How to Get What You Want All the Time with Former FBI Negotiator Chris Voss | Real Talk

[Music] are you a good negotiator former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss spent his career navigating life for death negotiations he says many of the skills he used while communicating with bank robbers and terrorists can even apply to your relationships with your kids your significant other and your career ready for better tools listen [Music] in hi Chris hi Rissa this is going to be a very interesting conversation I hope so hope I don't pull you to sleep I don't think so so you are a former hostage negotiator yes now turned bestselling author Y and business consultant and advisor I read your book it's fascinating thank you my team has been asking who they think would be a better negotiator you or me so we're gonna have to find out all right very good I'm betting on you so who could collabor at the best we can collaborate for sure yeah that's what great negotiation is collaboration I love it you know what's interesting to me is that you had a very specific career which you were very focused on it's a big career being a hostage negotiator for the FBI right and at one point in your life you reinvented yourself and started a new career in some ways how did you do that because I think there are a lot of people who have a first career and then struggle with figuring out what to do next and you you did this masterfully yeah well masterfully uh takes a long time I always wanted to go into business for myself my father was a so proprietor entrepreneur small town uh Iowa ran his own business and I always wanted that after I got out of the government so I always I always had my eye on that I always thought I took a very entrepreneurial approach to Everything I did when when I was a cop or when I was an FBI agent and actually one one of my uh buddies in New York who was on on the hostage negotiation team Charlie once said that being an FBI agent was the ultimate entrepreneur's job and that was that was my mindset I always wanted to be very entrepreneurial so whenever I got out it was always my intention to try my hand at starting my own business I ended up being a lot harder than I expected and being in the public sector versus the private sector you know they look at each other and they go like I can understand what's going on over there and they don't the private sector does not understand how to be successful in the public sector and vice versa people in the public sector do not understand how to be successful and a private sector probably has two aspects you know the corporate which is much more bureaucratic and the entrepreneurial and I wanted to learn how to be an entrepreneur and it's taken quite a while and I'm still trying to figure it out how did you figure out that some of the skills that you built as a hostage negotiator are so relevant to business that was the easy part because it's human interaction like when I first volunteered on a crisis hotline last century which I had to do to become a hostage negotiator it just struck me that the skills had to be applicable to personal life consequently subsequently business so I started using them I I remember thinking you know this thing called empathy why should it just be for somebody in crisis you know if you can accelerate somebody's decision making in crisis why can't you just use it in your personal life and your business interaction so I started using it in every aspect of my life and learning about how to adapt and adjust and and make a mistakes it applies to wherever humans make decisions period under no other restriction it doesn't matter the stakes that are involved it doesn't matter who's involved when when I first went through Harvard law schools negotiation course while I was still with the FBI you know the the people there that were very smart and right said you're doing the same thing we are the stakes are different but the Dynamics are the same so I think I discovered it as an idea way back when on the suicide Island H incredible talk about what tactical empathy is because that's the main Golden Nugget in in in your book right right yeah well it's the active application even a proactive application of empathy demonstration of understanding most definitions of empathy if I agree with the definition first of all it's not sympathy it's not compassion okay empathy is a very compassionate thing to do you know a friend of mine step Cotler wrote empathy is about the transmission of information compassion is the reaction to that transmission so it's a compassionate thing to do but it's not compassion so first of all if you just Define it as really understanding where the other side's coming from not where you wish they were coming from where they really are coming from and then articulating it most definitions of empathy don't require you to say it out loud you know seeing it from their perspective there's nothing in that definition that calls for you to articulate it and even Goldman's Daniel Goldman's definition of cognitive empathy which is really close to Tactical empathy he doesn't say anything about you expressing it out loud now the first time I really came across with outside of the FBI expressing it out loud um Bob manukan wrote a book called Beyond winning manukan was uh the head of the program on negotiation at Harvard it's one of the first people I interacted with up there he calls it the empathy Loop where you basically what you think the other person's perspective is you express it to them and then they either tell you you're right they say that's right or they adjust and then it becomes a Loop of feedback of understanding and I remember reading that saying like he's sees it the same way the FBI does because we needed to express it you know many people think empathy is if I see your perspective then that'll simply inform my argument I'll make a better argument I'll make a better pitch well there's an intervening step that you haven't checked to see if you're right and that's that's expressing it now why do I call it tactical where'd that come from some of it was to get people that didn't want to be empathic to use it like if they if empathy is soft if it's weak and it's not but if they're scared of it because they don't want to be soft they try to teach Navy Seals meditation or box breathing and the seals are like we're not doing that you know it's not tough so then they took the meditated breathing and they called it tactical breathing right and the seals go yeah we'll do that right it's the same thing right those of us who are running businesses don't want to do something that's not not weak I can't be weak I got to be tactical yeah and and then since I really coined the term before I knew much about Neuroscience but I've tried to learn as much as I can not being a scientist let's tactically apply empathy to the way Neuroscience tells us the brain works and buy and L large a Layman's definition is the brain is 75% negative number one right your default mode of being is survival and the caveman survived by being pessimist the optimistic caveman got eaten by the saber-tooth tiger the pessimist was like hey my buddy got eaten by that tiger yesterday I'm staying away from him our survival mode which is not success thinking survival thinking is negative and the neuroscientists pretty much back us up on that they don't like how I got there but they don't