Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
Tyson (00:00.196)
There we go, we are on, yeah, I was laughing actually. I just mentioned to Chris that I had watched your Ted X talk from a few years ago and I absolutely love going through the comments and just seeing what people responded to. And there was so much real positive talk around your book, around the talk, but my favourite comment was, I reckon this guy could talk my ex-wife into getting back with me.
Chris Voss (00:23.568)
Ha ha ha ha!
Tyson (00:24.966)
And I thought perhaps out of all the compliments you'd received in the YouTube comments, that one was my favorite. It had over thousand likes. And I thought it serves as maybe a nice foundation to kickstart the conversation from. So maybe as a way of introduction, I could let you just give a bit of a background on where you're from, what you did, and sort of what you're doing now as a result.
Chris Voss (00:49.712)
Yeah, sure. I'm happy to. Well, I'm Chris Voss. I was the FBI's former lead international kidnapping negotiator and I taught business negotiation at Harvard and Georgetown and USC. And I wrote a book called Never Split the Difference, Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It. It's pretty much been number one in the business negotiation category on Amazon since it came out in 2016. And
I founded a company called the Black Swan Group and we coach and train negotiations. I think besides just training it, we coach it. Of all the people you could go to, there's a lot of competition out there for negotiation training. My brothers and sisters at Harvard, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, you know, they're in competition with us for training, but they don't coach and we do. And so I think, I think we remain
cutting in.
Tyson (01:49.498)
That's what I liked about hearing you speak on the subject is often you hear about the background in the FBI and you think, okay, hostage negotiation. That's where negotiation takes place. And then very quickly I learned often standing in my own kitchen talking to my own wife that she's a far better negotiator and handler of difficult emotions in difficult conversations.
than what I am. So when I mentioned to her that I was coming in to speak to you, she goes, Hey, you be careful how many notes you take because I'm not convinced she's happy with me learning from the best, it is true. Isn't it? It's a, it's a subject really infiltrates every part of our life. And so many conversations that many of us are probably unaware that it's a skill that can be refined.
Chris Voss (02:16.698)
Ha ha ha. All right.
Chris Voss (02:34.254)
Yeah, it's a perishable skill. It's unlimited. Emotional intelligence is unlimited if you pay attention to it. You know, our capacity for emotional intelligence is, I don't know if there's a ceiling to it. And negotiations about emotional intelligence with people, negotiations about great collaboration, it's really about long-term trusted relationships are the most profitable. yeah, it pervades every aspect of our lives.
Tyson (03:04.164)
Yeah, you often think in conversations or at least I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking it's about the words you say and just being convincing and sharing the facts and trying to reveal that your side of the story is obviously true and right. And eventually when everyone comes around to see how right you are, you know, they'll be amazed and sorry, but often it's not the case at all that you're going in just with facts to share and statistics to share. It's that emotional intelligence aspect that
is a real standout feature. Like I've often heard that quote that a lot of the time it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And that so much of the communication is actually nonverbal. You're not speaking just with your words, you're speaking with body language and mannerisms and understandings. And can you talk to that a little bit? Cause the emotional intelligence is something that I'm really interested in when it comes to the impact of, you know, building rapport and, you know, for the sake of the conversation, negotiating.
Chris Voss (03:59.332)
Yeah, well, there were several really good things in what you just went over. Let's start with the facts. know, vice presidential debate a couple years ago, one of the candidates said, we're entitled to the facts, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And humans, we pick our own facts. know, all right, so that might be a fact, but it's not relevant. It's a red herring. I mean, I've heard people say that.
when a fact came up that they didn't like. So facts are elusive things. Irrelevant facts are like beauty. They're in the eye of the beholder. And you're really worried about the facts supporting your position when you're being very one-sided. We don't care about how the other side thinks about it. And empathy, tactical empathy is about like, look, I gotta know what your facts are. I gotta know how you think about them. I gotta know how you feel about them. And never split the difference is about being willing to take the other side's facts into account.
Like why you may need them to come your direction. You may need to go there for a better outcome. So facts are loose of things to start with. And we just discard the ones we don't like typically. So focusing on how the other side see things clears that noise away. You're not arguing over the facts where both people lose. Now, it's not what you say. It's how you say it. It's.
how you say it, and it can be what you say, depending upon are you arguing or explaining. If you're explaining, you're losing. But the tone of voice, Derek Gaunt, the top head of my coaching, top trainer, top coach, he's better at this stuff than I am. He ran a number of hostage negotiation teams, local police departments. And he'd say, give me somebody with a good tone of voice.
and it'll make up for the things that they say wrong. So tone hits us. The tone hits you in the deep recesses of your emotional brain, the reptile brain. And that makes all the difference in the world as to whether or your words get through.
Tyson (06:11.966)
I heard you speaking about that with Andrew Huberman where you referred to yourself or he referred to you as that late night DJ voice and I thought what a perfect description. It's a calming voice and I've noticed it's the first thing to go. Like if I'm in a difficult conversation or an emotional conversation, the speed that I speak picks up, the tone that I speak intensifies. I can feel myself getting stressed. You can feel that stress being reciprocated by whoever it is that you're speaking to but the idea of
Chris Voss (06:19.504)
All right.
Right.
