Slay Every Negotiation w/ Rebecca Zung

DO YOU HAVE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE WHO REGULARLY DROP ONE OR MORE OF THESE PHRASES ON YOU? “You interrupted me.” “Just because I didn’t…” “What about your issues?” “What more do you want from me?” “You’re the only one who thinks that way.” “You made me…..” If so, you may be dealing with a NARCISSIST. This week, I’m welcoming Rebecca Zung to my show for a revealing discussion on how to deal with narcissists, negotiating better, uncovering the differences between how men and women think, and much more. Rebecca started out with HUMBLE beginnings and has since transformed herself into one a TOP 1% ATTORNEY in the nation, and AUTHOR OF MANY BEST-SELLING BOOKS. While you're reading those be sure to check out her YouTube channel as well! As Rebecca explains, narcissism is beyond UNHEALTHY, and often DIFFICULT TO SPOT. Narcissists have a fragile sense of self and that turns them into expert MANIPULATORS who prey upon certain kinds of people close to them to get what they want. But narcissism is a lot more INSIDIOUS than that. Rebecca has a “SLAY” strategy and a “MANIPULATE THE MANIPULATOR” strategy you can use to ethically negotiate and deal with these kinds of toxic people at work and in your personal relationships. These strategies are easy to understand and put into practice. Narcissists are also fond of FLIPPING THE SCRIPT and putting the blame back on their accusers. Rebecca has will tell you the best way to respond when you’re confronted with people and situations like that as well. If you’re looking for ways to NEGOTIATE your way to a BETTER LIFE, Rebecca’s got some great advice in that area, too. I won’t give it away here, but you MUST listen to one particular nugget of PURE WISDOM Rebecca offers up, in addition to several other tips on how to get the upper hand in all types of negotiations. And if you’re looking for some tips on how MEN AND WOMEN can negotiate better with each other, Rebecca’s got great insights on that as well, including one divorce story involving MILLIONS OF DOLLARS that will blow your mind. You’re going to find Rebecca Zung highly relatable on a lot of levels. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  This is The Ed Mylett Show.

• 1:48Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back, everybody. Today's an interesting show because I have a really unique woman on my show. She's one of the top attorneys in the country. I'm doing a little background research on her. I'm finding out this woman was married at 19, dropped out of school, has three kids, then goes back to school, goes to law school, becomes an extremely prominent attorney. But then has sort of morphed over this time into an expert. I would call it on negotiating life. And we're going to talk about a lot of things there. We're talking about toxic people in your life. We're going to talk about narcissists in your life. How do I identify them? A lot of you have them. When I was researching the show today, I'm like, wow, that friend of mine is somewhere on the spectrum of being a narcissist. That one isn't. I wonder even if I am in some cases. We're going to talk about, you know, how to get what you want in life, how to be more persuasive,

• 2:32Ed Mylett?

  how to be more influential, which is what I think all of you want. And this woman is uniquely qualified to help you with it. And so I'm really honored to share Rebecca Zung with everybody today. Rebecca, welcome to the show.

• 2:44Speaker 04

  Thank you. Thanks for having me.

• 2:46Ed Mylett?

  I'm grateful you're here and I want to thank John Gordon, our mutual friend and Erwin McManus for connecting the two of us. So well, there's a lot to cover with you. Let's start out a little bit with the narcissist thing that you've been talking about lately is how to negotiate with a narcissist. But to me, when I hear narcissists, there's, correct me if I'm wrong, I think there's degrees of narcissism in life. But it's also for me, it's a lot of people listening to this are in different relationships, business relationships, personal relationships, and how to identify whether or not this person is toxic to you, or just detrimental to your life, or whether or not they're a benefit to your life. So what is narcissism to start out with? And are there varying degrees of it?

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, to me, a narcissist is a person who has a very fragile sense of self. It's the person who is the absolute most insecure person in the world. They have no inner sense of value. So therefore, they have to get all of their sense of value from external sources, from either the, you know, adulation, from prestige, from people giving them compliments, from, you know, all of the things that you think about when you think of that. But that,

• 4:08Speaker 04

  you know, what I call the dark underbelly of that is that, you know, that control, devaluing, debasing people, degrading people, you know, that's the other side of that as well. So that's

• 4:22Speaker 04

  You know, the one side of that. And then, you know, the other side of that is that they therefore have no ability to have any sense of compassion, or care, or empathy for other people. And that is because it's scarcity mentality to the extreme. If I give to anybody else, therefore, I can't have, or I won't have. So that's really what a narcissist is, all the way to the end of the spectrum. And as you said, you know, I do believe that all of us, you know, to varying degrees, have some sense of that. We've all, you

• 5:04Speaker 04

  know, had some feeling of insecurity at times. We all want to feel seen, heard, and know that we matter. That's part of being human.

• 5:13Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  And so, you know, it's when it becomes pathological. It's when it becomes, you know, that's the only way that you feel.

• 5:22Ed Mylett?

