902 Master the Art of Negotiating in Business and Life with Former FBI Agent Chris Voss

There's a way to always get what you want. And it doesn't mean you need to be a tyrant. The art of negotiating is what each of us can learn in order to consistently and confidently get people on our side. To learn this art, I brought back a super popular guest from a few years ago, former FBI negotiator Chris Voss. Since our first interview, he has only grown in popularity, and I knew he'd have new insights about how to use the art of negotiation in business and life. Chris is not just a teacher and an author. During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the FBI, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He has used his many years of experience in international crisis and high-stakes negotiations to develop a unique program and team that applies these globally proven techniques to the business world. Now he runs a top consulting company and teaches negotiation to graduate students at universities like Harvard and Georgetown. In this conversation, we discussed several ways you can negotiate in your day to day life, including getting discounts on anything you buy, closing huge business deals, and walking away from deals and relationships that will never work out. I can't wait for you to hear what Chris has to teach in Episode 902. How can we navigate emotional issues without getting too emotional about it? (2:40)How often did you fall backwards as an FBI negotiator and get reactive? (8:06)What are the biggest findings you learned about negotiation since your book came out? (16:47)What are the most common negotiations that anyone goes through on a daily basis? (29:04)How can you not take criticism personally? (49:48)How important is intention before you begin a negotiation? (57:02)How do you handle a negotiation that has gone south so that you don’t burn a bridge? (1:03:04)What hostage negotiation tactics do you use on a daily basis? (1:06:30)What’s the best approach for someone who wants to buy something? (1:08:14)How you can learn to not get defensive when triggered (5:44)Tools to use when making a deal in business (13:02)Why asking “why” questions makes people defensive (21:40)Ways to negotiate client deals if you are just starting out in your career (27:25)The formula to get people to do things for you because they feel like it (31:48)How to be a great sounding board for someone to work through their feelings (40:35)A role-playing exercise you can do with a friend to practice negotiation (51:51)Plus much more... If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/902 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 902 with bestselling author and FBI negotiator Chris Voss.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Warren Buffett said, "You can't make a good deal with a bad person." And John F. Kennedy said, "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Negotiations are something we do every single day in almost every interaction we have with human beings. You might just not think it's a negotiation, but it is. When you go to the coffee shop and get your coffee, when you go to a hotel on an airplane, when you're in traffic, when you're in a relationship, if you're trying to get a job, if you're trying to get a raise, there's so many different situations in life that are negotiations.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  Everything is a negotiation and I am a huge, huge fan of Chris Voss. If you don't know who he is, he's the CEO and founder of The Black Swan Group and author of Never Split the Difference, Negotiating As If Your Life Depended on It. This book is incredible. If you don't have it yet, you gotta make sure you get it. Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, as well as the FBI's hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council's Hostage Working Group. During Chris's 24-year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI, but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  He's used many years of experience in international crisis and high stakes negotiations to develop a unique program and team that applies these globally proven techniques to the Business world. Chris has been teaching his techniques through workshops and his book, but now he has a class in the masterclass series as well that you can check out. In this episode, we talk about real life examples on how we are all negotiating every day, even when you're getting your coffee at Starbucks. How curiosity can help you take power in a negotiation instead of feeling backed into a corner. We talk about the difference between empathy and compassion and how that can help when you get criticism in your business and life.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  And we've defined emotional anchoring and how to use it when a deal is not going the way you think it should. This is a powerful one. Make sure to share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/902 to spread the message and help other people in your life become better negotiators. And I'm so excited about this episode with the one and only Chris Voss.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  All right. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got the iconic Chris Voss in the house. My man.

• 3:16Chris Voss?

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Super glad you're here. You were on, I think it was about four years ago. Three years ago, four years ago.

• 3:21Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  Blew my mind with the stuff you're talking about in your book, Never Split the Difference. The book has gone on to just take over. It seems like every year it gets bigger and reaches more people and it's constantly in the top of the ranks.

• 3:35Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  You've now got a masterclass which is blowing up. You've got workshops around the country and I'm assuming soon to be around the world.

• 3:43Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 3:44Lewis Howes?

  You've got people doing big deals in a

• 3:48Lewis Howes?

  inspiring and a good, clean way of integrity. Not trying to screw people over. You really try to create the win-win experience for people making negotiations, which I think is beautiful. Because there's a lot of people who have, especially in LA, who've said they've been burned by business deals or negotiations. They thought they knew who the person was in a business deal, but then something went south. They didn't have their contract set up. They didn't have the true negotiation set up and they got screwed over. And so you're teaching people, whether it be in business, whether it be in marriage, whether it be in just friendships.

• 4:23Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  How to negotiate with integrity so that everyone wins. Is that right?

• 4:29Chris Voss?

  Yeah. And a cool thing, subtle distinction.

• 4:33Chris Voss?

  Weekly, it's what we hear and what we don't hear. On a weekly basis, if not daily, somebody says, I cut a deal. It's going to change my life.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:45Chris Voss?

  Now, what they also never say is, they never brag about beating anybody. Nobody ever gets burned. Like, one of the guys, the deal, compensation deal he cut with his employer. He says, literally, this will change my life. It's also the best avenue for his employer to grow his company. So the company's gonna get huge for giving this guy a great deal.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:09Chris Voss?

  Nobody ever burns anybody else in the deals that we coach.

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 5:14Chris Voss?

  Which means they don't pick up enemies. They only pick up people that wanna do business with them.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  There's a lot of people that burn bridges, it seems like, right?

• 5:20Chris Voss?

  Right. Yeah, we don't like burning bridges.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  That's the hardest thing to do, I think, is to not burn a bridge. Especially when your emotions are involved. When you feel like, I've gotten screwed over by this person in this whatever deal we had, and I'm gonna burn a bridge. I've been there in the past, so I'm guilty of this. But I feel like people's emotions get so caught up in their deal making and their deal breaking.

• 5:42Chris Voss?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:43Lewis Howes?

  How do we navigate an emotional thing and make it less emotional, I guess, for deal making?

• 5:51Chris Voss?

  Yeah, well, there's a couple of different ways to do that. I mean, the first one is in a process to begin with. Like, if you can learn to be genuinely curious. Like, a genuinely curious state of mind, it's really close to the mindset of flow also. But it's highly positive, you're pulling a lot of data. You'll never feel backed into a corner. You will never burn, blow up a bridge.

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  If you're acting curious.

• 6:16Chris Voss?

  If you're completely curious. Like, if you're calling me names, or if you're threatening me.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Chris Voss?

  There's a lot of threatening going on out there. Defensive threatening.

• 6:27Chris Voss?

  You know, I might, I might react like one of the things that we found out, a couple of things we found out about the book, we didn't know beforehand. The procurement negotiator in business, the procurement negotiator is feared. People are scared of procurement. Procurement tend to be very threatening, very attacking, very, very, very pushy. Now flip side is, it's unfortunately, that's not fair because procurement is one of the toughest jobs out there. Like whoever thought the idea of having a procurement negotiator, it's like, it's a great theory and practicality. They got one of the toughest jobs on the planet. So they're constantly being backed into a corner by their employer. They're backed into a corner, they're probably gonna make threats. You're on the other side of that threat making. You're gonna get bent out of shape.

• 7:11Chris Voss?

  You're gonna wanna threaten back, you're gonna not wanna deal with them.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:15Chris Voss?

  That's fear-based stuff. Instead of going like, how dare you threaten me? Because a lot of procurement people make threats. You should go like, wow. What the, what's behind a threat, man? What kind of pressure you under? Somebody makes threats against you in a negotiation. Chances are they're not a jerk. Chances are they are under tremendous pressure. You know, if you don't make this deal with us, our company's never gonna deal with you again. You know, my instinctive reaction as a combative person is like, yeah, screw you. I could live without you, you're an idiot. But instead, my best reaction is to say, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure.

• 8:00Chris Voss?

  Cause you're not gonna make that threat unless you're feeling tremendous pressure. The original question, how do I not overreact? If I'm really curious about, what in the world are you dealing with that's making you act like that?

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:16Chris Voss?

  Then I won't overreact in the moment.

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  What if it's something that you care about so much?

• 8:20Chris Voss?

  It always is.

• 8:21Lewis Howes?

  Your baby, your business, your thing. Like what if it's hard? So how do you go to a place as a defensive person by default, to not be defensive when someone is making an emotional attack on you? Obviously, it's not a life-threatening attack, but it feels, you know, triggering.

• 8:39Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  So how do you? Separate that emotional part in your brain or your heart and just say, okay, I'm not gonna go there. I'm just gonna be more curious. Is it just a matter of practicing it over and over? Is it role playing? Is it?

• 8:54Chris Voss?

  Yeah, it's a, it's any performance, it's a performance skill. You know, everybody we have in, in performance skills, which are almost all of them, other than riding a bike. You got three choices and only three for tomorrow. Stay even, be worse, get better. Two out of three of those choices require effort.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:13Chris Voss?

  You got, you gotta put some effort in just to stay even. Somebody did an analogy the other day, you know, positive frame of mind. It's like taking a shower. Today you can't say, well, I don't gotta take a shower today because I took one yesterday. Yeah, I don't have to brush my teeth today. I brushed my teeth yesterday. You know, the repetitive behaviors to stay in a positive frame of mind are critical because we're naturally wired to be negative. You know, this crazy little thing in the middle of our head called the amygdala. Neuroscience has shown us that 75% of the real estate in your amygdala is dedicated to negative thoughts. 75%.

