, they get a lot of views. So I, I think we're not, we're not seeing the summaries, we're not seeing the demonstration of understanding. But in reality, it accelerates us to a positive outcome by probably about a rate of about 14 times faster. And it's invisible. It's astonishing. And so since it was invisible, we didn't really see it when it happened. Um, one of the guys on my team, Derek Gaughan, wrote a book called, about leadership applying tactical empathy to leadership, it's called Ego, Authority, Failure. And he's got a great stat at the very beginning of it Where rapport-based interviews in law enforcement gets you to, uh, an agreement/confession fourteen times faster than anything else. But nobody knows it ha- it happened. So t- then to get good at it, you're never gonna get congratulated in the moment. That's the other thing. It's, in the moment, it's not that satisfying. Very much the way the slot machines are satisfying in Vegas. You know, you lose eighty-three out of eighty-four times on those slot machines, but the, the wins are so satisfying-
19. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
20. CVChris Voss
  ... that's all you notice. So to be really good at this, you, you focus more on how suddenly we're in a better place.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
22. CVChris Voss
  And nobody's congratulating you 'cause they didn't see it happen. So it's really has to be
25:10 – 29:54
How Do You Prepare for a Negotiation?
1. CVChris Voss
  intrinsically self-satisfying.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. CVChris Voss
  The reward is getting it done faster and better. Very few people are gonna congratulate you on it in the moment.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I th- I think that's the only mindset shift we need, is that if we want a real resolution, we wanna feel like we've really accomplished something, we're really moving forward, it requires us to move from that point of view of if we negotiate effectively, if I take time to summarize the other person's opinion and they take the time to do mine, we're actually gonna get somewhere, even if it's a slower process, even if it's a harder process. How do you prepare for a negotiation? Because I think a lot of us also think, "Great, I'm gonna walk in there, I'm gonna try to figure it out, I'm gonna say something," but walk us through how you'd prepare for some of the biggest negotiations in your life. What do they look like?
5. CVChris Voss
  Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna think of how I would summarize their perspective. That's gon- that's gonna get, really get my wheels turning. I'm gonna get a lot of clues. How do they see things? I've done it enough that it, it's almost become second nature. You gotta do it a lot, like anything else. It simply requires practice. There's this magic hack for life called gratitude. Uh, it's amazing what a difference it can make, and it sounds stupid. I was once in a highly adversarial negotiation. Um, the other side was-- it wasn't adversarial, the other side was very deceptive, which is one, one of my buttons, you know? I, [chuckles] I don't like deception. One of my main currencies is, uh, integrity, so that's a violation of one of my core values. And but thinking that put me in a very negative place. And I thought, "Well, how'd I get into this in the first place? The only reason they're trying so hard to do this deal with us is because we're good." Uh, it was a training company that, that wanted to make our training offering part of their platform. So I thought, "This is a byproduct of success. I'm actually lucky to even be having this conversation." So, you know, I found gratitude in the moment, and then it opened up my mind, 'cause you're thirty-one percent positive, smarter in a positive frame of mind. So, you know, whatever your hack is, and different people have different ways, gratitude exercises first thing in the morning, meditation, whatever you could do to clear out your natural negative survival mechanism so that you can be more appreciative of life. And that's one of the ways. And then if I think about that, then I can summarize your perspective. And another thing that I'll usually do is I'll think of the questions that I might normally ask to elicit a yes, and I'll switch them so that I'm eliciting a no. "Do you agree?" becomes, "Do you disagree?" There's a Pavlovian response to yes and no. People, if they say yes, they feel like they're being led into a trap. Whether they are or not is, doesn't change the fact that as a general term, somebody who's trying to trap you is gonna litter that path with yeses.
6. JSJay Shetty
  So when you say something like, "Does that make sense?" and they say, "Yes," that's moving in the wrong direction.
7. CVChris Voss
  Well, it's, it's gonna trigger that Pavlovian-
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
9. CVChris Voss
  ... response because the person that cheated 'em said something to the effect of, "Would you like something for free? Would you like to make more money? Would you like to live in a big house on a hill?" And that led him into a trap previously. So it doesn't matter that you're, you have integrity. It doesn't matter that you are not doing it. It got done to him enough times already that they're gonna have a negative reaction. The ridiculous flip side is the Pavlovian response to saying no is that people feel protected. They feel safe when they say no. "Would you like..." "No." When I w- when my son was a teenager, "Dad, can I..." "No." [laughs] But then I, I, looking back on it, I realized every time I said no, I felt, all right, so I walled myself off from being walked into anything here, and I would look back at him and say, "Okay, so now what was it that you wanted?" Now I could hear more, having protected myself. So I may say to you, you know, "T-- Look, does this sound like a stupid idea?" And then you won't have been triggered, and you'll listen to me. You'll actually, to some degree, listen with a critical mindset, and you'll think, "Well, you know, no, I don't, I don't, I don't have a- any problem with that." But your follow-on is actually what's important. "No,
29:54 – 31:42
Biggest Negotiation Mistakes
1. CVChris Voss
  I don't think it's a stupid idea, but I think here are some things that I want you to think about." You'll give me those freely. Now we're in an actual collaboration. So your original prep, uh, question, how do I prep for negotiation? I'm gonna try to do what I can to put myself in a positive frame of mind. S- Work at summarizing the other side's perspective. Think of a couple questions where the answer's no, where it moves things forward as opposed to the yes, and I've avoided that psychological feeling of, the other side feeling I'm trapping them.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, those are the things to do. What are some of the biggest mistakes you've seen people make walking in preparing for a negotiation?
3. CVChris Voss
  Well, the inadvertent thing to start off with is, y- you know, number one, they're gonna, they're gonna, um, ask a yes or no question. And then number two, they're gonna make their pitch, the value proposition. You know, h- you know, I, I, I gotta tell you what's valuable here. Now that's important, but you're out of order on the sequence 'cause the other side's dying to have their say, too. If you go first, you're kinda rolled over them. Well, the whole time you're going, they're thinking, "But I got something I wanna say. I got something I wanna say." It's a voice in the back of their head which is interfering in them listening to you. So I'm, I'm gonna start out by trying to hear you out first. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna want the information from you. I'm gonna want your perspective. I'm also gonna wanna know what you think is important. Going into this conversation, let's say we're collaborating to do a deal, or you and I are significant others and we wanna go get something to eat. I'm gonna wanna know what's on your mind first because that's the order of priority for you. Then I'm gonna know on my list
31:42 – 40:20
Always Look for the Patterns
1. CVChris Voss
  what matches up with what you want instead of maybe I start out with something that's number one on my list, but it's number nine on yours. Now you're distracted by the other eight things that you think are important. I'm gonna try to dial into you as quickly as I can 'cause I wanna talk about what you think's important, 'cause that starts our collaboration. So really understanding where the other side is coming from is, is information you need-
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
3. CVChris Voss
  ... for the analyst and for the relationship-oriented person makes the other person feel good-
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
5. CVChris Voss