  So brilliant. I want to stay on it because, listen, what's the most important things in our lives is obviously our sense of self. And we, as you said, to people, people want to be seen and heard and felt, and they want to express themselves. They want to feel valued. That's healthy. That's okay. But right now, if you're listening to this, or you're watching this, you may be in a relationship where you're like, is this the one? Or maybe you're even married, and you're thinking, why are we not happier together? Maybe it's a business relationship that you have, people that work with you, for you, or are a boss of yours. And so I want to hone in on this idea that, because for me, I started to really, when I'm reading about this, people start flashing, well, yeah, that particular person in my life, man, they are so addicted to attention, so addicted to getting accolades and admiration externally, and will do almost anything to

• 6:07Ed Mylett?

  get it, even do things to their own detriment. So how do we distinguish between the unhealthy and the healthy? I want to ask you specifically about something. When I was kind of ranking people that I know, including myself, on this spectrum, so to speak, because I think there's a point where now, no longer is this person healthy in my life. They become toxic. There's a line there. And for me, the other sign of the aggressive narcissist, or the more severe one, They also will never take responsibility for any of their behavior. They immediately make you think you're the crazy one. Well, what about you? And they constantly turn the frame and put it back on you. Everyone right now that knows someone like this is going, I know that person. Do you think that's where you distinguish the line that this person is unhealthy?

• 6:50Ed Mylett?

  Because they won't take any responsibility for this addictive behavior, for attention and admiration and accolades? Is responsibility one of the quotients we should be looking at?

• 6:59Speaker 04

  I mean, I think there's a number of different types of lines, and I think it depends on the type of relationship that you're in with that person as well. I mean, is it a work relationship? Is it an intimate relationship? You know, I think it really kind of depends. I mean, are you in a business relationship with this person? Is this person like in your finances? Are they in your space? You know, I mean, or is it kind of a more of a casual relationship? I think it really kind of depends. You know, how much control do they have over you? You know, but if, you know, you are feeling where, you know, the hairs on the back of your neck are up, the gut, your gut reaction is not feeling good. You're feeling

• 7:43Speaker 04

  like this relationship is not working for you in some way. I mean, I know for me, I had a very minor business with a person, a business relationship where I had gone into a business partnership with someone. Thank God, it didn't go very far. And the business didn't really make any money, but it was enough that it absolutely made my life completely miserable. It was a covert narcissist. And, you know, right from the beginning, I saw red flags, but I kind of ignored them because I was like, well, but this person seems so nice. And but yet I knew that there were these flags and I let them go and I thought

• 8:28Speaker 04

  that I could overcompensate for them. And I thought that, well, there's these other things that seem good. And I continued.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  You know, and I ignored them because I thought that I could make up for them in other ways. And because I did that, I paid for it so dearly. And it was, it ended up to be one of the absolute worst nightmares of my entire life. And you know, you, most of the time with these people, you know, from the beginning, that it's not good.

• 9:07Ed Mylett?

  You said something in there, Rebecca, I just want to jump in and ask you about it. Because to me, you said such a great distinction between business and personal. Personal, for me, one of the things I measure is, how much of my energy am I using to have to feed this person's ego and prop them up? Right now, if you're in a relationship, friendship, personal intimate relationship with somebody, measure it. How much of your energy, time, thinking, goes to having to prop up their ego constantly, right? And how much energy are you expanding? And is it a never ending thing you're doing? You want to do that the rest of your life? Business, sometimes, though, to your point, I'm locked in now. And I may need to be dealing with them for a while. Maybe I do need to exit. But if you can't, you have to deal with someone who's got some form of narcissism. You have this thing you say that is so brilliant. I want, if you'd cover two of them at once, one is slay. And

• 9:52Ed Mylett?

  the other one is sort of this related is this sort of how to ethically manipulate the manipulator. Would you sort of touch on that? So I'm in a business relationship, I can't exit it right now. How do I negotiate and deal with, in all different settings, someone who has one of these forms of narcissism?

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I mean, those are kind of both related with each other. Okay. So, I mean, slay is, you know, developing a super strong strategy and creating invincible leverage, anticipating what they're going to be doing, and then focusing on you and your position and your case. And this is, if you're having to negotiate with this person. And I call it, and you're ethically manipulating the manipulator throughout the entire process. Because these people are master manipulators. You know, I always go back to the

• 10:47Speaker 04

  The Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour thing, you know, where he talks about how it took 10,000 hours to become good at something. These people 10,000 hours was like, you know, they they hit that at toddler, you know, I mean, they were doing this long ago, long ago. They're very good at what they do. They know exactly how to push your buttons. They know exactly how to trigger you. They've been reading you from the beginning and, you know, so a lot of times people beat themselves up over like, how did I fall into this thing? How did I fall prey to this? Well, they know how to read you. They know how to, you know, manipulate you.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  So you have to learn how to take what it is that motivates them, which is their need for narcissistic supply, which is anything that feeds their ego, and use that to manipulate them in order to create leverage. I mean, this is within the context of actually negotiating with them, for for people who are negotiating with them.

• 11:59Ed Mylett?

  Well, everything's a negotiation, though. And so every single day, you may have a boss who's got a form of narcissism. And so what she's talking about with Slay is being very aware, right? And being cognizant of, listen, oftentimes you have to, there's got to be compliments, there's got to be feeding them, and then sticking in there what you need or that you want.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Right, so so a good example of that, you know, not to cut you off. I want to give you.

• 12:26Ed Mylett?