• 9:53Chris Voss?

  And that's not, that's not a psychology thing. It's mapping the brain with neuroscience imaging. We needed that negative attitude when we were running from saber-toothed tigers on a jungle path.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  To protect us, yeah.

• 10:09Chris Voss?

  To live. We don't live in that world anymore. So, yeah, you gotta constantly, I mean, we're in Southern California. It's the cliche, you know, I'm so grateful. In point of fact, gratitude is a great emotional hack. You write down first thing in the morning, anywhere from one to three things you're grateful for. That's emotional, spiritual hygiene. You need it every day. And if you don't do it every day. You deteriorate.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay. So as a FBI negotiator for 24 years, is that what it was?

• 10:40Chris Voss?

  FBI agent for 24 years, hostage negotiator for the biggest portion.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Biggest portion. How often did you fall backwards and not do two of the three, but you did the the negative part of it where you went backwards, where someone was really aggressive or attacking you or saying that one word or the trigger phrase that got you to react? How often did that happen as opposed to, man, what are you going through? Like, as opposed to being that curious, loving negotiator?

• 11:07Chris Voss?

  The loving hostage negotiator. Didn't give you a hug, Mr. Harris.

• 11:11Lewis Howes?

  How often did you fall back into a negative state, I would say?

• 11:15Chris Voss?

  You know, um, uh, it makes no sense. In dealing with the bad guys, I never fell back.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:22Chris Voss?

  I would get mad at my bosses.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  And yell at them. Why?

• 11:26Chris Voss?

  My negotiation, you know, I, I, when I was a hostage negotiator, I was on a bit of a mission. I mean, you know, we were out there.

• 11:34Chris Voss?

  People's lives were on the line. And it's a, it's a frightening environment for everybody who's involved in the rescue, if you will. And, and so, you know, I was, I was determined that we were going to stand up for the, for the kidnapped victims and their families, no matter what kind of, what kind of damage it caused internally. And I stepped on no shortage of toes within the US government and the FBI by being really insistent about what I thought was right. And I was probably harder on them than I should have been. I got, I got the question a couple of times, if you had your career to do over again, what would you do differently? And my answer's consistently been, I'd have, I'd have been nicer.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  To the people you worked with?

• 12:14Chris Voss?

  To the people I worked with, and especially the people I worked for. Now, I wouldn't have backed off of anything, but I would have just been nicer about it.

• 12:22Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't have burned bridges?

• 12:23Chris Voss?

  I would have burned fewer bridges.

• 12:25Lewis Howes?

  Fewer bridges. Okay, did you burn a lot of bridges?

• 12:28Chris Voss?

  Yeah, burned some, you know, burned some and some of them, if their heart was in the right place, they got over it.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Chris Voss?

  And if it wasn't, I mean, I remember being on a secure video conference with a bunch of different elements in National Security Council. I'm in FBI headquarters, guys from the White House in. And I, and I got after them a little bit.

• 12:50Chris Voss?

  I got, I was harder, harsher, spoke harshly to them.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:54Chris Voss?

  And I can remember after the fact, um,

• 12:58Chris Voss?

  One of the two people on the other end of the line, Bill McRaven, you know, the guy who wrote Make Your Bed and also See Stories.

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  Really? He was on the other line?

• 13:07Chris Voss?

  He was Captain McRaven at the time.

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's a great book, great speech.

• 13:12Chris Voss?

  McRaven's a phenomenal guy. Caught both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It's not a bad resume. McRaven told me there was an NSC guy in the White House on the other side after I got done being kind of hard on these guys. He said, you know, they said you made some good points. And get off the phone and say, that guy was a jerk. Probably was thinking it. But they were willing to admit that I made some good points. And not everybody's like that. They get bent out of shape and they don't get over it. But these guys didn't. McRaven was a great guy to work for. For with in any way, shape or form. Cool dude. Great guy.

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. When people, let's do basic negotiation right here. When people are looking to make a deal, whether it's in business. And it's mostly business negotiation is what I think a lot of people are diving into this. But they're doing it with relationships, with friendships, with family, with kids, everything.

• 14:06Chris Voss?

  Are you in a negotiation when you order coffee at Starbucks?

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 14:11Chris Voss?

  What makes it a negotiation?

• 14:13Lewis Howes?

  Because I usually like to make it a game to see what I can get, what I can get for free.

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  I like to, I like to make, see what I can get for a discount, what I can get for free. And I also just try to make it a game of like, how can I change someone's day? So I'm always thinking of like, okay.

• 14:30Chris Voss?

  And make it better, right? Because the game is fun.

• 14:33Lewis Howes?

  This person is, I try to put myself in the person's shoes who's taking the order. And the person who's making my drink. So I think this is a lot of my, yeah.

• 14:42Chris Voss?

  Because I want it to be too important.

• 14:43Lewis Howes?

  I want a great drink, you know, because I've got a lot of times where it's like, ah, it doesn't taste as good. So I try to first off, say something to the person making the drink because you're waiting in line usually. And if you're at Starbucks, they're, you know, running around backwards.

• 14:58Chris Voss?

  They're busy, right?

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  They're busy making sure. I try to say their name really quickly because they usually have the name tag on it.

• 15:02Chris Voss?

  All right, yeah, okay.

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  So I'll just say, hey, you know, I'm Ella or hey, Chris, I hope you're doing amazing, like, hope your day's going good. Just trying to get a quick little moment of like, ah, they'll see me and they'll go back and they're doing their crazy stuff.

• 15:14Chris Voss?

  Recognition of them as a person though.

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  Huge. Being seen, I think, is something that I always wanted as a kid.

• 15:20Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  And when I learned that that's the thing most of us want is to be acknowledged and seen that we're here, that we're alive. It makes a huge difference.

• 15:28Chris Voss?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Likability of just saying, oh, that's a nice gesture, like, thank you.

• 15:33Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  Whether I never see them again or not, but it was like, it's always something I think about. So I'm always trying to communicate with the people around me and just say hello.

• 15:40Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  And smile.

• 15:41Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  And then I typically try to say, um, something to the person before I even make my order, to the person who's like taking my order. And make them smile. It's always a game. How do I, what I need to say or do to get them to smile? Because I feel like if they smile, they're gonna have a better moment. And hopefully that moment turns into better moments moving forward the rest of their day. So that's, that's what I try to do. But, um.

• 16:05Chris Voss?

  That works.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  It works.

• 16:07Chris Voss?

  Now, you want me to lay out for you why that works?

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure, tell me.

• 16:09Chris Voss?

  All right, so Sean Acker, TED Talk, The Happiness Advantage, Harvard psychologist. You're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind.

• 16:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 16:19Chris Voss?

  So you're both making people smarter in the moment. You're making them feel like they exist on a planet. And you were showing them recognition, which is really close to empathy. And you're, you're good with it going no farther than that. Now ideally, you get it in return.

• 16:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:36Chris Voss?

  Because that's how you get a better drink.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Chris Voss?

  So first of all, as a, I've talked to a speaker one time. He wrote this website called Secrets, Tell Me Your Secrets, anonymously, I'll share it with the world, somebody's struggling with what you're struggling with. He's telling me, we're at a conference, he says, he gets a brand new, still in wrapper, coffee cup from Starbucks. And the note says, I give decaf to people who are mean to me.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:03Chris Voss?

  So.

• 17:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 17:04Chris Voss?

  And then, and then, as I bring this up in different, like, certain waiters and waitresses in restaurants have told me that if they have a customer that's being a jerk.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 17:15Chris Voss?

  And they ask for decaf at the end of the night, they give them coffee with caffeine in it.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:19Chris Voss?

  Because they know it's gonna keep them up. So, people make you pay in little ways, but, but then, the other thing that I like about it is because, you know.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  Got my U2 shirt on.

• 17:27Chris Voss?

  Yeah. So, I'm a big fan of Bono as a person, in addition to a lyricist, a singer, and rock star.

• 17:36Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:38Chris Voss?

  The Forgiveness of the African Debt, him and Bob Geldof have negotiated the forgiveness, straight forgiveness, literally hundreds of millions of dollars of Third World debt. And I'm reading Bono's, one of, uh, one of U2's books, and he says, you know, I've taken a lot of heat because of the pictures of me laughing with Vladimir Putin.

• 17:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:57Chris Voss?

  How dare you laugh with the devil, that sort of thing, how dare you? But he said, I found out early on, because Russia's got Third World debt, they need them to say, never mind.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Chris Voss?

  He said, I found out early on, no matter how despicable the person was on the other side, if I could find a way to share a laugh with them early, the chances of we're gonna make a deal are very high.

• 18:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:21Chris Voss?

  So, he's laughing with dictators and brutal heads of dictatorships, not because he's looking to have a good time for them, but because he knows how much good he's doing in the world by breaking the ice in that fashion.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:36Chris Voss?

  This is what you're doing in small ways.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  Small ways, yeah. It's funny, because I remember having a similar, uh, interaction with people. I went on Ellen a few years ago, and then I went on, um, Glenn Beck within the same 24 hours.

• 18:52Chris Voss?

  Interesting.

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  And people were like, how could you go on someone like Glenn Beck after you go on Ellen, thinking that he's, whatever, not as positive or... Compassionate as Alan, right?