  ... so you're building a relationship.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Have you had... I'm sure in your experience you've been speaking to such incoherent individuals on the other side that there isn't a one to nine on their list. There's like a Z to A, right? Like it's, it's topsy-turvy because they're not coming at it from a logical, rational. A lot of the people sometimes when we're negotiating we feel like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "What language are you speaking in?" And we can feel that even with our partners. People can feel that at work where they're just like, "I'm talking to a toxic individual who has no idea what they want. They're so off the rocker." Like, you know, when you're speaking to someone on the other side who you actually can't figure out and you're feeling like, "I can't even read this person," how do, how do you navigate that?
7. CVChris Voss
  Well, I, I liberate myself from the idea of rationality or logic. I really see those two things as beauty. Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. And so when I let go of that and then I think in terms of patterns, and then other than someone who's actually paranoid schizophrenic, where their wiring is actually wrong, and someone who's suffering from, from lay- or layman's terms, wiring issues versus chemical issues, what we used to refer to as manic depressive or bipolar. You know, they change those terms all the time. Those are principally chemical imbalances. Paranoid schizophrenia, somebody's actually hearing voices. It's a problem, but you don't know what the voices are saying. That, those people are in fact unpredictable. They manifest themselves very rarely. In hostage negotiation, we also found out that un- unfortunately, um, one of the downsides of being a meth addict, someone could be clean for years, but, uh, methamphetamines does actual damage to the wiring, and they'll have an episode when they've been sober for years that mimics a paranoid schizophrenic. So the people that are actually messed up in that fashion are very rare. Mostly it's chemical imbalance. And if you look at it like that, and then you say, "All right, so there are patterns here. Let me look for the patterns," and then they're eminently predictable. If you let go of the judgment that it's rational or irrational and you just start looking for patterns and then listening for them. Now, they could be so upset with negative emotions that they are in a state of confusion, very much like the guy that called in on a hotline that night. So I'm just gonna, I'm, I'm gonna sort of pick off that negativity one at a time, and I'm gonna feed it back, and I know that's gonna clear your head. In a business scenario or even a personal scenario, people who feel under a tremendous amount of pressure tend to be very demanding and, and can be very attacking, which feels predatory. It even feels like, you know the magic phrase, gaslighting, when in fact they're under a massive amount of pressure. A company that I just did, uh, some training for, coaching and training, they're based out of the Middle East, but their executives are international in nature, and they happen to be in a discussion in a deal in South Africa. And the person on the other side of the table, they called a bully, very attacking, not sticking to the written agreement. So of course, they're in a negotiation. The lawyer's on the table, the side that I'm coaching. What's the lawyer gonna do? He's gonna open his laptop. He's gonna read you the agreement, which does not help. [chuckles] It's a great way to pour gasoline on a fire. "Let me remind you of what our agreement says," thinking that would help. [laughs]
8. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
9. CVChris Voss
  So guy, now the guy gets worse and he starts adding profanity and telling him that he's gonna rewrite the agreement. They keep their poise, and when you're being attacked that much, if you don't come up with a great thing to say, the most graceful, the smartest move is to r- withdraw quietly So the lead said, "This is probably not a good time for this discussion. We'll be happy to leave." Guy settles down a little bit. They hit him with a couple of labels. They get to a good place in a conversation, but then on the way out, he says to the guy, "Sounds like you're under a lot of pressure."
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
11. CVChris Voss
  And the guy completely relaxed. He says, "Oh, man." He says, "You don't understand what's going on over here. I've got all these demands. I got people coming at me from all sides." And the recognition of the pressure that it sounds like you're under a lot of pressure for someone he perceived as an attacking, gaslighting bully-
12. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
13. CVChris Voss
  ... the guy was being driven by an internal pressure that he was having trouble keeping control over, and that changed everything, that offhand label, and it turned everything around.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Can you negotiate with a narcissist?
15. CVChris Voss
  If you look for the patterns, and then, you know, the narcissist, the demanding... Uh, so the short answer is yes, but how are you gonna do it? You gotta make what you want the path to where they wanna get. Ultimately, narcissists are self-centered, so let them be self-centered or whatever it is that they're after. Make your want a step on the journey to their goal, and if you can change the sequencing around, that's how you can get the upper hand on a narcissist.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. One of the-
17. CVChris Voss
  If you're Haas, of course you can negotiate with a narcissist.
18. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
19. CVChris Voss
  If you've been trained by the Black Swan Group-
20. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
21. CVChris Voss
  ... you know, Chris Voss, yeah, we'll train you. We'll teach you.
22. JSJay Shetty
  I, uh... It's whether you want to or not. It's whether you want to negotiate with a narcissist in your life.
23. CVChris Voss
  Well, that, and actually that's-
24. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
25. CVChris Voss
  ... a great secondary point-
26. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
27. CVChris Voss
  ... because this is going to be repetitive behavior. One of the things we advise people to do is terminate the relationship. You know, are they dragging you down? You can do a couple things to try to f- the psychologist or ser- therapist would call it boundary setting.
28. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
29. CVChris Voss
  Sometimes you set a good, hard boundary, and the other side says, "Oh, I'll respect that." They're looking for you to set gently, not aggressively. They're looking for that boundary. Set a couple boundaries gently, politely, but firmly, and find out if they're gonna straighten up.
30. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
40:20 – 44:21
Used and Taken Advantage Of
1. CVChris Voss
  God gave us. We'd lose most of the time.
2. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
3. CVChris Voss
  So that means that, uh, I th- I'm a firm believer that the world is largely very suppo- supportive and on our side. So that, that reinforces the accommodators 'cause the numbers are on their side. They're just not real good in the anywhere from 10 to 30% of the people that are, that are, that are situations that are harmful. So we have reason for sticking in there.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. CVChris Voss
  And then l- allowing wisdom to get us smarter as we go, then we eliminate more and more of the people that are dragging us down.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. If you feel like you're one of those people that people always take advantage of, I can imagine a lot of people that are listening may feel like they've been an accommodator, but now they've started to feel like, "People always take advantage of me. I feel used."
7. CVChris Voss
  Right.
8. JSJay Shetty
  "I, I feel like I'm the one who's always getting the short end of the stick." Like, how do you shift that pattern for your life? Because you've now made people believe that that's who you are-
9. CVChris Voss
  Right
10. JSJay Shetty
  ... and all of a sudden now you wanna change who you are. How do you go about that transition and shift in a healthy way so that you no longer feel that everyone's taking advantage of you?
11. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. The, the healthy way to start with is first the recognition is that you're not really helping them. You know, if they're taking advantage of you, you're effectively a crutch, and nobody becomes their best self by leaning on a crutch. So not only are you not helping yourself, you're not really helping them. To do the best for them is to let them get out there and fend, fend on their own. You know, l- let l- let them deal with it. They, they need, they need to deal with reality. You're not helping them by letting them lean on you. All right, so l- let's say you're willing to accept that. Now how do you, how do you get out of it? And again, um, I'm gonna refer to one of my negotiation heroes, Oprah Winfrey. I'm in a discussion with one of her top executives, and I was telling this executive, uh, "Yeah, our philosophy is the last impression is the lasting impression, so always end positively no matter what, but end." And she said, "Yeah, that's exactly Oprah's philosophy." She says, "In the entertainment industry, it's usually in a, in a limo, out a taxi. With Oprah, it's in a limo, out a limo." No matter what, at the end of any relationship, we have to make people te- remind them that we love them and that we value them, and then we have to effectively... We might need to part company. And I'm having a conversation, confrontational confrontation. Oprah Winfrey has taken people to the woodshed, but she does it in such a positive way and a way that she underscores to them that they feel valued, that they're okay with it. In this conversation, she finishes by saying, like, "Whatever you do is your decision, and I want you to know that if you decide not to participate in this interview, I will always love you. I will always be supportive of you. I will always have your back." And so that was her way of saying, "It's my way or the highway. And if you choose the highway, I'm still on your side-
12. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
13. CVChris Voss
  ... but we are gonna part company at this point in time."
14. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
15. CVChris Voss
  And finding a way to gently say, "Enough. Should you ever change your mind, I'm here for you," and then withdraw.
16. JSJay Shetty
  And that's... It always feels hard to do that because somewhere deep down inside of us, we don't want it to be the end of the road. We-
17. CVChris Voss
  We don't. Yeah
18. JSJay Shetty
  ... we wanna, we wanna be hopeful. We wanna-
19. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
20. JSJay Shetty
  ... save. We wanna accommodate. We wanna mold.
21. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
22. JSJay Shetty
  We wanna become whatever the other person needs us to be.
23. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
24. JSJay Shetty
  And so we keep doing that. We keep shape-shifting.
25. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. The desire to take yourself and them to a higher existence-
26. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
27. CVChris Voss
  ... to a higher level of being, to, you know, to, to make the, the unique and amazing dent in the
44:21 – 46:17
The Illusion of Control
1. CVChris Voss
  universe that each one of us is capable of doing.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. CVChris Voss
  And we love bringing that out in other people.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. CVChris Voss
  It's very addicting. [laughs]
6. JSJay Shetty
  I'm su- I'm sure when people meet you, they feel like they can learn from you how to control a situation, but you don't strike me as someone who-
7. CVChris Voss
  No
8. JSJay Shetty
  ... believes that is the way it ever goes-
9. CVChris Voss
  No
10. JSJay Shetty
  ... and that that's what you're trying to teach. But I can imagine people come up to you and companies come up to you and be like, "Chris, basically show us how to control this in-
11. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
12. JSJay Shetty
  ... our favor."
13. CVChris Voss
  Some do.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
15. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Again, a thir- about a third.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
17. CVChris Voss
  You know, the assertives love control.
18. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. How do you reframe someone who comes with that controlling mindset, who thinks that you can control? I've had, I've had coaching clients who... I don't coach in what you do, but I've even had clients who are like, "Jay, teach me the right thing to say. Like, you-
19. CVChris Voss
  Right. Right
20. JSJay Shetty
  ... always feel like you know the right thing to say. Can you teach me how to say that to someone in my life so that they do what I want?" And I'm like, "Wait a minute. That's, that's not how it's meant to go."
21. CVChris Voss
  Right. Exactly. All right. So, uh, the secret to gaining the upper hand in a, in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control, and then people will say like, "Oh, that's better than control." So that may be one of the things that cracks them open.
22. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
23. CVChris Voss
  Another thing is control is highly inefficient time-wise. Like, let's say I could control you completely. I gotta be with you all the time to do that. You know, I, I could control maybe one person. I can positively influence a lot of people if I give up the need for control, 'cause I'm gonna need you to be self-directed.
24. JSJay Shetty
  Right.
25. CVChris Voss
  I'm gonna need you to be able to think for yourself. There's gonna be a point in time when we're not together. If I'm not there to control you, you're gonna fall apart. But if I collaborate with you, if I empower you, when I'm not there, you're gonna think for yourself.
26. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
27. CVChris Voss
  There's a phrase, batteries included, so to speak-
46:17 – 48:37
What’s Your Intention?
1. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
2. CVChris Voss
  ... which have been, has been passed on to me by some very smart people. I need people who are batteries included. We all need partners that are batteries included. We're aligned on core values, and we get more done because I don't have time to control everybody. So when you start understanding the costs of control, then you start thinking like, "Yeah, you know, I, there's gotta be a better way." And it's guidance. It's helping people think. It's making them feel empowered to find the right outcome.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. You talk about mirroring as being a really good technique in trying to get to that collaborative same-page space. How do you do that in an authentic, genuine way? Is negotiation ever genuine and authentic, or is it always three steps ahead, three moves ahead?
4. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Well, great question. Um, the negotiation skills and tools are neutral, so intention has a smell. Am I trying to collaborate with you or am I trying to take advantage of you? A scalpel in one person's hand saves a life. In another person's hands, it takes a life.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
6. CVChris Voss
  So first of all, look at effective negotiation skills, which emotional intelligence is effective negotiation. Tactical empathy is effective negotiation. What's your intention? Like, my intention is for us to have a great long-term relationship, highly profitable, through the infinity, and if somebody's arguing with me, I'll say like, "Look, all right, so I would love for this moment to be something that we look back on 10 years from now, this argument, we look back on it 10 years from now as to the moment we discovered collaboration and made both of us prosper for 10 years." That's also changing somebody's frame-
7. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
8. CVChris Voss
  ... from short-term to long-term, to what's my intention? And my intention is long-term collaboration. Like, there's, there's some sales methodologies that say, "Your money's in their pocket. It's your job to get it out." That's not long-term collaboration.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
10. CVChris Voss
  And you're gonna sense that. Like, no matter how charming I am in the moment, no matter how much fun I am to be with,
48:37 – 50:49
How to Negotiate a Better Salary?
1. CVChris Voss
  no matter how much I make you laugh- You're gonna notice a diminishment of your pocket-
2. JSJay Shetty
  For sure
3. CVChris Voss
  ... before long, and this is coming to an end. So if my intention instead is for this to be great, for us to have a ball, for this to be this adventure that we both benefit from, now you're gonna... E- even if you say, "Oh, that was a label. I heard that before," or you just used a mirror on me, you know, you asked me about mirrors, that was a mirror, then you're not gonna mind because I'm trying to take you to a better place.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Let's, let's take a scenario. Like, let's say someone's negotiating for a promotion or a higher salary. Let's go down that road and act out what that would look like.
5. CVChris Voss
  So I'm doing a training for a company probably about two, three years ago. Got the CEO and all his top salespeople on a Zoom call. We get to Q&A, and one of them says, "How do I negotiate a better salary?" Boss is there listening, and I said, "Ask him this question. How can I be guaranteed to be involved in projects that are critical to the strategic future of this organization?" And he interrupts immediately and he says, "I wish everybody here had asked me that question." So the job negotiation is really about our future collaboratively. Now, as much as you'd love for it to be about what your contribution up to now has been, your contribution up to now, your boss is gonna see y- that you're even. "Here's what I asked you to do. Here's what I agreed to pay you for doing it. Here we are. You did it. I paid you. We're at, we're even." That's how your boss is gonna see it. Your boss is worried about the future. He's worried about his own future, her own future, worried about the organization's future. If you shift to, "How do I make everybody successful?" But not just in our routine stuff. In the most important stuff here-