  But you want you to, please.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  I want you, I want to give a good example of what exactly you're talking about. So a good example of that would be something that I call bartering. So bartering in the real world is, you know, an exchange of goods and services, you know, without money. So what what does value look like to a narcissist? Well, it's adulation. That is the grade A diamond level supply for narcissists. So in the narcissism world. Supply is what they feed on. It's their lifeblood. It's their food. It's their oxygen. It's anything that feeds their ego.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  But within that world of narcissism, there is a hierarchy of this supply. So, you know, there is the good food. There is, you know, that prime rib of beef or whatever. You know, there's the grade A and then there's, you know, like the scraps of food or whatever. So like the prime rib or the good food or whatever is the adulation. It's, you know, and so if you want something, you might want to say, you might want to give them some adulation. So you might want to say something like, if you want them to get, you know, do the QuickBooks or something. Hey, can you do the QuickBooks? You are so much better at it than I am.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  You know, you are way better at math and figures and you'll get it done so much faster. I'm terrible with that. And then you like, you beef up their ego. They'll like, want to do it. Yeah, you're right. I am so much better at it. They get motivated. They'll get it done. You get something you want and everybody is happy. And, and, you know, so a lot of people think, oh, but I don't, I hate them. And now you're playing into their ego, blah, blah, blah. Well, but if you want them to do something, then you've got to like, think about what it is that's going to motivate them, right?

• 14:31Ed Mylett?

  You may have a, you may be in a situation where you say, well, manipulates a strong word. Oftentimes manipulating somebody to do things for their own good. I, I've had to manipulate family members of mine to go see a doctor. And then they found out they had cancer. Thank God I had the ability to put the words together, the emotions together to persuade them to go do something for their own benefit. So you may not be able to escape some of these situations that you're in. And so these are things that are important. You do need to learn how to do them. And now I want to ask you about. Confronting someone. And again, guys, there's degrees of narcissism. There's degrees of being self-centered, degrees of ego. We all have a little bit of it, all the way to this point where it's not really healthy. And we're going to talk in a minute, by the way, we're going to talk about how to get what you want regardless of who you're interacting with.

• 15:15Ed Mylett?

  But what would your recommendation be about you are interacting with someone who is behaving and acting out in a way that doesn't serve them or you, business or personal? Is there any upside in confronting a narcissist directly about their behavior? Or do you believe that that's completely useless use of energy and words?

• 15:33Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, there's no upside to, you know, going up to them and saying, you're a narcissist and.

• 15:41Ed Mylett?

  I'm referring more about their behavior. Hey, listen, this thing you're doing here, here and her doesn't serve you or I. Or if you've already identified them as somebody who's a narcissist, are they not going to own it in any way, shape or form anyways?

• 15:52Speaker 04

  No, you're not going to get them to say, uh, you're right. I'm so sorry, you know, blah, blah, blah. You're totally wasting your breath and your energy by trying to get them to do that. You know, you might as well, you know, go pound sand or whatever. I mean, you know.

• 16:10Ed Mylett?

  I guess it's important, Rebecca, just because I think people are constantly doing this with people in their lives that are this way, like, hey, listen, just change this, just change this. And then what they like to do is they like to turn the lens and go, but you, you and you. So that's the other part I wanted to ask you. They start sending you a list of the 18 things you're doing wrong. How do you recommend you reply or respond to somebody who's got that personality type who's then sort of, I wouldn't call it attacking, but turning the lens on to you. Do you recommend you reply specifically to all the things they're saying you're doing wrong? Or how would you best reply to somebody, business or personal?

• 16:47Speaker 04

  I mean, what I recommend is, um, you know.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  A lot of times I say, you know, you want to reply in a way that's very, very, very specific. So for example, they've sent a very, very long email and a lot of times it's calculated to trigger you in a certain way. And, you know, it might be 18 pages long and there may be one line in there that you have to respond to, like, you know, what time are we going to meet on Wednesday or something like that? And that's actually, when you distill it down, that's the only thing you actually need to respond to. And

• 17:35Speaker 04

  so you can, and a lot of times people are like, but I need to respond to it because I don't want the judge to be seeing this. I don't want this to be used down the road in court. I don't want this to be some trial exhibit. I need to defend myself, you know, all that sort of thing. So what I will say is, you can respond with something like this. Thank you for your email. I am in receipt of it. I deny all of the allegations herein and we can meet at 3:00 PM on Wednesday. Sincerely.

• 18:12Ed Mylett?

  That's it. So reply to the smallest possible, most necessitated item in there, whether that's personal, email, legal, business, or otherwise. That's your advice.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  I've received it. I deny it. Here's, you know, the only other thing I need to respond to.

• 18:26Ed Mylett?

  Really good. All right. So that's dealing with them. Now let's talk about dealing with our lives. So the first thing you wrote was about, you know, negotiating as if you matter. And so I want to talk about now about negotiating our lives and getting what we want in life, because that's ultimately why everybody's listening to my show, right? They want more happiness, more money, more success, more peace of mind, more whatever it might be. So a broad question to begin with. What are some of the keys you believe in life to negotiating the life that you want? What are some of the keys you would suggest?