• 19:04Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  And I said, to be honest, I'm happy to go on anyone's platform who's got an audience because why do I want to only talk to people who think and believe the same way I do, or a similar way? Right? I want to talk to people who think in different beliefs and try to support them as well, and add value to them as well.

• 19:19Chris Voss?

  That's what empathy is about, right?

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  Can't just preach to the choir all day long.

• 19:24Chris Voss?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, for whatever reason, in their head, they have a reason for what they're thinking.

• 19:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:31Chris Voss?

  And if you hear them out without attacking them in return, they're shocked. And then their mind opens up a little bit. They go like, ah, somebody doesn't believe in what I believe, I can have a conversation with?

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:44Chris Voss?

  Yeah, it makes all the difference in the world.

• 19:46Lewis Howes?

  Now, you had, your book came out a few years ago, and you told me before we started this that you've learned so much since the book. What are the biggest findings since the book that you've learned about negotiation or making better deals?

• 19:59Chris Voss?

  Yeah, first of all, that, you know, the entire system was first designed to be successful against the international kidnapper. And that profile is almost exactly the profile of the professional negotiator in business.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 20:19Chris Voss?

  The contracts guy, the procurement guy, gal, almost exactly the same animal. So found that, and so it's far more useful to people, the hard bargain or business deals, they're a minority. They're probably about 25% of the people that are out there. About 25% of the people that are out there are real sharks that are looking to cut your throat. Now, you might need to make that deal.

• 20:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:44Chris Voss?

  How to deal with them without burning a bridge successfully. Then having learned so much more about the procurement negotiator, I'm at a procurement negotiation conference probably six months ago. They got, they got, they got a horrible job.

• 20:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:58Chris Voss?

  I mean, they're under tremendous pressure. Their job is 10 times more difficult than anybody realizes. And, you know, we'll, we'll do one of our training, one of our training days this year, we usually had 50 people in a room, high performers, top performers. There would always be at least one procurement person in there. And they were trying to remain anonymous. Cause they knew how hated they are. But while being hated, they're decent people. Who are under tremendous pressure trying to do an extremely difficult job. So being much more aware of them and then also the kind of pressure they're under. They're getting pounded internally. On from so many different directions. So that's been a big one. Then the other one is.

• 21:43Chris Voss?

  How many fake deals there are out there? You know, I was talking to you earlier about what happens if you could put. Get 20, what if, what if you get 20% of your time back? How much more could you get done?

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by fake deals? People just trying to waste your time?

• 22:00Chris Voss?

  You're never gonna get the deal.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  And they're just going back and forth, back and forth for months.

• 22:03Chris Voss?

  They need you as a competing bid.

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 22:06Chris Voss?

  They, um, they want free consulting from you. They want, they want to learn.

• 22:11Lewis Howes?

  Tell us your secrets first.

• 22:12Chris Voss?

  Tell us your secrets. And they're never gonna give it to you.

• 22:15Lewis Howes?

  Open up your books, tell us how much you're making, let us do our due diligence.

• 22:19Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 22:20Chris Voss?

  Right. It's at least 20% of the opportunities.

• 22:22Lewis Howes?

  That's messed up.

• 22:24Chris Voss?

  Actually, we think the number is much higher.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  That's messed up, isn't it?

• 22:27Chris Voss?

  Uh, well, again, you can't blame the other side. It's human. There's a, there's a lot of human nature involved. We're doing, uh, doing a lot of, uh, coaching in the real estate industry. Um, with a gentleman named Steve, uh, Steve Shaw. Performance coach, cool guy, played in the Super Bowl. One of the people that have completely adopted our approach in real estate. And this is just human dynamic. So this is not limited to real estate. Since she changed her approach about 10 months ago. She's gone out on 80% fewer appointments.

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  Real estate appointments?

• 23:02Chris Voss?

  Yes. Gone out 80% less. Have cut the same number of the deals that she did the year before. 80% less work, same number of deals and her deals are much more profitable.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Is it the pre questionnaire? Is it the?

• 23:19Chris Voss?

  There's a little bit of an elimination. How do you eliminate upfront whether or not somebody is either accidentally or on purpose? Never going to do business with you and not burn the bridge?

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  How do you figure that out?

• 23:35Chris Voss?

  The, you know, the simplest way is if you were buying my service, if you were looking for negotiation training.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Chris Voss?

  The first conversation, I'd say, Louis, you know, Harvard's out there,

• 23:49Chris Voss?

  Wharton is out there, Paris is out there. I got a lot of great competitors. I mean, these people that are really good. Why me?

• 23:59Chris Voss?

  Why would you ever? I was a hostage negotiator.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Chris Voss?

  Why would you ever come to a hostage negotiator to learn how to negotiate? Now, you're gonna do one of two things. Cause why triggers defensiveness in every human being on a planet? If I'd have said, Louis, why'd you wear those shoes?

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:19Chris Voss?

  Your first thought is like, what's wrong with my shoes?

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Chris Voss?

  And you might say, cause, cause I like them, cause they're comfortable.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:27Chris Voss?

  It's defensive.

• 24:28Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's funny you say that, cause my mom, I ask her why all the time. And

• 24:33Chris Voss?

  Guys are crazy.

• 24:34Lewis Howes?

  She says to me,

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  she says to me six months ago, I stopped answering why questions. I go, why?

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  So, but it's interesting. So why, why is why?

• 24:48Chris Voss?

  Globally, the word why always creates defensiveness on anybody we ask it. Now, you may not always be accusing them when you use the word, but if I've done something wrong, you're gonna say, why'd you do that?

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Chris Voss?

  That's everybody's first response when they think somebody's something. And so we hit it enough, we're always defensive. So, but if I say, why would you do business with me? If you're gonna do it, you're gonna defend it. You're gonna say, well, hostage negotiating. You negotiate.

• 25:14Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So you reversed psychology, the why.

• 25:18Chris Voss?

  Reverse psychology.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:19Chris Voss?

  So either you're gonna give me the reasons right away, because I've just hit an emotional button in you. I've actually hit two.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 25:26Chris Voss?

  I've created defensiveness and also it gives you, you think I need to be corrected? And correction is an addiction. It might as well be one of the seven deadly sins. I can trick you, I can get you to tell me so much more if I, if you're correcting me. I get you to say things to me that you would never say to me otherwise.

• 25:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I really like, I don't think I've ever thought of this. So when someone's

• 25:48Chris Voss?

  That's why we do what we do.

• 25:50Lewis Howes?

  So I think I actually started doing this unintentionally, but I didn't know, I wasn't saying why necessarily. But I remember I was trying to, I had this high ticket mastermind called the greatness mastermind for the last three years. We actually just put it on pause for this year because I'm putting my effort and energy into other things. But I noticed the time it took from year one, I was doing all these phone calls to sell people to get into the mastermind.

• 26:15Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  And it was a $35,000 price point. And it worked fine because people applied, they were, you know, they showed interest and it worked year one. Year two, I remember I said I'm going to do no phone calls. I'm going to save my time because I was spending an hour on the phone selling people, but just making sure they're qualified, but it was a lot of time.

• 26:34Chris Voss?

  Yes.

• 26:35Lewis Howes?

  Year two, I said, I'm only doing emails. And I'm going to essentially get them to enroll themselves in it for me. And I started asking certain questions. I don't think I was saying, why me? When you can go to this mastermind and this coach and this. I wasn't saying that, but I was more asking them to enroll themselves in it for me. So, you know, what's the purpose of you joining? And then the last year I did something similar. It was just like, I had someone else on the phone say, why do you want to be a part of this with Lewis specifically? Not, not saying there's all these other options, but just going, why do you want to be a part of this? And then he would listen to them say why they wanted to be a part of it. But I don't think I had the perfect system, the way you talk about it, but I think that's

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  and I never had to jump on a phone call. I never had to do an email and people just enrolled in a higher price point every year. Which was powerful.

• 27:27Chris Voss?

  Yeah, it makes sense.

• 27:28Lewis Howes?

  I like this approach to saying, you know, there's all these other options out there. Why do you want to be with me?

• 27:32Chris Voss?

  I mean, we, we never bat a mouth at competition.

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 27:35Chris Voss?

  I say they're great. Why me? Now the other response is going to be, now here's what you're really looking for. These are the people that you're not going to do business with. If somebody looks back and you say, well, it's up to you.

• 27:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 27:45Chris Voss?

  Yeah, yeah. You convinced me.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  Nah.

• 27:47Chris Voss?

  Well, and, and a point of fact, that's a defensive reaction on their part. Vision drives decision. If they, if you sit, somebody sits down with you and they don't have a vision of doing business with you in their head already, you can't put it there.

• 28:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, really? You can't inception them?

• 28:03Chris Voss?

  No, well, no, you can, I need to diagnose whether or not there's anything in there.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Chris Voss?

  Well, if, if it is also, I mean, the return on my time, like. I get people that wanna do business with me right now.

• 28:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Chris Voss?

  Cause your most valuable commodity is your time. You were just talking about time.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:22Chris Voss?

  What do you and I have? It's exactly what's our commodity that's equal to Warren Buffett's.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  Can't get it back.

• 28:29Chris Voss?

  Warren Buffett's got 24 hours, we got 24 hours. You can't get it back. So I could chase a deal for a long time. Or I can take the deals to people that are ready to do business with me now. And there are enough people ready to do business with me now. That the chase is probably a fool's errand.

• 28:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:49Chris Voss?