Tyson (06:40.26)
Being able to slow down in a moment like that and control yourself with the intention of actually understanding what another person is trying to say. I find in those moments, the most difficult challenge because at the best of times you can go in and go, right, I'm going to seek to understand what this person's saying. And that's when you're fully calm. You're fully relaxed. And then you chuck a curve ball in and you're insulted. You disagree with, and you're still trying to see where they're coming from. It's very difficult. Like it's a
It seems like an emotional skill that you have to be able to navigate in yourself as much as a skill that you actually have to be able to express throughout that conversation.
Chris Voss (07:18.49)
Yeah, well, let's break that down into kind of two parts. one is seek to understand and the other is how do you keep yourself under control? Seeking to understand is inadequate. It's essential and it's inadequate. The real difference with tactical empathy is I'm trying to get you to a point where you feel I understand when you feel heard, when you feel understood. Now, me actually understanding is only half of that equation. I have to say.
what it is I think you feel, what I think you heard. And most people will say, understand them so you can tailor your argument. That's really what people think most. Seek to understand first, then be understood, which is understand where they're coming from so you can get your point across. And there's this chasm in between those two issues of...
Did you demonstrate understanding? How did you? It's not saying I understand. It's saying things like, I know you probably figure I'm here just to take your money. Or it seems like you think I might be wasting your time. Or it seems like I'm not paying attention to the things that you say. That's the gap in between. It makes all the difference in the world. Those are actually specific
skills that we teach, it seems like, is a verbal observation we call a label. It's about demonstrating understanding tentatively so that you could be corrected. So you don't have to be 100 % accurate. You're just trying to establish two-way communication by showing what I received first, by laying it back out. So demonstrating understanding is the next step after you understand.
And it's the interim step that makes all the difference in the war.
Tyson (09:16.986)
Just letting the person know that you're least attempting to hear where it is they're coming from or what they're trying to say.
Chris Voss (09:23.458)
Right, and they're not going to know if you don't say out loud what you think you heard because it's going to remain a mystery in their head. You need to check for accuracy. Bob Mnookin wrote this great book. Bob was the head of the program on negotiation. He was kind enough to appear in the documentary film about my company, Tactical Empathy. His book, Beyond Winning, second chapter, Detention Between Empathy and Assertive.
And he called it the empathy loop. It's still the best chapter on empathy I've ever read, better than anything that I wrote on empathy. And what it is is there's a loop. Listen, feed back what you think you heard. Let them correct you. Listen, feed it back. Do a loop until you get it right. How do know you got it right? The other side says, that's right. Not your right.
That's right, those two things are 180 degree difference in meaning.
Tyson (10:27.066)
thing I've learned through doing this podcast and just in so many conversations is a lot of the time when I'm trying to formulate my own ideas, my own beliefs, as I'm sharing them in the early phases, even what I believe is not being expressed correctly. And so it's a strange kind of dynamic when you're trying to seek empathy of someone else to understand your ideas when a lot of the time what it is that you're saying is not yet formulated or even fully your own idea.
I'm not sure how much that comes into it or whether that's something that is, is, is played with a little bit, but often, when I'm speaking, I'll get frustrated because I'm like, no, what I'm trying to say, I don't think it's coming out the way that I mean it. I don't think I actually am saying what I really believe. I haven't found the words that it's a mile deep. The conversation, a little background. I'm a standup comedian here in Australia. And what often blows my mind is you can take the same set.
which went incredibly well one night to a different room the next night and you can bomb. And I don't know, I go, what is that? And last night I was talking to some people about this at a gig and you go, like you're bringing different energies to different gigs. There's a different energy in the room of certain gigs. There's political leanings in certain directions at other gigs. Maybe the way you emphasised a word or de-emphasised a word or maybe you were tired.
There's so many factors that come into doing that skill well. And when I hear you speak, I go, it's a very similar thing. There's, there's 25 things that might change, which make an impact on the overall outcome of a conversation. And what I just mentioned to you about formulating a belief or an idea is one that stands out to me in myself. So what do you do or what do you say to a person who feels like they're misunderstood because they can't even
formulate their words in the way they're trying to.
Chris Voss (12:26.138)
Well, that's one of the beauties of tactical empathy, the black swan skills. Like my feedback to you is going to help you in your thinking. And it's designed to be collaborative. And it's a form of analysis. Like I may say to you, seems like this made you angry. And your response seems like actually triggers your thinking. It helps you think.
So you could very well say, well, you know, I'm not really angry, more frustrated. Now, those are clues because anger, there's a timeline issue with emotions. Anger's about something in the past, frustration is about something in the future. If I feed back to you anger and you correct me with frustration, first of all, I love getting corrected because now we're collaborating. You're mentoring me, you're helping me. We're no longer adversaries.
But now I can start to pinpoint where your issues are. Anger, you were wrong, you were hurt. Somebody hurt you in some way, but it happened in the past. Frustrations, someone's action or inaction is denying you from something you want in the future. So as you begin to understand what the different emotions are, and I'm feeding it back to you, it helps you clarify your reasoning and helps us focus down on thought. And a classic example, no, I'm not really angry, I'm frustrated.
Now you're just giving me a lot of information. You didn't even know it. This gets back to your original point. You're still forming it in your brain. You got all this information in your limbic system on your hard drive and you're trying to get it into the prefrontal cortex to get it sorted out. So I'll use my skills, tactical empathy, to help you think your way into where you're feeling.
Tyson (14:21.286)
Hmm. And so outside of the tactics, or I guess this would be under the tactics as well. Like when you're in a situation where there was stress and like a high impact discussion that needed to be had, like it's a highly emotional conversation outside of knowing the right questions to ask in yourself. What are you focused on? Like, is it a breathing thing? Is it a psychology thing? Is it a conversation of both? Where are you directing that energy to maintain your own composure?
to express what you want and what you're trying to negotiate clearly with whoever you're talking to.
