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A

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Chris Voss. Chris Voss spent more than two decades as an agent with the FBI or Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he was a lead crisis negotiator and a member of the Joint Terrorist Task force. Chris is also the author of a phenomenal, bestselling book entitled never split the difference. In addition, he has taught courses in negotiation at Harvard, at Georgetown, and at the University of Southern California as a world expert in all forms of negotiation. Today, Chris teaches us about how to hold hard conversations where we are seeking particular outcomes, or perhaps where we don't know what the optimal outcome could be. He talks about this in the context of business, in the context of relationships, including romantic relationships, but familial and work relationships as well. And he talks about how we should think about ourselves in the context of negotiations so that we can all arrive at the best possible outcomes. Indeed, during today's episode, you will learn to pay attention to emotions, not just other people's emotions, but your own emotions, in order to determine whether or not you are processing the information you're hearing accurately, and, equally important, whether or not you are being heard accurately when you are in a discussion of any kind, but especially heated discussions. In addition, we discuss the role of both physical and mental stamina in the context of difficult conversations, negotiations, and decision making because in the real world context, oftentimes those can take place not just within a single conversation, but over the course of several days, or even several weeks, months, or years. Chris also teaches us about deception, that is, how to determine if somebody is lying to by asking particular types of probe questions. Thanks to Chris Voss both breadth and depth of expertise in the negotiation process that he gleaned during his more than two decade service in the FBI, as well as his generosity in sharing that information. By the end of today's episode, you will have an excellent understanding of what the negotiation process is really all about and how to better carry out those negotiations so that they can best serve you and others. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is element element is an electrolyte drink with everything you need and nothing you don't. That means plenty of salt, magnesium, and potassium, the so called electrolytes, and no sugar. Now, salt, magnesium and potassium are critical to the function of all the cells in your body, in particular to the function of your nerve cells, also called neurons. In fact, in order for your neurons to function properly, all three electrolytes need to be present in the proper ratios. And we now know that even slight reductions in electrolyte concentrations or dehydration of the body can lead to deficits in cognitive and physical performance. Element contains a science backed electrolyte ratio of 1000 milligrams. That's 1 gram of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium. I typically drink element first thing in the morning when I wake up in order to hydrate my body and make sure I have enough electrolytes. And while I do any kind of physical training and after physical training as well, especially if I've been sweating a lot, if you'd like to try element, you can go to drinkelement. That's lmnt.com huberman to claim a free element sample pack with your purchase. Again, that's drinkelementlmnt.com hubermandhe. Today's episode is also brought to us by waking up. Waking up is a meditation app that includes hundreds of meditation programs, mindfulness trainings, yoga Nidra sessions, and NSDR non sleep deep rest protocols. I started using the waking up app a few years ago because even though I've been doing regular meditation since my teens and I started doing yoga Nidra about a decade ago, my dad mentioned to me that he had found an app turned out to be the waking up app, which could teach you meditations of different durations. And that had a lot of different types of meditations to place the brain and body into different states and that he liked it very much. So I gave the waking up app a try and I too found it to be extremely useful because sometimes I only have a few minutes to meditate, other times I have longer to meditate. And indeed, I love the fact that I can explore different types of meditation to bring about different levels of understanding about consciousness, but also to place my brain and body into lots of different kinds of states depending on which meditation I do. I also love that the wake waking up app has lots of different types of yoga Nidra sessions. For those of you who don't know, yoga Nidra is a process of lying very still but keeping an active mind. It's very different than most meditations, and there's excellent scientific data to show that yoga, Nidra, and something similar to it called non sleep, deep rest, or NSDR, can greatly restore levels of cognitive and physical energy, even with just a short ten minute session. If you'd like to try the waking up app, you can go to wakingup.com hubermanda and access a free 30 day trial. Again, that's wakingup.com huberman to access a free 30 day trial. And now for my conversation with Chris Voss. Chris Voss, welcome, andrew.

B

A pleasure, man.

A

I've been wanting to talk to you on record for a while. You are quite the, what we call in science n of one, when somebody is a true sample size of one. I realize that, yes, you are, because you have this incredible skillset from your time in the FBI, but you also have an incredible understanding and knowledge of how to communicate about that skillset so that people can glean useful information from it. You are also the guy that I text or call every once in a while when I've run myself into a jam or when I think I might be in a jam and I won't reveal details, you tell me whether or not things are okay. And fortunately, the last couple of times I reached out, you said, you're good. So thank you.

B

Always happy to help, man.

A

Thank you. Well, I have a lot of questions today, but what I'd like to start off talking about is negotiations take many forms, but if we could break those down into their broad categories, that will be useful. But before we do that, I want to know about the mindset that you have when you go into a negotiation and whether or not there are any practices. I realize you've been in this profession a long time, and so perhaps became reflexive to you at some point. But all of us at some point are going to go into negotiations, business negotiations, relationship negotiations, etcetera. Is there a process of getting one's mind and body right for a negotiation, shifting from more listening and less talking? Are there any tools that you use on the regular that could be useful for us to keep in mind as we extend into the different categories of negotiations and ways to approach those negotiations?

B

There can be a couple different. First of all, just trying to figure out what's really going on is the real issue. And then how can I get an approach where I'm most likely to get the best possible outcome? So there's always more than meets to eye, and there's a certain few cliches, but the real issue is there's always a better deal or there's no deal at all. So first of all, my first thing is I want to find out whether or not there's a deal at all or whether or not it's a bad deal. And then I'm gonna walk away really fast because those are gonna be complete waste of time. It's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal, or it's a sin to take a long time to get a bad deal. So, you know, I wanna know. I'm gonna try to figure out real quick whether or not, is there a cutthroat on the other side of the table? Is it somebody I could trust? I'm leaning a little more inclined to dealing with the difficult people now, as long as I don't have give in. So I gotta, I want to diagnose early on what the possibilities are now, if I'm curious, if I'm actually interested. Now, another aspect of the mindset is, like, if I'm in a great mood, like, if I'm just gonna be playful, a couple of really huge personal negotiation wins. Recently was when I was just trying to be playful. I mean, I was just, I was in a great mood and I'm joking around. And great negotiation is not exciting. It's astonishing. We're in conversations right now with a possible non scripted tv show. And so I was telling the producers, you know, this ain't gonna be real housewives to make this show properly. There ain't gonna be any screaming. It's not gonna be bar rescue where we're yelling at people. We're not gonna be hell's kitchen, where we're yelling at people. It's never going to be exciting, but it is going to be astonishing. Like, you'll get outcomes where suddenly you find yourself in a place like, what in the world? How did that just happen? And so I lose a suitcase in an airport the other day, and I'm walking into the lost luggage place, and I'm in a great mood because I'm home and I'm happy to be home, and I'm gonna get a good night's sleep. And even though it's late in the day, I'm just happy. And I get ready to walk into this, the lost luggage store, where these people are battered children. Like, they expect you. They know that you expect them to wave a magic wand and poof, your luggage is gonna be there. So for whatever reason, that's what I say. When I walk in the door, this young lady says, how can I help you? Well, first of all, how you could help me is obvious. Cause I'm in a lost luggage. There's only one reason I'm in here. So that's kind of a silly question. And I go, I need you to wave a magic wand. And she just laughs, and she looks at me. She ends up walking me out to the carousel, climbing up on the carousel, and she walks down a ramp. The luggage comes out of, and I guarantee you they're not supposed to do that. And she sticks her head, and she looks around, she comes back out, and I've never seen any of these people leave the office, let alone walk back to the carousel. And she says, wait here. And she disappears into the bowels of the airport, which looks like a super highway down there, right? Like, God knows what it looks like underneath the airport. And pretty soon, the carousel starts up again, and my bag. And another bag pops out. This other poor schmuck is sitting there waiting, and I'm like, I have never seen anybody do this ever. Like, normally they say, here's a number. We'll call you in 24 hours. It might show up at your house. And I look around at the. There's another young lady there. And I say, you know, please tell her thank you for me. I gotta go. Cause she doesn't come back out for, like, almost ten minutes. And on my way out, she comes out the door, and she high fives me, and she says, how's that for waving a magic wand? And that was the magic phrase. And I never would have said it to her if I wasn't playful in a moment. And I've got a couple of others. Like, when I was just playful, and I'm joking with people almost at my expense. It's shocking. Astonishing what you can get people to do if you hit them the right way.