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
50:49 – 53:33
Reward Strategy in the Workplace
1. CVChris Voss
  ... you show them two things. You're a team player. You're gonna put the team first, and you want the high-profile stuff.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
3. CVChris Voss
  You want to play in a championship. Your goal is to win a championship. My goal isn't to win a scoring title.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
5. CVChris Voss
  My goal is to win a team championship. Now suddenly it's about the future, a prosperous future, like what I mentioned before. We're now negotiating a prosperous future together. That changes everything.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. I mean, just hearing you say that, I was like, the amount of times in my head I'm thinking, as a leader, like, I want people to focus on business critical activities.
7. CVChris Voss
  Yes.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Like, I want people to report to me on things that are, like, actually critical to impact and having an effect and moving the needle as opposed to, yeah, we- we're doing the, you know, we're doing the little stuff. Everyone needs to do it. But as a leader, you want your team to be focused on and moving towards those bigger things.
9. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Yeah.
10. JSJay Shetty
  And, and it's hard because, me included when I was a employee too, it's you want to be rewarded for your effort. You just want to be rewarded for your energy and showing up and, and all of these things, but that isn't how reward generally works, at least in the workplace.
11. CVChris Voss
  Well, not the max- maximum reward. You know, uh, some, some reward works that way.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
13. CVChris Voss
  Much of that is very valuable. Um, you know, can you follow directions? Like, uh, [chuckles] my girlfriend Wendy, uh, members of her family, they got this, they got this great camp upstate New York. It's a wonderful place. We're up there visiting. At the end of the season every year, they bring family up and they get together. And so they kind of... they see me as maybe this, you know, this white collar guy, you know, who never got his hands dirty, hadn't been outside, which is, is not my background. But they're seeing me, an FBI agent, you know, probably... You're white collar. You ne- you never got dirty. So, uh, we're getting ready to get out of there and, and the gentleman who runs it, a very generous guy, he says, "You know, you're welcome back anytime." And so I say, "You know, I'd come to work for you any day," because I like to be useful. And he goes, "Really? Come to work for me, huh? What do you know how to do?" And I looked at him and I said, "Follow directions." And he went, "Whoa." [laughs]
14. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
15. CVChris Voss
  "Whoa. Whoa. We need more people like that." So there's a lot to be said for following directions, you know, the, the, the mundane routine stuff that needs to get done.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
17. CVChris Voss
  You c- you'll do well if you're great at following directions, but you're not gonna make as much as you could make-
18. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
19. CVChris Voss
  ... to have the maximum impact on a, on
53:33 – 58:57
Negotiating Unfulfilled Salary Raise
1. CVChris Voss
  a organization, as you said, the b- business critical activities.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
3. CVChris Voss
  Because also you as a leader, you're having trouble keeping track of all the business critical activities.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
5. CVChris Voss
  You need the team seeing stuff that's coming at you, you know, from, from your six that you don't see rolling up on you, and you're gonna want people on the team to understand the day-to-day and are business critical so when that meteor comes screaming in and you don't see it coming, they catch it for you.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
7. CVChris Voss
  And so that's what really takes people to the next level.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I think one of the things I find is that as a leader, like, I enjoy rewarding people who are performing phenomenally. Like, it's exciting for me to see someone who's-
9. CVChris Voss
  Yeah
10. JSJay Shetty
  ... performing phenomenally and they're developing themselves and I can see that they're proactive and resourceful and they're growth-oriented. And as a leader, I get excited to be like, "Oh, what can we build together?" Like, that's my mindset.
11. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
12. JSJay Shetty
  But I had a friend recently who went through a scenario where he had gone up to his boss and said I wanna work on really important things at the company. I wanna be associated with the biggest results we have. He was told to work on these projects. He went and got those results. They promised him a promotion, and then two to three months later they went kind of quiet on it, and then they said, "Oh, no, we actually don't have it anymore." He's now been at this company for two years, and he hasn't received a promotion, he hasn't received a direction on this is where it's going. He's getting in some of the biggest results at the company, but he's now not seeing any career growth there and he's thinking of leaving.
13. CVChris Voss
  Right. He should leave.
14. JSJay Shetty
  But I... Yeah. I, but I think his boss is thinking, "Oh, this guy's gonna hang around." So in that scenario where you're like, "Wait a minute, I'm hitting it. I was promised something. It didn't happen. Now I don't know how to negotiate that. I don't know how to have that conversation," how do you navigate that?
15. CVChris Voss
  Okay, there's, there's two things. First of all, um, yeah, it's gonna happen. Um, Black Swan method, tactical empathy, emotional intelligence-based negotiation. Doesn't work all the time, just works more than anything else does.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
17. CVChris Voss
  Which means there has to be an acceptance of occasionally it'll fail. Hostage negotiators got a 93% success rate. People who are not gonna make the deal we call seven percenters. They're gonna happen. So you, you move on. Now, before, uh, if somebody's promised you something and they failed on their promise that you earned, this is al- also an indicator of a company that's got culture problems, they got leadership problems, they got management problems. 40%, a long time ago, I heard, heard the phra- uh, stat 40% of the Fortune 500's gonna be gone in 10 years. People with those kind of problems are going the way of the dodo. They're going extinct. So your time there is coming to an end whether you like it or not. They're gonna go out of business. They're gonna get sold. They're gonna think of a stupid reason for firing you. Accept that that timeframe now has its limits if someone has failed to keep a promise that they should have kept.
18. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
19. CVChris Voss
  So that acceptance is, am I gonna go someplace else? Start looking for someplace else.
20. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
21. CVChris Voss
  'Cause you just added to your resume. You made yourself more employable with these accomplishments for somebody who's dying to employ you-
22. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
23. CVChris Voss
  ... who's gonna keep their word. They're gonna keep their core values. If they lied to you, if they failed to keep a promise with you, that's the way they do business. They are going out of business. There is a problem. You've just been alerted to the problem.
24. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
25. CVChris Voss
  Now, short term, interim, how you potentially try to, to right the sit- the ship before you get out. No oriented question. Again, I'd sit down with the boss. I'd say, "I'm sure that I seem very selfish and that I seem ignorant of the pressures that you're under and unappreciative of them. Do you want us to fail?"
26. JSJay Shetty
  No.
27. CVChris Voss
  Right. So, "No, no, no, no. Why? Why? What are you talking about?" If you make it impossible for me to stay, how am I supposed to stay? How am I supposed to stay if you made promises to me, I fulfilled my end of the bargain, and you're showing me that I was wasting my time? You know, it's, it's a way of letting people see reality. Before you can be assertive, and this is being assertive, not aggressive, but assertive, you gotta be empathic. So you demonstrate some understanding of where they're coming from. Ask the no oriented question, which is a way to trigger decision-making in a non-threatening way-
28. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
29. CVChris Voss
  ... and let them know what the reality is. The reality of the situation is you can't count on a leader that doesn't keep their promises to you. You wanna get to that moment in the conversation. You gotta get there gently. How do you get there gently? Demonstrating an appreciation and an understanding of the other side's point of view. Give them a chance, give them one clear chance to make things right. Let them know the reality of the situation is you can't stay in a job where they're not gonna keep their promises.
30. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
58:57 – 1:00:57
How Can Women Negotiate Better?
1. CVChris Voss
  You're going to, you're gonna be tainted by their reputation.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. CVChris Voss
  And you're gonna be taken down when, as the Titanic hit an iceberg, that ship's getting ready to hit an iceberg and it's gonna sink.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Yeah. I mean, that resonates and that kind of like a, when you've been hard done by, that approach feels like you're having to turn up the dial on... You're starting off empathetic, but then there is a turn up on like, "Well, this is the reality."
5. CVChris Voss
  This is the reality.
6. JSJay Shetty
  This is the reality of the situation, and I think that's, that's a really powerful approach. So Chris, of course, you're aware of the gender pay gap.
7. CVChris Voss
  Yes.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Women are-
9. CVChris Voss
  Yep
10. JSJay Shetty
  ... paid less. What are women doing wrong or what can they do better in negotiation? What needs to change? Of course, there's a systemic issue, but individually.
11. CVChris Voss
  Uh, individually, uh, so I would answer this as if, uh, the woman asking that question was my daughter and she was asking me about a relationship. And she says, "Dad, I'm in a relationship with a guy who's beating me. How do I get him to treat me better?" My answer is get out of that relationship. All right, so paying any talent less than what they're worth is a bad core value, a bad culture value, and you're working someplace that's gonna go out of business. So this relationship is coming to an end. My advice, my, my guidance is the same as it would be for any other job negotiation. Talk about how you're gonna make the best contribution possible. Talk, find out what it takes to be successful there. Express that you want to be paid in a big, uh, play in a big game. So what you're doing if you're working at a place that's gonna pay you less because of your gender, you're padding your resume. There's somebody out there that wants talent And they don't care anything about your gender. They don't care anything about your demographics. They want talent. You're in a relationship, you're in a bad relationship, and because it's a bad value to pay talent less, then it's coming to an end one
1:00:57 – 1:05:03
Negotiations That Don’t End with a Deal
1. CVChris Voss
  way or the other.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. CVChris Voss
  Just the same way as it's a boyfriend who's, if he's not physically abusive, he's at least verbally abusive. That's coming to an end.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
5. CVChris Voss
  Prepare yourself to move on. There are people that want talent. And, and my company, I don't care. I want talent.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
7. CVChris Voss
  We're not the only ones that are out there. There are a lot of companies that are taking advantage of women. The sooner you leave them, the better off everybody is. Find the company that values your contribution and move to it.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Nice advice. Great. Tell us about some of your seven percent experiences. There you said the 93% and the seven percent.
9. CVChris Voss
  Right, right, right.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Tell us about, have you some of your personal experiences of being in the seven percent when it's not working?
11. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Um, they're actually far more common than I ever imagined would be in a business world. Like the... When, when I wrote Never Split the Difference with Tal Raz and, and my son, Brandon Voss, tremendous contributor to the book, it never occurred to me that there would be a lot of negotiations where the other side had no intention of consummating a deal. And we call that now proof of life. Is there a deal, and is the deal with you? Maybe there's a deal, it just ain't with you. Maybe they're just kicking the tires. Maybe they're just looking for free consulting. And I started to wake up to that, and this is what falls into this category seven percenters. Somebody who's never gonna make the deal. Right after I got out and started, uh, talking about, uh, negotiating and, and a gentleman who wrote a book, I think, I think it was Bare Knuckle Bargaining.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
13. CVChris Voss
  And then he's talking about this thing in business called the rabbit, where you're the rabbit, you're just there to drive the price down on the people that are really gonna get the deal. And I can remember at the time thinking like, "No, that's, that's... I'm a time is money guy. That's a tremendous waste of time." Why would ever, I ever engage in a negotiation with someone if I wasn't gonna make the deal? I thought it was something from a Vince Vaughn movie. You know, I thought, "I- n- that's too stupid."
14. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
15. CVChris Voss
  And so we started discussing it with sales teams and, and one guy says, "Oh yeah, that's in a Challenger sale. It's in that book. It's 20%." 20% of the time they're not-- it's not seven percent of the time, it's 20% of the time. And in the book, they did, they basically take a survey of a thousand executives and basically say, "How often do you engage in a negotiation where you're never gonna make the deal with the other side?"
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
17. CVChris Voss
  For whatever reason, you're just not gonna give them the deal. And the business executives admitted to 20%, s- which means that number's gotta be low because they ask people, "How often do you lie?" And they're not gonna exaggerate how often they lie. They're gonna underestimate. And so we started implementing the methodology on a regular basis. We see it all the time. Some of it is a due diligence issue. The, The Black Swan Group, we have a reputation, deserved, for teaching a business negotiation methodology that is more successful than anything else. Why would a company talk to us? Well, they've got an education provider they're gonna stick with. So what they want to do is they want to get all the free consulting possible out of us, so that... We get this all the time. "Tell us, you know, tell us how you do what you do."
18. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
19. CVChris Voss
  You know, "Give, give us some insight. You know, how can we hire you if we don't know how you're gonna do it?" That's a tell of somebody who's pumping us for information.
20. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
21. CVChris Voss
  They're gonna want us to give them t- "And you know, if you just tell us everything, then we'll hire you."
22. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
23. CVChris Voss
  "Not only if you tell us everything will we hire you, we'll refer you to people that'll hire you." You know, they paint this, this vision of riches. You know, I call it being taken hostage to the future prosperity that never materializes.
24. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
25. CVChris Voss
  We kind of cooperated a little bit in the early days, but now we just-
26. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
27. CVChris Voss
  ... we get back to this thing like, "All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna see what's important to you."
28. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
29. CVChris Voss
  And if you're really focused on one specific aspect, if I sense that
1:05:03 – 1:11:05
Work with the ELFs
1. CVChris Voss
  you're not focused on a long-term relationship, you're a seven percenter.
2. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
3. CVChris Voss
  And then what am I gonna do? I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go all Oprah Winfrey on you. I'm gonna say some really positive, very true things. We'd love to be the negotiation provider for you that gives your company prosperity that you've never seen before.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. CVChris Voss
  And when you're willing to make a commitment to us-
6. JSJay Shetty
  Come back
7. CVChris Voss
  ... we'll make a commitment to you.
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. Well said.
9. CVChris Voss
  And they usually go, you usually hear crickets on the other end of the line.
10. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
11. CVChris Voss
  And that's the end of the conversation.
12. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. So Chris, as a follow-up to that, I'm sure that for years you've had calls where a company will call you and say to you, "Chris, we actually want that, but we want it at half the price."
13. CVChris Voss
  Right.
14. JSJay Shetty
  And I'm imagining that a lot of people who are listening right now, whether they're entrepreneurs, whether they have a side hustle, whether they do a bit of design work here and there, they've had that call as well, where a client calls, they want this client, they're excited by it. Like, and I want you to tell us the difference between the first time a Fortune 500 company reached out and now when you're established, because that obviously changes as well. Walk us through how do you negotiate or how do you deal with you really wanting to work with this client, but they're like, "We want 50% off. Like, that's what, that's our budget. That's our max."
15. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. Well, we... I- it's simply, it's accepting that working with them at half price is a bad idea.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
17. CVChris Voss
  And it's not good for the health of the business long term. And then as soon as we accepted that, then realizing that the less time we spent with people that want half price, they're actually obstructing the people that want to pay full price.
18. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
19. CVChris Voss
  You know, a, a good friend of mine, a phrase that we use, uh, Joe Polish He's got a f- phrase, "There are half clients and there are elf c- clients."
20. JSJay Shetty
  Hmm.
21. CVChris Voss
  Half is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. Elf is easily lucrative and fun.
22. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
23. CVChris Voss
  So in our, in our early days, uh, especially the peo-
24. JSJay Shetty
  Say those two again. Those are brilliant
25. CVChris Voss
  ... hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating, halves.
26. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. And then elves.
27. CVChris Voss
  Elves, easy, lucrative, and fun.
28. JSJay Shetty
  I love that.
29. CVChris Voss
  And Joe says, "Don't work with the halves, work with the elves." And I heard this and I... And so if you're, uh, in your early days, if you're working for me, you figure that I want you to make every deal. And I get with my sales team and I say, "All right, so the halves are gonna have predictable behavior. Once we start looking for it, it's gonna jump out at us, and we'll be able to see it in the first half hour of the conversation." Now, now they're very good at this. And that, of course, was the truth. And then I said, "We're gonna walk away politely from them early on."
30. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm. Mm.
1:11:05 – 1:16:29
Polite Boundary Setting
1. JSJay Shetty
  and it's so refreshing to hear that because I think everyone feels that way where they're just like, "I have to do this. This is gonna be our big winner. It's gonna be our big ticket," but it always ends up going the opposite way when they're being a half. And it's, it's such great advice because it could save you so much stress, save you so much pressure, and you're gonna feel like you did a great job, but you only got paid half. You might feel bitter. You're now resentful. They didn't renew. It turns into a whole bigger emotional thing as well when it-
2. CVChris Voss
  It was blood money
3. JSJay Shetty
  ... yeah, when it doesn't need to.
4. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
5. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I want to shift away from work to relationships because I feel like so much of what you say applies to marriage, it applies to dating, it applies to, you know, everyday interpersonal relationships and friendship. We touched on it a bit at the beginning, but I wanted to talk about this idea that I think a lot of the time we actually get an easy negotiation in the beginning, what it feels like-
6. CVChris Voss
  Right
7. JSJay Shetty
  ... and then things start to get more constrained. So I have a friend who, she met this guy and he promised her the world and he was like, "Yeah, it's gonna be amazing and I love you and you're amazing and this is incredible," and it almost feels like you've just won the lottery, right?
8. CVChris Voss
  Right, right, right.
9. JSJay Shetty
  It's like you, you're getting everything in this negotiation. He gives you time. He gives you energy. Date nights are amazing. Everything's great, and then six months in he starts to pull back and go, "No, I need to focus on this now. No, I can't call you every day. No, I can't." Now, not that any of those things are even unreasonable.
10. CVChris Voss
  Right.
11. JSJay Shetty
  They're actually reasonable things.
12. CVChris Voss
  Right.
13. JSJay Shetty
  But it's just that it's so different from what you thought you signed up for. What do you do as a negotiation in that setting when you were promised more or someone over-delivered in the beginning and now they're under-delivering?
14. CVChris Voss
  That's a real aspect of human nature, and so at s- at some point in time there needs to be polite withdrawal You know, polite boundary setting. I think, I think both people have, you know... I, I don't know. I, I hate to say that any gender is more guilty than the other.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, same.
16. CVChris Voss
  But I think that, that men probably have a tendency to start adding to the neglect first. And then how, how, how do you get advice? Like, how, how do we, how do we sustain this? How do you want me to feel about where we are now versus where we were? How questions, how and what questions are remarkably powerful questions. We refer to them as calibrated question. W- the word what is primarily designed to uncover problems. The word how is primarily designed to create answers.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
18. CVChris Voss
  So you could say, "What got us off track?" Because you're off track. Now, it also feels very deferential. You know, how and what makes the other side feel in charge. People love to be asked how and what. The real issue of both those questions is not what the answers are, the thinking you made them engage in. The answer's secondary. At some point in time, I can say, "What do you want from me?" That's gonna force you to see that there appears to be a disconnect between the two of us.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
20. CVChris Voss
  It doesn't matter what you say. That's a secondary benefit. But the primary benefit is that I s- asked a question in the first place.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
22. CVChris Voss
  You know, at the very beginning of the book, one of the more famous Black Swan phrases is, "How am I supposed to do that?" And I saw that as the first way to say no. You know, to telegraph to the other side that there's a problem coming. And then my son Brandon points out, it's forced empathy.
23. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
24. CVChris Voss
  If I say, "How am I supposed to do that?" to you, you're forced to look at me and take stock of the position that I'm in. Your response to that is gonna tell me exactly how much you care about that. That's a game-changing phrase, and I realize now it's about implementation. I'm saying to you like, "Look, where we are, it's impossible for me to continue. How am I supposed to do that?"
25. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
26. CVChris Voss
  Like, eight out of 10 times, that immediately changes the complexion of the conversation. It's so ridiculously effective that in the two out of 10 times it doesn't work, people are just like, "Ah-"
27. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
28. CVChris Voss
  "... geez, how am I supposed to do that?" And it, it backfired. It failed on me. They looked at me and said, "I don't care how you do it. You're just gonna do it." And my answer to them is, "No, it didn't fail. It gave you an answer you weren't expecting."
29. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
30. CVChris Voss
  If it's an implementation question, how am I supposed to continue in this relationship if, you know, you never talk to me?
1:16:29 – 1:22:08
How to Not Be Emotional When Negotiating
1. CVChris Voss
  And so either they're gonna change, they're gonna wake up, because there's some inadvertent human nature there, or they're gonna be indifferent to your question. If they're indifferent, that's just giving you a preview of a slowly descending future.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
3. CVChris Voss
  Now you got a hard, hard decision to make.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. CVChris Voss
  Be grateful for the time. Be willing to be smarter today than you were yesterday. And ultimately, your default has got to be your own happiness.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. And how do we do that in a way that we keep our personal emotions separate from those questions? Because I think sometimes you can ask those questions, but they're, they're emotionally loaded. They're like, "Things used to be amazing before." Like, you know, "Now you don't do anything." And they turn into not questions, they turn into demands-