Chris Voss (14:55.994)
Yeah, well maintaining your own composure, there's kind of about three ways to do that. And some of it is preparation. If I'm planning on being curious, the curiosity is a superpower. Curiosity gives you resilience and ability to process information and take in more information at a much higher rate of speed. Derek Gawne, again, head of coaching on my company.
He's constantly after us to stay curious. Why? Curiosity is a highly positive frame of mind. If you're genuinely curious, you can't be curious and angry at the same time. Just can't happen. You block out the anger. If you're genuinely curious. Now, know, some people will... Some people are so attached to their anger that they'll say, yeah, I'm just curious as to why you're so stupid. you know, that's refusing to let go of your anger.
Tyson (15:49.847)
you
Chris Voss (15:53.984)
And you're not thinking as well as you could. So one of the ways to protect yourself is to force yourself to remain curious. Another way is you mentioned that late night FM DJ voice. I will use it to calm myself down. If we're getting heated and you and I both feel our voice triggering one another, which by the way is a neurochemical reaction.
If I switch to the late night FM DJ voice to calm you down, I also switch to it to calm me down. I know that going into my own brain and doing an intentional override to make myself speak calmly and smoothly calms me down. Also, doing the internal override calms me down, hearing my voice being executed.
calms me down. And then how do we get into it in the first place? The crazy thing is we rehearse doing it wrong. What the hell am I talking about?
When you imagine a conversation you had in the past where you lost your cool and you go back over it as it happened, that's rehearsing doing it wrong. Or if you go back over and think, this is what I wish I would have said to that idiot, you know, and get those words that just taste so good and they come out of your mouth. That's rehearsing and doing it wrong. One of the things I love about the way Elon Musk is pushing the world forward.
He's doing an interview on Lex Friedman the other day. Musk is on and his Neuralink folks are on. And they bring out an interesting truism. The part of your brain that imagines doing something is the same part of the brain that's engaged when you do it. That's why they got this guy hooked up to the Neuralink sensors. I think he's a quadriplegic. They just did a bunch of.
Chris Voss (17:59.408)
I this spectacular human being's name, I want to say it's Lloyd, I'm not sure if that's correct. But they got the devices hooked up to them and they got them imagining doing stuff and then the electrical devices pick it up. So operationally, Musk and the Neuralink people are great sources of neuroscience data in application.
So again, what was this rambling dissertation is about? Imagine that conversation have made you angry. Go back and reimagine yourself being calm instead of biting, getting the last word, get in a soothing word, getting some empathy, which is not agreement or disagreement. It's just stating out loud what the other side feels like in a calm voice. And that's the equivalent of having
done one repetition correct.
Tyson (18:59.664)
I like that word repetition. So it almost is a skillset like a gym skillset or a fitness skillset that with repetition, with practice, with reminding, it can be really developed and strengthened. You might be a bit fat and out of shape at the moment, but 12 months of consistency here, can be really well refined.
Chris Voss (19:19.076)
Yeah, you can, and let's say you're out of condition mentally. If you've gone back into the gym, you frequently notice your biggest gains are in the first month. So all you gotta do is get started. And you will immediately see results if you stick to the protocol.
Tyson (19:38.118)
It's often just identifying the fact that there's a weakness because I'm sure like anything, certain temperaments come into this and they're naturally a little better equipped to be effective at it. And you can come in and you can see that in practice. But a lot of the time for someone, I wouldn't say that I've got a background in demonstrating any incredible negotiation skills or even handling my emotions while in difficult conversations. wish my, actually I'm probably lucky that my wife's not here to confirm that that is true.
But in saying that, like when you can write it down and identify it as a skillset that could be used, it's something that makes it easier to focus on. And it's not limited to a particular skill group or a particular workforce or people group. Like every conversation is one that can benefit from a more effective handling of negotiating or just handling your own emotions better throughout that chat.
Chris Voss (20:29.412)
There isn't a single conversation you're in and making the other side feel heard is not going to make you better off. Not one.
Tyson (20:35.77)
Yeah. How did you find yourself in this field? It seems from the outside that it's a very unique field. I was surprised at the start of the conversation when you said there was a lot of coaching available on the subject of negotiation. Again, this comes back to my own stereotypes and guesses about what's actually going on. But I think of it often as like a field where real estate agents might really benefit or people in sales might really benefit.
But like when you put finances aside, to keep going back to what I keep saying, it's probably a really narrow view of what it is that's actually being taught.
Chris Voss (21:11.13)
Yeah. All right. So let's start with the coaching.
I don't know any other company teaching negotiation that's coaching it to the level we are. They don't coach you at Harvard, they don't coach you at Wharton, they don't coach you Yale. You know, they teach you, expect you to go out and do it.
First of all, if you're interested in coaching, you don't have a big budget. My company has something called, and I haven't had a shirt on now, the Black Swan Network, it's on fireside, it's social media application. It's probably our cheapest coaching package out there, it's live coaching, live group coaching. We're on once a week for an hour at a time, I'm on once a month. But we have weekly coaching from my coaches and trainers, because you gotta get coaching. And if it's...
playing tennis, it's playing golf, it's playing football, whichever version of football, however you define it. But you need coaching if you're be the best you could possibly be. My favorite example, that Tiger Woods, when he was winning every tournament he entered, he had a swing coach. He spent a lot of time on a practice tease and refining and letting somebody else watch his game and help him smooth out the rough spots that he was blind to.