• 18:56Speaker 04

  The best lessons that I ever learned myself is I learned this from one of my business, well, the main business coach that I've had, who's now become one of my best friends. She taught me something. I'm going to tell you what the lesson is and I'm going to tell you what the story was. She taught me that people will think what you tell them to think.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  And I'm going to tell you the story of how she taught me this. And it's actually a great lesson for negotiating, but it's also a great lesson for life. So what happened was I had been practicing law for about eight years and then I left the practice of law for about two years to go be a financial advisor, wealth advisor. I spent two years with Morgan Stanley. I got my Series Seven, my 66, and I thought, oh, I'll have an easier lifestyle. I had a little child at the time. My daughter, who's now 19, was, you know, young and I was like, oh, you know, I'll have a better, better hours, which, you know, didn't really work out that way.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  So after about two years, a friend of mine was leaving her law practice and she was moving out of the area. And she said, I've got this, these clients. If you want, you can take over my client base and start your own practice. So I was like, okay, well, people are not going to be dropping law practices in my lap on a regular basis. I'm taking, you know, this opportunity. So I decided to take over this, this law practice. And I'm talking to my, my business coach and I was like, the people in this town are going to think I am such a flake. Like, you know, this girl's a lawyer and now she's a financial advisor. Now she's back to being a lawyer.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Like, this girl does not know what she wants. And my business coach said, people will think what you tell them to think.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  And she said, you can tell them to think that you're a flake and you don't know what you want. Or you can tell them to think that you're the only lawyer that has a financial background. So you are actually more qualified than any of the other lawyers.

• 21:23Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 21:23Speaker 04

  In town because you know, you've got this financial background and what other family law attorney has that.

• 21:30Ed Mylett?

  So good.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  And I was like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. And so I started to kind of hold myself out as that. And I can't tell you how many people ended up hiring me because that's how I held myself out.

• 21:46Ed Mylett?

  I love this. I have to tell you something. I have to acknowledge something when like wisdom is preached. So I just, I got to brilliant. And just last night I was mentoring, I have a finance, one of the businesses I'm a, it was a financial firm. I was mentoring a very young guy last night and I told him, I just want to second what you said. I said, listen, most people are busy with their own lives. You can create the story. And if you tell them what to believe, they're going to believe it 98% of the time. I said, I learned this because later in my career, I ended up working with a series of doctors. And the doctor said to me, he said, Ed, listen, when you're dealing with doctors, it's different than dealing with other clients. We're really busy. We just want you to tell us what we need to do, what we need to think, and let us do it so we can go back to working with our patients. And I said, really? You want me to kind of, he goes, tell, ask, tell us and ask us simultaneously. Say things like, obviously, we need to take these steps.

• 22:31Ed Mylett?

  And you create the frame, pre-frame what you're going to tell me, tell me what this means, then mean it. And then when you're done, tell me what you just told me and what it meant. So pre-frame, frame it, and then post-frame it. So I started to do it and everyone was buying. And I said to him about six months later, I said, you know what I found out? It's not just doctors, it's everybody. I should have been doing this the entire time with everything in my life. Pre-framing what this means for everybody, then framing it. And then when I'm done saying, this is what you just heard and what it meant. And you create the meaning. And so this is something for, if you get no lesson out of this entire TV show, what Rebecca just told you is absolute. Truth on how to get what you want in your life. It's key number one in your life.

• 23:15Ed Mylett?

  Let me ask you about this number two. When I listen to you and I've watched your content. So Rebecca's got content that's very diverse. She's got stuff on divorce. She's got stuff on negotiation. She's got stuff on narcissism. She's also been a TV personality, which she'll get interviewed when a high profile person's going through something. And so she's learned to communicate in different settings. One on one, financial, courtroom, television, podcast. You're an unbelievable communicator. How much of persuasion for you has just been your personal certainty level? Just actual certainty in the way you deliver a message. Are you conscious of that? Or was that just sort of like a natural gift you had when you started practicing law?

• 23:57Speaker 04

  My father used to say, my father was from China, actually, and he came over here when he was 14. And he went to Columbia University undergrad and medical school and, you know, he was the only Chinese guy actually in those days. And, you know, he was a big deal. Um, and he used to say to me, whatever you say, say it with authority and people will believe you. And he just kind of, you know, groomed me that way. Like even if you don't know the answer, don't lie.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  Just say, I don't know. I will get you the answer, but you say it with authority. Like, um, and so I don't know. I just think that he, he was, and even as a girl, like he just was like always believed in me in that way. And I was really, really fortunate to have a father who was, um, who believed in me in that way.

• 25:01Ed Mylett?

  I think there's things Rebecca, I think some people, I watch this on my show all the time. It's fascinating to me that certain people are great at something and they're almost unaware of their greatness at it. And I think this is the case with you. You have a massive degree of certainty when you communicate. It's almost like you have a style when you speak. It's almost like, and I'm gonna, I mean, this is a compliment. There's a way in which you deliver a message. My audience is gonna nod when I say this. You have a style of communication. It's almost like there's a tone to it that you're almost an idiot if you don't believe what I'm saying right now. That's almost what it sounds like. It's that depth of certainty. It's not arrogance. It's not condescending, but it's a it's an expression of certainty that's almost like you're you just don't get it if you don't agree with me.

• 25:46Ed Mylett?

  That's what it sounds like.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Well, I appreciate that. I mean, I certainly haven't always felt that way, though. I mean, you know, for people that have followed me, you know, they they know that I've certainly had my share of, you know, stumbles in my life, you know, I I I got married at nineteen. The first time I I had three kids by the time I was twenty two. I I dropped out of college. I went, you know, I got divorced. I went back to law school at night. You know, I I met my husband, my current husband in law school. I got married again. I had another child. I have four kids. You know, so I certainly like have I feel like I've I've had my share of

• 26:32Speaker 04

  of, you know, bootstrapping and and getting, you know, where I need to be. You know, I was bullied as a kid for being half Asian. Um, I I talk a lot about that. You know, I've had to deal with these narcissists in my life and, um, you know, I I definitely have been I've tried to be as authentic as I can to so that people understand that it hasn't always come easy for me. You know, I've I've definitely had to deal with my own struggles for sure. Because I want people to understand, like, I'm a human being too. And if I could do it, anyone can do it.