A

So interesting. I wonder what it tapped into. But it sounds like it might have tapped into her sense that everybody's always asking me for a magic wand kind of ability, but finally somebody just said it directly, and that would be kind of fun to actually play that role, because normally they're restricted to their keyboard and their phone. I love that. On the opposite side of that spectrum, if ever you're feeling tense, stressed, jet lagged, angry, I can think about negotiations where people are trying to keep their egos in check. They want to be right. Breakups, negotiations. Not necessarily romantic breakups, that could include that, but also professional breakups, the dissolution of a contract or something. Like that. Do you ever have to check yourself? Like, okay, I need to. I mean, I imagine being calm is better than not being calm for most all things. Do you have a process of doing that? You seem like a pretty steady guy. I've never seen you.

B

Overall, I'm pretty steady. Well, the late night FM DJ voice that I'm not sure that I coined the phrase, but kind of famous for to calm you down, also calms me down. So if I get Ben out of shape, I will. And the conversation gets heated, I'll switch into that voice with the intention of calming you down. Cause that's the hostage negotiator's voice. But it'll calm me down, too. Like, intentionally going to that voice tamps down the negative emotions, which I'm convinced make me dumber in the moment, interfere with my capacity to process information. Got reasons for that? Layman's reasons? No. Scientific, academically rigorous studies that have been in any journals.

A

Well, after you're done, I'm going to tell you something that will perhaps be astonishing to you as to why there's real neuroscience behind that late night FMDJ voice having an impact on other people's brains.

B

But, yeah, and I'll do that. Cause it calms me down. Now, if I can make the shift. The hard part is a shift into a positive mindset. If I can make that shift, but I can only make it from a calm voice. I also think it's the emotions are kind of a rock paper scissors sequence. I don't think you can go from sadness to elation, directly sad, depressed, down. I think there's something to getting angry to pull you out of sadness. And I think if you're angry, you've got to go to calm next. And so. But if I can get out of anger and go to calm, then I can say something to myself. Like, the reality is, this is a luxury problem, or I was in a negotiation with a counterpart that I knew was deceiving, lying to me. And I remember saying to myself, you know, I'm lucky to be in this negotiation. I mean, they wouldn't be trying to hustle me if we weren't really good. If we didn't have a product that was phenomenal, I wouldn't be targeted at all. So I'm actually lucky to be in this conversation. So if I can make that next shift emotionally, then I'm good. The hard part is making those shifts.

A

I'm going to just share with you what I learned recently about sound and emotion. I'm researching an episode on music and the brain. Fascinating topic. Believe it or not, there's a lot known, and the auditory system has this property where, of course, there are neurons, nerve cells that respond to different frequencies of sound, low frequency, deeper tones, and high frequency squeals and that sort of thing. Okay, that's pretty straightforward, just like we have neurons that respond to different colors or different angles of light in the room. But what I learned, and I confirmed with a good friend of mine who's an auditory neuroscientist and neurosurgeon. His name's Eddie Chang, who was a guest on this podcast previously, is that low frequency sounds of the sort that your voice is, that late night FMDJ voice, are responded to in the brain by neurons. No surprise there. But the frequency that those neurons fire is also low frequency. In other words, when you speak in your low voice, the other person's brain hears that and starts firing in a low frequency tone. In other words, it entrains to your voice, not just the timing, but it's actually like you're essentially playing an emotional piano down in the low keys of their mind. Now, when you go up to the high frequencies, the neurons can't follow that high frequency. So there's something special about low frequency sound that actually changes the emotional tone of the people that hear that low frequency sound. This is wild, right? I mean, of course the content of the words matters, too. But anyway, there's real neuroscience to support the voice that you were endowed with and that you employed for your work.

B

Well, then. And then also, the point then, too, is it's nothing. The other side's not making a choice. It's an involuntary reaction.

A

That's right. This is not something one can override, except by perhaps plugging their ears. If they're hearing that, their mind is getting shifted toward a state of low frequency oscillation, which is one of more calm.

B

Yeah.

A

Yeah. So that's a real thing. And were you to have a high, squeaky chipmunk's voice, you might not have been the negotiator. You would. Although, who knows? Maybe there'd be another tactic there. I mean, I think back to the. I guess it was during one of the Gulf war campaigns where they, weren't they trying to squeeze out Saddam and some of his people by playing like, Milli Vanilli at high volume for hours and hours. Is that tactic actually used?

B

So, that was Panama when they were trying to get Noriega.

A

I'm only a few countries over and one ocean.

B

I get the trivia. You know, I was telling you before, and the wacky, yet fascinating, useless information around terrorism and stuff like that, I tried that at Panama. And for whatever reason, the military guys, they were playing music and sounds. And then also, among the many stupid things that the FBI did at Waco, then late at night, they tried that in the Waco compound, too. And it was just, that was one of the things that the hostage negotiators were adamantly against. Adamantly against. But they got overruled by ONC command. Among the many stupid things that were done at Waco, that was also done at Waco. It was stupid. It's counterproductive. Hostage negotiators were always against it.

A

So for those of you who don't remember Waco, Waco was branch Davidians. David Koresh, right?

B

Yeah. There was a Netflix series that was out about it recently. That's fair. About how it went down.

A

Yeah. Sad ending. He eventually set the building ablaze, killed himself and everybody else had people inside.

B

Set the building on fire, including a.

A

Lot of children perished, including some children.

B

There are some FBI agents that have still not gotten over that.

A

I'd like to talk about some different types of negotiations. Oftentimes, I think because you're a former FBI negotiator, anti terrorist task force, this kind of thing, we tend to focus on the negative negotiations. Get the hostages away and we'll talk about that stuff. Breakups, business deals that have gone wrong, people lying, cheating. What about negotiations that are benevolent? Let's say that two people want to come to a true win win around what they each see to be their best interest in, let's say, friendship. Two friends taking a trip together, vacation. Who's going to pay for what? Who's going to pay upfront? Are people going to pay each other back? Or a romantic relationship? Two people are considering fusing finances to some extent or moving in together. What sorts of questions should people be asking themselves prior to those negotiations? In particular? Is it very important that people know exactly what they want going into a negotiation? Or. I can recall many times when I've gone into life circumstances knowing I wanted a certain set of feelings or outcomes, but not being extremely specific about, I want this salary. I want to live in a west facing house on this particular location. An exploration of potentials, I think can also take the form of negotiation. So how should people think about approaching benevolent negotiations? We're not talking about something tragic happening. If it doesn't go through, it might hurt. It might be a little bit high friction. But let's talk about how to get to a win win.