disagree with my conclusion all right then if your brain is 75% negative what do I do about it do I pitch the positive well that's an uphill battle the faster move is to deactivate the negative so then neuroscientist also tells us how to deactivate the negative by calling it out calling out the elephant in the room don't deny the elephant a room don't ignore the Elephant Room if I'm getting ready to say something that I know you're not going to like instead of me saying look I don't want this to sound disrespectful that's a denial of the elephant a room instead if I say it's going to sound disrespectful you'll listen and I will have deactivated that negative reaction so it's a 2 mm shift to Simply calling something out the Neuroscience backs that up so how do we apply Neuroscience to our communication that's what tactical empathy is about can you give me an example of where you use tactical empathy and you found it to be impactful sure first of small Stakes interaction uh I'm in Whole Foods the other day and I also like to leave people better than I found them I don't I don't want to leave friction behind me so I order up the salmon and the guy weighs it and packages it and gets it already ready and puts the uh the sticker on it and I see a different bunch of salmon that I want and I don't want the salmon that he just went through all this trouble of making for me so he's going to swap it out anyway but I don't want him thinking I'm a jerk I don't want him being more negative for the next person that's coming along plus I want him to do this as quickly as possible I would like to have an instantaneous compliance versus oh my God what am I going to do with this I'm a very time oriented person so I look at this guy and I go like look man I'm going to seem like a complete jerk I don't want that salmon anymore I want this salmon he goes oh okay and he just pops it out of the bag throws a bag away doesn't bat an eye quickly swaps me out and I'm on my way because I know that if he's just done what I've asked him to do and suddenly now I'm this bozo who wasn't paying attention and realized that a 12 Ines away was the salmon I really wanted he's going to be annoyed I'm going to leave him in a negative place and and at least he's going to delay swapping me out and the next person's going to have to pay for this so I've just made a negative deposit in the karma Bank instead I want to get swapped out as quickly as possible move on my way what's his reaction this guy's a jerk so what do I do I call it out in advance look I know I'm gonna seem like a complete jerk he doesn't bat an eye and he Swit SWAT me right out it works every time wow it like it works every time how did you learn that from hostage negotiation well I I learned it from the suicide hotline you know and and there's a bit of an Infamous phrase like if I need you to comply right now and I cannot waste time on your negative push back what I need to go is I need to go as deep as possible with a label for me so that you don't go there and I learned from labeling on a a suicide hotline you just call a negative out so I'm I'm getting ready I got to put a witness on the stand in less than 24 hours very high-profile case in New York City terrorism case Okay Witnesses for a variety of reasons have gotten kicked out of their hotel the southern district in New York whoever was handling you know they're handling witness accommodations like in the middle of the night these people are out on the street New York City in a uh New York City is's always a little dodgy and this is a very dangerous time of the year I mean these guys literally call me from a pay phone saying we got kicked out of our hotel we're going home right now and they're going to leave and this guy's not going to get on the St in the next day I'm like all right stay where you're at you know you're probably there's probably a corner grocery store where you're at go in there there is go in there you'll be safe I'm going to get a police car out to you NYPD I got some friends they call right away they scoop these guys up they take him to the precinct Precinct detective unit this is 1:00 in the morning this guy's supposed be on the stand 9:00 a.m. the following morning which means he ain't happy How would how would you feel getting kicked out of the hotel plus they're upstairs with the NYPD Precinct detectives which are a tough hardboiled group one of the hardest jobs in the world is to be a Precinct detective with the NYPD tough schedule they've seen everything they're not a fan of feds I'm walking into this ain't anybody happy with the FBI and they sure not happy with Chris Voss you know I walk in death Sergeant hey Chris V FBI he goes I know who you are they're upstairs waiting for you great this doesn't sound good I walk into the room they're sitting there with the precinct detectives I don't know what they're saying but they're not singing the Praises of the FBI now I do not have time to screw around with these people we got to get rolling and this guy has already told me he's not testifying so I got to get him to testify and I walk into the room It Go room goes dead silent they stare at me and I go Chris Voss is an okay and the witness who has already told me he's going home and he's not testifying goes all right so you're a good salesman I moved them to the next hotel they got about 45 minutes sleep the guy got on the stand happily the next morning and was a stalk are on the stand and I knew what they either were saying about me in their heads or they were getting ready to say so I went the whole way and it deactivated every single negative thought so I gotta ask have there have you had any experiences where it didn't go your way I can't imagine that it's you if I miss it it'll not go your way either if you miss Mark um if you try to pull your punches if you're genuinely applying empathy and the other side won't let it land and that happens what they're telling you is they're never going to collaborate and they're probably always intended to victimize you and so they put up an armor against empathy they don't want the empathy to land so it's not that it doesn't not work it might give me an answer I didn't expect and I got to read the answer you know empathy is a diagnostic empathy is a way to reason it's a way to think something through it's a way to have a hypothesis so if I lead with empathy and you won't let it land that actually tells me a lot about you and I need to know that information right so empathy is somewhat of information gathering and absolutely so you might gather an information that the negotiation may just not work work out but that's part of what you need to figure out so it's not that always goes your way it's just you you at least get the clarity yeah and and an example from the book one of the more famous phrases is a from the story at the very beginning of the book where the answer is how am I supposed to do that somebody asked you to do something really ridiculous you know my son Brandon calls this question forced empathy if I say how am I supposed to do that that's designed to make you look at me and assess my situation how am I supposed to to do that is really an implementation question I'm trying to get you to recognize that what you asked me to do the implementation is either difficult or impossible right and it works more than eight times out of 10 to immediately change the situation what happens