• 27:15Ed Mylett?

  It's amazing what you've accomplished. I mean, I don't, everyone just flew by, but this is a woman who's married at 19, three kids, drops out of school. You fast forward, Bob Shapiro writes the foreword to her book, one of the most powerful influential attorneys of all time. I've met Bob a few times, founded LegalZoom. She's television personality. She's a sought after, she's one of the sought after experts in the world on negotiation. And it's a remarkable journey. And I'm curious, have you done anything specifically that you would share with us to work on your self-confidence? Because you are, at least externally, a very strong, very confident woman. But now I'm picturing this little girl who's half Asian, getting bullied at school. I'm picturing this mom running around the house with three screaming babies

• 27:59Ed Mylett?

  at any given time in her early twenties, probably not in the best marriage at that time. You know, I'm picturing this, you know, precious lady at those times of her life. And then you flash forward and we have what we have in front of us right now. What have you done to change you, change your confidence?

• 28:17Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, I always joke like that, you know, like I never leave my thoughts unsupervised.

• 28:26Ed Mylett?

  Whoa, whoa, very good. What do you mean by that?

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Um, you know, I try to make sure that I very much control the input of my thoughts, you know, by listening to the right audiobooks, you know, just always making sure I'm working on self-development and surrounding myself with the right people, defending my light with my life at all times.

• 28:56Ed Mylett?

  Can you say that again? What did you say there? Say that again, please.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  Oh, it's, it's one of my mantras. I defend my light with my life.

• 29:03Ed Mylett?

  I know it is, but I wanted them to hear it. So what do you mean when you say that?

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Um, you know, I believe that I know, I'm not gonna say I believe, I know that we are beings of energy and that we are vibrational, you know, beings and we, I mean, you know, I talked about this with John Gordon. I mean, it's so funny. I had read the Energy Bus years ago and, and then when Erwin introduced us, I was like, um, you know, I, I know I must have manifested that because I had read his book so long ago. And, you know, I'm very, very conscious about keeping my vibrational energy at a certain level so that I'm always attracting because I know that like attracts like and that you, you have to keep your vibrational energy at

• 29:50Speaker 04

  a certain level. Otherwise, I'm conscious of it, you know, dipping or, or negative thoughts coming into my life. I think, well, you better get rid of that unless you want more of that coming in, you know? So how can I pivot this right now? What can I be listening to? What can I be looking at? What can I do to be pivoting that? It's not that I ever, never have bad thoughts, or I never have bad people, or I never have, you know, dark, you know, times or whatever. I mean, everybody does because we are human beings. I'm just conscious

• 30:29Speaker 04

  of it now. I get, I'm, I'm aware of when it happens and I, I have an arsenal of tools that I use to go to, to, um, to combat it now.

• 30:43Ed Mylett?

  I love it. See, awareness of our thoughts helps them lose their power over us. And it's such a critical key that you've just said, just being aware of your thoughts helps the negative ones lose their power over you. I just interviewed an MMA fighter named Dustin Poirier and I said, because it comes to emotions, the way the world works, everybody, just so you kind of understand how you can change what she's describing is, it's not the events in our life that define our lives. It's the meaning we attach to them. So what happens is an event takes place, a conversation, a meeting, a failure, a setback, whatever you think it is, you attach a meaning to it. That gives you an emotion and based on an emotion, you take an action. So if you can go all the way back and attach the right meaning to an event, that will change the emotion you experience and change the action you take. And I was asking this fighter, he just beat Conor McGregor.

• 31:29Ed Mylett?

  I said, do you get scared and have anxiety and worry before you get into the octagon? He goes, every time, still fearful for my life, afraid, worried. He said, those thoughts never go away, but he said, they do become more familiar. And he becomes more familiar with those emotions, more familiar with those thoughts. And then he's in control of them. They're not in control of him. You don't have to believe everything you think, everybody. And this idea that Rebecca just gave you, that is absolute truth, that your vibrational frequency, the energy level that you're moving at in your life, is deeply affected by the emotions you're experiencing and the meanings you attach. So please be conscious of that. She's one trillion percent right about that. I'm curious, because you actually are a woman, and about 65% of my audience are female,

• 32:14Ed Mylett?

  is getting what you want, negotiation influence, is that gender neutral? Or are there some differences that impact women that they need to be conscious of in negotiating what they want in any area of their life, including just the terms of their life that they want?