So coaching can be a very big advantage. And if you want to get coached on one-on-one on my company, you get that. But you have to have enough at stake for it to be worthwhile because we are expensive. The fireside thing we found is this great interim product. It's a subscription. It's not expensive. And you get the live coaching that you need so that you can be better. You can make those gains in your life.
Tyson (22:58.97)
Yeah, it's very interesting. Like if you boil down the average person who comes to you for one-on-one coaching, like are they a CEO? Are they from the corporate world? Are they, like is there a particular theme that stands out to you from the people who feel like they need the coaching the most?
Chris Voss (23:15.908)
Yeah, it's very similar to the prototype of the client for master class. Now, I got a negotiation course on master class. It's master class's number one course. And it's static. You know, the course doesn't change. When you're teaching yourself, before you go to live training, the combination of the master class and the book never split the difference. It's a great combination. It's very economical. Fireside's ridiculous.
or masterclass is ridiculously cheap. So why did I bring that up in the first place? Your question is a profile of a person who comes to us. It's somebody who's ambitious. Now there's a difference between being ambitious and competitive. A big difference. And the ambitious person is by definition innovative. You know, they like to find new ways of doing stuff. They have a ball.
They tend to be really happy because life is this great adventure to be discovered. And if you're familiar with American football, the best example that I could think of, know, Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, he's ambitious. Like he has the best time playing a game. He throws sidearm. He threw a pass the other day.
in one of the games that was behind the back. Never been seen before in the NFL. Like he's doing crazy stuff. Because he's not having a ball and he's very innovative. That's ambitious. Now, flip side, Kirk Cousins, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. Kirk's very competitive. He doesn't throw behind the back. He doesn't throw sidearm. He tries to perfect his motion. Very hard working guy. Does really well.
He's got most of the teams he plays for. he's your quarterback, you're probably gonna get into the playoffs. You're gonna win a lot of games being competitive. They're in a championship ring on his finger. Mahomes, how many has he got? He's got like four. And so that's kind of the difference. And so the people that come to us are more ambitious, they're creative, they're innovative. Most-least, if they come to us one-on-one coaching.
Chris Voss (25:37.744)
They're probably successful entrepreneurial CEOs. And they've got to the point where they know there's something missing. And it tends to be the switch from being competitive to collaborative. Because the competitive cutthroat negotiator makes a good living. But the collaborative negotiators make way more. And they struggle with it for a while and they're looking for this answer. And because they're innovative,
They like new, interesting answers. know, Kirk Cousins is never gonna figure out another way to throw the football. He's gonna want to perfect the motion. And perfection, unfortunately, since it's impossible, is a recipe for pretty much always being disappointed and unhappy. Where if you're ambitious, life is a richer, fuller, more enjoyable experience.
Tyson (26:38.16)
For sure. When I think of the attributes you just described, I I read Donald Trump's book, Art of the Deal, a couple of years ago, and it really stood out to me as a book that, I mean, love him or hate him. It's hard to argue with the fact that he's brilliant at what he does and has been for a long time. He was kind of loved for a long time by a lot of people until he dipped his toes in the world of politics. And I say that more as a little bit of a...
Not bait, but just curiosity to find out if there's someone that stands out to you as very good naturally, or having worked at it for years in the public world. Who do people look at and go, okay, well, this is someone very effective at what it is that we're teaching. I guess it's different depending on what the outcome desire is. I use him more as a business example then.
But yeah, in sporting fields, the business world, in politics, I'm sure there's people who stand out as quite good at this particular skill set.
Chris Voss (27:40.816)
Yeah, well, let's see. Trump is a poster child for the assertive negotiator. I mean, they want to beat you. They want to club you to death. They want to win. It's highly celebratory. And people tend to get tired of that and they don't want to deal with them anymore. So the great deals are fewer and fewer in between. I mean, who wants to negotiate with someone who wants to destroy you?
Tyson (28:01.072)
you.
Chris Voss (28:10.256)
because the real money is in a repeat business. Like I like Mark Cuban a lot. And on Shark Tank, I like all the sharks kind of across the board. They're highly collaborative in each in their own way, but they make deals with people. I happen to think one of the world's greatest negotiations actually Oprah Winfrey. I mean, would you take Oprah money? I would. And
Tyson (28:13.624)
Yeah.
Chris Voss (28:39.088)
A great comparison. I'm sure Donald Trump is worth a lot of money. I promise you Oprah's worth more. Now, how did Donald Trump get started? You know, he had a father who was very successful in real estate development in New York City, and his dad gave him a great head start. Gave him lot of connections, gave him a name, gave him some good funding, gave him a great launching pad, gave him an education award. Like, got as much of a head start as you could possibly ask.
Oprah, black female from a disadvantaged neighborhood in Chicago. Who's gotten farther?
You know, if Oprah wanted to run for president, she probably could. She probably, my guess is the job is such a pain in the neck, she's too smart to want that job.
Tyson (29:26.88)
Hey.
Tyson (29:30.498)
It's a good point. Yeah. So I think when I asked that question, I was coming at it. In my mind, that's what a negotiator is. I probably just realised that then when you pointed it out, like a negotiator for me, for too long has been someone who can walk away just sealing the deal. But that idea of repeat business is something that I heard you speak about. The idea that a lot of the time you're not going to be dealing with the same terrorists or same person that you're trying to negotiate with once or
If it wasn't new, perhaps someone in your team's negotiated with them before. And if you've lost their trust or you've just dominated the conversation or they know really you're in it for yourself, their idea of actually partnering up or collaborating with you to get any desired outcomes probably gonna be inhibited.