when it doesn't work what does that tell you because it's so effective that if it doesn't work most of the people are used to it magically changing things instantaneously they say well I tried how am I supposed to do that and it didn't work the other person says that's your problem I said no it's not that it didn't work it just tells you that that person doesn't care about you at all you tried to get them to look at you and just assess your situation and see how hard it is and the other person doesn't care that's great information you need to know that the other person doesn't care about you at all right one of the business people that I know used it an interaction his counterpart said I don't care if you get fired over this deal I don't care what happens to you you either do it or I walk that person is telling you they're a horrible business partner that's great information to have you went from wondering if they're toxic to it's almost like a double-sided empathy right it's like because when I first read your book I think I understood that the idea is that we need to be empathetic and basically have tactical empathy towards the person that we're negotiating with but when you say to them well how do you expect me to do it you're actually trying to lead them to have empathy towards you as well is that right mut collaboration right has this worked in your personal life let's say with dating yeah uh absolutely the real issue is does the other person want to collaborate like we we want to collaborate with each other my definition of negotiation in business relationships are long-term relationships of trust okay so if that's the definition that you share then we shouldn't be afraid to negotiate with each other because we're trying to establish a better relationship we're trying to get to a better outcome collaboratively if you're negotiating with somebody you both face different aspects of the exact same problem no matter what that is if it's a dating interaction the problem we're both faced with is we're looking for a significant other that we're highly compa able with and that we match up our core values we both want the same things and that we're complimentary not the same right complimentary because if two people in any relationship are the same one of you is redundant so you should be complimentary do we fit together can we can we last together for the long term should we trust each other can we trust each other so in in a social relationship yeah you know I I want to find that out and I want to find out you know can I trust you can I rely upon you in a relationship I'm in right now with Wendy we trust each other we're on each other's side I got her back she's got my back now the communication tools can be used to manipulate also they're tools so like a scalpel a scalpel in one person's hand Saves a Life in another person's hand it's a murder weapon the tool is not guilty it's how the person's using it what the trying to accomplish so obviously in every relationship even somebody who's very very compatible with you you're going to have situations where you don't agree yeah even if you have the same values I'm sure they're okay well we're not I'm not in the mood for salmon tonight sorry right yeah how do you handle I mean you call your book never split the difference which to to The Listener it sounds like you're not willing to compromise uh compromise is a dir word I'm not willing to compromise so explain explain how do you never split the difference when you're in a romantic relationship or in any relationship with someone where you do land in a situation where you don't really agree well sometimes she might be right what happens if I'm completely wrong and she's completely right if I want her to be willing to accept the opposite you know if if fness is a two-way street most people don't think of it as a two-way street but the real definition of fairness is is it a two-way street the rules apply equally to both that's fairness most people don't see it that way most people say fair it's unfair when I'm at a disadvantage that's a one-way definition but if it's two-way I got to be willing to accept that she is either completely right or between the two of us would come up with a better idea never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better if you've got a different perspective than I do and you've reached a different outcome or a different conclusion there's a pretty good chance you know something I don't know H and if I knew that if you trusted me enough to let me know there's a really good chance I might change my mind and we'll either come to a better outcome or I'll see that you were completely right one of my favorite negotiations negotiation between a husband and a wife over Christmas tree what kind artificial real husband's in my class and the people that used to in the classes I used to teach you had to write up papers about your real life negotiations we didn't do simulations real life only okay don't try the skills in a pretend situation try it when you have something personally professionally at stake and then tell me how it went so husband wife husband wants the artificial tree wife wants a real tree husband's using the skills to try to get his way wife is not opening up and one of our skills is a label it seems like sounds like it looks like that's a label and he's trying to figure out why she's being so unreasonable because artificial trees practical yeah you know it's doesn't catch fire you buy it once the same thing every year it's predictable it's the you know the dog doesn't Mark it because the smell the cat probably doesn't clim but it doesn't smell good ah now we're getting to it but he doesn't he's not taking this into account so he finally says to her he's trying to figure out why she's crazy right whenever somebody disagrees with you of course they're crazy correct you're not the crazy one they are yes so he decides the label and he says sounds like like you had real trees grown up okay and then she opens up and she says yes and the smell of a real tree reminds me of how close we were as children with my brothers and sisters and I want our kids to have that same experience and I bought a real tree he was all in on a real tree once he heard her out and real realized that her reasoning was much more indepth and had much more significance and so never spit the difference is also what happens if the other person's right and you're wrong yeah it's like happy wife happy life yeah there's a lot to that but happy happy spouse period because if one person in a relationship is unhappy and compromise is about loss there's no other way to define it I give in you give in we both lose it's lose lose negotiations and in human dynamics Danny conoman Daniel Conan I keep calling him Danny although I admire him rever him we're not friends I wish we were Nobel Prize in behavioral economics 2002 prospect theory paraphrases lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain so when I give I feel like I gave double and I will feel a sense of loss until I inflict double the loss on you now I give five I'm not happy till I get 10 out of you what happens when I get 10 out of you you're not happy till you get 20 out of me compromise is a perfect formula for downward spiral instead collaborate together and find out how you can either reach a outcome or realize that the other person might have had a better idea than