  Now, coming to that is really hard. Very few people can do it early in a business career. Because they're so desperate for opportunity, they think it makes no sense. To not chase every opportunity. And everybody that we've taught this to. Who's been in business for any length of time, you can just see the light going on.

• 29:13Lewis Howes?

  Like, man, I've been hustling for years.

• 29:15Chris Voss?

  I didn't need to hustle those people? And yeah, they said, I didn't need to hustle those people?

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  I know, I know.

• 29:21Chris Voss?

  Well, the only thing you needed is to develop a gut instinct for the people that aren't worth the hustle. You know, I guarantee you, anybody attends your mastermind. No matter what you charge for it. It's gonna be cheap money for them.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:37Chris Voss?

  But if my mindset isn't there. To start with, if I show up, I'm not gonna pay attention. My mind's gonna be in other places. I'd be wasting my time.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  Right. So you're gonna sell those people anyways. You wanna get the people that already have a vision of working with you, it sounds like.

• 29:51Chris Voss?

  Right. Or a vision of working with you where they realize the visions align.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 29:56Chris Voss?

  And now, now this is a great collaboration.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:59Chris Voss?

  But if the visions or the values, if the core values don't align.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  What if, I mean, what if there's someone who's just starting out in a business? They maybe don't have the reputation, they don't have the credibility yet, they don't have the audience size. Where people aren't coming to them, seeking them out yet. They're trying to make a name for themselves. The new real estate agent. Who's never done a deal. Uh, the new videographer who's trying to get their first client. Like, how do you get them to say, well, why do you wanna work with me if I've never had the experience?

• 30:27Chris Voss?

  They're not gonna be able to answer that question.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 30:29Chris Voss?

  So, but there's another, there's another way to do it. An attorney I hired recently on a very specific issue. Wrote a white paper on that topic and put it out.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:40Chris Voss?

  So, I already knew he knew what he was talking about. He put that out, he demonstrated an expertise in the area. He took the time to do the research. He took the time to review the issues. He took the time to write this white paper and he put it out there.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:59Chris Voss?

  It was an issue that we were struggling with internally. I, I, I had an intern at the time. He says, "Hey, I found this attorney wrote this white paper." Like, perfect, bang. We went in right away and I, and I knew that, that he had it. So if you're just starting out, put an article on LinkedIn demonstrating what you know at that point in time.

• 31:19Lewis Howes?

  With credibility, yeah.

• 31:20Chris Voss?

  You know, people, people want, well, yeah, people want to know if you understand. And so, you can be brand new in an industry and develop an understanding of some aspect of that industry in short order. LinkedIn is one of those great, it's a marketing tool, it's a marketing platform. Put a piece out on, on LinkedIn.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Chris Voss?

  Pretty, pretty good chance it's gonna create some more back and forth. There's gonna be a bunch of people that are gonna be critical of you. Nine out of 10 of them aren't gonna know what they're talking about. But a couple of people who are on your side will add some comments that'll help refine what you know.

• 32:01Chris Voss?

  And now, you've just demonstrated, you're bringing value to the table the minute you walk in a room.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  Right. What are the most common negotiations that everyone goes through on a daily basis?

• 32:12Chris Voss?

  Wow, any, well, anytime somebody has got the words "I want" or "I need" coming out of their mouth, you're in a negotiation.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  You're in a negotiation.

• 32:21Chris Voss?

  Right, the commodity that's always at stake is time.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Chris Voss?

  Um, so, you know, I'm, I'm in a negotiation when I check into a hotel because I want a free upgrade.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:34Chris Voss?

  Or typically, I'm in a hotel early and a lot of hotels wanna charge you early check-in fee. Well, I don't wanna pay that fee.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Right. Or a late checkout.

• 32:41Chris Voss?

  Or a late checkout.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Chris Voss?

  They don't wanna give late checkouts to anybody that's not one of their super executives.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  I'm always pushing for that three, four, or five P. A. B. late checkout.

• 32:50Chris Voss?

  Right, right. Yeah, so, I mean, they could do that for you.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:54Chris Voss?

  If they felt like it. You know, never be mean to somebody who could hurt you by doing nothing.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:01Chris Voss?

  Well, everybody you interact with could hurt you by doing nothing. Which if you take the flip side of that coin is, they could do something for you if they felt like it.

• 33:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:11Chris Voss?

  How do you make them feel like it? Demonstration a little bit of understanding. Recognition of them as a human being. Let's go back to your Starbucks example. You're trying to show them that you're not treating them as a clerk behind a Starbucks counter, that they're actually a human being. You say their name. Hey, how you doing today? It's not that you're saying how you're doing, but I guarantee you that the way that you say that is you're saying in a way where it's my intention that for the brief moment that you interact with me, at least your day will be better.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Chris Voss?

  And their gut instinct is gonna pick that up. So the minute you're no longer demanding, now you're negotiating with a Lyft driver. Is he gonna, is he gonna come out of the Lyft app and go into another app that is even faster? Is, is he gonna, is he gonna drive the slow lane the whole time?

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Chris Voss?

  Or is he gonna try to get around the traffic to save you a few minutes? Is he, the Lyft driver, he or she, are they gonna make some extra effort for you?

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Chris Voss?

  You know, there's a million things everybody could do, no matter how simple the job is. You talked to a woman that probably about three years ago, she said, you know, we buy music for movies. And the people on the other side are just order takers. It's not a negotiation. Yes, it is.

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:21Chris Voss?

  The way you interact with them on our phone, if they write down which song you're after with Sony or whoever it is, do they take your order and they walk it down to the hall to the guy who executes? Or do they put them on a bottle of pile because they didn't like the way you spoke to them?

• 34:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:36Chris Voss?

  You know, there's a million and one things people could do for you if they just felt like it.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:41Chris Voss?

  So if on a regular basis, you're trying to give somebody a nicer day, you're gonna turn around, they will have done something for you for free.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Chris Voss?

  And then stuff accumulates.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  What's the, what's the formula or process to get people to do things just because they feel like it?

• 34:58Chris Voss?

  Well, you know, it's, it's really, it's, it's gonna sound stupid.

• 35:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Smiling, being nice.

• 35:04Chris Voss?

  So smiling, neuroscience behind a smile. If you smile at somebody,

• 35:11Chris Voss?

  You actually hit their mirror neurons. You start a smile in their brain. Wow. Smile is an involuntary response. A mirror neurons. Mirror neurons in their brain. It's the same as if the doctor hits your knee with a little hammer and your leg kicks forward. You didn't choose to have your leg kick forward, it's an involuntary response. So if somebody sees you and you smile, you've instantly hit their mirror neurons, you started a chemical change. Now, they might fight it, and sometimes you gotta get them three smiles. Right. But by a third smile, you get them smiling too. Yeah. So you've already started the process then. And then, uh, your inner voice betrays your outer voice. When you say "how are you?" to somebody at Starbucks,

• 35:56Chris Voss?

  your inner voice is saying, "I'm trying to make your day better, I, I, I want you to be a happier person." They're gonna feel it. If your inner voice is saying like, "How are you today? I need my Starbucks coffee and I need to get out of here and I hate this line and I hate how long you guys..." If that's in your voice, they're gonna feel that, they're gonna be pouring decaf instead of, instead of the other kind. Right. So your entire approach, the neuroscience shows us, the person is picking it up and responding. And so your body language, your tone of voice, the greatest negotiators in the world really maximize that because it's an invisible skill. Yeah. But it's a skill that you can teach, it sounds like. And learn. And learn.

• 36:40Chris Voss?

  You can teach it, you can learn it, you can practice it. All you gotta do is get your, get your repetitions in. Uh, John Foley's a Blue Angel pilot, I heard him speak about four years ago. He talked about how long does it take to build a habit, how much training do you need? He called it grooving, uh, putting a groove in your brain. The Blue Angels, you know, they gotta build their habits before they get up in the sky. Otherwise, the jets crash.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  I was in a Blue Angel two years ago. It was crazy, man.

• 37:10Chris Voss?

  That had to have been an adrenaline ride.

• 37:11Lewis Howes?

  I threw up twice.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  I was sick the whole time and sick for three days afterwards. I've got a weak stomach. But it was unbelievable at the same time.

• 37:20Chris Voss?

  They needed to know what they were doing.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, for sure.

• 37:22Chris Voss?

  They can't learn up there, right?

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing to watch them so close, just like feet away from each other.

• 37:28Chris Voss?

  At Mach 1 or however fast they're going?

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  Four or five, whatever. Yeah, it's crazy.

• 37:32Chris Voss?

  Yeah. Alright, so Foley said, how did they get that good? They practiced, he said, 63 to 64 repetitions. To put it in your brain. And another guy wrote the talent code, Daniel Coyle.

• 37:48Chris Voss?

  He talked about perfect practice.

• 37:52Chris Voss?

  You could go excruciatingly slow, as long as you do it right. And the first time you try any skill, you probably go slow. You come to one of the training sessions that my company puts on. I'm gonna say, say this word for word. Take your time.

• 38:11Chris Voss?

  And then react in the moment. We have a, one of the negotiation tools is what we call a label. When I say something to you, I want you to label it. I don't care if you have to stare at me for 10 minutes.

• 38:22Lewis Howes?

  Label it.

• 38:23Chris Voss?

  Label it. It seems like, it sounds like, it looks like. A label's a verbal observation. But I need you to use those exact words. And if I say, "I love teaching negotiations." Now, label my emotion.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Your emotion?