Chris Voss (30:17.264)
Yeah, you know, I mean, if you're rough on people and you ever need them, like you're in a horrible position. TV show I've been watching, Silicon Valley, think about, you the rise of, it's basically a comedy TV series that was first out, you know, probably about, I don't know, seven, eight, nine years ago. Watching the episodes again, these guys, they're looking for funding for their company at one point in time.
when they got all the advantages. They're the hottest new algorithm in Silicon Valley. And they are the thing that everybody wants. And so every VC they go into, every venture capitalist, they're just air. They're just jerks. They catch on that everybody loves them. And while they're jerks with everybody, the offers get higher and higher and higher. And finally, one of the last
times they sit down to negotiate, you know, term sheet, they're literally doing obscene things to insult the other side. They're in such a position of power. Following week, they get a lawsuit, their credibility is in question. Now suddenly they don't have the influence that they wanted before. All the offers are taken away. They're going back to renegotiate. They need these people now.
the people that they insulted who are still in their environment, haven't gone away, they're gonna be there when you're no longer the god of thunder. And the people on the other side of the table are like, are you kidding me? Do you remember how you treated us before? And now that you need us, you think we're gonna give you the time of day?
The only reason we took this meeting with you as a follow-up was just to tell you what a big jerk you were last time and tell you to half-all off. Like you were not king of the mountain for lifetime. And everybody who you insulted when you had all the power is just laying and waiting to hurt you the minute you stumble. And kind of unfortunately, in business,
Tyson (32:14.85)
Hahaha
Chris Voss (32:35.492)
That's kind of Mr. Trump's history. You know, there's a reason he hasn't actually built a building in New York City in 30 years. Can't get zoning variances. Every community group in every part of the city have listed him as adversary number one. And one of his favorite stories, he's opening a golf course, that's somewhere in California.
Got the golf course purchased. Can't get the zone he wants to do the reconstruction on a golf course. And it's not a big community. So finally he just rolls his trucks in. They just roll all the construction trucks in and they do all the renovation on the golf course. And they kind of say, you know, to heck with you. Make us fix it. I got more lawyers than you have. I'm going to crush you in court just because I could spend more money.
What do you think is going to happen to the next community that he's trying to buy into when he needs their cooperation just to get his foot in the door, just to get inside? They're going to look at what he did to this last community and they're going to be like, you know, we misplace your paperwork. Do you mind filing it again? It got lost. And that's what kind of happens to the negotiator who wants to crush all their counterparts.
Tyson (33:54.886)
you
Chris Voss (34:05.38)
Pretty soon, will deal with
Tyson (34:07.576)
Yeah, seems like a bold move for a man like Trump to make in California as well. I heard he's not overly popular in that state.
Chris Voss (34:14.789)
Well, and you know, mean, for some for a variety of reasons, there are many things about him I admire. And sticking to his principles and not caring about popularity is a strength of character to stick with no matter who you are. yeah, you shouldn't prevail in public opinion.
It's not a good idea to allow that to deter you from your values. I admire people who stick to their values. He sticks to his.
Tyson (34:48.56)
For sure, for sure. I listened to an interview of him actually on Lex Friedman a few weeks ago and he asked him that exact question. said, do you maintain your optimism and your sense of hope and desire to keep fighting when there's clearly so many people who dislike you? I think this was post assassination attempt one. And it was funny, it just seemed to slide off his back. was like he'd never, I mean, it sounded like he'd thought about it. He's like, yeah, you know, but a lot of people love me too.
You know, that's the people I fight for. Even the ones that don't love me, I fight for them. And get mad, like, what if, if I was, I get a negative comment on a YouTube video and I go to my wife and go, babe, like, is everything gonna be okay? And you hear this guy's got millions of guys coming at him going, you know what, we don't like anything about you. We're gonna try and kill you. And he wakes up and go, you know what, it'll be fine. It'll work itself out. I go, what an admirable skillset that would be to have, or at least desired skillset for a lot of people. Because I think,
The flip side of that seems to be true for many of us. We probably overthink the negative thoughts that people have about us when so much of their thought space is probably not directed at us at all.
Chris Voss (35:57.274)
Yeah, well, we have an outsized because of our limbic system, our brain overreacts to negativity and conquering that internally is a skill that everybody is better off if they manage because you're always going to have detractors. It doesn't matter who you are. Not that Teresa had people that didn't like her. you know, letting the minority, the vocal minority and the naysayers stop you from doing what you believe is
is correct. Like if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I send out E-greetings, which is greetings to people, Muslims who follow the religion of Islam, is often, often at the beginning and end of the holidays, Ramadan, I send greetings to my Muslim brothers and sisters, and I mean that when I say it, concept.
And I recently sent out a Jewish New Year greeting because they do the same for the world's major religions. I respect the religions. I got a massive amount of criticism from the people that were used to me sending out just the greetings to my Muslim brothers and sisters, like, you know, particularly in world politics. How dare you? How despicable is this? And I said, you know, all right. I didn't I didn't respond to explain anything.
I know that whatever position I take publicly, there's going to be some people that disregard everything else I say and got bent out of shape over this. And that's just, that's part of it. That you're going to have naysayers. Another friend of mine, Eric Barker, writes a blog called Barking Up The Wrong Tree. And he's got two very successful books. One of them is called Barking Up The Wrong Tree, which I recommend.