you did in the first place so much of this is about real proper communication right and and really trying to understand uh the person that you're working with but not necessarily working against right right so is it the same rules when it comes to males and females I mean do you think that women and men I guess compute these experiences somewhat differently men and women are nurtured differently I'm unclear on a brain science as to whether or not there are actual differences I've seen some things that might possibly indicate that there's slightly different differences I haven't seen enough to convince me that it's significant men and women are nurtured very differently and that's different than basic nature and women as a general rule globally are nurtured to be more emotionally aware sooner soft power because ultimately regardless of the um culture or geography women are physically weaker than men now they start out in life pretty much even you know little boys little girls pretty much the same physical abilities and women get started in puberty sooner so I remember when my son was in eighth grade all the girls were taller than all the boys but eventually the boys are going to be more physically powerful than the women and adult women know this globally and I think start schooling young girls on emotional intelligence at an earlier age so there is a different nurtured computation for a variety of reasons regardless of the culture just because of physical attributes that are inevitable usually men are are are nurtured to be more combative and women are nurtured to be more aware of the costs of being combative and even biologically is it possible that women have an edge given that generally women have a better sense of I mean I'm guessing do women have a better sense of how to develop tactical empathy because you know biologically where we're made to have children to rare children to have empathy towards our children is it possible that those just biological traits that we might have in us can be helpful in that way what we've seen consistently is women pick up tactical empathy faster than men do I've seen more than enough evidence to see they pick it up faster I haven't seen any evidence to show that they're better at it at the top end I'm I'm completely gender agnostic at the top end women and men are equally phenomenal negotiators once they've developed into it doesn't matter what the gender is I do know that women pick it up faster fascinating you know as I was reading through your book it I couldn't help but take myself back to my years of being an educator and and actually being in a classroom and running a school some of the things you talk about um you know labeling mirroring active listening those three things are things that I used to use when I was an actual teacher surprised uh it is so interesting to me and I think the listeners would find this very just how you define these terms how do you apply these terms um I I remember that when running a classroom one of the things when I would have a a child throw a tantrum and they would just they would just spiral out of control because of that they would have all of these emotions and they wouldn't know how to handle those emotions one of the first things that I would do is I would say you know Chris I think this thing that just happened got you really upset right and so I labeled it and and packaged it for the child and and so that really just helped loosen them up and feel like there's somebody who understands them and is able to package it for them so that they can then process it right am I interpreting it in the right way well good you're just talking about good communication and you're also talking about good communication when you said process it you're trying to help those kids think like you're not you're not trying to be in control you're trying to help them think so that they can cope with it better themselves you're increasing their coping mechanisms like if your only goal was to keep control of the classroom you'd handcuff them to their chairs and you put you know you put gags around them so they couldn't talk now however tempting that might be you developed the gun Instinct as an educator that your job was to help them learn how to cope which is a completely separate thing from trying to keep control of the classroom right consequently a great subsequent secondary benefit is you you've got far more calm in the classroom because they're learning how to cope with emotions and are learning how to think so and that was really your gut instinct approach when you were teaching you know you weren't there just to keep the classroom quiet you were there to help make them in the better people on their journey to becoming a human being and that and that's why there's so much overlap in what we're talking about can you explain mirroring can I explain mirroring mirroring I feel like mirroring is also tied into this right just the when it comes to behavior often times people just want to hear that they're being heard and it's something that I would use in in the classroom does that resonate with you at all well thank you for willingly participating with me in a demonstration of mirroring okay okay and getting totally lost to trying to explain no because I mirrored you and what you did was give me a great explanation of where you were coming from which is exactly what the mirror does a mirroring is just a repetition of what someone has just said usually the last one to three-ish words and you said could you explain miroring and I said can I explain miring and what you did delightfully was give me a great in depth response to what you were driving at and what mirroring does mirroring connects people's thoughts it's used as a superior replacement for what do you mean by that which is an opening a question starting with the word what which is superior to can you tell me more or tell me more which a lot of people use but those are actually a closed ined yes question or command tell me more about that that's not a question that's a command if we're talking through something I'm confused about something you said I'll mirror that because if I say what do you mean by that you're most likely gonna repeat exactly what you just said only louder like an American overseas like if I say it louder it's gonna make more sense but I'm gonna use the exact same words well a mirror tells somebody I heard your words I would love to hear more and go into much more depth and it helps people so if I'm confused about something in particular I'll get a better answer out of you with a mirror or if you're talking through an extended thought and if your voice Trails off at the end if I mirror what you just said you'll pick the thought back up and you'll add to it so the mirror is this a very innocuous very simple tool that is actually very elegant and it really really puts a lot of positive feeling into a conversation that otherwise could have gotten lost or you're using a term that I don't understand or an acronym if you used an acronym I didn't understand i' Mir the acronym and you'd say and You' tell me what what it meant and you wouldn't feel questioned you wouldn't feel interrogated it would have helped connect your thinking and help you give me a much more broad in-depth answer so the mirror is is it's not the body language mirror it's not me sitting like you're sitting or right you know doing like