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Hmm, that is such a good question. And because the majority of my negotiating experience in a formal setting was in a high net worth divorce context, I have a lot of data, actually, in this. And so I'm going to actually kind of, you know, use that in my answer. And, and, you know, I've represented billionaires, high net worth people, CEOs, all, you know, celebrities, all sorts of people. And so what I'm going to give you is, I think, pretty good data.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  I've represented thousands of people, both genders, in all walks of life. And here's the thing. Men are actually much better at separating their emotions from the transaction at the time of the negotiation. At the time of the negotiation itself, they look at the negotiation as a business deal. And they can literally just, okay, here's what we're dealing with right now. At the time of the negotiation for a woman, because of the way our brains are wired,

• 34:00Speaker 04

  there's all kinds of stuff going on in the brain. You know, we are wired up that our emotions are actually attached to everything that we do. It's how we are built. It's, in a lot of ways, a very good thing about women. It makes us horrible at negotiating in a lot of ways. And I'm saying this as a woman. And so in a divorce setting, for example, the woman is sitting in front of a husband

• 34:39Speaker 04

  or a soon-to-be ex-husband, thinking, doesn't it mean something to you that I, you know, raised your children, or gave up my life for you, or did all these things for you? And the man is just literally going, how much is this going to cost me? And that's it. He's not seeing that, all those other things. He's just not. Not at that moment. Not to say he's not gonna go home and not think about, geez, I'm sad because my marriage

• 35:21Speaker 04

  is over, or whatever, but he's not thinking about it at that moment. Interesting. They just have the ability to put emotions in a different box at that time. Very interesting. It's just how men are built compared to how women are built.

• 35:37Ed Mylett?

  Would your advice to women be to be more cognizant of trying to minimize emotion in that business environment or a negotiation?

• 35:45Speaker 04

  So how I have handled this for women, you know, for all people, is preparation really is the key. And so how much you prepare, you know, prior to really, really helps a lot. By having, you know, the research, you've done the research for both sides, you've taken a look at what your risk assessment is, you know, should I move forward with this? What is my best case scenario? What is my worst case scenario? What will my first offer be? What is my walk away point? You know, what is my leverage? When should I

• 36:25Speaker 04

  present it? Where should the negotiations take place? How can I keep my emotions out of it? And the more you can do all of that kind of preparation before you even walk into the room, the less emotion you will feel at that, you know, on the day of the actual negotiation.

• 36:49Ed Mylett?

  That's really good. I believe that's true for both. But if you are more emotionally inclined, if you're a man who's got, you know, more emotionally inclined, or if you're a woman, and in your case, you're telling me that that's typically the case that women will attach more emotion to something, preparation does reduce emotion. So it's the sales thing.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  And anticipating what the arguments are going to be, you know, anticipating, hey, listen, the argument from the other side is probably going to be this. And a lot of times what I tell people to do is I, you know, maybe right out of the gate, say, I'm anticipating you are going to argue this, and here's why your argument doesn't have merit. Like, you know, bring it right up and shoot it down because that. Will take the wind out of their sails. Sometimes that's a great strategy.

• 37:38Ed Mylett?

  And by the way, when you're talking about negotiation, to me, that's sales and marketing too. So for those of you that are, you go, well, negotiations apply to me. Every sale you're doing is a negotiation. So taking objections away early that they were going to give you minimizes them. Preparation reduces your emotion. Highest vibrational frequency is the most influential. Most certain person influences the less certain person in almost every conversation in life, whether that's marriage, you and your kids. My daughter's getting a car today. She wasn't supposed to get a car for two weeks. She's paying for it. She was more certain she was going to pay for that sucker than I was and she wasn't. And she's driving today to get that car. So even in parent-daughter relationships, the most certain person influences the less. So these apply across the board. I want to flip the script on you now, though. So that's what women should be doing.

• 38:20Ed Mylett?

  For the men that are listening to this, if you're going into a negotiation with a woman. So now I want you to represent the men. Take your legal hat and now you're representing the man. This could be a sales call, a boardroom, a business negotiation, a courtroom, whatever it might be. If you're a man and you're going to be interacting with a woman, it sounds to me like you think sometimes those negotiations are different because of the way that you believe they're wired. I'm only taking your word for it and your data. What advice would you give to a man who's negotiating with a woman?

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Well, sometimes you do need to be a little bit more compassionate and a little bit more sensitive. I actually had, I have a really interesting story for you here. I was representing a guy who may or may not have been a narcissist, by the way. He was, you know, owned one of the largest development companies in the state at the time. And we were at the end of a very long day. He was looking at paying a lot of money in alimony over the course of the lifetime of the alimony. It would have ended up to be several million dollars.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  And at the end of the night, the mediator came into the room and said, I have a very odd request. The wife said that she will waive alimony completely if

• 39:42Speaker 04

  he will go over into the room and sit with her alone and apologize to her sincerely for the way that he treated her throughout the marriage.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  And do you know that he wanted to say no?

• 40:12Speaker 04

  He was like, no, I'm not gonna do it. He, he, he was like, no, I'd rather pay the alimony.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  And I'm his lawyer thinking, oh, here, for sure, he's coming back at me, you know, next week and to be pissed off at me for not making him do this. So I'm like, no, you're going over there.

• 40:34Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  So I like kicked his butt and made him go over there and do it. And so he went over there and he apologized. And she actually did. She waived alimony. It was like,

• 40:47Ed Mylett?

  That's crazy.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:49Ed Mylett?

  That's wacky. See, I think that a lot of people in sales or marketing, if you're a personal trainer, whatever it is, I think too many people are one trick ponies. They can attract one type of person. They can win negotiations with one type of person. And that limits your ability to scale your business, scale your life, be influential. I know as a young man, most of the people that liked how I talked, spoke, got involved with me were young, testosterone filled, former athletes, competitive type crazy people. And as I got a little further along in my life and my business career, I started to become rather more conscious of what you've described, which is that expressing other parts of my own personality,

• 41:31Ed Mylett?

  you know, upping my game, being able to express emotions that resonate with people that are older than me, younger than me, wired differently than me, different gender than me, different sexual preference than me, different faith than me. And it's to the extent that you begin to be conscious of that, like Rebecca's saying, that gives you influence in your life. And to me, the influence, if you're a good person, is the difference you're making in the life. So if you really want to make a difference in the world, you got to get good at what she's describing. Just such good stuff. I won't ever forget that story. That's super good.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:01Ed Mylett?