And Eric told me a long time ago that for every detractor, you're gonna have 10 fans. So I'm like, cool. For every negative comment, there's at least 10 people that love what I'm putting out. I'll take that ratio all day long.
Tyson (38:12.45)
That's actually pretty true. I would feel that In the world of YouTube like if you look at the likes versus dislikes that ratio does seem to commonly stand out the positive the positive Affirmation is a far in favor for the most part on most videos than then the negative What were we saying we're talking about the negative well the fear of that negativity that people have
When it comes to negotiation, I was particularly interested in you with this one with some of the difficult ones that you had had over the course of your career. I can imagine you can get into a negotiation and you'll start to question your ability to effectively handle that conversation, like from a skillset or confidence perspective. And I could see this would be true for a lot of people who are perhaps not practiced, not equipped, pretty new to this whole idea. They'll get into it and they go, what am I doing?
I'm not smart enough, I'm not confident enough. I don't really know how to move my way through this conversation. When it comes to dealing with the confidence side of it in your skillset to be able to do it, is that something you coach on? I'm sure that's under the psychology umbrella.
Chris Voss (39:27.652)
Yeah, absolutely. And we realize that it's just practice. And know, kind of the crazy thing is like you don't even have to get it completely right. Like one of my negotiation coaches, Joanne, a Chinese female from China. She's ethnic Chinese. She negotiates these skills in China with Chinese counterparts constantly. We were just in Dubai doing a training.
Her English comprehension is probably about 70%, which means the technical perfect application of the skills in English are somewhat hampered by her comprehension. She's still got an upgrade in her hotel room. Like one of our practice negotiations, we've got practice negotiations everywhere. You know, looking for the hotel upgrade, every hotel we check into.
Now there's two issues whether or not you can get the hotel upgrade. Number one, inventory. Do they have it? Like if I'm gonna be there for four nights and they got one suite available, they're not giving it to me because they don't have the inventory to support it. I'm gonna be there for multiple nights. Somebody's probably gonna walk in the door. They don't wanna give me the free suite. And when they could have sold it, it's an inventory issue.
Now if I'm gonna be there one night and they got three suites available, that's a whole different ballpark. Now the inventory's there, but do they feel like it? And so Joan rolls in, Joanne, sorry, Joanne rolls in and with a 70 % comprehension level of English, still gets the suite upgrade.
Tyson (41:16.548)
Ha ha ha.
Chris Voss (41:18.98)
So how do you get the confidence to do that? I mean, you try it. You get enough faith from the Black Swan Group that it's at least worth trying as prescribed. Now Joanne first, how we found her is she first online was taking some Harvard Business School negotiation courses online. And then she came across our stuff and started studying the Black Swan Method.
Tyson (41:24.026)
Yeah.
Chris Voss (41:48.6)
And then she pulled together enough money to come to one of our live in-person training events in Los Angeles and studied with us in person and then started telling us about how she was applying the skills regularly as a female in a man's world, if you will. And then it's really entertaining with her thick Chinese accent to talk about her using the late night FM DJ voice.
Tyson (42:18.19)
Hahaha!
Chris Voss (42:18.288)
in the Middle East with an Arab male and getting the upper hand. And how did she get to that point where she's confident enough to do that? She decided to train, do the training. She put in the time. It's not, don't plug yourself into a wall. You know, what was it? The Matrix where, you know, they just put that software program in Neo's head and downloaded it to him and he was like, ooh, I don't come true.
I could fly a helicopter. I wish it was that easy. But the decision is that easy. The decision to learn is that easy. And then forgive yourself for making mistakes. And you've got to be perfect because Joanne still got that upgrade in her English about 70%.
Tyson (42:48.292)
Yeah.
Tyson (43:07.952)
Yeah, that's amazing. I used to have a running coach and he would say to me before a race, he goes, you don't need to feel confident. You just need to have confidence in your competence. The fact you've done it before is a sign that you can do it again. That sounds as though it'd be quite similar with what you just saying with Joanne and the students you teach. And I always found that very helpful because I noticed this, whether it's a running race or before I get on stage, there doesn't always seem to be a correlation between the amount of confidence I feel and the level that I perform at. But having confidence in
the fact I know the skills and what to apply at what stage is in fact a really helpful skill to have.
Chris Voss (43:44.932)
Yeah, yeah. And how do you get there? You practice in a small and no stakes practice situations, the little stuff.
Tyson (43:53.336)
Yeah, in comedy we call that, you get used to bombing. You bomb your way to the top essentially. You go out there, you try a new joke, you refine it, you improve it. You dust off the emotional and ego bruising that you copped from no one laughing at you. And then you go back and you try and improve tomorrow. That's one thing I find so interesting about top level comedians is, yeah, the fact that they've all sort of bombed their way to the top.
I wanted to go back actually while I'm just speaking.
Chris Voss (44:23.212)
And you know what? They all still practice too. know, Chris Rock is finding himself in some tiny comedy club hidden away in New Jersey trying out his routine before he takes a big stage for his Netflix special.
Tyson (44:26.532)
Very true, very true.