this when you do like this it's got nothing to do with body language it's just a repetition of selected words how do you do this how do you have the instinct to know exactly how to say it when to say it and I mean and your timing is very quick it's not that you're spending hours thinking about how to respond to my question how do you do that is it it's learned it's all learned you know it's it's practice it's wanting I love to learn I've always learn love to learn I've always loved to learn how to do something better and where I'm at now like me and everybody that is on my team like we can't learn enough right like we're so excited about how much phenomenal information there is out there to get better to communicate better to to have a better life and consequently have a more prosperous life right and so I've always liked to learn and I've always wanted to know how to do something better and then I they showed me the skills and I practiced it's it's practice it isn't anything more than practice it was one of my favorite movies Man on Fire Denzel Washington about kidnapping in Mexico he tells the little girl there's only trained and untrained she says I'm not a good swimmer he says now you're untrained there's only trained and untrained there's no good or bad there's trained or untrained and I'm I'm a very big believer in that so you're experienced and so you have Instinct and so your instinct your instinct is your supercomputer culminating your experiences and giving you a better answer everybody's got Instinct everybody it's do you feed it and do you listen to it do you think that our interaction with social media is going to hurt our instincts is it going to change our instincts I just think there's a new world that has emerged especially with young folks where the type of experiences that you know you had I had growing up with interacting with actual real people reading body language communicating with real humans and not avatars on social media is it going to be any different and are the tools that you have come up with applicable or are they being warped by this new world of of virtual what part of the bell curve are you talking about so in in the middle of the bell curve the biggest Bunch it's not helping them because they are being spoonfed what they're asking for you know I think Henry Ford said if I asked people what they wanted I'd got them a faster horse right you know there's something about giving people what they want if they don't know how are they GNA know to ask right and the lack of human communication is holding back the success of the people in the middle of the bell curve regardless of the generation what we found out recently Black Swan group in one of our top tier training we saw Millennials for the first time showing up because since they'd been denied how to be better communicators but they were top tier performers they had a hunger for it they wanted more and as soon as the top tier performers get exposed to it like they suck it up as fast as they possibly can there was this thirst for it uh this hole in their ability that they knew was there but they didn't know exactly what it was because on the schools universities and college campuses they're trying to cater to what they asked for you know let's let's do more emails let's do more texts let's do more zoom you know this generation this they don't want to communicate in person right it it's denied the top performers and they're aware that they're deficient and so as soon as they stumble over it they get good at it really fast because they can't get enough of it what about the issue of discernment so much of of your book and your tactics is about building the ability to discern even understanding what is misinformation or what you know what is the person saying to you versus what the person is actually trying to say to you right so we're now entering into a new era with artificial intelligence and we all know that with AI there's going to be this massive issue of discerning what is true and what's falsehood I like who knows you're going to watch something and and and not know whether the person speaking is actually the person speaking right are there any tools that you are aware of that you think could help people discern better well you're talking about critical thinking which is just comparative thinking you know comparing things does this not add up and it's actually always been the issue issue it's just been accelerated by technology like when I was a kid again last century you know they used to tell us read more than one newspaper because the newspaper is going to be biased yeah so the sources today are no less biased or when Wikipedia first came out and everybody in college wanted to write their papers based on what was in Wikipedia and the professors had to say like look that's not a bad starting point for research but it's highly flawed and it might not even be highly flawed it's sufficiently flawed okay so we're getting the same stuff that we got when there were only newspapers or when there was Wikipedia it's just coming at us faster which still requires critical thinking on your part still requires you to question your Source if in the 1950s you only read one newspaper you should have been questioning your Source comparing the New York Times with uh The Economist or whatever very different Source there was today it's coming at you faster if you're just taking your your Twitter feed your Instagram feed which in fact is curated towards your biases yes if you don't question your Source then you're going to be an idiot but if you do comparative sources you're gonna you're gonna see a video of a politician that you like and because they're feeding you what you want to hear you're not going to question it and you're going to buy in and that politician never said that or you're going to see a video of a politician you don't like and it's going to reinforce your dislike because it was curated for you but the media in general does that you got to take a look at what's being reported that they said versus what did they really say right and that's critical thinking and it's always been a problem for human has it always been a problem because look I'm somewhat of a new employer right I started running a business we have about 15 the employees we interview people all the time we interact with in the media and one of my frustrations is that I feel like discernment and critical thinking is something that's very very difficult to find anybody that works here at prageru knows that my motto here is we value people who work hard and think critically right because I've really developed a frustration as an employer uh with the fact that people are lazy about thinking critically or maybe they're not la about it but maybe they can't or maybe the educator in me is asking have we taught American Kids how to think critically and I know that you're an educator too in many ways right to Harvard Business School and and you give the seminars how do we teach critical thinking um I don't know that we've ever taught it well and the you know really hearing what somebody said um one one of the cases in a book Jeffrey Schilling kidnapping in Philippines not quite last century but it goes down uh it starts in August of 2000 and I'm just into the bureau so um Schilling gets himself kidnapped he actually walks into the camp of the abuaf the terrorist group he walked into the camp in a