  By the way, that lady was crazy.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  It's like, how much is an apology worth to you? Is it worth $2 million?

• 42:08Ed Mylett?

  Evidently, an awful lot. And so on that, I'm going to shift back for a second. I'm just curious about, it's all is one thing to me. It's just life, just dealing with humans, right? Just to me, the reason I do the show, the reason I'm, I'm a curious person. I surround my people, people all the time, but what are your friends like? I would say in general, my friends are just curious people. You know, not all of them are wealthy or famous or successful or none of that stuff. I mean, some are, some aren't. What do they have in common? They're interesting, they're curious, they want to expand how they understand themselves and other people in life. And so that's why like today's so fascinating for me. But this idea of these degrees of narcissism. And I want to ask you this because I think it's important for people to know. You could be negotiating with a narcissist.

• 42:51Ed Mylett?

  You could be selling to a narcissist. You could be servicing an account for a borderline narcissist. You could be in a relationship with one. Are there signs with a narcissist of any degree? Where you can see them about to snap? You know, they're going to go into full mode like they're, it's brewing, it's brewing. We all feel this with people we're connected to that have these tendencies. It's like, I can sense them getting more and more a certain way. It's coming. We all, everyone right now knows exactly what I'm talking about. Are there signs you can look for, for the snap, so to speak?

• 43:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's like all of their, that their go to is just start to get more. They start going through their bag of tricks. So that, you know, when, when you start to like, get stronger and they start to realize that you're kind of on to them. They'll start to, you know, come on to you much stronger with the love bombing and all of their charm, charm, charm. Okay, that's not working. So then they start to like, kind of flood you, flood you, flood you with like, you know, you better do this, you better do that. You know, or the projection, deflection, you know, lying, denying all, you know? But, but more strong, more strong, more strong.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  And then when that's not working, then, then it's the rage. Um, you know, the threats, the this, the that, like, you know, longer, stronger, louder, you know, but it it it becomes much stronger and more intense than it ever has been in the past. And and you you just start to see it like they start to make mistakes. And actually, um, I I did a video on um, the Hugh Grant mini series, The Undoing.

• 44:41Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  I don't know if you have seen that, but it's a great actually, a great example of how he, that guy was totally a malignant narcissist, but how he starts to become undone. And he really starts to make mistakes. And he starts to blame people and he starts to do that. I don't want to give too much away for people who haven't seen it, but they they start to become like outlandish. They start to make mistakes. They start to do things. And and that's actually where they really, um, you know, you start to actually get some um, good evidence against them if you're in a case, you know, with them. But I always tell people

• 45:24Speaker 04

  they are the worst right before they're ready to give up because that is when you start to start to see the collapse. But you kind of have to get through the worst of it before that happens because they do have to go through that period before they're ready to give up.

• 45:43Ed Mylett?

  I think everybody should just be listening to what we're talking about here. And, you know, let's just be real, you know, if you're having to deal with this level of predictability, because when the narcissist get ready to explode, they begin to lie more, they begin to project more, they begin to blame other people more. It's their MO. They're never gonna look at themselves and go, you know what, you're right. I apologize. I made a mistake. I'll try to do better and do it sincerely. And so if you're if you're in a personal relationship where this is a tendency, it's not one you should be in long term. I mean, this is exhausting. This is not going to change the rest of your life. And so your best to try to find an exit. If you're in a business relationship, your best to use the strategies that Rebecca's teaching here today on how to deal with it and navigate it with a mindset of eventually getting out of that dynamic if you can. And so I'm

• 46:28Ed Mylett?

  very grateful for all the info today. But I might have a couple of questions about how you've made your life magnificent. Because although I think there's two types of people. I think there's people who say inspiring things. And then there's inspiring people. Very rarely is somebody both. And in my mind, you're both. In my mind, you say very inspiring, very valuable things that no one else is saying. Like, people have listened to the show today. This is not a normal show you've listened to. You've not heard this type of content anywhere else. So she's that, but then she is also inspiring. Her life is inspiring. And so I want to ask you, if someone was listening to this Rebecca and they said,

• 47:11Ed Mylett?

  you know, I'm not in the exact same situation you were when you were 19 or 22 years old, but I am not where I want to be. I am not living the life that I deserve right now. And I want out of it. I want to change it. I'd like to someday be on a show like you're doing right now, saying, that's my old story. And this was the new one that I built. How do I get from this story I'm in that I'm not happy in to the story that I want to be in? Like you did, what would be just a few of the pieces of advice you would give to that person? Just to start to change that story and change their life?