B

Yeah. Well, there's a couple of interesting things there. First of all, the phrase win win, because win win is just great collaboration. I mean, in point of fact, it should be win win, which might only be emotional win win. Now, the phraseology win win. I know that if someone opens a negotiation with me and they say right off the bat, look, I want to do a win win deal with you that correlates extremely highly with someone who's trying to pick my pocket. So if you use that phrase in the first five minutes, I already know where you're coming from. You're trying to get me to drop my guard. It's you win, I lose. So. And this came up on an Instagram post I put up recently, which is essentially, watch out for the person that says win win. Now, I didn't say win win is bad. I said, watch out for the person that says it. Also, you gotta be cautious. If you like some of the win win mindset, then people set themselves up to just get slaughtered by the person who's expressing a desire for win win and looking to pick their pocket. Like, if I feel win win in my heart, you go, let's do a win win deal. If I don't watch it, I'm like, okay, what do you want? And then I find myself giving away the store. So there's a lot behind the win win phraseology that you have to have a complete understanding of. In point of fact, both sides should feel good about the outcome. And isn't that the definition of when? When? Well, kind of, sort of, but it's how they feel about it more than really what they got. So in a benevolent negotiation among friends, where are we going to go to eat? Where are we going on vacation? What route are we going to take? People really just want to be heard out more than anything else, which operationally seems to be. I don't understand how it's going to make any difference. Makes all the difference in the world. And what's the best way for somebody to feel heard out? Well, I'm going to start out by telling you, describing to you, not telling you, but describing to you what my best guess is on your perspective, because it's really calibrating me actually finding out where your position is and the only way I can find out what your position actually is. I'm going to increase you telling me if I start taking a guess at it first, because you're immediately, right away, you're immediately going to tell me, either I'm right or I'm wrong, you're going to correct me. Correction is. Is a satisfying thing to do, and you're gonna be much more candid with me if you're correcting me than if I'm asking you. So I'll. And you'll feel good about correcting me. So it's gonna. There's all these great emotional lubricants to me getting you to correct me. So I'm gonna start out by saying, like, here's what I think you're thinking. Here's how I think you're approaching this. Here's what I think you're wanting out of this, not what you should be, but what you probably are based on your perspective. And that's going to accelerate the conversation exponentially. Like, it's ridiculous how much faster things are going to go. And then it becomes both an information gathering and a rapport building process simultaneously instead of separately, which is what makes this approach faster, even though it seems more indirect. So if we're getting ready to, let's say you and I are going to take a car trip to San Francisco from here, and I'm gonna say, all right, so my guess is you want to take the most direct route because you hate wasting time. And you're probably gonna say to me, no, no, no, I want to go up the Pacific coast highway, because this beautiful stretch of country, like, I realize it's going to be a waste of time if we go up the Pacific coast because we got to jump off it at some point. But I really want to see the scenery. You would have. I've taken a guess of what you want, and you're gonna come back real quick and correct me. And then maybe I'm thinking time on the trip, but I've forgotten how beautiful it is to roll up the coast. And so when you throw that out, I'll be like, oh, yeah, it is a beautiful ride, and we might not get another shot. Like, who knows what's gonna happen? So, yeah, now that we're having a conversation, I'd rather run up the Pacific coast highway before we go inland and make the trip. And that's how we get to, we collaborate for a better outcome, maybe a better idea than what I had in mind in the first place.

A

I love that. Because what you just described is hypothesis testing.

B

Yes.

A

It's the way scientists are trained. Many people don't know this, but they teach us in science not to ask questions, but to start with a question like, you know, I don't know, how does the brain develop or something? And then you say a hypothesis and you test hypotheses, and then you figure out if they're right or wrong. And that takes you through a set of decision trees and you eventually get at what you hope is some core truth, and hopefully others arrive there as well and you get a consensus. So I love the idea of hypothesis testing. In fact, when you said take the most direct route from where we are now in Los Angeles to San Francisco, I like to take 101, not the five. The five is faster. So I immediately think, but I like 101. First of all, there are a couple of really great taco and hamburger spots along the way that I used to stop with my bulldog. And yet also you get to see it the coast, and it makes those extra 2 hours completely worth it. And so you're exactly right in that working through the decision tree doesn't necessarily mean presuming that the, the hypothesis is right. It sounds like you'd be equally okay with the hypothesis being wrong, because really what you're trying to do is just learn. And in learning, set up this collaboration. I love that.

B

A couple of things. First of all, when you talk about hypothesis, when my son Brandon was involved in a company, he's out on his own now, but he used to always say, hypothesis test your hypothesis. He always used that term. And then even now, if we were talking about it and you just said you knew some hotdog and hamburger places, I'd be like, holy cow, I didn't even know that. Yeah, I wanna check those places out. So that's how you discover new stuff in a conversation.

A

I love it. And also, I'm sure people are noting to not say the words win win when approaching any kind of negotiation. What do you think it is about those little catchphrases that signal lack of authenticity or trustworthiness? Because you could imagine that somebody, I come to you and say, hey, Chris, let's, I don't know, let's do some collaborative thing for social media, for podcast, and this is gonna be a win win for both of us. Now, I know to never say that with you, but you could imagine that somebody really means that. But for you, it sounds like it's a flag that they're trying to pull one over.

B

It correlates really strongly with the people that are definitely trying to cut your throat. And I've had them admit that to me candidly.

A

Amazing.

B

Like I'll be, I've experienced it. Like, if somebody throws win win out early, to me, I'll say, all right, I think I know where this is going, but let me explore it. And they'll say, yeah, you know, this great opportunity for you, that's another towel. And we're going to put you in a room with all these billionaires, and there's going to be all this opportunity for you if you just come in and speak. And, you know, we don't have a budget.

A

Well, I've gotten that one before.

B

The.

A

Famous the world war. Just work out in your favor because it's going to work out in my favor.

B

Right. Exactly right.

A

I've been on the receiving end of those offers many a time. Fascinating. Conversely, what sorts of openers do you think establish the best rapport and benevolent discovery of a topic?

B

Well, what I'm saying correlates real strongly with people I want to do business with. If they figured out something that they know is valuable for me and they've just done it and they've just offered it, like right off the bat, no strings attached, they found a way to drop something on me that's valuable. They didn't approach me with their hand out. They approached me with some sort of generosity. Like a friend of mine, Joe Polish, runs this outfit called Genius Network. Joe, he says, life gives to the giver. Like, Joe did a bunch of favors for me before I ever joined, and he was trying to help me out and get my books sold, and he asked me to come in and speak, and he'd emphasize my book on his podcast and in different conversations. And I finally paid the fee to join because he had done so much for me. Like, there's not much Joe could ask me for right now. Cause he's done so much for me that he gets a blanket. Pretty much, yes, right away. What do you want? What do you need? Because he's just generous and the generosity approach universally, I'm seeing a lot of really successful people that lead by generosity. And so if you start out that, you know, if you give me a five star review of the book on Amazon, no strings attached or anything like that, goes a long, long way to somebody who wants to establish a long term relationship. Collaboration.