Tyson (44:37.22)
Yeah, it's so interesting. You know, I don't know if you know the comedian Mark Normand, but he came to Australia a while ago. We've got a big theatre here in Melbourne called the Palais. think it seats about 3000 people. He did four shows there. And then he went and did a small little comedy club and apparently didn't go that well because he was just chucking new stuff out there. And that was, that was really amazing to me that even when you get to a certain level, like the Tiger Woods example you gave, you're to have to go out there and still
you know, have someone to watch your swing, to steal your description. I actually, I remembered something that I wanted to say to you earlier, just while we're on the topic of comedians. And that is what you were saying about for every 10 people, or every one person who doesn't like you, you know, there's going to be 10 who are on your side. And it was interesting, I've listened to Ricky Gervais speak about this and just the criticism that he gets to his jokes is he'll get up on stage and he'll talk about Hitler and he'll talk about animals.
And he goes, the amount of time that I'll do a joke about Hitler being misunderstood and then come back and, you know, do a joke about an animal and I'll get complaints from someone in the audience saying, I can't believe you said that about the animal. And you're like, I've just talked for 20 minutes about Hitler being misunderstood and you're upset about the cocker spaniel? Like what a, there's gotta be someone to criticize you on something you say or something you do at some point.
Chris Voss (46:00.24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then just expect it. Like, just expect it. And then to me, to some degree, it's how do I put myself out there? And how I put myself out there on one podcast, somebody said, describe yourself in three words. And I said, deeply flawed human. And then a buddy of mine, Joe Polish.
Got me a shirt that said flawed human being gave it to me. I love Joe. He's a good guy. He runs this outfit called genius network and we collaborate on lot of stuff. So then how do I put myself out there when I'm on with Andrew Huberman on his podcast? I got the shirt that Joe gave me. It says flawed human being like I ain't trying to tell you guys that I'm an angel. You know, or that I ain't I don't have a lot of flaws and you could pick me apart the same way you could pick apart any other human being on planet.
Tyson (46:27.6)
Thank you.
Tyson (46:42.374)
You
Tyson (46:55.749)
Yeah.
Chris Voss (46:56.234)
And simultaneously, I'm trying to have a positive impact on the world.
Tyson (47:01.84)
Yeah, that's awesome. That's such a funny story. How do you and Andrew know each other?
Chris Voss (47:07.274)
my girlfriend, Wendy Starlin, discovered and developed Lady Gaga loves giving me spectacular birthday presents. So I'm going on and on. I'm constantly mentioning the Andrews podcast. listen to it all the time. She knows I'm a huge fan. So she basically hunts him down like a fugitive and gets him to agree to have lunch with me as a birthday present.
So I'm sitting in LA and waiting, yeah, we're going to lunch. I'm like, I don't care who it is. She made me sit with my back to the door, but I'm such a fan of him and how careful he is with giving you good information and doing everything he can to not make you feel left out by it. Like, he'll tell you about a scientific study on relationships and it was based on heterosexual relationships.
And he'll say something like, all right, so this is human dynamics. And I'm not saying I'm in favor of heterosexual. I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm not saying anything about same sex relationships. And they'll go on and on. They'll say, I've never been in a same sex relationship, but I got friends that are. And he's so cautious to try to get you to get the information. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for him. So we're sitting in this restaurant. I got my back to the door and like, I don't care who it is.
And Wendy handed him so much that he showed up and I met him. sat down, we talked for three hours and I've been friends with him ever since.
Tyson (48:43.332)
That's unbelievable, huh, Wendy?
Chris Voss (48:46.064)
Yeah, was, was, well it's hard, you know, you got a significant other, it's giving you great birthday presents. That sets a high bar. You gotta reciprocate. Like it's hard to reciprocate. And so we got a great relationship because, you know, she's, for so many reasons that she's giving me these great birthday presents. got, what am I gonna do now? I mean, how am gonna give her something even equal to this?
Tyson (49:11.642)
Good luck to you. I'm glad you teach what you do, because you're going to need some of those skills when it comes to birthday next year. Did you say she discovered Lady Gaga?
Chris Voss (49:17.53)
Thousand percent, yeah.
Chris Voss (49:22.298)
She did, she discovered and developed Lady Gaga. Stephanie Germanata was an unpaid intern when Wendy met her. And it's it's a heck of a story. Wendy's a singer, songwriter, talent developer, music producer. And very much like the movie A Star is Born, when Bradley Cooper runs across Lady Gaga in the movie, it's a singer who has star power.
Tyson (49:28.644)
That is an incredible story.
Chris Voss (49:52.302)
like phenomenal star power and a work ethic that you are not going to beat anywhere else. And even though she was an unpaid unknown intern at the time, Wendy saw her sing once and knew this girl had star power. She told me like they were in some small club and and Gaga's singing like she's singing to the back of the stadium. Like clear star power, clear chops.
phenomenal stage presence, backbone, work ethic, everything you'd want in somebody that's ripe to be developed. mean, the definition of the diamond in the rough. And you had to be a diamond to start with. And Gaga was always a diamond. She just needed to develop.
Tyson (50:41.935)
And so what did she, sorry to deviate here with you, but it's such a good story. What did Wendy do? So she heard that voice at this small club and you say, like, where do you take it from there?
Chris Voss (50:56.036)
Well, they had a lot of the music prepared in advance and they were looking for the star and then, you know, challenge they had was, you know, Gaga is not classically beautiful. And so how do they package her so that they pay attention to only her talent and not care that she's not as beautiful as Beyonce or any of the other stars at the time.
And so you remember those crazy wild outfits that guys used to wear in the early days. was a meat suit I saw on, I think I saw her on a Grammy's one time, playing the piano and singing her heart out in this wacky, stupidest looking suit I ever saw in my life. And they said, you know, what we're going to do is we're going to give her outfits that are attention getting and simultaneously distracting from the fact that she's not classically beautiful. We don't want her.
