Why Explaining Your Position is the Fastest Way to Lose | Chris Voss

0:00If you're explaining, you're losing. You explain stuff to people, it just doesn't get through. If you talk for longer than six seconds, the other side's going to ask themselves, "Is this guy wasting [clears throat] my time?" My guest today is Chris Voss, the author of Never Split the Difference. He has negotiated with terrorists, kidnappers, and criminals where the stakes were life or death. But today, he's going to show you why those secrets are the key to winning your next business deal, fixing your relationships, and why my own elevator pitch to an investor was a total disaster until Chris told me why. What's the most common misunderstanding people

0:32have about negotiation? Uh, that you got to explain your position. Uh, uh, Ronald Reagan, the one I quoted, if you're explaining, you're losing. But a lot of people have said that. I'm not sure that Reagan was the first one. you explain stuff to people, it just doesn't get through. And it's just u whether it's a business negotiation, whether or not you're talking to somebody from al-Qaeda, like they the reason somebody's adversarial in the first place because they're tired of being explained at. And people just don't like being explained to. So, but everybody says, "Hey, you got to make a case." You know, in business, what's your value proposition? What's

1:11your elevator speech? All that stuff. You got to throw that out there. You get the time for it. just not starting off first. So, you're saying I I should not explain my position. Not before they're ready to hear you. And so, your question is is interesting because when you sit down, you're dying to explain your position, which means you're not in a position to

1:38listen. So, the other side, again, could be somebody from al-Qaeda, doesn't matter. They're human. So they're dying to explain their position too, which means nobody's really listening to start off with. So if I start off by listening to you, I mean you just human. We I I want to make a point. I'm like, "All right, you go first." And if I make you feel heard, then there's something else innate in humans. Again, doesn't matter what your

2:07political persuasion is. Reciprocity. [gasps] If you feel heard, then you're usually willing to hear the other side out. So, it's just a sequencing issue. So, the first step in negotiation is actually shutting shutting up and actually listening or and maybe prompting the other letting the other side know that you want to talk and say, "All right, so it seems to me this is what your position is. If you say that only only one of two things that are

2:36possibly gonna happen. I get it right. [gasps] If I got it right, you're going to say that's right and you're going to feel great. I mean, when the feeling of being hurt is phenomenal. If I don't get it right, which actually to some degree I might try to get something wrong on purpose, you'll correct me.

2:59Now, again, that makes you feel good. People love to correct. You're going to feel like you're mentoring me. [gasps] And if you're correcting me, if you feel like you're mentoring me, automatically we're no longer adversaries. You're my mentor. So, in kind of a sneaky way, I've taken me out of an adversarial position by getting you to correct me. Now, the third kicker, which is really cool, is when people correct,

3:28they tell the truth. And they'll tell you stuff that they didn't mean to tell you, but it feels so good to correct. And there's an old saying, people don't remember what was said in the moment, they remember how they felt. I'm going to want you to tell me stuff you shouldn't tell me. I don't need you to regret it. So if it felt great when you

3:49told me, you'll never regret it. So in a negotiation, political negotiation or hostage hostage negotiation, which matter most, logic or emotions? Um, logic is what we make up after our emotional brain has decided. Like, you know, there there's there's you um you make decisions based on what you care about. Your logic is based on premises of what you value. [snorts]

4:20Those words are by definition emotional.

4:29Why do most professionals still overindex on logic then? Because it seems logical to you, [laughter] you know, and it's uh this going to sound harsh and and I I was, you know, I was thinking about this. There's certain phrases, it's so selfstimulating to come up with a logical argument that the other side has to give into. And it's it's just it's an ego trip. I'm let me I'm going to come up with this brilliant logical argument. Feels so good to you. The other side feels talked

5:05down to. God, I'm guilty of all of these. [laughter] Yeah, you're human. I mean, we all are. Uh we we all are. And there's there's a lot there's a lot of academic guidance. Like when I and I I still find it amusing that I went to Harvard. the fact that I got into Harvard. Uh but anyway, they were heavy then into uh at the business school and the school of government. I went to the school of government teaching people how to make the elevator speech, how to make the value proposition, you know, how to get your point across even faster, quicker. That