• 38:40Chris Voss?

  The emotion that I displayed when I said, "I love teaching negotiations." Label that.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  What, you say the three things?

• 38:46Chris Voss?

  It seems like, it sounds like, or it looks like.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Say all three of them?

• 38:51Chris Voss?

  Pick one of those three. Say, alright, I'm gonna say it again, and I want you to say word for word. It sounds like, and then fill in the blank.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 39:00Chris Voss?

  I love teaching negotiation.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

• 39:06Chris Voss?

  Yeah. Now, that's enough. Now, to start with, what just happened is you demonstrated it perfectly.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 39:13Chris Voss?

  Because the important part is, you have to say the first three words. That actually fires the brain. And you did exactly what I thought you would do, which is you said, "It sounds like," you fired the brain, and then you opened yourself up to whatever your brain put in. That's why I wanted you to actually say the words, the actual specific words. Because your brain will kick into gear and say something. Now, your first label, every time you fire the synapse, you get a little bit better. There's a substance called myelin. Your brain wraps this substance. It's an electrical synaptic connection in your brain.

• 39:56Chris Voss?

  And anybody, you know, if you know anything about electricity, every time you insulate it, it fires a little bit better.

• 40:02Chris Voss?

  Fire it sixty-three to sixty-four times, according to the Blue Angel pilot, and you've got a nice circuit belt. And it'll fire quickly. And then you'll start to hear it. So we'll fire it again, and I want you to label it again.

• 40:17Chris Voss?

  "I love teaching negotiation."

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  Sounds like you love teaching negotiation.

• 40:22Chris Voss?

  All right, now, dig a little bit deeper.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  Explain it more?

• 40:25Chris Voss?

  No, no, just another label, but use another adjective. "It sounds like," "sounds like X." "I love teaching negotiation."

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like you're passionate about it.

• 40:35Chris Voss?

  There you go. See? Perfect.

• 40:38Chris Voss?

  Now, you came up with another word. Now, it stumped you for a second.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:43Chris Voss?

  And you, you kicked in, you, you know, you, you let that supercomputer come up with another word. And like, "Yeah, I am passionate about it." Now interestingly enough, this is a way in a business negotiation. Cause a great business deal is an alignment of core values. Just like a great personal relationship is an alignment of core values. I'm sitting on a, on a, on a plane flying in here. This morning, I found out more about the guy sitting on a plane next to me. Than he's told anybody in 20 years. With this same kind of an exercise. What do you do for a living? What do you love about it? And when he, when he tells me, I now know, the guy sat next to on a plane.

• 41:25Chris Voss?

  He's got an adopted daughter, she was adopted when she was six months old from China. His mother struggled with bipolar manic depressive. She committed suicide at age 17. He was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather survived the depression. His grandfather, at one point in time, going into depression. Owned 11 banks that all went bankrupt. He had to start completely over again. His grandfather used to tell him, I lost 11 fortunes. His grandfather loved to live off the land. They love to, they love to make things by hand. This guy's a very successful contractor here in Los Angeles. And he's constantly, constantly, constantly working on improving himself.

• 42:09Chris Voss?

  Married to his first wife. They're, they're business partners. They work together. They work in different aspects of the business. I mean, I had lost track of the number of things I found out about this guy. I know, I know about this guy from when he was three years old to now. Now, in the space of what sounded like a normal social conversation. I know this guy's incredibly loyal. He's very practical. He's very hardworking. He, I just, I just flew in from Vegas. He was in Vegas because he was in a competitive poker tournament. He likes reading people. He's a very hard worker. From what I know from this guy, from what this perceived social conversation, I know that we could do business together and if we run into trouble,

• 42:53Chris Voss?

  I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from him and how to deal with those problems if we run into trouble.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:58Chris Voss?

  With the very sort of the thing that you and I did just now.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:02Chris Voss?

  You know, you start teasing stuff out.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  So when you ask him a question and he says something, you would use one of those responses, it seems like, it sounds like, what was it, there was one?

• 43:12Chris Voss?

  Yeah, or it feels like.

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  It feels like?

• 43:14Chris Voss?

  Looks like, it could be, it looks like.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  Looks like.

• 43:15Chris Voss?

  Cause I might be reading your body language, it looks like.

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like you're not that interested into it, even though you said you were. Your body language tells me something different.

• 43:22Chris Voss?

  Exactly.

• 43:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:23Chris Voss?

  And then, and then see, if you see that in somebody's body language, your point before about Starbucks, about actually seeing a person, that same thing is going on. And they might not even know it. You know, every now and then I get, people go like, yeah, you know, I've been struggling with this for a while, I'm really, I'm really conflicted about it. And they find themselves opening up because, you know, most of the time, you see conflict in somebody, most people say, ah, it'll be fine, just keep working hard, it'll be fine.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 43:53Chris Voss?

  It's all part of the journey.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:56Chris Voss?

  Instead of actually being a great sounding board for somebody and, and helping them sound that out, consequently learning a lot about that person at the same time.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like you're going through a lot right now. It sounds like you're having a hard time with this, it sounds like.

• 44:09Chris Voss?

  Exactly. Or, and, and, it's exactly right. And you start to become a tremendous sounding board for people.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  So what happens to that person when you respond in one of those three or four ways of it sounds like, feels like, uh, looks like? What does that person feel on the other side when you're showing that type of compassion or empathy?

• 44:30Chris Voss?

  They feel connected with. They feel very connected with, they, they feel seen. You know, they feel like they're a person on the planet. They feel like suddenly they're not just another part of the thundering herd that nobody's paying any attention to.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Chris Voss?

  They feel at least that. Um, last week we're doing a training with some, some, some pretty tough business people. And one of the guys in this exercise is saying like, I found myself talking about stuff that happened when I was seven years old.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:58Chris Voss?

  He said, I gotta tell you something, I feel transformed right now. And so we stopped the group at that point in time and we said, alright, so now, based on Larry talking about that sort of a change, what kind of a guy is he to deal with? He's a pretty decent guy.

• 45:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:20Chris Voss?

  You now have got a glimpse into him as more as a total human being, which means if he does something that you perceive to be a negative move, he either did it accidentally or you misinterpreted it. Which means it's okay to go back to him. Instead of, you know, letting the rage build up in you because you misinterpreted something or did it by accident. He's a decent guy. If he, if he slighted you, he did it by accident.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:50Chris Voss?

  You can go back to him and bring it up and say, hey, I gotta tell you, I got a problem with this.

• 45:59Chris Voss?

  He's probably gonna open up because just based on his real, this three-minute exercise, you find out about-

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  He opened up then, so you'd probably, yeah.

• 46:06Chris Voss?

  He's a decent human being.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:08Chris Voss?

  And every human being is gonna hurt you. Principally inadvertently.

• 46:15Chris Voss?

  So you go back to him and, and find out what's behind it and make him aware because they're gonna want to know.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, every human being's gonna hurt you?

• 46:23Chris Voss?

  Everybody, one way or another, is going to do something accidentally or on purpose that's gonna hurt your feelings. We're gonna, we're gonna interpret it as negative the vast majority of the time.

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Chris Voss?

  When in fact, it was probably a complete accident. There's a really good chance they got no idea they hurt your feelings.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:42Chris Voss?

  You need to know which one it was. Did they do it on purpose? Do they know they did it? The numbers are that they did it by accident and the other numbers are there's a really good chance they didn't know they did it.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:54Chris Voss?

  You know, I went, I went to, uh, you know, a landmark forum a couple of years ago.

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:01Chris Voss?

  Talking about making amends with people, talking to people who've hurt you. And so, one of the young ladies.

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  Did you go through the whole program?

• 47:07Chris Voss?

  Yeah. One of the young ladies in it was like, you know, when I was seven, this a girl who was my cousin. You know, they bullied me. You know, he said something that hurt me. I, you know, it's thirty years. I haven't let go.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:20Chris Voss?

  So, we talked about it. They talked about it. And she said she went. She decided to go to the person and just, because to forgive, to forgive is to let go. You know, not forgiving is like taking porches and hoping the other person dies, right? You've heard that?

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 47:33Chris Voss?

  So, she goes to this girl. And she says, I want you to know I forgot. The girl didn't even remember it. She got no memory. She was just being a stupid kid at the time. She had, you know.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  We're all stupid at seven, right?

• 47:44Chris Voss?

  Yeah, they're joking around and they're, and.

• 47:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow, she held on to it for that long?

• 47:48Chris Voss?

  Thirty years. The other person doesn't even know it. So, and by nature, we're joking around with somebody. And we accidentally say something that wounded them.

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:59Chris Voss?

  If they don't feel they can talk to us, they're gonna carry it for thirty years.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Chris Voss?

  If I hurt, if I hurt somebody, I wanna know.

• 48:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Chris Voss?

  You know, I, because I'm gonna be like, I'm an idiot, you know? I had no idea I did that to you.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Chris Voss?

  I had no idea.

• 48:13Lewis Howes?

  Was there anything from the emotional intelligence training at Landmark that added to your curriculum of negotiations? That you didn't already know or use before?

• 48:24Chris Voss?

  Well, not, because it's all interwoven. The biggest thing that jumped out at me is it occurred to me that somebody hurt somebody else without even knowing they did it. Like, in a, in a, in a masterclass thing, you know, they did a great job. The masterclass people are phenomenal.