A

When I first opened my laboratory in 2011, I had a technician at the time who had been a technician for a lot of years, and there's this culture and science of people borrowing things from laboratories and not giving them back or breaking them. These can be little things, like a small instrument or a forceps. But as a student or postdoc, these are the things that you covet. Like a really nice pair of forceps is like a great thing. You drop them once they're not good anymore, by the way, it's like you have to treat them with respect. Surgical tools have to be treated with respect. These are very fine instruments. And people used to come by our lab all the time and borrow stuff from us, and he'd always lend it out. And I was like, what are you doing? But anytime I went to go borrow something, he'd say, do not borrow anything from anybody else, because then we're going to owe them. Right now, everybody owes us everything. And I was like, you're running up our budget giving away these instruments. They come back with the forceps, Dentin and stuff. And he said, just trust me, this is the way to do it. And I don't recall ever, quote unquote, cashing in on any of that. But he was exactly right. When I eventually decided to move institutions, we had given away so much and we had asked for so very little, maybe nothing, that, you know, when you leave a place, typically there can be a little bad blood. And all we got was sorry to see you go kind of stuff. Had it been me, I would have been in kind of an exchange of, oh, we ask for things, we give things. You know, it's kind of a neighborhood. I grew up in a neighborhood where you'd borrow eggs or milk from the neighbor. Remember those days? I don't know if people do that any longer, but I think it falls well into what you're describing, that when you just do things for people out of goodness, then sure, you sort of have a history where you could return to that they owe you. But there's also just something good about just doing things out of goodness and also not asking for so much and expecting people to provide that. So I love that. And I actually, I love providing good reviews for things I like on the phone. When the airline, we don't do this anymore, we book our own flights. But anytime I get help on the phone and if it's really great help, I'll say, how can I help? And they'll say, oh, it'd mean a lot if you would send an email to my business just saying I did a great job, or something like that. I actually really enjoy doing that. I love the points you're making because they're very actionable. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, athletic greens. Athletic greens, now called ag one, is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that covers all of your foundational nutritional needs. I've been taking athletic greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking athletic greens, and the reason I still take athletic greens once or usually twice a day is that it gets me the probiotics that I need for gut health. Our gut is very important. It's populated by gut microbiota that communicate with the brain, the immune system, and basically all the biological systems of our body to strongly impact our immediate and long term health. And those probiotics and athletic greens are optimal and vital for microbiotic health. In addition, athletic greens contains a number of adaptogens, vitamins and minerals that make sure that all of my foundational nutritional needs are met. And it tastes great. If you'd like to try athletic greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com Huberman and they'll give you five free travel packs that make it really easy to mix up athletic greens while you're on the road, in the car, on the plane, etcetera. And they'll give you a year's supply of vitamin D, three, k, two. Again, that's athleticgreens.com Huberman to get the five free travel packs and the year's supply of vitamin d, three, k, two shifting slightly into the more, let's call them high friction negotiations or the types of negotiations where there is the potential for a truly bad outcome. I know you've been asked this before, but some of our listeners are going to be learning about you for the first time. Do you recall of the many negotiations that you did while in the FBI, any one particular negotiation that felt like, if this doesn't work out, this is really catastrophic, and would you be willing to share that with us?

B

Well, I learned, you know, they tried to teach us early on that not everything's going to work out. And the second negotiation I had in the Philippines, the first one, a young man named Jeff Schilling, was grabbed by terrorist group Abu Sayyaf and he ended up walking away because we stole the bad guys long enough that we just, you know, sometimes if you can slow it down, you wait for something good to fall out of the sky, and it will. And that ended up happening in that case. And the bad guy ends up calling the negotiator that I coached on the phone after it was over to basically tell him that they still had a good relationship. It was nuts. Why does a bad guy call the negotiator that was responsible for him losing everything and say, you know, you did a good job, which is exactly what happened. So we rolled into a case and I hadn't had anything go bad at that point in time. The very next case, the Burnham Sabaro case by a different faction of the terrorist group 13 months later ends up in two of the three remaining hostages shot and killed by friendly fire along the way. Hostages had been executed and American had been executed early on and it was a train wreck and lots of people got killed all along the way and just really ridiculous bad things happening. And that was bad all the way through. So we learned, you know, learned a lot from it, went back and checked everything we did, and we didn't do anything wrong that we felt based on our strategy, didn't miss anything. And that was why I ended up going, collaborating with the guys at Harvard, because my reaction was, if we did everything we know how to do and it wasn't enough, that means we're not smart enough, we got to get better. And so that case taught me a lot about the dynamics that really happen on the other side and the difference between whether or not people are really on your side. The us government was not highly collaborative. The philippine government was not highly collaborative. Everybody wanted to get their pound of flesh out of the other side. I mean, just everything bad that you can imagine. Early on, when Guillermo Sabaro was murdered by the Abu Sayyaf, it was a national holiday in the Philippines, and the bad guys had a history of killing people on national holidays. And we weren't from the Philippines, and we had no idea that that day was a national holiday. And we showed up at Philippine national police headquarters in Manila, and it was closed. Now I got an ongoing hostage case with bad guys threatening to kill hostages. And we show up at the gates and the gates are closed and we're like, what the hell's going on here? Well, it's a national holiday. Nobody's working today. I'm like, first of all, nobody told us that. Secondly, I don't think the bad guys really care that it's a national holiday and nobody's working. Our negotiator is nowhere to be found. We got a guy there that the previous negotiator we worked with, Philippine national police, was not that happy that they didn't have him under complete control. So they give us a guy that will not tell us anything until after hes told them. So hes having conversations with the bad guys and were actually hearing about him secondhand. He didnt show up that day. And then, and of course, that day, the bad guys announced theyre going to kill a hostage and give it as a gift to the country of the Philippines because its a holiday. And then they go, oh, by the way, they like doing this on holidays. And so. And guerrilla sombrero ended up getting his head cut off with the. Because of all the warring factions on our side of the table not telling each other what the hell's going on. So I had assumed at that point in time that people would tell us the stuff we need to know, we didn't need to ask. And after that, I got like, look, there ain't nothing here that I don't need to know. I don't. If it's a holiday, it's coming up. Then you assume, I know you gotta tell us. So, really learned a lot about collaboration on our side of the table and also the lack of collaboration on the other side of the table. Just cause we're mess doesn't mean they got their act together and the bad guys didn't have their act together. And ultimately the hostages, one of the reasons someone didn't come out, because internally they had double crossed each other. So, learned a lot about what really fundamental human nature dynamics are on teams, and your team has not got its act together, and the other team does not either. So what can you do as a communicator to make up for that? Really learned a lot about that. In that case. I had cases subsequent to that involved in al Qaeda, when al Qaeda was killing people on a regular basis. But we saw those coming, and we did everything we could do to keep the train from smashing into us. You see a train coming down the tracks, you know it's coming down the tracks, and you do the best you can to derail it, and sometimes you can't.

A

I've heard it said that when people take somebody captive, that they either want their money, their body, or their life, or some combination of those.

B

Yeah, that's probably one of those three. Yeah, that's very true.

A

And as the negotiator trying to rescue the hostage, is it important to identify early on which of those three or which all of those three they're after? Like, how serious they are? Are they willing to actually kill the hostage? Are they, you know, will they go for any amount of money above x number of dollars?

B

Right, right.

A

Trying to figure out their threshold. Right. I mean, because the person is on the other side is gambling. Right. They're gambling their freedom. They're gambling their reputation with whoever their reputation matters to. Is it important to get into the mindset of the person you're negotiating with quickly, using the hypothesis generating method? And if so, could you give an example of how that played out in your previous work.

B

Yeah, the indicators are really there. I mean, once you sort of lose your illusions about how you think things should play out, then the patterns of behavior are generally pretty quick and clear. And just because you don't like the patterns, like with al Qaeda, we recognize the patterns, and knowing what they are doesn't mean you can change what they are. And al Qaeda in 2000, four's timeframe was very clear about killing people on deadline, and we had to recognize that. So there becomes a pattern of behavior, and it's usually specificity in what they say. And this is all human nature. Like, if you're in a business negotiation and they say, you know, we're gonna do something horrible here, we're gonna walk out, that's fairly nonspecific. And if they say, look, if we don't get this by this specific deadline, if we don't get these specific things met by this specific time, thats pretty specific. Its specificity. Youre looking for it. I learned to look for it in kidnapping. Negotiations. Were working a case again in the Philippines, and the bad guys say, you know, if we dont get a ransom for the son, 17 year old boy at the time is kidnapped, you know, you tell his father hes going to lose an egg. And thats a euphemism for losing a child. And early on when that threat came through on our side of the table, everybodys like, oh, my God, theyre going to kill him. This is really bad. We got to make sure the family can pay the ransom. I'm like, no, no, no. They didn't say when it was going to happen. They didn't say how it was going to happen. They didn't say who was going to do it. You know, the basic specificity of who, what, when and where. Like, they left themselves an out here, a very clear out. And we never said we were going to do it. We never said when it was going to happen. We never said which child. You know, they're just trying to scare you. They're throwing out something vague. I said, we got plenty of time to play with this. We gotta push this all the way through the process and to the end. Now, later on in that case, when the family tried to deliver a ransom and it was screwed up by God knows who, the bad guys came up back on the phone and they said, if we don't get paid tomorrow, your son dies. And I said, all right, now that's specific. And these guys sound like they mean it. And so we're going to have to make sure this thing goes down tomorrow, or that's the end of this kid. And at that point in time, we allowed the family, we were in a position to allow or disallow. We were in a position to offer thoughts. And our thoughts were, they mean it now, and you need to do something now, or likely something bad's going to happen. And now that they're this serious. Cause you always gotta worry about what we used to refer to as a double dip. Do they take the money and then they come back and say, nah, that was a down payment. That wasn't the ransom. That was just a down payment. You gotta make sure you don't get double dipped if you let the family pay, and you gotta give them your honest opinion as to whether or not they're gonna let the hostage go if you pay now. And our thoughts were, you pay them tomorrow, your son's coming out. And he did.