5:44ain't about listening to anybody. And there's such an academic emphasis on the educational institutions globally. You know, be articulate and explain your position. And some people then think you got to add syllables. You know, the more syllables, the more eloquent I must be. The other side falls asleep on you. So I today I met two investors I've been dying to meet for the past one year and uh I got star struck and I did not listen and I my pitch was horrible. I just I vomited words. I embarrassed myself. What is the best way to to do the elevator pitch or to pitch your

6:32ideas? Um, getting the other side ready to hear you is what what first clouds somebody's head. At some point in time, if you talk for longer than 6 seconds. Mhm. The other side's going to ask themselves, "Is this guy wasting my time?" So to get out in front of that, you say, "Look, at some point in time when I'm talking, you're going to ask yourself if you're wasting your time." You're going to ask yourself, "Why are you even

7:00listening to me?" You're going to ask yourself if I understand anything about you at all. Now, what I just did, what I just laid out there was what we've termed the accusations audit. And it's academically I'm going to I'm going to do an audit of the potential negative thoughts you might have, not I might have, that you might have. And the crazy thing about emotional intelligence is if I call it, you can't plant an

7:27emotion. You can't plant the positive. You can't plant the negative. So if I call out a negative in advance, it won't put it in your head. And then the kicker is it'll actually inoculate you from experiencing that. It's very much like when a doctor says doctor's getting ready to give you a shot. He's going to say, "It's going to hurt." And he hits you with the needle and you'll be like, "Oh, that wasn't

7:54that bad." Now, if the doctor says to you, "I don't want you to think this is going to hurt." and he hits you with the needle, you're like, "Doc, come on. That what are you talking about? That hurt." Or if the doctor with no warning jabs you with a needle, then you're mad because you didn't get

8:10warned. Physical pain, emotional pain, people are incredibly resilient if warned. So I and I kind of learned this the hard way a long time ago when I was when I was working kidnappings for the bureau internationally. American gets kidnapped someplace, I show up. You know, I'm the expert from headquarters. No expert from headquarters is ever welcomed with open arms anywhere on Earth. The, you know, whether you're corporate division, guy shows up from headquarters. Whether you're in the government, guy shows up from

8:44headquarters. Your instinctive reaction to that is this guy's here to tell us we're screwing up. And as an expert, my thought is, you should be happy I'm here. I'm here to help. That is never the way it's received. And I used and of course there would be nuances that they wouldn't understand. So I'd show up in the MC and

9:06I start laying strategy out for them. They get offended every time. [sighs] And uh I learned if before I started laying out the strategy if I say in advance it's going to sound harsh. Now I haven't opened up my mouth yet. So that this most people think this is a potential of planting a negative cuz I haven't said anything that's

9:30harsh. But if I say it's going to sound harsh and then I start laying the same guidance out, they'd be like, "Okay, that wasn't harsh at all." So, it's it's kind of crazy how resilient people are if you warn them. So, the mistake that I did is I saw the investor coming out from the bathroom and I said hi, shook his hand and blurred it out. I should have told you, hey, 20 seconds. I want to in picture

10:00this idea. All right. So, uh we'll go back over it because everybody makes this mistake. So, I'll prep you for next time. You're coming out of the bathroom. Sure. and somebody ambushes you. They felt so awkward. [laughter] How does that feel? It feels horrible. Right. So, when you walk up, you tell them how they're going to feel right now. You're probably going to feel

10:22ambushed. Oh, okay. And then they go like, "Oh, okay. I'm at a um I've had the good fortune to cross paths with most of the sharks on Shark Tank." And to a person, they've all been generous. Robert Hersik, generous dude. Mark Cuban, um Kevin Olirri. I haven't I haven't been in person with um uh the two ladies, Barb Barber Corkran. I was on a a virtual podcast with her one time on something called Clubhouse. Um Lori Grineer, by the way, she's a phenomenal negotiator, one of

11:02the best voices on planet Earth. She got this smile and a late night FM DJ down simultaneously. She she has told the other sharks, the males in particular on several occasions, the equivalent of shut the f up while I talk. But she says it's so nice that they shut up. She's got the best voice on earth. Anyway, Kevin Olri, he and I are both talking at this small CNBC