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Chris Voss?

  So, we're wandering to the very tail end of it. And they got me talking about this guy that bullied me when I was a kid.

• 48:46Lewis Howes?

  You? Yeah, you talking about, yeah.

• 48:48Chris Voss?

  Yeah, and, and I hadn't, I hadn't, I had literally never told anybody about this.

• 48:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:53Chris Voss?

  So, you know, it's, and it happened when I was a little kid.

• 48:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Chris Voss?

  I literally had never told anybody about it.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Not even through Landmark or anything else?

• 49:02Chris Voss?

  Nothing.

• 49:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:04Chris Voss?

  And they get it out of me at masterclass. They, they catch me off guard over it, you know? And it's, to, to, to this day, this is one of the reasons why I hate bullies. You know, I wanna become an FBI agent because, you know, we, we wanna go after the bad guys because the bad guys are bullies. And there's nothing I like better than getting a bully that's victimizing somebody else. And I think it was instilled in me in what happened when I was, when I was a kid.

• 49:31Chris Voss?

  But then I started comparing that to this this interaction I heard at Landmark where somebody bullied somebody else they didn't even know they did it. And then I began thinking about like, how many people have I hurt that I didn't even know? Like if they would've come up to me today and said, you know, I've carried this for forty years. And I have to have done that to somebody.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:52Chris Voss?

  Have to have done that to somebody. Yeah. So it's, you know, this forgiveness thing is a two-way street and also being, you know, who do I need to go back to that I can think of? That I, and say, look, look, since I know that inadvertently I'm a jerk, then I, what did I do? I'm sure I did something. I had to have done something. Then it's an interesting dilemma, all sort of part of, you know, being a better person anyway, which I know is what you're dedicated to.

• 50:23Lewis Howes?

  It's almost, it seems like it's really hard, especially if you're a public figure that has an audience, that you're gonna say something or do something that's going to offend or hurt someone.

• 50:34Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  At all the times. It's like you're always going to be offending someone if you have a voice. If you're sharing something, your point of view.

• 50:43Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  Your point of view is going to reach a certain audience's point of view, but not the rest of the world's point of view. So it's like you're always hurting people, aren't you?

• 50:52Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  At some level, you're like offending, hurting, or frustrating people.

• 50:56Chris Voss?

  And their hurt's gonna be defensive in reaction.

• 50:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:59Chris Voss?

  Or they misinterpret, or you hit a button with them.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Chris Voss?

  That you didn't even, maybe you didn't hit the button, but you came close to a button that's gonna hurt you.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Close.

• 51:10Chris Voss?

  And, you know, and interestingly enough, we see this a lot with the procurement people that come to our training. I'm really careful to say, look, look, I know you guys fear procurement. And this is about dealing successfully with procurement. And we had one person in the training go, I work in procurement and you criticized, you said procurement people were bad. I said, as a matter of fact, that's not what I said. But I came so close to your hot button. That it hit it anyway.

• 51:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Chris Voss?

  And I spent some time with this woman. And she was afraid that that was what I meant. And but didn't know how to approach me.

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:52Chris Voss?

  And when it came up subsequently, I said, no, as a matter of fact, procurement has one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. You guys are both, you spend your days either herding cats or getting chased by villagers with pitchforks.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:06Chris Voss?

  You know, it's one or the other.

• 52:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Chris Voss?

  And she was like, yeah, yeah, it's really tough. I was just afraid that that's what you meant.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:14Chris Voss?

  It was that amygdala that we were talking about before, the seventy-five percent negative.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Chris Voss?

  We're all equipped with that. And when somebody even comes close to a criticism, then we're afraid that that's what they mean and they're hurt.

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  How do you take criticism?

• 52:29Chris Voss?

  Not well.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  I've never really been good at it until, I wouldn't say I've mastered it. I think I've gotten better. Uh, over the last six years, I started to really like say, okay, let me not react to this criticism. Like, they probably have some good intention. They're trying to tell me. And maybe there's some truth there. So let me start to listen to the feedback or the criticism and say, okay, how can I be better? Is there any truth in there that really resonates? Or are they coming from a place of anger, of their own thing?

• 52:58Chris Voss?

  Criticism is mostly fear driven.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  By the person criticizing.

• 53:02Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Chris Voss?

  And you criticize at a point of fact, you've been hurt, you've been disappointed, you've been frustrated.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Chris Voss?

  You know, there's a lot of things that, you know, never take advice from anybody you wouldn't trade places with. Criticism is a form of advice. But you're afraid to tell people how to do stuff. So you just criticize what they do.

• 53:23Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:25Chris Voss?

  Some people, and then they get, it becomes an addiction for some people. Criticism is not a great behavior. I know you've heard the phrase, nobody's doing better than you will ever criticize you.

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:36Chris Voss?

  They'll mentor you.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:38Chris Voss?

  So, first of all, how do I take criticism? It, I gotta take a step back and understand if somebody's coming at me with just a criticism, even if they ask permission to criticize. They got some, they got struggles that are worse than mine.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  Right. If they ask you to give you criticism?

• 53:59Chris Voss?

  I'm, I'd be, you know, they're an open wound at that point.

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:04Chris Voss?

  So, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say, "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:08Chris Voss?

  I'm, I'm gonna, they've already told me they're probably coming from a difficult place.

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, gotcha.

• 54:14Chris Voss?

  So, what I'm gonna try to do is just kinda take it easy on them.

• 54:16Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:17Chris Voss?

  And understand where they're coming from.

• 54:21Chris Voss?

  A blog, I'm a big fan of Eric Barker, writes this great blog, Barking Up the Wrong Trig.

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 54:27Chris Voss?

  Eric told me one time, "For every, every hater, there's gonna be ten people that are on your side." So, when a critic comes up to me, I see that as, there are ten people, you're indicating to me that I'm successful with nine other people, and I'm not gonna get down on this person. Because it's very easy to get down on them. Because unfortunately, they're coming from a negative place.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Gotcha. That's good to know. What's a role-playing exercise that anyone could do with a friend?

• 54:59Lewis Howes?

  That would make them a better negotiator?

• 55:01Chris Voss?

  Try to get whoever you're talking to to say the magic two words, "That's right."

• 55:10Chris Voss?

  Which means you gotta summarize where they're coming from. If you, in, in any given interaction, if you got a point you wanna make.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:18Chris Voss?

  Before you make it, your trigger, you're not allowed to make your point.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  So, give me an example.

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  And you want the other person you're role-playing with to say, "That's right."

• 55:30Chris Voss?

  Okay, so, you were telling me about critics.

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:34Chris Voss?

  You're a high-profile guy. You're about helping other people.

• 55:39Chris Voss?

  Which means you get criticized a lot.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  That's right.

• 55:43Chris Voss?

  And when you get criticized, I mean, I, you know, I wouldn't say you're empathic, au lieu. I would say you're probably more compassionate. Those are two different things.

• 55:56Chris Voss?

  Empathy is, you have to have empathy to be compassionate, but empathy is not compassion.

• 56:02Chris Voss?

  Compassion is the next step. Empathy is a compassionate thing to do. Genuinely understanding somebody. But there's a real fine line there, the distinct things. And I think you have a tremendous amount of compassion for people. So you know that when someone criticizes you, they're attacking you.

• 56:25Chris Voss?

  But you also know that they've been hurt and they're struggling.

• 56:34Chris Voss?

  So you wanna know how to respond to them and have them better as a result of the interaction. Instead of coming back and making them feel worse. And you struggle with that because you're under attack. And you try not to, you try not to fire back at them.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah, that's right.

• 56:55Lewis Howes?

  There you go. So you wanna have a conversation with someone.

• 56:59Chris Voss?

  If you could summarize their point of view first.

• 57:03Chris Voss?

  Summarize the other person's, would you summarize the other, what the other person's struggling with?

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  In, in any type of deal making.

• 57:09Chris Voss?

  In any type of deal.

• 57:10Lewis Howes?

  A business deal, a relationship, a buying coffee, upgrading, whatever it is.

• 57:14Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 57:15Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 57:15Chris Voss?

  Yeah, then after that, you can make your point.

• 57:19Lewis Howes?

  Make your point or make your proposal or?

• 57:22Chris Voss?

  Yeah, or whatever.

• 57:23Lewis Howes?

  So if you're trying to get an upgrade at a, if you're trying to get an upgrade on an airport, uh, you know, on a plane or at a hotel.

• 57:31Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 57:31Lewis Howes?

  Or trying to get a supersize made for free.

• 57:34Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 57:35Lewis Howes?

  You're trying to get some type of upgrade for free.

• 57:37Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 57:37Lewis Howes?

  Would you do the same thing? Would you say, I know you're going through, it seems like it's been a long day for you.

• 57:44Chris Voss?

  Well, you can look at them and tell whether it's gonna be a long day, so right off the bat, you say, long day?

• 57:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:49Chris Voss?

  And then as, as soon as you get ready to make your ask, what's their, and this instinctive response, their knee jerk reaction, what's that gonna be?

• 57:58Lewis Howes?

  When I make an ask?

• 58:00Chris Voss?

  Once you've made your ask, what's their, of, of somebody's trying to get something for free?

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Chris Voss?

  What's their typical knee jerk reaction?

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, this person's just trying to get something for free from me?

• 58:10Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 58:13Chris Voss?

  So.

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  And everyone does this or everyone?