A

The double dip is a scary thing to hear about at a much lower level, meaning more minor level. People sometimes get shaken down online. Their password will get taken. There are people everywhere who go for the. Click on this link, you get a text message. We've identified that your account has been changed. Verify, you click on the link, takes you someplace where you put in your login and password, and boom, it's gone. And then they try and sell it back to you, typically through cryptocurrency, because it's not traceable, by the way, those.

B

Negotiations can be a lot of fun if you let them.

A

Well, I'm hoping that our discussion about this now is going to save some people the trouble of having their accounts hacked. I've known people who've had their accounts hacked, and these are some smart people. But what's interesting is that I've also observed those situations where somebody gets to the point where they say, you know, I'm just going to give them what they want. And I remember in this one particular instance saying, no, no, no, do not give them the money, because then they're just going to say they want more. There's no guarantee that they're going to give you back what you want. And why would they?

B

Right?

A

If you think about it, why would they? The money funnels in and, like, they just can pivot and go to the next thing. So how do you gain confidence that you are likely to be double dipped or not?

B

Well, first of all, I gotta find out if they're in a position to carry out the threat or if they're in any sort of legitimate position to begin with, for lack of a better term, it's proof of life. And there are a lot of people that are trying to scam you, but they don't really have the ability to scam you. So you gotta find out. Do some confirmation. Do they have access to your account? Do they have your data? Do they have your money? Do they have it in a position? Or they're just trying to make you believe that they have that position of influence on you? There are a lot of the bad guys out there that are just rolling a dice, dialing for dollars, if you will. And if they don't scam you when they have no leverage on you, they'll find somebody else that'll give in. So there's a bit of authenticity. Are they in a position to do it? And the same rule applies in any negotiation. The other side is going to give in when they feel like they've gotten everything they can. Kidnappers be asked by an ambassador, asked by an FBI commander, when's this gonna be over? When the bad guys feel like they've gotten everything they could, not when they did, but when they felt like they did. So our job is just make them feel it sooner. So, you know, how hard do you make it innocently. On the other side? Everybody wants to feel like they did a, they got a good day's pay for a good day's work. So if you let them feel like they're in charge, and you make them work by asking them innocent how and what questions which are very hard and fatiguing to answer, then you're going to get to the point where you're going to get a solid outcome where you don't get double dipped and they're going to be happy that it's over because they felt like they got everything they could, it could be your data, could be your bank account, could be anything, the other side is going to be satisfied with the outcome when they feel like they worked for it. And business negotiations, you're selling your car, and you put a price tag on your car, and a guy walks up to you and says, I'll give you full amount right now. What's your reaction? I should ask for more? Maybe I won't sell my car. Every human interaction, the other side wants to feel like that they earned what they got. And so the idea of empathy in hostage negotiations is really just to make them feel that sooner.

A

We're going to come back to empathy because it's such a big and important topic. But I've heard it said before that if somebody you don't know, but maybe also, somebody, you know, places a real sense of urgency on, you know, need the money now, or I need you to do something right away or else, not a threat of physical violence, but that any request for expediting something is a red flag, that it's likely to be a scam. Very seldom do you need to click on the link within 24 hours. How could that possibly be? But that's one way in which people are exploited, that some request comes in by phone or by email or text or maybe even person. Somebody says, you need to do this right now or else something bad is going to happen. Capture people's sense of urgency, get them to make a mistake, and then they're, they're left reeling. Because that request for something right now or else, I think, hits a fundamental nerve in us.

B

They want to help, to be a rescuer.

A

Right? So is that a good rule of thumb for people to keep in mind?

B

I think that's a great rule of thumb. I mean, a friend of mine, somebody got a hold of his phone number not that long ago, and I was getting text from his number. So I'm like, look, man, I got some real problems. Look, I need some money from you now. It was a friend, the friend's number. And I remember when I first saw it, actually, when I first saw it, I was really busy, and I felt bad that I didn't get back to him that day, and then I didn't hear from him again. And so I thought, well, whatever it was, you worked it out. So a couple weeks later, I get the text again, you got a real problem. You got to get back to me right now. So I decide if it's really my buddy, I am going to help him right now. I got to make sure it's really my buddy. And I said, hey, man, you didn't raise this at all last time I saw you in Vegas. Because I'd seen him in Vegas recently, and he's like, yeah, I was busy. I couldn't bring it up. And so I'm thinking, like, all right, so there's no direct confirmation or denial. We had breakfast together in Vegas. So then I shoot back, I say, like, and, man, I gotta tell you something, that was such a crazy night. And I still owe you money from them. So, you know, that night when we were gambling, I still owe you money. I'm happy to help. Now, it wasn't a crazy night. It was breakfast, and I didn't owe him money. And his next response was like, yeah, don't worry about it. You know, you can make that up to me with this. So I'm like, all right, cool. So now I start making stuff up. And I said, you know, and when we were with those strippers and that dog and the clown and the pony, I'll never get over that. And so now the guy's, what are you talking about? And I said, by the way. And then I started throwing in some stuff about his wife and his mother, and the guy got insulted and called me names and stopped texting me. And then I sent all those text messages to the real guy, including what I'd said about his mother, and he texted me back. He's got a great sense of humor. He says, by the way, my mom does think you're attractive.

A

Oh, man. I think.

B

But I started it all by just checking the source. If it was my friend, I would have helped him immediately. And I need to throw something at him that's going to confirm that it's him and that I'm there for him. But I'm also going to have put a little bit of a curve in there that if he doesn't catch, I know it's a con, and then I'm going to have fun with it.

A

Incredible knowledge that people will hear this and they might think, oh, that's never going to happen to me. But like I said, I had known family members and friends who they make the mistake. They take the bait of clicking on the link, and then now they're getting the shakedown. Actually, a good friend of mine said that her parents called at some point. Her parents were probably in their late seventies now, someone had called their house and told them that their child, this woman, had been kidnapped and that they needed to send money, and that if they called the police, they'd kill her or harm her in some way. So they started sending money, and they were afraid to contact her. And you can see what a bind a loving parent would be in. Right. They obviously don't want to get this child of theirs hurt, and they obviously are willing to do whatever it takes in order to get them back. Turns out it was total scam, because eventually there was communication that made them realize that their daughter was perfectly okay and never even interacted with kidnappers. So those kinds of scams happen pretty often.

B

I've had that happen to a friend also.

A

Yeah. So the sense of urgency should have been the first flag.

B

That's a great point. Yeah, absolutely. And look, look, even if they've got your loved one, the secondary issue is, if you do what they want, are they gonna let them go, which is actually a legitimate question, like if there really are bad guys. One of the things we learned in hostage negotiation that I apply to business negotiation, there are legitimate questions that it's okay to ask. You're not being disrespectful, you're not pushing back. There are fair to use the f bomb. Fair, legitimate questions that you can ask under any circumstances, which is basically, if I comply, is this going to work out the way that you're articulating it? Anything that adds communication into it, which gives you more information to find out what the ultimate outcome looks like. Even in kidnappings, how do you know that if you pay, they're going to let them go? That's a legitimate question.