jungle to have an argument with him I often say that an American getting kidnapped overseas usually but not always is because they did something stupid so shocking that you walk into a terrorist camp and they don't let you go especially if you went there to argue with them okay so it was an unplanned kidnapping kidnapping nonetheless kidnapping of opportunity the leader of the terrorist group uh Shilling is there with his girlfriend uh he looks at Shilling says you're stand looks at the girlfriend says you go back to town she goes back to town and immediately reports to the media not my cousin is holding my boyfriend in the jungle the Abu saf is kidnapped an American so that's not accurate reporting media bites on it right away the bad guy saaya has got a very close relationship with many people in the media because terrorism is about media coverage sure so they call him on the phone because they got his number now he's still trying to figure out what to do with this guy Shilling there's been a recent kidnapping where uh bunch of Western Europeans were reportedly ransomed out at a million per and he says on the phone well if a Western European is worth a million an American has to be worth 10 times that the media Manila star Abu sath demands $10 million for Jeffrey Schilling now that is not what he said now if we got into that negotiation going on what was reported in the media I've already shown him that I'm not listening and I'm stupid so we took a look at what was in the paper and then we got back and we drilled into it and we started with what did he actually say now this is 20 years ago so that problem existed 20 years ago it probably existed 20 lack of critical thinking lack of listening probably existed 20 years before that and 20 years before that I think now media and social media is an accelerator we see it faster and sooner I don't know that it's new H is that part of some of the courses that that you teach the active listening is really how to in the course of communication can I go back over the conversation with you so that instead of it feeling redundant to you you actually feel better and more listened to where I'm actually just checking the information checking for understanding that's the educational term yeah yeah yeah I'm I'm engaged in a process of critical thinking I got to know what you really said based on the way the brain works if I only listened and never spoke I still wouldn't hear everything every time I speak I'm going to miss what you do just said every time I stop to think about what you just said if you're still talking I'm going to miss everything that you say in that moment so passive listening is highly inefficient proactive listening is is me Gathering more information from you without making you feel interrogated you actually like it in point of fact the more you feel listened to the more open to influence you are if I really want to influence you if I make you feel heard that will be when you were most open to being influenced after you felt hurt and if there's some point in time when I need to influence you I don't need you pushing back on it I need you inclined to it can I invite you to play a game with me I promise as long as it's not like slap your hands SL my hand make me look silly you can't take the educator out of me so I love I love I love playfulness I love playing games um okay there is so much to learn from you and from your book and I I developed a game as a way to learn from you so it's gonna be a little tricky because it's a word association basically so I picked a few words out of your book and this is going to be tough so I'm sorry I'm an how dare you sorry I'm an ass how dare you give you a really really tough game okay so the game's gonna go like this I'm going to read a word you need to respond with a word association you have about two sentences to just tell me what you think when you hear these words okay all right you ready to go okay let's do it fair uh the f word fair is in the eye of the beholder people usually only use it when they feel disadvantaged and they can't exactly tell you why is it a good word to use where Chris are you really being fair about this no that's a way to diminish our relationship Chris I want to be fair with you here that's a way to diminish our relationship so you don't actually love the word Fair the only way I like it is look anytime you think I'm I'm treating you unfairly I want you to stop me okay failure no such thing okay empathy understanding the word no safety and protection explain people feel safe and protected when they say no is it a bad thing to use the word no uh it's completely context driven I don't like to use no as a way to reject although I will if I've warned you that it's coming a friend of mine Ned kti used to be the GM for uh Los Angeles Dodgers Ned says I like to let out know a little at a time so if if you get caught off guard by the reject that's on me but if I've been warning you that there are problems and the warnings have gotten louder and louder and louder and you choose to ignore those warnings when I reject you that's on you because I've been warning you that it's coming so no in terms of rejection now how do we use no so it's not rejection I can say do you disagree I can say is this a bad idea I say it's now a bad time to talk no no no it's not a bad time it's never a bad time it's not rejection but I do know we know we know we know we don't have the we have the anecdotal experience I don't have the Neuroscience to back it up but I know that when you feel say no you feel safe because you protected yourself you're not sure what you defended yourself from but you know you defended yourself from being led into something I get talk to business people all the time and this seems ridiculous and it's true they say well the person we're talking to they're in no mode they say no no matter what we say I'm like awesome change your question uhuh what about when it comes to let's say children they want a second dessert um again how do you get your kids to think better as opposed to Simply rejecting because I said so okay you know they want a second dessert you're trying to teach your child it's been shown on a regular basis that the children children who learn um deferred reward and I know that's not the right terminology for it but the kids that can learn to wait for a reward to hesitate instead of immediately grabbing grabbing yeah instead of instant gratification they'll be more successful as adults so your child asking for an extra dessert is an opportunity for you to help them learn the Deferred reward how to how to resist instant gratification which is completely separate from whether or not you grant their wish so you got you got to get them thinking about it so instead of okay Mommy I want two desserts how about you have one now and maybe later or maybe tomorrow you'll have this other dessert that you want is that what you mean by deferred how does that help you or how how can you have dessert without eating what's good for you you know begin to change the sequence of what they're experiencing and it doesn't matter how they answer what matters is did you make them think now the more times you make them think things through properly eventually they'll start start coming up with the right answer deferred gratification I think that was the term I was looking for yeah instead of instantaneous so it doesn't matter how