• 58:15Chris Voss?

  There you go.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Everyone's doing this.

• 58:17Chris Voss?

  Yeah, so you walk up and you go like, hey, look, man, I know I'm gonna seem like just another jerk who's trying to get something for free. Somebody who treats you like you're their servant? Somebody who doesn't care about you could care less whether you live or die. They only care that you're alive long enough to make my coffee.

• 58:36Chris Voss?

  Cause that's what the other guy's thinking. How do you articulate what they're thinking, especially the negative stuff about you? When you say that, they're gonna be like, "No, no, no, no, no." But what you did was you just woke them up. You know, you snapped them out of the negative loop that's in their head. Because the last guy come in and said,

• 59:00Chris Voss?

  "And I want it now. I hate waiting in line."

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  Do you do this all the time, all day long? Are you constantly in a game of negotiation with people?

• 59:08Chris Voss?

  It's that, you know, that I brushed my teeth today just because I brushed them yesterday. You know, I genuinely, I gotta keep my skills up. Cause it's either stay even, decline, or get better. I wanna keep my skills up. The mercenary in me does it because I gotta keep my skills up. The missionary in me does it because I actually care about people.

• 59:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Chris Voss?

  I just assume that you had a good day.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:33Chris Voss?

  You know, that you didn't, that my interaction with you didn't leave you worse.

• 59:39Chris Voss?

  That my interaction with you left you better. Everybody we encounter should be left better by the interaction.

• 59:44Lewis Howes?

  How important is the intention? Before you walk up to the coffee shop, before you go to the hotel, before you get on the phone with the the other business owner to make a deal, before you have a conversation with your partner about where you're going to dinner? Do you set an intention first? Like, walking into the hotel, you're like, "This is what I'm gonna say. This is the result that I wanna get out of this. This is the way I wanna leave people feeling."

• 1:00:12Chris Voss?

  The intention, yeah, the intention is, you know, I want you to have fun with the interaction.

• 1:00:19Lewis Howes?

  The other person?

• 1:00:19Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  I want you to have fun.

• 1:00:21Chris Voss?

  If I'm playful, if I'm intending for you to have fun, you know, I'm in a department store. I'm joking around with the guy behind the counter. And I go, I go, tell you what, you know what? How about if you give me the employee discount?

• 1:00:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:35Chris Voss?

  Give me the employee discount. I'll say it like that. Give me the employee discount. And the guy in the store says, if I give you the employee discount, I'm gonna have to pay for it myself.

• 1:00:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:00:46Chris Voss?

  And I go, I'll pay you back. I said it just like that. He went and he started walking around asking people how he could key it in and give me the same discount without having to pay it himself. He walked around the store for 10 minutes.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:00:59Chris Voss?

  And I saw him walk up to a manager. The manager shaking his head.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  He's going to someone else.

• 1:01:06Chris Voss?

  And on his way back, another employee walked up to him on the side, whispered in his ear. And he went, and he walked up and I get 30% off.

• 1:01:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. But you didn't pay him back? It was just like a playful?

• 1:01:17Chris Voss?

  I just, you know, yeah. I just was being playful about it. Just being silly about it.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  And what's the best way to get an upgrade at a hotel for you?

• 1:01:25Chris Voss?

  All right, so, slightly different take on the approach.

• 1:01:29Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:01:30Chris Voss?

  My son does this all the time. My son, Brandon, runs my business. He's our best negotiator. He prides himself, when we all come into a hotel, he's gotta be in a better room than me. And I'm the boss.

• 1:01:43Lewis Howes?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:01:44Chris Voss?

  And as far as I'm concerned, I'm paying the bills.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:01:47Chris Voss?

  He got an upgrade in a hotel one time that I couldn't even get on the floor.

• 1:01:52Lewis Howes?

  You need a special key?

• 1:01:53Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  Key code?

• 1:01:54Chris Voss?

  Me and the other guys were going, hey, we'll come up to your room. He goes, no, no, I gotta come get you. I said, no, we'll just come knock on your door. He goes, no, you can't even get on the floor I'm on. He paid less for his room than I paid for mine. And I'm the boss. But he'll walk up to somebody and say, I'm getting ready to make your day the most difficult day you ever worked here. And he says, because somebody works behind a counter at a hotel. I mean, God knows what they've seen. You know, have you got a head in the bag? Do you wanna, are you gonna have ritual sacrifice in a room? You know, what have you done? You've done, because in a hotel, they've seen every kind of sort of crazy thing you could imagine.

• 1:02:38Chris Voss?

  And they just go, oh, God.

• 1:02:42Chris Voss?

  What is it? He goes,

• 1:02:45Chris Voss?

  "I'm just gonna be another self-centered person looking for a free upgrade." And they're like, "Oh, my God."

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  That's it?

• 1:02:49Chris Voss?

  That's it?

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  That's it, oh, yeah.

• 1:02:50Chris Voss?

  And they're immediately through the roof. And I start checking and then this and then that. Hey, you know what? Yeah, I tell you what, let me give you this room. It's on the exclusive floor. It's in a presidential suite. President ain't coming, so I'm gonna give you the president.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:03:04Chris Voss?

  I know the president ain't coming tonight. We're holding a suite for him just in case. You can have it, he's not gonna be here.

• 1:03:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow. I remember from our interview the last time, I think if my memory is right, you would say one of the strategies is leading with like, being challenging in a certain way, or I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be demanding a lot? Isn't that something that you talk?

• 1:03:26Chris Voss?

  Well, to a little bit, yeah.

• 1:03:28Lewis Howes?

  Something that way, right?

• 1:03:29Chris Voss?

  I'm gonna, if I know you're gonna react negatively to my ask, I will give you a preview that makes it look worse than what it really is. Than what it's gonna be.

• 1:03:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so what do you call that? Framework.

• 1:03:42Chris Voss?

  For lack of a better term, it's emotional anchoring.

• 1:03:45Lewis Howes?

  Emotional anchoring.

• 1:03:47Chris Voss?

  You know, we don't do price anchoring. You know, but we'll do emotional anchoring. If you're not gonna like what I have to say, I'm gonna say, "Look, you're not gonna like this."

• 1:03:57Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's what it is.

• 1:03:58Chris Voss?

  And then I'm gonna shut up because your amygdala's gonna kick into gear and you're gonna think that I'm gonna insult you, your parentage, your family, your genealogy, everything. Because the amygdala's gonna go into overdrive.

• 1:04:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:12Chris Voss?

  So whatever I ask for after that is gonna be relief. And I'm doing that also because I need to keep an eye on how you feel when we're done.

• 1:04:26Chris Voss?

  Not as much how you feel at the start, but how you feel when we're done.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  So you want someone to be, it's okay if they start off in a lower energetic or negative attitude, as long as when you finish, they feel like, "Okay, it got better over time."

• 1:04:42Chris Voss?

  Yeah, you feel good at the end. The last impression is the lasting impression.

• 1:04:46Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:04:47Chris Voss?

  And that's unavoidable. It's what we refer to as a law of gravity. It doesn't, you know, we have gravity, we can't explain why gravity works. But you're still not gonna step off the balcony cuz gravity's there.

• 1:05:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:05:01Chris Voss?

  The last impression is the lasting impression, no matter what. So, I need to, more than anything else, make sure that the last impression is positive. Or at least feels collaborative.

• 1:05:14Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you've been in a negotiation with someone, or you're a business partner with someone, or you've been in a long negotiation for six months with someone, either one. You've been a business partner, working together for a year or two, or you've been trying to find a deal with someone else for a year or two.

• 1:05:34Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:05:34Lewis Howes?

  And

• 1:05:35Chris Voss?

  It's taken too long.

• 1:05:36Lewis Howes?

  Both options have taken too long, that you haven't been getting the results you want, and you feel like you've been taken advantage of a little bit, let's just say that.

• 1:05:48Lewis Howes?

  How do you, and it's going, you started off good, and it's going the opposite way.

• 1:05:52Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:05:53Lewis Howes?

  It's getting worse and worse. How do you finalize it, so that it goes back to a high, or a higher mark, leaving you feeling better, and leaving the other person feeling better?

• 1:06:04Chris Voss?

  Or you get out of it.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or you just get out of it. But you just say, "Okay, I'm done, bye, I don't wanna talk to you." How do you not burn a bridge, if you're in that situation?

• 1:06:14Chris Voss?

  Uh, I'd probably say some of the effect of, "Look,

• 1:06:18Chris Voss?

  you're not gonna like this."

• 1:06:20Lewis Howes?

  So you start with the emotional anchoring.

• 1:06:22Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:06:24Chris Voss?

  "This isn't working for me."

• 1:06:28Chris Voss?

  "And I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do it anymore."

• 1:06:32Chris Voss?

  And my problem here has been, that I like you. I've always liked you. And the stuff that we've done together successfully has been phenomenal. And I would like nothing better than at some point in time, in the future, for us to be able to get back to that. But for right now, in order to preserve the memories of the positive things we've done, I gotta be, I'm out now.

• 1:06:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How do I remember that, so every time I'm in a situation, I can say that same thing?

• 1:07:03Chris Voss?

  Well, it's a little bit of a sequence.

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:05Chris Voss?

  And the sequence is, um...

• 1:07:12Chris Voss?

  We need to stop what we're doing right now. But if we're gonna stop what we're doing right now, what everybody thinks of is where's this going in the future? So I gotta, I gotta create a point in time for the future that we're both happy with.