A

There are examples somewhere in between getting your Instagram account hacked, your bank account hacked, and I, God forbid your child kidnapped, for instance. There's a whole practice within the legal profession of probing to see whether or not somebody is going to give up money to avoid a lawsuit, for instance. Actually, a lawyer friend of mine recently described their job very well. He said, in his words, first person, he said, I scare people for money. The operative word being scare people.

B

And it's being honest.

A

Yeah, he's being very honest. He scares people for money, and he's very good at it. And he understands how other people scare people for money. And he works both sides, plaintiff or defense type situations. But it made me realize that a lot of the legal profession is not okay. The lawsuit slid across the table. It's the. Okay, here's what the lawsuit would look like. Here are all the statutes that potentially were violated. And then there's a probe of what somebody's finances are and how much they're willing to pay. And do they have liability insurance? Do they have an umbrella policy? All the sorts of things that are. That are really, it's not necessarily an illegal shakedown, but it's probing as to whether or not it's worth the effort.

B

Diagnosing the other side's ability to pay.

A

That happens really often. I can give a specific example where somebody had an incident at a dog park, where their dog allegedly ran into somebody, maybe charged at somebody dog park. People are standing around and the person moved and apparently injured their knee. But rather than sue the owner of the dog, what they typically do is deliver some set of documents that say, I was injured, your dog was responsible for this, and if you don't settle up for x number of dollars, you're going to be sued for usually an exorbitant amount. Above that, there's this question that the lawyers have to figure out, like, is it puffery? Right? Are they saying, I'm going to sue you for $4 million? Is there any basis for that? And good lawyers will say, that's puffery. They're trying to scare you with a big number. But a lot of people see that number and go, oh, my goodness, what do they want? You know what? Like, I don't even know if they were injured. If they were, that's terrible. I'd want that taken care of. If my dog's responsible, I'd want that taken care of. But what do they need in order to make this go away? Right? And that happens millions of times a day throughout the country, and a good portion of those probably happen here in California, because that's kind of the way the legal system is arranged. So this is not somebody. It could be somebody manipulating the law. It could also be somebody who's being entirely honest about their experience of being injured by somebody else's dog. So under those conditions, I mean, it sounds like the same set of rules apply. You want to know how serious they are. Do they have a case, so to speak? That's the work of the lawyers. But in assessing how serious somebody is, you said it's fair. You called it the f word. I like that. I'll never forget that. Just ask a fair question, like, how much money do you think you deserve? Or would that be a good example of a very direct question? Or is it, how likely are you to walk away if we don't give you the money? Like, you know, is there. I mean. Cause I could imagine there's all sorts of reasons why people would be dishonest about answering those questions well, and then.

B

How much money do you think you could deserve? You deserve is a really good question. Not necessarily what the answer is, but how they answer it, you're gonna get, how quickly they fire back, and whether or not they stop and think about it. How and what questions? Typically our best to judge the other side's reaction. And the answer is secondary, because the how or what question causes what we would refer to as deep thinking, slow thinking. Danny Kahneman, behavioral economics. Thinking fast and slow. Slow thinking is in depth thinking. You ask a how or what question to make the other side think first and judge their reaction to how they think about it. And do they actually, do they actually think about it, or do they fire right back at you? That gives you a clearer picture of who you're dealing with, where the outcome is going to go. How much money do you think that you deserve, if they immediately, you know, $10 million. All right, so this is, I got a shakedown artist on the other side. Or they say, all right, I, if they stop and think about it and they give you a thoughtful answer, that's a completely different person on the other side. You're asking a question to get a, to diagnose how they respond. First, the answer is second. And sometimes I, if it's a cutthroat on the other side, I'm gonna start paraphrase with how and what questions? Just to wear them out. That's passive aggression. If I got a cutthroat aggressor on the other side, I'm going to drop into passive aggressive behavior to slow them down and wear them out. One of my hostage negotiation heroes, a guy named Johnny Pico, was John Domenico Pico, not Johnny like Johnny Rockets, italian Johnny. John Domenico got all the western hostages out of Beirut in the mid eighties. Wrote a book called man without a gun, negotiated in person, face to face with Hezbollah. The only guy that ever did that got everybody out. And in his book he wrote, one of the great secrets to negotiation is learning how to exhaust the other side. And when you've got a really dangerous adversary on the other side of the table, you don't go nose to nose. You don't argue, you're not combative. You wear them out, exhaust them. And if you got somebody really combative or cutthroat on the other side, start peppering them with how and what questions. Because to even think about the answer, it tires them out, and it's passive aggressive and it's deferential and it really works.

A

So if the person on the opposite side of a high friction negotiation is aggressive, the goal is to slow things down, fatigue them, and get them to just either relent or to reveal something. That's a loophole.

B

Yeah. If I have to make the deal, then I'm going to wear them out.

A

I'm interested in drilling a little bit further into this process of wearing them down and the passive aggressive way of reducing the aggressor's stance. And I want to highlight for people that what we're talking about here isn't manipulation to extract something. We're actually talking about the reverse. We're talking about a bad actor who's aggressive and trying to defang that bad actor. What does that process of wearing them down look like or sound like? Could you give us a couple of examples of, let's say I'm the bad actor. We could play this game. I won't be very good at this. And I am saying, look, I want x number of dollars by this date, or you're not going to get what you want. They're going to die or disappear. Is that simple? And I'm a stonewall kind of approach. What is the approach that you take to wear that person down?

B

Well, they're going to be questions that are mostly how and what? And they're going to be legitimate questions, which is how do I know you're going to follow through? What does that look like? Like, if I do what you want, how do I know you're going to follow through?

A

So get them to talk about the alternative. Okay, so if you were to, well, if you deliver by that date, I'm gonna pass them to you without fail. Like, if they're just getting kind of brief answers where the person is just, again, this kind of like, rigid stonewall approach.

B

Yeah, well, and so there's a phrase that we use all the time, vision drives decision. So if you're really gonna comply, if I give in and when I said, how do I know you're gonna, you're going to follow through. I'm not talking about the threat. I'm not trying to get you to clarify the threat. I'm trying to get you to clarify what implementation looks like. So I need to know. I'm based on your reaction to that. If you plan on following through, if I comply, you will already have that in your head or be open to it. Vision drives decision. You've thought it through in advance of what does letting the hostages go look like? If you have no intention of ever releasing the hostage, if I follow through, then you're not going to be able to answer the question, and you're probably going to throw it back on me really quickly. And so then now I know, like, all right, so you got no plans on complying. If I give in, you're not going to comply. So I. But you still want the money? Then I'm going to ask, well, how am I supposed to pay you if you don't have any plans for compliant, and if you're willing to entertain a conversation about what compliance looks like? There was a kidnapping that my unit worked just before I was in it in Venezuela, where they weren't entirely sure that the bad guys were gonna, the FARC, I think, had the hostage, they agreed on an exchange point to let the hostage go. That was some distance from where they had a pretty good idea the hostage was being held. So they figured they're not gonna drag the hostage all the way to this river crossing. If they're not gonna let them go, it's just too much effort. And then it was one of the few times there was gonna be a simultaneous. Theoretically a simultaneous exchange. But they're going to have to send the money across the river before the hostage was let go. So if we agree to this, all right, so they're not going to drag this guy all the way to this river crossing if they don't plan on letting him go. And if it's a long way to drag them and they got their money, do they want to drag them back? Like, even if they're ambivalent, once they get there, if they've gone through all the effort to get to the meeting location and the hostage is there, we've now just increased the chances significantly. They're going to go ahead and comply because it's a pain in the neck to take them back. This is all human nature stuff, human nature investment. How do you get them to engage in actions and behaviors and then verbal commitments that actually mean something to them? When I was working kidnappings, the very last thing, we'd always have the family get the bad guys to say it last. Not first, but last, was we'd actually get a verbal promise to let them go again at the end. Because we've been talking to them long enough. At this point in time, we got a pretty good idea of what they sound like when they're lying and what they sound like when they tell them the truth. If somebody tells the truth, they pretty much tend to tell the truth the same way every time. If they tell the truth, you talk to somebody long enough, you got a line on do they ever tell the truth? And if they do, what does it sound like? People lie 20 ways. They tell the truth one way. So we've been coaching in negotiations with the kidnappers long enough that we know what they sound like when they tell the truth. So when they ask at the very end, if we pay, do you promise to let them go? It's not that they answered, but how they answered it, and that'll be the last thing to seal the deal. How do you continually stack the odds in your favor for implementing.