11:24event couple years before the pandemic. Green room is up at the top of the steps. He's up in a green room. I'm at the bottom of the steps. I see Kevin Ol getting ready to come downstairs. And he sees me waiting at the stairs at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn't know who the hell I am. I'm just some smuck, right? And I I can see him just gathering himself cuz he's he's got a stalker waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. And the last thing he wants to do is talk to some, you know, some

11:51some stalker. That's me. So I ask him a no question. I go, "Would it offend you if I asked you a question?" because I dropped in the emotional, he's going to feel offended. You know, I I saw him up there gathering himself going like, "God, what is this guy going to ask me?" So, I got to disarm him when he gets to the bottom of the steps. [sighs] I go, you know, would it would it offend you if I ask you a question? He's like, "No." And he's [clears throat] he's talkative. And then he gets up and he gives his talk and then I have the

12:23advantage of I'm talking after him and I go, "Here's what I did to Kevin Ory not 15 minutes ago. [laughter] By the way, uh he took a bunch of us to dinner later that night. He paid for everything. Generous, generous dude. Very, very generous. An absolute gentleman. He comes here to Abu Dhabi a lot. Yeah, we love Kevin L here. So noted this is for next time because what I did is I just ambushed him and I told him my pitch and he was even trying to walk and trying to gather himself. It was very awkward and I was starruck. Lesson

12:56learned. Well, yeah, you're human. I mean, that's cool. Everybody makes mistakes. Was there a single negotiation early in your FBI career that completely changed your approach for human behavior? Well, there were I learned a lot at different times. I'm not sure that it changed my approach for different behavior. I had a had a kidnapping and worked in the Philippines, a burnup barrel case uh that went bad. That thing was a train wreck across the board. Like it was it was it was everything went bad on that thing. And I failed to take in account into account the team on the other side. There's always a team on the

13:29other side. You could have a great relationship with the person you're talking to, but if you don't consider their team on their side, the deal could go bad. And through the course of that negotiation, I knew the relationship that had been established with a bad guy's negotiator was a great relationship. So much so that when they reiged on the deal, he this dude was embarrassed. I mean he was genuinely embarrassed. I mean he the conversations had gotten very casual. Um uh the spokesperson you know however he come

14:03across the Burnhams in captivity. Um he knew about the kids. He knew about some of the favorite breakfast that the kids like to eat which indicated to me some actual compassion on the bad guys part towards the hostages. and he had somebody on that team that that betrayed the whole operation and just turned into a train wreck. And there were several things that happened in that case that taught me some big lessons. Uh number one, you know, there's always a team on the other side. Doesn't doesn't matter how good relationship your relationship is with your counterpart, if that team on isn't on board, and you have to take

14:40that into account. The deal killers are more important than the decision makers. They're always different guys. different guys, generic term that uh their formal decisionmaking process is not what their actual decision-making process is, whether it's a company or whether it's a band of uh kidnappers in a jungle. You got to find out how how they make their decisions collectively as a group. It's never going to be along the stated hierarchy. So, I learned about the team on the other side. And then actually in that case, among the crazy things that happened um in the middle of the case, we're told by a secret government agency that shall

15:18not be named that one of our hostages was picked up on a phone. Now, I'm I'm fairly there still nuances that I hadn't learned. I'm like, who the hell is talking to one of our hostages on a phone? And why are they talking to our hostage on the phone? Cuz our hostages are not out there ordering pizzas. You know, they ain't calling Uber Eats to get something to eat. There's a purpose for this. [gasps] And I I got back to my boss and I said, you know, we got an over here. And he's like, somebody's getting proof of life on a host on our hostage. The only

15:52reason a hostage is on the phone is to give proof of life. And I remember thinking at the time, I'm not sure which blows my mind more. The fact that somebody else is getting proof of life, which means there's another buyer in play. You're getting proof of life cuz you want to ransom out the hostages. So, who the hell is out there looking to buy our