7. CVChris Voss
  Accusations
8. JSJay Shetty
  ... accusations.
9. CVChris Voss
  Demands, everything else.
10. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. Or, or they turn into things that sound complainy. Like, "Oh, things were amazing before. Like, how do you expect me to s-" And it, and it sounds like a complaint as opposed to a question, which is what you're positioning it as, and I think that's because our emotion gets so close to the question.
11. CVChris Voss
  Yes. Yeah.
12. JSJay Shetty
  How do you keep your emotions separate and go, "Actually, I need to negotiate effectively to get to where I want to get to rather than sound like I'm complaining," and now that person is only hearing the energy of the complaint as opposed to the explanation of what you're looking for?
13. CVChris Voss
  Well, the, the two, the two possibilities are can you talk it through with a friend who's neutral, who's not gonna give you advice?
14. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
15. CVChris Voss
  You need a sounding board. You don't need advice. You know what the answers are, in point of fact, so the advice is a waste of time. One of the great things I realized why I was effective on a suicide hotline, in many cases, I'm just a sounding board.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
17. CVChris Voss
  I'm let some, somebody say stuff out loud-
18. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
19. CVChris Voss
  ... instead of having it bang around in their head, which is either confusing or makes sense in a bad way, or you say stuff out loud and you get a better grip on it.
20. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
21. CVChris Voss
  So a friend is a great sounding board. And you could even say in advance, "Look, I'm not looking for advice. I'm just looking for a sounding board. I wanna talk this stuff out. I wanna hear what I'm thinking."
22. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
23. CVChris Voss
  That's one potential option. You got friends that always wanna give advice anyway.
24. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
25. CVChris Voss
  So-
26. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah
27. CVChris Voss
  ... there's a little bit of a negotiation up front with that friend, or maybe certain friends are, are good for being sounding boards and others aren't. Then in the moment, like what happens if you didn't have the time to prepare? You catch yourself in a moment, which is similar to any negotiation. Suddenly you caught yourself in the middle s- but your gut instinct is gonna kick in The mistake everybody makes is they want to deny the dynamic instead of observing it. "I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I don't want to sound like a whiny, complaining, typical whiny, complaining female." Instead say, "I'm probably gonna sound like a typical whiny, complaining female," or whatever side of that argument that you're in, argument, interaction, negotiation. If you simply call it out in advance, then the other side gets braced for it, and they deal with it.
28. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
29. CVChris Voss
  They don't get to, you know, "I, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining," and then the other person is saying, "Yeah, but you're gonna go ahead and complain."
30. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs] Yeah.
1:22:08 – 1:25:55
Are You in the Right Relationship?
1. JSJay Shetty
  they were flawed or that they weren't smart enough. It wasn't condescending. It was genuine, that they had certain beliefs about meditation and philosophy that could be true but that I wasn't presenting it that way.
2. CVChris Voss
  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, so I loved that, and it, it was, it was probably one of my favorite speaking experiences because it felt like such a challenge to have to turn it around.
4. CVChris Voss
  Yeah. And, and then, uh, uh, then it's highly satisfying in retrospect, right?
5. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
6. CVChris Voss
  And you did it with them invisibly. Like, they didn't know what happened.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. [laughs]
8. CVChris Voss
  It just happened.
9. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, yeah. It was really special. When someone's in a relationship, and they're like, "I wanna, I wanna get my partner to do more personal growth. I wanna get my partner to maybe be open up to therapy. I wanna get my..." And, you know, and I hear this a lot. I'm sure you hear it too, but I hear a lot of people tell me, "I want my partner to..." Right? They want their partner to become something or do something. How do you negotiate that, and how should that person change their mindset in order to make it a healthier thing than a demand?
10. CVChris Voss
  The real fundamental issue is, is this the re- right relationship? Like, is, is this behavior that's consistent with the things that you value and the things that they value? That, that's the first issue. Uh, um, my company gets coached on EOS.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
12. CVChris Voss
  Um, Jonathan Smith is our, our EOS coach, and I remember the first time we sat down with Jonathan, and he said, "All right, so what are your core values?" I'm like, "What do you mean? Work hard, be honest. What more is there? Learn. You know, have a sense of humor." He's like, "No, no, no, no." So first of all, it's a little more complicated than that.
13. JSJay Shetty
  [laughs]
14. CVChris Voss
  Secondly, he said, "Then all of your relationships you'll find, ALL, business and personal, succeed or fail based on alignment of core values." I'm like, "Oh, wow, okay, that makes sense." So what does this have to do with the relationship? Is the behavior change that you're seeking from the other person consistent with the core values that you share?
15. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
16. CVChris Voss
  Now, you don't have to share every core value, but you kind of need to share about 80% of them, and if the behavior you're asking for is really a disguise for a change in a value, it's not gonna happen, and the hard part is accepting that. You can, you can value someone. They can remain your friend. You can, you can still have a positive relationship but not that intimate relationship-
17. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
18. CVChris Voss
  ... not that, that lifelong commitment which the vast majority of us are driving for, you know, uh, this great, phenomenal, collaborative, long-term relationship of trust.
19. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
20. CVChris Voss
  So what I would ask is for the person to say, "Does this fall within? Do we share enough values that this is worth the trouble?" And then the conversation is then I'm now talking about a behavior change that's consistent with the values that they hold.
21. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
22. CVChris Voss
  If their behavior change is inconsistent with the values that they hold, they're never gonna change.
23. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
24. CVChris Voss
  And we're both gonna be miserable, and we're gonna waste two to two to five to seven years of our lives, and hopefully the only upside will be when this is over, I'm smarter.
25. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. Yeah.
26. CVChris Voss
  And at some, some of this is, it's taken me a really long time to come to accept the reality of it, that we're n- we're not helping each other if we're not in the right relationship.
27. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
28. CVChris Voss
  You're not helping them, they're not helping you. And you can value them as human beings, and you can wish them well. So the first question is, is the behavior change I want consistent with the values that we share?
29. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
30. CVChris Voss
  Now you can start talking
1:25:55 – 1:30:52
Respecting Other People’s Values
1. CVChris Voss
  about it within that light. Like, so sounds like we share this value. Consequently, here's how I think we can manifest it together so that we have a deeper relationship.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
3. CVChris Voss
  In that context, there's a conversation. If it's about the other person being happier too, not just you being happier at their expense-
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm
5. CVChris Voss
  ... but it's about both of you being happier together.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
7. CVChris Voss
  And it's really gonna line up to what are the values?
8. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah. I, I, I think you've hit the nail on the head. The... I believe the challenge is that we want people to respect our values because in some way we disrespect theirs, so we want people to value what we value because we actually don't like their values. And I find that that 20% you're talking about around where you don't have to have the same shared values, I think that's when you actually respect, "Wait a minute, they have a different value to me in this area, and that's okay. Let me learn to value that, and hopefully they'll learn to value my differing value. And hey, guess what? We may not value the same things in this area, but I respect that person for their values because I understand how they got to there, and I understand why they have that value, and we don't have to have the same one." And I find that we're constantly... We feel like if someone doesn't have the same exact values as us and value the same exact things, then that we can't connect at all.
9. CVChris Voss
  Right.
10. JSJay Shetty
  And I feel like you're gonna run out of people-
11. CVChris Voss
  [laughs]
12. JSJay Shetty
  ... chasing people across the world trying to find someone who values what you value in exactly the same way.
13. CVChris Voss
  Right.
14. JSJay Shetty
  Two people can value their family, but they could mean two totally different things.
15. CVChris Voss
  Right.
16. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, I, I find that we need to get beyond this idea of my values are the most important, and they're all that value, and if you don't value that, then we can't get anywhere.
17. CVChris Voss
  Right. Yeah, I agree.
18. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, yeah.
19. CVChris Voss
  And, and, and then be curious about the other side's values.
20. JSJay Shetty
  Exactly.
21. CVChris Voss
  And then how has it added, how has it added to your life?
22. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
23. CVChris Voss
  My girlfriend Wendy, again, she got relationships with people that she... and she keeps in touch with people she's known since she was seven years old. I don't have those kind of relationships.
24. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah.
25. CVChris Voss
  You know, I haven't worked that hard at it. I, I, I... some of those people are still alive, but I rarely talk to them. And she's really opened my eyes in so wa- so many ways to the value of these great long-term relationships, even with people that you disagree with operationally. You know, y- you're a Democrat, they're a Republican, or, you know, whatever it is, but sh- you know, she's maintaining those relationships and, and, and there's a richness to her life that I have not maintained-
26. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
27. CVChris Voss
  ... that I see it manifests itself and, you know, I want to learn from it.
28. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. That's beautiful. The book's called Never Split the Difference. Do you ever split the difference?
29. CVChris Voss
  No. Uh, never. Now-
30. JSJay Shetty
  Never.
1:30:52 – 1:34:01
Tactical Empathy Documentary
1. CVChris Voss
  Her goals are much loftier and more long-lasting than his are.
2. JSJay Shetty
  Mm-hmm.
3. CVChris Voss
  They get a real tree So Never Split the Difference is also being willing to entertain the i- idea that the other side's got insight that you don't have, and you gotta be open to it and be willing to accept it, which is the same thing you want from them.
4. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
5. CVChris Voss
  It's just making this a two-way street.
6. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. That's a great answer. I love that. Chris, it's been such a joy talking to you today, and I know that people, I hope, are gonna run and get the book, Never Split the Difference, but you also have a documentary out that you were talking about, so I want you to share that with us.
7. CVChris Voss
  Yeah, it just came out. It's called Tactical Empathy. It's on Amazon. We shot it with DNA Films, Nick Nanton, Emmy-winning producer, and it's really sort of about the history of the hostage sieges and how they turned out and what we learned from them. We collectively, you know, my son Brandon is featured in the documentary. There's a phrase, "Empathy is a sneak attack on racism."
8. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
9. CVChris Voss
  Empathy produces better decision-making, and when Nick came to me about the film, I said, "You know, there are enough, uh, law enforcement disadvantaged community problems that I think empathy's gonna go a long way towards solving." Not all of them, just most of them, and if we can get rid of most of them, that's a pretty good start. So we're gonna categorize, this is going to be designed to show how law enforcement hearing people out is going to tamp down a lot of the flames-
10. JSJay Shetty
  Mm
11. CVChris Voss
  ... if you will. So then we end up, uh, at about the same time, I get, I get approached by NYPD. They want me to come and do a training for, they, they've got critical people that they want emotional intelligence training for. They want to plant a seed because they want a, a more effective NYPD, which is a more empathic NYPD. And I said, "All right, so here's the deal. Let us film it for the documentary, and my son Brandon's gonna do the training, not me. You get us for a full day. Brandon is as good or better at this than I am." And the interesting additional feature is my son Brandon's mother's African American. Effectively to the world, he's African American. Big boy, big, big guy, play- played lineman in college football. Sizable human being. The very kind of guy that if he got out of his car, will cause most police officers to think they got a fight on their hands just by looking at him. He's gonna do the training. And so we've got a segment in there of Brandon doing this phenomenal training for these guys and showing them how empathy is gonna make you more effective. It's gonna build bridges in the community. Community's got problems with law enforcement that you didn't create. You stepped into this job trying to do the right thing. That doesn't matter of the baggage between the communities.
1:34:01 – 1:36:56
Chris on Final Five
1. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
2. CVChris Voss
  You gotta deal with that.
3. JSJay Shetty
  Mm.
4. CVChris Voss
  So there's also, besides the history of the company and some, some pretty good hostage stories-
5. JSJay Shetty
  Oh, that's brilliant
6. CVChris Voss
  ... then we're, we're trying to back into police community relationships a little bit with the, with the doc, and I hope it helps law enforcement get better training so that there's less problems with the disadvantaged communities.
7. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, that's fantastic. What's it called?
8. CVChris Voss
  Tactical Empathy.
9. JSJay Shetty
  On, on Amazon.
10. CVChris Voss
  On Amazon.
11. JSJay Shetty
  Awesome.
12. CVChris Voss
  Yeah.
13. JSJay Shetty
  I can't wait to watch it. Sounds fantastic. Chris, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. We end every episode of On Purpose with a Final Five or a Fast Five. Each question has to be answered with one sentence maximum. And-
14. CVChris Voss
  It's the lightning round.
15. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, lightning round.
16. CVChris Voss
  We're in the lightning round here.
17. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, just one word-
18. CVChris Voss
  I'm going for bonus points
19. JSJay Shetty
  ... one word to one sentence. Yeah.
20. CVChris Voss
  You know? I get to proceed to the championship level after this-
21. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, there you go
22. CVChris Voss
  ... if I get through it?
23. JSJay Shetty
  Yeah, exactly.
24. CVChris Voss
  All right, here we go. [laughs]
25. JSJay Shetty
  All right. So Chris Voss, these are your Fast Five. So question number one, Chris, what's the best advice you've ever heard or received?
26. CVChris Voss
  Never take directions from somebody you wouldn't trade places with.
27. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Question number two, what's the worst advice you've ever had or received?
28. CVChris Voss
  Oh, wow. Um, you know, hang in there j- just to prove 'em wrong.
29. JSJay Shetty
  Mm. Uh, third thing, how would you define your current purpose?
30. CVChris Voss
  Making the world a better place.

Episode duration: 1:36:56

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Intro

Becoming a Lead Negotiator

Suicide Hotline Conversations

Labeling the Negative Emotions

Negotiation Isn’t a Form of Conflict

How to Get Someone to Collaborate with You?

How Do You Slow Down?

How Do You Prepare for a Negotiation?

Biggest Negotiation Mistakes

Always Look for the Patterns

Used and Taken Advantage Of

The Illusion of Control

What’s Your Intention?

How to Negotiate a Better Salary?

Reward Strategy in the Workplace

Negotiating Unfulfilled Salary Raise

How Can Women Negotiate Better?

Negotiations That Don’t End with a Deal

Work with the ELFs

Polite Boundary Setting

How to Not Be Emotional When Negotiating

Are You in the Right Relationship?

Respecting Other People’s Values

Tactical Empathy Documentary

Chris on Final Five

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