• 47:46Speaker 04

  You know, I, I, I always say that the only difference between people who are successful and the people who are not is really just one word. And that is execution. And I know that sounds, it may sound harsh to some people, but it's, it's, I don't mean it to sound harsh. But the, the really, the difference between the Ed Mylett and, you know, anybody else in the world is just that you do what you say you're going to do. And just, just pick something small. It doesn't even have to be anything big. But you know, I would just start with small things. Do small.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Just little lists, just a tiny thing that you're going to accomplish today. Um, you know, whether it's drinking four glasses of water today. You know, whatever it is and actually do it. And, you know, pick whatever it is that you're going to do and actually do it. And then when you find yourself that, you know, you're actually executing on the things that you're saying you're gonna do. You, you will find that you will actually start covering ground in your life. And um, if there's something that you really wanna do in your life.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  Um, you know, when I decided that I was gonna go back to law school, I, I had no money. I was making twenty six thousand dollars a year, teaching inner city school in Fort Lauderdale. I had zero dollars and I had three kids and I went a hundred percent on student loans to school. Um, and that's what I did and, you know, I figured it out. And so, you know, you, you can do it. Um, you just, you just figure it out.

• 49:52Ed Mylett?

  I'm picturing this, this woman back then and I'm looking literally at you. It's incredibly inspiring for me, just even that decision. There had to be a day where the kids are there, there's three kids. Everyone thinks you're out of your damn mind, right? And you go, I'm gonna go back to law school. I mean, and then you win.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  And I love the word decide, like, I, I always think I'm gonna write a book about, you know, the power of a decision. Like the deciding factor because, you know, the word decide, side actually means, you know, to cut off or to kill. Like side is, you know, um, like, there can't be another option. Like you have to just decide in your mind, like, this is it. This is where you're going. This is the plan. This is it.

• 50:43Ed Mylett?

  The uh, I want to unpack a couple of things that she said. Number one about decisions. I love truth. I love when someone says something on my show that matches up with my own personal experience and I just want to always like double stamp and validate it and it's just true. You're one decision away from changing your life. You're one new relationship, one decision, one person, one shift away. That's just a fact. You know what her and I have that maybe you don't quite yet? Just made that decision. It was one decision at one point. And this notion that she said a few minutes ago about just start small. And keep this promise you make to yourself. Is huge because if you're not living the life you want. Right now, you're not feeling the emotions you want is what you're really saying. You're feeling scared. You're feeling fearful. You're feeling depressed. You're feeling out of control.

• 51:27Ed Mylett?

  That's because you have not built that self-confidence. Self-confidence is the pro- the process of keeping the promises you make to yourself. And getting control over things you can control, whether it's making your bed, drinking that water, making a certain amount of contacts, getting up and working out. You know, a certain, anything you do, why pick something small? Why'd she recommend that? Cause you can control that. Pick the smallest possible things and do them and you begin to stack the self-confidence so you can do the bigger things. You don't start out by going to make a million dollars. You start out by going, I'm gonna make my bed by six o'clock today. And when you begin to do that, you go, I can trust me. I do the things I say I'm going to do. And then you point your will and your spirit as it at that next thing like a weapon. And you begin to magnetize it because you have a habit of doing the things you say you're going to do.

• 52:09Ed Mylett?

  So it's incumbent upon you to pick easy, small things first. But you gotta do one other thing, everybody. And then she's gonna give you a gift that's going to attach to this. You have to, when you're doing it, be intentional about it and then give yourself emotional credit. Wow, I did what I said I was gonna do. Put it in the bank. You can't just do it and be oblivious to it. I made the phone calls. I said I was gonna say, put it in the bank. I drank the water I said I was gonna drink. I did it. Put it in the bank and you start stacking paper in the bank account of your self-confidence. And pretty soon you're rich. And then you can spend that capital on bigger things. Does that make sense to everybody? So that's brilliance, what she's told you. So connected to that. You also get where Rebecca's gotten in life by being generous, by being given.

• 52:52Ed Mylett?

  So you have like, you want to do, here's a gift you would give if they went to your website today, right? Isn't there some gift you wanted to do for the audience today that can connect them with you and also improve their life? So tell them what that is.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yes, so go to winmynegotiation.com. I have a, it's a free Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet. So I have one just for your audience today. So winmynegotiation.com/ed-rebecca. It's just for your audience.

• 53:25Ed Mylett?

  That's so awesome. One more time, give it to us again, give it to us again.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  So it's winmynegotiation.com. It's a free ebook. And it's winmynegotiation.com/ed-rebecca. And it's 15 pages. It's a free ebook. It's absolutely incredible. It will help you win your negotiation. It's got all kinds of amazing, amazing stuff in there. All the stuff I was telling you about, how to actually look at both sides, research both sides, how to do your risk assessment, all that stuff is in there.

• 54:03Ed Mylett?

  Thank you for that. I think, I just think you're awesome. I just think you're awesome. And I want to, I want to see more and more women begin to really influence this space that I just call influence. And you bring something unique to the table based on your experience. In Rebecca's case, extremely unique experience, extremely special life journey. And so Rebecca, thank you for today. I loved it. It was so good. I was just really, really grateful you were here.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 54:36Ed Mylett?

  It was awesome. So, hey, everybody, share the show. We're the fastest growing show on planet Earth, probably in the entire universe. I'm pretty sure, at least on Earth, I'm real sure. So share this with people that you care about, who want to improve their life, who want to grow, want to contribute more, want to get more fit, want to be happier, want to be more successful, want to be richer in every area of their life. Just want to be inspired. They want mentorship and connection. Share it with them. And I just want to thank all of you for listening today or watching. Subscribe to all the platforms, YouTube, all the audio platforms. Just say God bless you to all of you and max out your life.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  This is The Ed Mylett Show.