16:14hostages? That made no sense. Turns out to be a corrupt politician after the fact, we find out. [snorts] And then, how do they get him on the phone? I never got anybody on the phone. How they how they getting them on the phone? And uh kidnapping in Pittsburgh probably about a year and a half later. Uh drug dealer on drug dealer kidnapping. One drug dealer grabs another drug dealer's girlfriend. Drug dealer victim goes to the FBI because who do you go to when you got a kidnapping? Even if you're a bad guy, you go to the FBI. And a hostage negotiators are riding around a car with

16:53the drug dealer. uh victim and he he says on his own uncoached, [sighs] "Hey dog, how do I know my girlfriend's alive?" And the tone of the kidnapper changes immediately. He goes, "Well, I'll uh I'll put her on the phone." And that's a defensive tone. In the moment, the upper hand in the negotiation shifted 180

17:22degrees. And I remember number one, he he he he volunteered to put her on the phone. And I remember thinking like that's what happened in the Philippines. They just asked the obvious question. And the power of the obvious question is ridiculous. Because if you and I are talking about something, doesn't matter who you are, I'm allowed to ask obvious questions as long long as I'm not being

17:51disrespectful. As and there's in all negotiations there's great power in difference. Like if you can say something differentially, you can say almost anything to anybody. It's shocking what you can get away with by being differential. And so you're you're a a kid a terrorist kidnapper and supposedly have all the leverage or you're a business and

18:19supposedly have all the leverage. I still get to ask fair honest questions and how am I supposed to do that? How do I know the hostage is alive? Is a fair question. The other side's got ask says to themselves, "Ah, you know what? That's a legitimate question." And you asked me respectfully. I used to have a very talented designer. I'm going to send her this video. She used to when she wanted to take a holiday or vacation, she used to send me

18:49a no question. Would you oppose to me? And after a month like Mahmud, I criss-bose [laughter]

19:01to this prompting the other side to say no. Um, it was it was staring at me in the face for a really long time and I finally put the pieces together. It really started from Jim Camp's book in 2002 called Start with No. And I'm working kidnappings at the time and I'm always checking bookstores and airports cuz I've always loved to read. You know, I love ideas. Uh, usually I got like

19:23five books I'm reading at the same time. And I see the cover of this book in a bookstore. It says, "Start with no." And I remember thinking like, "Start with no? I thought you were supposed to get the yes." And so I go over and and I start leafing through the book and if I find one idea in a book um if I've leaf

19:39through it in the bookstore I'll buy it. I might not find if one idea and it's going to be worth the price of the book. And Camp believed that you just free people to say no. And he used to say you could tell me no at any point in time and I'll go away and people would be more agreeable. And he called that preserving their autonomy or their right to veto. He called it preserving their

20:04right to veto. And he said in his book, people will die to preserve their autonomy, which is true. Your autonomy is more important to you than survival. You'd rather die than be a slave. And in throughout the history of mankind, any people, any civilization anywhere has been put into slavery. They've all been willing, happy to risk death to get out of it. Now, the stories, biblical stories, you religious stories across the board are people risking death to get out of slavery. So, autonomy is more important than

20:43survival. Camp wrote that in his book. And so, one of my hostage negotiators inadvertently asked a boss who was really upset with her [gasps] a no oriented question cuz I'm telling her about this book. and she says, "Is this what I did?" And she asked uh her supervisor who was going to do something that was going to embarrass the office but put her in her place and bureaucratic administrator uh you know what we would call um insecure

21:16person. He didn't care. And she says to him, "Do you want the FBI to be embarrassed?" Now, that to me at the time seemed like such an obvious manipulation that this guy's gonna blow up. And he doesn't blow up. He just goes, "No." And now she's got the upper hand of the negotiation. And she ends up keeping everything that she wanted. And the stuff that he was threatening to take away from her, uh, he let her keep because she asked him the no oriented question. He just wanted to feel powerful. And I remember at the time thinking there was a lieutenant on the police department who I didn't think was

21:56a very good leader. And he told me one time, he says, "You know, Chris, the lieutenant's job is to say no." And I remember thinking like, what a horrible leader you are. What a horrible manager, but saying no makes you feel in control. And I thought, that's that's got [clears throat] to work across the board. And then I remembered Marty asking this guy, "Do you want the FBI to be embarrassed?" Saying no. And so we started to experiment with what happens when you get people to say no. And people love to say no. As stupid as it is if you just change your questions across the board. Doesn't doesn't matter