they answer right now because if you know how can I have let you eat dessert if you haven't eaten your vegetabl you know you're going to get a negative response the response is not the issue the issue is what kind of thinking did you make them do on the way to the response and the more that you teach them to think better they are going to find the right answer themselves uh how about the word defeat yeah it's like failure I mean um another person I admire a lot for a whole variety of reasons Molly Bloom likes to say you can't lose if you don't quit yes you can never defeat it if you don't quit correct so when did you quit don't quit right somebody asked me recently when do you know that you lost and my answer was when you accept defeat there you go right so it's a psychological decision de ision in your head M yeah uh how about the word winning uh an illusion what was it that famous poem If you can treat Victory and defeat and meet those two imposters the same fascinating how about the word then losing yeah same thing it's it's it's illusion it's what's your time frame you know what's what's a part of the Journey of like if I make a mistake and I've made some horrible mistakes I I still will continue to do so you know my belief is that if the Les the lesson I learned from that is going to be more valuable than whatever my loss was sure so it's my job to learn to accelerate my life sure uh it actually ties to my next word which is victim yeah um pathetic pathetic here's one of the very few issues I have with the way the social media is reinforcing us today and bringing out the worst in US it seems to be a race to see who could be the biggest victim yeah as a victim bingo I call yeah like victim Bingo and like and if one group has successfully patrs himself as the victim of the year then the some other group wants to be a bigger victim to following year they get addicted to the attention the group gets in the short term they pay no attention to there's no gain in the long term like hashme too when was that four five years ago it's by and large been obscured by everybody else want to be me too from their own perspective right consequently the any of the real victims from the me too movement and there were plenty of them have been forgotten yeah they've been also the word itself was robbed of its true meaning because right yeah yeah so and and nobody's successful as a result there's nothing about victimization or feeling like you were a victim that leads a path to success there is no success mode out there none that starts with you defining yourself as a victim not one and if you're really worried about having a better life let's reject the things that have shown no Avenue to success and being a victim there is no Avenue to success there powerful uh the word compromise uh lose loose lazy stupid lazy mostly lazy is compromise different from Middle Ground no you hate it yeah because again I know the mechanics and for us to reach a middle ground I've had to give and if I had to give as a human being I'm GNA feel double the loss and I'm G to resent it so the spirit of finding a better place the spirit of compromise is really about the spirit of finding a better place the spirit of finding a middle ground the spirit of it even a spirit of win-win which is a term I despise but the spirit is good now I'm a practical guy and I know what what actually happens on implementation what actually happens on implementation is a downward spiral of resentment and it's because I don't want to expend the energy to find a better answer yeah it's just meet in the middle and call it a day if that worked we would all admire the US Congress so but in your book you do talk about I guess you wouldn't call it middle ground but maybe one would call it win-win results which is when you're in a negotiation and you're realizing that actually there's a whole pile of new opportunity that you didn't even think about after you did the active listening you gave a few examples of how you suddenly realize that well they may not be able to pay you your full speaking fee but they're going to be able to bring bring you publicity that would give you more book sales for example right that I would label win-win right the spirit of win-win finding a better outcome right you know how do what are people really after right um and and that's again the spirit of winwin versus whether or not you're using words so in Practical terms because to me the the what's the practical application what shows up over and over and over again what shows up over and over and over again is the person who trying to exploit me will start talking win-win right away like I got all the anecdotal experience that I need to know that if you and I are sitting down and talk and you're like Chris I want to do a win-win deal with you right what you really want is for me to do something for nothing and you want to take me Hostage to the vision of the future where there are all these riches that are at my feet if I do this for nothing now all the riches that are going to be at my feet then require me to do all the work and you not to lift a finger and all the riches that are going to be at my feet have never actually been obtained before either I get this pcture all the time come to this room it's going to be full of billionaires there's going to be $50 million of buying power $50 billion do of buying power if you just come and expose yourself to this room I could totally relate that's why you should come for nothing right all right and so my question always then is so who in the past has addressed that room and monetized it for $50 billion and there's always crickets right so all right is the opportunity there has anybody ever successfully navigated the opportunity or how often did somebody successfully navigate let's talk about what this really looks like right and it just ain't there right that's you applying your critical thinking to the offer that they're asking you to do I think that someone could misinterpret never split the difference or the fact that you don't like the term middle ground with thinking oh well you know Chris Voss is just stubborn it's his way or the highway uh but actually it's the opposite of that because so much of your negotiation is about you know empathy listening and actually as you said sometimes you're willing to actually you know completely give up what you thought you even wanted because the greater sum is that ultimately a victory that is larger than what you thought you would getting in you were getting into that's best way to interpret it all right so the next word is truth uh uh elusive uh and the goal and often anyi the beholder and what's the perspective is there my truth in your truth or is there capital T truth no I I well capital T you know we got we got to look up and see if we can find it there but um you know you're going to you're going to be it's going to be true from your perspective I mean there was a metaphor a long time ago talking about the world's major religions and saying think of it as blind monks all the different parts of an elephant and elephant being God and each Monk Is describing what they're encountering with complete accuracy and they're all right and they're all different so what does that mean what's your perspective how much can you see from your perspective and how capable of you seeing it at all like you can be completely accurate and inadequate