We want her to be judged based on her talent. So how do we do? They created the persona for that Gaga embraced.
Tyson (52:02.821)
So clever. mean, this delves into a different realm that I'm not sure is completely under the same umbrella, but that marketing of someone like that is a psychology, like the fact that it's aimed to take away our attention from, you know, the, the, the, I don't want to say lack of beauty, but to insert like that traditional beauty, that lack of traditional beauty is as you were saying, and just to focus on the talent. Like that's almost a skill set in the same world as
what it is that you're talking about. There's certain things that I'm sure you can emphasise and certain things you can decrease with the aim of getting that desired outcome.
Chris Voss (52:40.976)
Yeah, yeah, you know, what have you got in front of you and in any endeavor, know, talent and hard work and there's a phrase out there. I wish I could think of who thought of it wasn't me that said hard work speed talent if talent doesn't work hard and most of the time talent doesn't work hard. So if you just if you just got to work at it, you're going to beat 99 percent of your competition anyway.
And then in the meantime, if you got talent inside you that's being discovered and developed, bang. But it's not going to be developed without the work ethic.
Tyson (53:18.054)
That's for sure. Is there someone that sort of epitomises that combination from your perspective? I'm sure there's plenty of examples, but a standout one to you.
Chris Voss (53:28.888)
Well, you know, and I can't mention any names. I the people that we're coaching, the ambitious, talented people that are looking for another innovative way, and we're helping them bring it out. Because all we think about, my team, we're consumed with how to become a better negotiator within the confines of what we define as tactical empathy.
And we come up with a new way of applying it every few weeks, a new idea, a new take on it, a new spin on it. The more we dive into it, the more we find novelty, if you will. And so then we run across really talented business people that somehow, you know, like that phrase from The Matrix, there's a splinter in the back of their mind. Somehow they think there's more there. And we got a small group of people that we coach directly one on one.
immensely talented, hardworking people. And we think about negotiation all the time. Well, some of the time they're thinking about their business, business opportunity. One guy I'm coaching now is phenomenal at spotting the next great business opportunity. And so he looks to us to help him make a better negotiator because his mind is being taken up on business opportunities and the thing, the development and the trends that he's spotting.
Tyson (54:52.906)
For someone who's interested in potentially, you know, dipping their toes in a little bit more, they're still on the fence. Is there something, or there may be a couple of things that you would say just to start focusing on today? You want to improve your negotiation? What are a couple of real practical things you can change? Or is there anything you can change instantly just in your day-to-day conversations that's going to be the equivalent of those reps in the gym and with practice over time start to become more effective, more strengthened?
Chris Voss (55:21.966)
Yeah, well, know, first of all, you do a cold read, gather data with your eyes, listen with your eyes. Look to see how somebody is because the most constant way to consistently practice reading emotional intelligence is to look at somebody and and then make a guess as to how they are. Don't say how are you today? You can look at somebody and go like, seems like you're having a good day. If they look that way. If they're frowning.
or if they look stressed or if they look preoccupied. Seems like you're preoccupied. Seems like it's been a tough day. Pretty soon you're going to find you're going to be able to nail that nearly every time. So that read is what you want to put into your negotiations because your ability to read them is what you need to navigate and use this
the tools to get back to them to demonstrate understanding. It seems like you got some misgivings. If you ask somebody a question, they're like, eh. Seems like you got some misgivings. If they say to you, your price is too high, seems like the value's just not there for you. Start on your everyday interactions.
doing a read of somebody and you do it seems like it's not saying you are. It's not putting somebody in a box. It's about seeing them and making them feel like you're making the effort. You could be wrong. And because you were making a genuine effort, they'll begin to collaborate with you and correct you. And now you're no longer a threat, you're a collaborator. When they correct you, you're collaborating. And that's where you wanna get. So.
Start out with how you read people from the beginning of your interaction.
Tyson (57:17.594)
Beautiful. Chris, I got my eye on the clock. I don't want to take up any more of your time. Really appreciate it. I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. I'm really excited for it. For anyone who's interested, obviously, Black Swan, I'll have the details of all of that in the description to this episode. But is there anything in particular you'd like me to include or anywhere you'd like me to point people?
Chris Voss (57:39.696)
Well, the easiest thing to do to keep up with everything we're doing is to subscribe to our newsletter, Negotiation Mastery. Now, all you got to do is go to the Black Swan website, blackswanaltd.com. You'll get the opportunity to subscribe to the newsletter. What does the newsletter do for you? First of all, it's complimentary. It's actionable and it's concise. Wherever you are in the world, it's designed to give you an email on Tuesday morning, about 730 in the morning, which is when you get down to business.
You know, after the weekend, you got Monday, you got an admin day, you got a buffer day, you got all the stuff you gotta sift through. Tuesday, when you wanna start making a difference, read a concise article that's gonna give you actionable tips. And now also, there'll be links to let you know about training we got coming up with different opportunities to move forward with us to get better. And the newsletter's complimentary. So what we ask of you is your time.
so you can start investing in yourself. And let us help.
Tyson (58:44.288)
Thanks a lot.
Chris Voss (58:46.288)
The pleasure was mine. I enjoyed the conversation.
Tyson (58:48.952)
Me too. I'll see you later. See everybody. I'll cut that off there, man. Thanks, brother. That was amazing. I really hope you enjoyed.