22:34what country, China, any everywhere in Asia, throughout the Middle East, Western Europe, South America, you pick the country. You get somebody to say no and if they're not rejecting you, if in point of fact the no is crafted so that they're opening themselves up to you like is this a ridiculous idea? Would it be ridiculous? Are you opposed? They love they feel good about saying no and they're not rejecting you. So they're moving forward with you. So it's one of the more powerful things that we teach people and you practice what you preach. my I've been conversing with your team for about like six months now and uh Sam

23:22shout out to Sam he like every time you want to change the date all the time like Mahhammmed would you oppose to change the team you have this sounds like a ridiculous idea I was like dude that's fantastic early in the conversation you mentioned you mentioned that uh negotiation is more about emotion uh what emotions people are most blind to in highstake conversations um uh Well, the fear of losing their autonomy is probably the the first thing. Um the auton autonomy autonomy affiliation, but autonomy is first. Um and then depending upon the circumstances, more people make decisions to avoid

24:04getting fired than getting promoted. [sighs and gasps] People are worried about losing their jobs. Um, there's a book out there, I think it's called Jolt, and the overall contention of it was in all negotiations, the your biggest adversaries, the status quo, cuz they're more likely to do nothing cuz people are fired faster for mistakes of commission than omission, which means you're more likely to get fired by doing something overtly wrong than by failing to make a decision. Now, if you fail to make a decision, ultimately they're going to show you the

24:44door, but not today. And so, people are really worried about getting fired secondarily. They're worried about losing their jobs and those those are probably the biggest things, wasting their time. U so mostly negative stuff because human beings are wired to be our default wiring is negative. Survival mode is negativity. The negative caveman survived. The optimistic caveman got eaten by the saber-tooth tiger. Oh, little kitty. I can pet it, you know. No, it's going to eat you. [laughter] If I can take three things from this conversation to make me a better negotiator tomorrow, either a founder, a product leader, or like a young and upcoming politician, what are the three

25:28things I can start doing to tomorrow to make me a better negotiator? Uh well the um the first thing you know be a little playful. Okay just a little not a lot. You're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind. Emotions are contagious for neurochemical reasons. And I you know I I make that distinction because

25:56psychology is a soft science. Neuroscience is much more of a hard science. If I smile at you, if you hear a smile in my voice, it'll trigger a chemical change in your brain that'll put you in a better mood. Now, you might fight it. And I do this on a regular basis when we're we train negotiations all the time. And I'll look at somebody's got a great big giant frown on their face that we're training

26:19and I'll smile at them. And you can see him fighting back the smile. And I'll say, "Look, I started it in your brain. Now, you're not smiling now because you're fighting it off, but emotions are contagious for neurochemical reasons. It's an involuntary response. So, if you're a little bit playful with somebody and you the accusations are playfully suffering humor, you say, "You know what? I you got to think I'm the biggest idiot you ever heard, you ever met." And you say it like that, people loosen up and you you're less of a threat. So, you know, if it if it's possible to try to be a

27:00little playful, self- aacing humor to start off with, it's a great way to start off with people. Then make sure they feel heard first. After you make them feel heard, go silent. Now, there's a really good chance that they're going to say something to step in your direction in the negotiation in that moment of silence. If you don't shut up, you've blown that moment. You've missed

27:32that opportunity. Let's say you make him feel heard and they haven't moved on position, not an inch. Extremely unlikely, but possible. In that silence, you now find out how firm they are. It's a diagnostic moment. So, if I make you feel heard to start off with and then I wait, your response is going to give me the diagnosis of

27:59where we are actually. Are your positions written in stone or are they are you flexible? In that moment of silence, I'm going to find out. And you once you mentioned how to weaponize your own name. [laughter] Our name is a precious commodity to us and it gets weaponized against us all the time. And some of the some of the smooth slick sale salespeople like I'll meet them and in the first minute