A

Do you have a bodily, like a somatic censor for lying? The reason I ask is, years ago, I had the experience of knowing somebody, and they turned out to be a generally good person. But I sensed early on that something was, like, off. I couldn't relax around them. I just couldn't relax around them. And I could not tell you why? But it was as if my. I couldn't even identify the neuroanatomy of it. I'd say it was the vagus nervous thing, but I teach neuroanatomy, and I can't point to one pathway in the body. There was something about my autonomic response that would just start cranking up when I was around them. Like, something is off, something is off, something else. And I kid you not, five years later, five years later, I discovered a series of lies that all ratcheted together that were actually pretty meaningless in the total context of things. But I remember thinking at that moment, oh, my goodness. Like, my system knew. Like knew. And for all my knowledge of neuroscience, I can't tell you to this day what it was in my biology, but it had something to do with my bodily response. It wasn't just a thought. Like, that doesn't quite add up, or I feel like I'm getting the runaround, or it was a physical sensation. Are you familiar with that experience?

B

Yeah. Well, it's a little bit what you guys and your colleagues are still discovering the science behind the gut. And what we're actually teaching my company now, we're teaching people, learn the difference between your gut and your amygdala, for lack of a better term, your fear centers and know which one is which. And listen to your gut. Your gut is ridiculously accurate. Now, where does that information come from? One of your podcasts recently, I was listening to. We were talking about olfactory juice. Right? The smells like. I never thought of that. Of course, you know. Yeah. There was a term for the molecules that you're putting off that.

A

Oh, pheromones.

B

Pheromones. What, are pheromones gonna get kicked out? Like, of course. And that's why some of the great investigators I knew would say, I can just smell it. I can smell it. So what all is feeding your gut? And what are the senses that the science hasn't yet discovered? You know, you can't make me believe, I will never believe that the life force stops at the surface of our skin, that there's energy, and that we can pick up on the energy. I mean, our gut is being fed by all these different inputs that we're aware of or that we have yet to be made aware of. The tone of voice doesn't match their words. The head tilt. You've got a supercomputer in your brain. Your gut is incredible if you listen to it instead of your fear centers. And as soon as you start listening to your gut, you can't explain it at the time, but you got a bad feeling in your gut, and later on, then you saw it all came together, where your brain was picking up these cues. Your brain was probably when you were in their presence. There's got to be an odor somebody gives off when they're intentionally deceiving. You didn't know that that was a smell, and maybe you couldn't have consciously smelled it, but you're still picking it up. So long answer to I'm a very big believer in the gut. I think there's science that we know and yet to discover that tells us that the gut is just ridiculously accurate if we listen to it instead of our fear centers.

A

I completely agree that there are energetic exchanges that neuroscience can't yet explain. The field of neuroscience, that is, is starting to explore some of these things. There are basically three apex journals, the most competitive journals to publish in science, nature, and cell. And I only mention that because there was a series of articles written in science magazine about magnetoreception in humans. The idea that humans can detect magnetic fields sounds like quackery. Turtles can detect magnetic fields. They migrate by them, actually long distances, but the idea is that humans can't do that. And yet there are some well controlled studies where people have to guess about the orientation of a magnetic field, and they do it better than chance. Not everyone can do it, but some can do it better than chance in a way that cannot be predicted by anything else except some inherent form of magnetoreception in their nervous system. So there are capabilities of the nervous system that are starting to be revealed, which we don't have a lot of evidence, but there's enough evidence to suggest that these things are really happening. The other example, which you might find interesting, is a little bit less esoteric, but there was a beautiful paper published in one of the cell press journals a couple of years ago showing that when people listen to the same story, the distance between their heartbeats tends to be very similar. Now, it doesn't mean that their exact heart rates are similar, but if you look at the distance between their heartbeats, they all entrained to the same rhythm, the same song. And get this, they're in completely separate rooms. The experiments are being done on completely separate days. And yet, if I were to line up just the distance between the heartbeats for you, they would line up like a set of columns for dozens of individuals listening to the same story. So, clearly, there's a passage of energy from things we hear and things we see that goes into our nervous system at a level that's below our conscious detection. Here's the last thing I'll say about this. We have a series on mental health coming out, not mental illness, but mental health by, I think, to be among the very finest psychiatrists in the world, Doctor Paul Conti. And he said, we all think that the forebrain is the supercomputer. He said, no, the subconscious is the supercomputer. That's where the real knowledge processing is happening. That's the iceberg below the surface where all the real heavy lifting has taken place, and that people who learn to tap into the subconscious can learn to use that information in very meaningful ways. And I think that's what you're describing.

B

He's been on with you before, right?

A

He has to talk about trauma in particular. And he was on Lex Friedman's podcast as well. The series that we're doing with him is not about trauma per se. It's really about the subconscious and the. I think you'll find this series really interesting. And it has a number of very practical questions that one can ask themselves about their subconscious and kind of work the process of psychiatry. We're excited to release that series because I don't know of anything like it that's been put out there into the public. But I was so pleasantly surprised to hear him say, we all hear that the forebrain is the supercomputer. It's what drove our evolution. He's like, no, no, no. It's the subconscious. That's where our real wisdom resides. And the forebrain is just the implementation device. So it's, you know, how we can.

B

Convince ourselves that we're in charge, right?

A

Yeah. I mean, I can't think of a time that my gut told me a and it turned out to be b. More often than not, though, I've suppressed my response to the gut. I override it, thinking, I think I made the mistake that you guys train your negotiators to avoid a, which is I thought, well, this is making me anxious and the anxiety must be like me, like this must be my fault, or I'm not able to calm myself in this situation, not sleeping well, et cetera. And therefore, this must represent some deficiency on my part. And Lord knows, as your shirt points out, I'm a very flawed person. I have many flaws. I always say I have 3000 pet peeves and at least as many flaws to match those pet peeves, the one to one at least relationship. But the point being that I think our bodies really do know they know.

B

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would agree.

A

So when you're doing negotiations and you're hearing somebody's voice on the phone, there are a lot of cues. When you're face to face, there are additional cues. There's their face. And then, of course, if the negotiations are being done by text over a computer or a phone, it's a very diminished environment for information. So maybe we could talk about each of those, because we live in those landscapes. If we're face to face and we're negotiating, you're listening, of course, to what I want, what I'm insisting on. You're working that process from your side. What are you paying attention to? Visually?