simultaneously we're gonna have to have a whole show just about the word truth move on uh gifts it's a huge thing in your book gifts yeah gifts like that's a little bit of the eye of the beholder also like some people are afraid of gifts because of the obligation some people love gifts and feel no obligation I mean gifts can be very effective they're a tool yeah and then how are they being used are they used because they're genuine are they used to exploit I prefer people that are generous somebody uh leads with generosity with me then I'm so taken by it appreciative of it so to you gifts are tied with trust a little bit yeah very much so yeah what what's being used for right to manipulate someone exactly yeah oh how about pride pride is current and past thinking okay these days in a black swor group we're really drawing a distinction over there's what's the time frame of the word frustrations about the future Pride's about the past okay Pride doesn't move you forward and it's only a realization that I've come through recently because people say to me a lot like you must be proud of what you did I'm like uh no no no because where's my life going I'm I'm a future thinking person present and forward Pride's present and behind Pride can cause you to rest on your laurels Pride can cause you to think you've done enough and pride can get you to stop you know you're not you're not going to go any further so for me for example like what I used to do with the FBI wasn't proud of it I felt it was a privilege and privilege is about the present and future so are do you look at something as a privilege an obligation a duty are you proud of what you've done or did what you do make you feel gratified satisfied you know each one of those emotions ties into a different place in the time continuum of our life and while I don't have a problem with pride it's really backward looking or you think it could be dangerous it it has its pitfalls you can you can stop because you're proud of your achievements and you want to retire you want to give up you going to give in gotta be it's it's an interesting the problematic aspects of Pride um are potentially slowing you down what about curiosity superpower I love it I completely agree uh the word why emotionally fraught typically makes people feel accused it's an accusatory word and it's like I get a big disagreement or a difference of opinion because we should find out people's why we just can't ask them why because if I ask you why you're going to feel accused you're G to be it's not going to land well why don't you like the word why because universally globally by by the way in that tone it does sound bad right yeah well like and we we we wide battered what do I globally what's that mean whatever culture you grew up in when you were two years old whatever your religion was whatever your ethnicity is when you're a little kid and you broke something the nearest adult next to you said why did you do that yeah and you you learned over and over and over it got drilled into your that when somebody ask you why you just made a mistake and even as an adult when someone does something that we disagree with the first thing we say is why'd you do that why do you want if if you're asking me for something that I don't think you should have or you don't deserve I'm G say why do you want that I'm gonna accuse you and we don't know that that everybody's why battered so even if I genuinely want to know why I'm even if I'm genuinely not accusing you you're already battered by the word so when I use it it's automat atically going to make you defensive and you do love the word how and if people want to know why they should read the rest of your book as I you elaborate on that um how about the word adversary that's in the eye of the beholder and it was one of the distinctions and I learned the problematic nature of the word really Jim Camp wrote a book in 2002 called start with no I learned a lot from Jim we were colleagues we were friends we collaborated both when I was in the FBI and afterwards and he you used to always refer to um who whoever you're negotiating with as the adversary because that was Jim's nature very sort of alha male very you know very assertive competitive the adversary is a situation so we've always tried to take the word adversary out of the uh conversation about your negotiation counterpart counterpart is the word you like counterpart yeah partner yeah you yeah most often counterpart wow it's amazing that you would call the person you're negotiating with a partner yeah that's pretty amazing that's pretty profound uh thank you thank you yeah and but it goes to if we're negotiating we're faced with different aspects of the same problem so to come to the best possible outcome we need to be partners again if uh dating negotiation or with different aspects of the same desire for companionship whether it be short-term or longterm if we're in a business negotiation if I'm buying and you're selling we're faced with different aspects of the same problem shelter food a future education housing different aspects of the same problem yeah okay final word fear ah fear the debilitator the worst the mind killer fear is a mind killer yeah I didn't think that up but and whoever said that they were dead on when they first brought it up fear is a mind killer yeah do what you fear right there's nothing so it doesn't kill your mind exactly right go after it and and you're typically going to find it wasn't as bad as you thought it was a spectre of it and it turned out to be nothing yeah what advice would you give to the Next Generation listening to this um stress failure you know being unsafe uh whether it debilitates you or strengthens you is going to be depend completely on how you interpret it what's the difference between ADV Venture and ordeal attitude and in one of huberman's podcasts recently he points this out where he says stress is bad if you think it's bad and if you think stress is good for you and it makes you stronger it's good for you and it makes you stronger so don't try to be safe try to grow and then it's going to change everything things happen for you not to you it's how you interpret it and if you could do that and don't expect to always be safe people around you should strive to make you safe just don't expect it and if you get stressed like all right what am I learning from this how's this going to make me smarter faster stronger if you're an athlete you got to stress your muscles to get stronger you can overstress them and that you know no I'm not in favor of that but and simultaneously there's something out there that nobody talks about would is post-traumatic stress growth if you desire to grow from whatever happens to you you're going to have an amazing life I love it resilience resilience exactly teach resilience to uh the Next Generation yeah amen amen thank you this was great we'll have to do we'll have to do another one where we talk about capital T truth I'm I'm there you got me you have me at hello all right great

Channel: PragerU

Views: 162,229

Keywords: ChrisVoss, Chris Voss, FBI Negotiator, art of negotiation, never compromise, agree, FBI, Criminals, crime, CIA, America, getting what you want, desire, want, need, argument, educational, secrets, real talk, PragerU, Wendy Starland, lady gaga

Id: fjXuVFliMag

Length: 66min 0sec (3960 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2023