28:35they've used my name five times. [laughter] And I'm like, "All right, I can't trust you." Really? Yeah. I don't Anybody that starts hammering me with my name over and over and over again, they My guard is up immediately. I I read How to Win Friends and Influence People. I thought this is what you're supposed to do. No,

28:56not H. That's what people overdo it. Okay. Now, I if I if I what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to get you to give me your name. So, I'll say I'm Chris. Okay. Now, in a moment that follows is a diagnostic. Number one, I've just become more of a person to you. So, you're no matter what, and I've I' I've been on I've been this close to fights and bars several times. I was this close to a fight on an airplane not that long ago. And I looked at the guy and I said, "I'm sorry. I'm

29:29Chris." And he was like, "I don't want to meet you." And he turned around and walked away. Now he's getting ready to hit me. And when I introduce myself, he it's over. He turns around and walks away. I'm harder to hurt if I'm Chris. Now, in that moment, what's the chance you're going to give me your name

29:50voluntarily? I didn't pry it out of you. You gave it up voluntarily. And that's what I'm looking for. And now I can use your name because you you gave it to me in reciprocity. I have heard you several times talk about labeling. What does simply naming an emotion disarm people? Yeah, it's that's a great question because most people are afraid of it. Um this is one of the few things that there's neuroscience behind. They put people in um EEGs, EGs, I can't remember if that's the right terminology, but it's it's a device. just like a big helmet and it tracks your brain

30:29activity. And then they showed him pictures which were designed to induce negative thoughts. I don't know what the pictures were, you know, it could have been a puppy in a rain. I don't know. And they simply and they then they would watch the parts of the brain that are associated with negative emotions light up. And even though it it's a little bit different everybody's brain, it's

30:53roughly the same areas across the board. It's around the amydala, hippocampus. They they know roughly where it's gonna light up. And then they said simply said to people, "Name the emotion you're feeling. Label it." And every time the person simply named it or became aware of it, then the negative emotion diminished every single time. Now, the amount that it diminish changes

31:26varies situation to situation. That's where it's imprecise. So, somebody may have a negative emotion that I may need to label to make you more aware of. Sometimes I label it once and it goes away with one label. Other times I got to label it three, four times and then it'll go away. But the science is clear. Simply putting a name on a negative emotion diminishes that negative emotion every time. You can self-label or [snorts] I could say you look like you're upset or

32:05my son Brandon, brilliant negotiator. This guy was trying to make an example of him in an exercise one time which was ridiculous. But it was so clear that this guy was trying to put talk down to my son and put him down. Brandon says to him, "Clearly I've offended you." And instantly the guy changed his

32:27attitude. So calling it out diminishes it inoculates it. Negatives. Calling out a positive, it's like the opposite side of a magnet. Calling out a positive reinforces it. And that's what scares people. They think calling out a negative will reinforce it when in fact denying the negative reinforces it. If I say to you, look, I don't I don't want

32:50you to think I'm being disrespectful. You're going to be like, all right, this is going to be disrespectful. Aha, you denied it, and now you even matter. But if I were to say you instead, this is going to sound disrespectful. You'll be like, "Oh, that wasn't that bad." And self-labeling. Let's say if uh someone cut me off or someone rejected me, can I self label it and I will feel

33:14better or no? It doesn't work this way. No, it does. And I do that with myself on a regular basis. Any negative emotion is probably pretty close. Concern, worry, apprehension. The vast majority of those emotions are fear in disguise. Fear wearing a different mask. And I'm highly acute to that. And I got fears because I'm human. And what I'll do if I'm concerned about the future, I'll say to myself, and this is literally how it it it goes, the internal monologue. I'll be like, "I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared. Screw it. I'm not scared anymore." So, I self

33:51label on a regular basis. I've done that so much time today. Um, how can I negotiate with my team without manipulating them? Where where are you taking them? The difference between influence and manipulation is where you taking somebody. If I compliment you genuinely, and I mean it, that's influence. I'm trying to make you feel better as a

34:18human being. A lot of the con con artists compliment us to get us to change our mind. Oh, you you're you're great. You're absolutely great. Well, you're trying to get me to do something I don't want to do. or you're trying to get me to be on your side when I shouldn't be on your side.