B

It's more, are things in alignment? There's layman's data. You know, the words, the way it's said and look on people's face and how are they weighed and how they play out. There's a ratio out there that very unscientific. 738 55 7% words, 38% delivery, 55% body language. People won't argue about it all the time whether or not that's accurate. As a rule of thumb, we throw that out there. But I tell people the most important issue is, do they line up? So I'm not going to look for, like, when do you raise your eyebrow, or when do you look up and to the left? I'm really just going to try to get a gut feeling whether or not I think these things are lining up, whether they're in alignment or whether they're out of line. And then I'm going to be real careful about what meaning I assign to that. You know, affective cues, changes in your tone of voice, changes in your movement. And that's one of the reasons why we don't teach reading people's body language, because it's completely contextual to you and the moment. So if I convince myself that, you know, a raise of the eyebrow means this, it's out of context. I was in a negotiation once where I threw out a figure to somebody, and I some kind of look off to the side and look back and accepted my offer. And I made the mistake of not saying to them the appropriate thing for me to say at the time would have been, seems like something just crossed your mind, because the only completely true observation, if they looked to the side and looked back, something crossed their mind. Now, I read it at the moment of saying that they had more money, and I found out after the fact that was wrong. They were stretched to the limit. The look of hesitation didn't mean that they were holding stuff. They were holding stuff back, but I read it wrong, and I didn't bother to check on the affective cue that I saw. So what am I babbling about? What I'm babbling about is if we're in a negotiation and whether or not I'm listening to your tone of voice or watching your body language or your words, if I see you shift at all, I should pay attention that there was a shift in your affective behavior, but I need to find out what was behind it as opposed to making an assumption as to what it meant. So, yeah, I'm going to watch, I'm going to get my gut feeling, and I'm going to say, sounds like there's some hesitation, or it looks like something just crossed your mind, or even if I can't attribute it to a specific affective move, I might say it feels like there's something in the way. That's me listening to my gut. I'll throw out an observation on whatever any of those might be, just to go back over the ground a little bit and double check. Because the other thing about negotiating in person is you're going to give me more information physically than I can actually process. And if you say something that's thought provoking, I'll stop and think about it. And while I'm stopping and thinking about what you just said, I'm missing all your cues. So all the skills that we teach, the labels, the mirrors, the opening of questions which seem like we're going back and plowing the ground again, we are. Because I didn't pick up all the information the first time, there's just more there than I can get, and so I need to go back over it a couple of times with you, just so I get it right. Without making you feel interrogated, you actually feel heard, and you actually get to go back over it again. So it becomes what seems to be an inefficient process, but it's actually me just double checking my information. So if we're face to face, I'm gonna ask you to repeat, but I'm not gonna say, would you please repeat that? I'm gonna get you to repeat without asking you to repeat.

A

Is the same true in online or text communications?

B

The same thing is true. The problem with online and text is people try to bundle everything into one communication. The best analogy I can think of is if you were playing chess by text, would you put seven moves in your text? No, you'd only put one move in. So only try to get one point across in a text, don't explain. Don't throw a whole bunch of stuff in text or emails. They're all almost always too long, and it's going to come off as cold. So do what you can to soften. Soften. It's a documentary film that's been done on my company called Tactical Empathy. Nick Nanton won 22, 23 Emmys. The filmmaker, DNA films, it was finished last year. It's not out yet. For a variety of reasons. We haven't put it out. So we screened the thing in Vegas last year. I see it. I love it. I'm not a good judge of a film about me. I'm gonna love it no matter what. It's about me. But I tell Nick that night, oh, man, I love it. This is great. Two days later, I find out I realize there's a huge problem. I've already told him it's okay, so I gotta get him. I gotta. I'm gonna text him and then I'm gonna call him and we gotta fix it now. It's a Sunday text message. I sent him a two line text. It's now a bad time to talk. I got something you don't want to hear. Two lines now. What were my other options? I could have called him. Nick and I got a great relationship. I call him. If he's in a position to pick up the phone. Doesn't matter what he's doing. He's going to answer the phone. He was in the middle of a Zoom call. If I'd have called, he'd have picked up during the zoom call and both conversations would have been bad. He immediately fires back to me, I'm in the middle of a Zoom call. I'll call you in a half an hour. He already knows he ain't gonna like what he's gonna hear. I'm prepping him for bad news. Get him on the phone, like, look, I know what I said. We got a problem. We gotta get Derek on camera. Derek is a guy in my team, and I'm shocked that I haven't made him part of the documentary. This is gonna be incomplete without Derek. We got to get Derek on film. We can't show this to anybody else until we get him on film and make a part of it immediately. He's in problem solving mode. He goes, okay, I got to get a crew to Derek or get Derek to a crew. I need to know when we can do that. I need to. We got a. We got another showing of the films scheduled in LA, less than a month away. He says, I got to get Derek on camera, and we got to edit it. It's going to take three weeks of editing. I said, I'll get you access to Derek's camera. He goes, done. Or Darrell's calendar. He says, done. It's done. We go through this whole conversation in less than ten minutes. Now, think of the normal negotiation. Hey, Nick, how are you? What's going on today? Are you in a good mood? Hey, hey, hey. How the kids doing? All this time wasting conversation? If I'd have set him up with that normal, he would also. He could have legitimately said, are you out of your mind? We've been working on this for a year. You didn't bring this up in a year. Not only that, you already told me two days ago at the showing in Vegas that you loved it. And now a year, year and a half into this project, you're bringing up all these new problems. That would have been the normal negotiation. But since I. Since we got a highly collaborative relationship, I. Two line text, we're done in ten minutes. Now, since Nick's a very generous guy, when he gets done, and he says, by the way, you understand how much this is going to cost me? This is three weeks of editing. This is 3 hours of shooting and three weeks of editing. I go, yeah. He goes, but I'm happy to do it. Calls me back the next day. He's got a favorite, asking me, you got it? Doesn't matter what it is. Because we'd gone through what would have been a very complicated negotiation that started on text, and I sent him a two line text on a Sunday, and we got to solve that fast.

A

So if I understand correctly, by setting the context in a very direct and succinct way, he goes into it in a problem solving mode with you. Whereas if you do the tour of all the things that are going well in life.

B

Yeah, hey, how are you? Yeah.

A

The sort of the. We'll keep this pg, you know, the mud sandwich approach. They teach you that when you get a laboratory. You know, most scientists have no skill running a business, right? You get a laboratory, all you've done is experiments, and then suddenly you're in charge of people managing budgets and all this stuff. I mean. I mean, most scientists, 99% of scientists, are completely unqualified to do the job they do at the level of running a laboratory. When they start, you learn it on the job, and eventually you end up having to let somebody go. And so the typical thing they teach you in these online training things is you tell somebody something nice, then you give them the bad news, and then you tell them something nice on exit. Right. That's kind of the mud, so to speak, sandwich.

B

Right.

A

All right, this is not that. What you're talking about is saying, hey, this is the problem. You're not going to like the problem or there is a problem, you're not going to like it. So that they show up with the context of solving a problem as opposed to giving them the tour of all the things that are going well, and then the problem is really in contrast to that. And then it's like, ugh, you know, so what I love about what you're describing is it's just. It's direct, it's honest. You're not doing the tour of the garden before you take them down to the septic tank.

B

It's what I would call the difference between being blunt and being a straight shooter. A straight shooter tells you the truth. They just tell it in a way that lands softly.

A

Let's talk about breakups, business breakups, romantic breakups.

B

Right? You breaking up with me?

A

No. No. But thanks for the hypothesis test. No, in fact, I'm enjoying this conversation so much as I always do. I'm learning a ton from you that, if anything, I'd like to expand and deepen our relationship. Chris, there, you got a lot of knowledge out of me, platonic and professional, but expansive. What is the process of ending a relationship? And again, this could be a romantic relationship, could be business relationship, could be employer, employee, could be individuals. Could be telling a whole group or an entire group telling an individual. The reason I raise this as a particular example is that I'm assuming that both sides don't want the same thing. One side wants to continue, the other side wants to end. I'll avoid the use of the word win win, or the words win win, excuse me, and just ask, is there a way to have that conversation in any of the contexts I just mentioned in, as you so beautifully described it? A straight shooter manner, where it's direct, it's honest, but it lands soft, because what we're talking about here is feelings of rejection, and nobody likes feeling rejected. I don't know anybody that likes being fired, even from jobs. They don't like people's egos software.

B

Right.