34:37That's what we hate about sick offense. In point of fact, the sycopant is not trying to work with somebody the flatterer. They're trying to avoid working with people and they're going to get away by all this flattery and then not do their job. And everybody hates them because they hear this flattery all the time with nobody nobody walks the talk, if you will. And so the real the you know your original question is really the difference between

35:05manipulation and influence. And manipulation is I'm trying to get you to go someplace, get you to do something that if you knew I was taking you there, you wouldn't do it. When should I walk away even if the deal looks objectively good? Yeah. um how much friction and are you being hustled in the first place? So, there's a phrase, it's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to

35:36take a long time to not get the deal. There are indicators when you're being played. It's also a sin to take a long time to get a bad deal. And so if you've been combative, if you've been difficult, my friend Joe Polish has a acronym called half, which is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. If dealing with you has been hard,

36:04annoying, lame, and frustrating. If you make up excuses, if you're late, if you pretend that assurances you made previously that you never made at all. all the different things that are hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. That's the way you're always going to be. And somebody, we ran some dad in my company one time cuz when I became acutely aware of the half, hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. I told my sales team,

36:36"Don't make those deals." And my sales team at the time working for the negotiator, "You figure you got to make every deal." I go, "No, no, no, no. We're going to walk away sooner from people that are pain in the neck." And so before they did that, they started measuring how long it took to make the deal and then measuring how long it took to implement the deal. They made the deals anyway with the the halves, the

37:02hard annoying, lame, and frustrings. And this is the data that they gave back me back after after a year. They said, number one, it takes anywhere from two to five times as long to make and execute the deal. Two to five times as long. So, let's say it only takes twice as long. That means we just took a 50%

37:24cut in pay. Now, when is a 50% cut in pay possibly worth it? Maybe if they're going to be a 20-year customer. None of the halves repeated because they were so annoying that not only did we never want to do business with them again, they didn't want to do business with us. So, you take a 50% cut in pay for somebody that's not going to repeat. You

37:54can't make a living doing that. And so as soon as we stop making those deals, the halves, if you can picture a line of customers or a line of counterparts, they're people that want to do business with you in that line behind the halves. And as soon as you get the halves out of the way, the other people start to show up. Now, that's really hard for somebody just starting out. But any experienced business person that I've spoken to, if they got anywhere from three to 20 years of business experience, when you start talking about the halves costing them money and the clients that they should

38:35have fired, everybody goes, "Yeah, [sighs] that would have saved me so much money if I just would have fired those clients sooner." And so if they're hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating, don't make the deal. Chris, I mean, we only touched the tip of the iceberg here. Where can our audience if they want to know more about you about negotiation skills? I mean, split split the difference is one of the most popular book ever. And I implore you all to read the other book, empathy, understanding in business. But where

39:13else can we go? All right. So the best place uh our website is blackswanltd.com blanltd.com. Now we have got something we just started probably about 10 months ago. I don't think we've had it for a year now called the Black Swan Negotiation Community which you could join for free and you get a you get a practice for free with people who are also in the community. Now there are people that they're lawyers and they're practicing with each other. They're most of the people that we train and we coach now join the community anyway cuz they want

39:53to get in a lot of practice on the side. So if you don't have the money to pay for our training, join the community, start to practice. You're going to make money. You're going to put yourself in a position where you can afford the training. If you if you are in a position to afford the training, they're perishable skills. You want to get in there and practice. I got one of my favorite people in there, Michael Periente, who we given a global negotiator award to this year. We just started it this year for people doing phenomenal things in

40:26negotiations business. Michael is in there twice a week with lawyers practicing the skills and he made so much of a difference in his business. Before the pandemic, he was worried about having to close his law firm. [sighs and gasps] When I met him after the pandemic, he gave me a ride on a private jet to LA by using the skills. He went from being worried about going out of business to

40:53flying private. That's how much of a difference anybody can make in their life when they start to apply the skills. So if you can't afford to fly private now joining a community and in two or three years if you practice the skills you'll probably be giving me a ride on your private plane. Amazing. I'll include all this in the

41:13show notes. I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Chris. Macho pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. That was absolutely insane. Let me check the right really