• 1:07:25Lewis Howes?

  So there's still a bridge.

• 1:07:27Chris Voss?

  There, you know, there's still, there's still an opportunity for the future.

• 1:07:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, maybe it's a year, maybe it's never gonna happen, but you keep it open.

• 1:07:33Chris Voss?

  I'm open to it, I want, and I, and I'm finishing positively, but I am finishing.

• 1:07:38Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 1:07:39Chris Voss?

  Because the last words that I, the last two sentences, maybe even just the last sentence, gonna ring in your ears over and over and over and over. Cause that's what your brain is always gonna go back to, the last impression. How did I make you feel at the end? I make you, I make, make you feel valued? And you're gonna appreciate the fact that I walked away without calling your name.

• 1:08:00Chris Voss?

  But I walked away.

• 1:08:01Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's hard to do.

• 1:08:04Chris Voss?

  Yeah, it, well, it's hard, get your, get your practice in.

• 1:08:07Lewis Howes?

  You gotta do practice, yeah.

• 1:08:09Chris Voss?

  You know, you, you just, you work on it a few times. Most of the time, what people have at the end is, is the, the battle for the last word is when the last word is a cheap shot.

• 1:08:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:08:18Chris Voss?

  That's when people-

• 1:08:18Lewis Howes?

  Screw you too, hang up, right?

• 1:08:20Chris Voss?

  Right, and I'm gonna call you back to say screw you right back, and then I'm gonna hang up.

• 1:08:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Chris Voss?

  You know, there's a battle of the last word's a problem and the last word's a cheap shot. But when the last word is a positive thing, it's not a problem.

• 1:08:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so always end in a posi-, with positive words.

• 1:08:34Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:08:34Lewis Howes?

  Even if you feel taken advantage of, even if they hurt you, even if they screwed you over, whatever, you should always try to end in a positive way.

• 1:08:41Chris Voss?

  Yeah, without question, because if you're talking to them, then your goal was to resolve things and to have a great relationship. Now, you might say that at the very beginning of the interaction, but it's more important to say it at the end. You know, my goal was always to have a great relationship with you.

• 1:09:03Chris Voss?

  And if we can get out of this dynamic, that would be my goal again, but right now I'm out. But understand that at any point in time, we could go back to working collaboratively, I'd love to do it.

• 1:09:15Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's good, yeah.

• 1:09:17Chris Voss?

  So usually what it is, is take what you said at the beginning, and at least say it again at the end.

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's good. Yeah, I like that. What is something that you did as a hostage negotiator with terrorists around the world that you use today in just common interactions? Is there something that you did at the height of like this intense conversation that you do on a daily basis?

• 1:09:43Chris Voss?

  Pretty much everything we've been talking about.

• 1:09:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Chris Voss?

  You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a verbal observation on how they're processing things. You know, it seems like...

• 1:09:51Lewis Howes?

  It seems like, it sounds like, it feels like, you'll say all those things.

• 1:09:54Chris Voss?

  Yeah, yeah, that's the bread and butter of great hostage negotiations.

• 1:09:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:09:58Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  It's having them be seen or heard.

• 1:10:03Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Lewis Howes?

  Feeling understood.

• 1:10:04Chris Voss?

  You know, people are taking actions to make a point. What happens if you can make the point without taking the action?

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  They're taking actions to make a point.

• 1:10:14Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:10:15Lewis Howes?

  And you're saying, "You don't need to take that action because I hear you."

• 1:10:18Chris Voss?

  Yeah, let me see what happens if I can, if I can, if you... And it makes no sense at all. But I'm going to take probably 90% of a terrorist agenda away, just by making them feel hurt. Making him or her feel hurt. Then, then I'll deal with whatever I have to afterwards. But let's say I could only take away 10% of their agenda by making them feel hurt.

• 1:10:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:41Chris Voss?

  What if I could only take away 1% of their actions by making them feel hurt? That's worth the investment to me.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  It's worth it.

• 1:10:47Chris Voss?

  Let me see what's left over after they feel hurt.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  It's less, less fingers they're cutting off, less people they're blowing up, whatever, right?

• 1:10:54Chris Voss?

  Yeah, one way or another.

• 1:10:55Lewis Howes?

  Less, yeah. What is, um, what's the best approach? Say I'm looking to buy a company. Right, I'm looking to acquire something. I really like this software, this tool, this agency. I want to buy them. What's the best approach without seemingly or thinking like, "Oh, if I come to them like I'm too needy, I really want them, then I'm giving them all the power."

• 1:11:18Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:11:19Lewis Howes?

  What's the best approach of someone that wants to buy something?

• 1:11:23Chris Voss?

  Yeah, um, completely counterintuitive.

• 1:11:27Chris Voss?

  What are all their arguments for making you pay the high price? State them first.

• 1:11:34Chris Voss?

  Because what that actually does is it leaves them with nothing to say.

• 1:11:38Lewis Howes?

  So Eight Mile them.

• 1:11:39Chris Voss?

  Very nice. Exactly right.

• 1:11:41Lewis Howes?

  Eight Mile them.

• 1:11:42Chris Voss?

  Yeah, we used to, we used to use that, that clip from Eight Mile all the time.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  So good.

• 1:11:46Chris Voss?

  Articulate everything they got to say.

• 1:11:49Lewis Howes?

  So for, for instance, if, if I'm an agency, you want to buy me, right? My company. What would you say? If I'm like, my business is growing, we've getting all this attention, we're helping clients with big results. We're, we're growing as fast as possible. And you're like, wow, this company is really growing. We gotta get them now before they're too big. What would you? Do you call me up on the phone? Do you write me an email? Do you meet, hey, I want to meet for coffee? What's the best approach? In person, email, phone, video conferencing? You could have it any way.

• 1:12:25Chris Voss?

  All right, I'd say, look, um, uh, I'd probably say, uh, right off the bat, like, like I'm completely blown away with what you're doing. You guys are phenomenal, you're on the upswing. You, you guys are killing it. I'm gonna seem like a cheapskate.

• 1:12:41Chris Voss?

  I'm gonna seem like I'm trying to get something for nothing.

• 1:12:43Lewis Howes?

  So emotional anchoring.

• 1:12:45Chris Voss?

  Yeah. Is it a ridiculous idea for us to talk about you selling me your company?

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  Getting something for nothing, is that what you said too?

• 1:12:55Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 1:12:57Chris Voss?

  Because I'd start off with appreciation.

• 1:13:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Chris Voss?

  I've lowered your expectations of me. And see, the last thing that I did also was I did what we refer to as a no oriented question. Instead of saying, would you like to buy? Would you like me to, would you like to talk to me about selling your company? I'd say, is it a ridiculous idea? For us to talk about you selling me your company.

• 1:13:21Lewis Howes?

  What if I say, yeah, it's kind of ridiculous.

• 1:13:23Chris Voss?

  We're done. I never had a shot to begin with.

• 1:13:25Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 1:13:26Chris Voss?

  See, this is about keeping me out of deals that either I'm never gonna make or I don't want to make.

• 1:13:30Lewis Howes?

  So it saved you six months of your life potentially in a two-minute phone call.

• 1:13:34Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  But if they say, yeah, we're growing super fast, it'd be, it'd be, it'd be hard for me to really want to sell right now, but, you know, if you made me a great offer, I'd be open.

• 1:13:45Chris Voss?

  Yeah, I'd say, sounds to me like there's just no way that I'm ever gonna be able to ever make you happy.

• 1:13:50Lewis Howes?

  Ah, cuz I need a great offer.

• 1:13:52Chris Voss?

  Yeah. If you say something like that to me, what you're actually doing is trying to get a really high bid out of me to soothe your ego.

• 1:14:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:04Chris Voss?

  You wanna go back to the employees and say, you know what? We're worth a hundred and fifty million dollars and I turned it down.

• 1:14:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:16Chris Voss?

  Because in five years, we're gonna be worth four hundred and fifty million dollars.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:14:21Chris Voss?

  So that kind of, that kind of a question is, you wanna bid for me to make you feel good.

• 1:14:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:29Chris Voss?

  You're not seriously gonna, by, by laying it out like that, you're, you're not seriously gonna entertain selling.

• 1:14:36Lewis Howes?

  What if you, as a business owner, were like, we really, we really need something like this. We need an agency like this to help us grow. What if you're in a position like, we gotta find an agency like this. If it's not this agency, someone close to it in order to help us grow, would you say, okay, let me go look at the other options internally to yourself? Or would you keep that one open so that you can potentially come back in six months if something happens or?

• 1:15:01Chris Voss?

  Well, then, then, my, the last thing I'm probably gonna say is, how do I help you grow faster than you get the means to get there on your own?

• 1:15:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:10Chris Voss?

  You know, my guess is, based on your rate of improvement, what would you say is a high, high multiple of how much you guys are gonna grow?

• 1:15:18Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:19Chris Voss?

  How you gonna get there?

• 1:15:20Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 1:15:22Chris Voss?

  We have to start talking about because now and this is this is a typical dilemma for a lot of companies that are buying other companies. Because the company wants to sell today is more worried about today's price. As opposed to the amount of money that they could be worth in the future and they're leaving this future money on the table. Like let's say your company's worth nine million dollars. But you had a buddy sell his company for 12, so you're not taking less than 12 for your company. Now it's worth nine, I can only buy it for eight. But I can take you to 200. In three years.

• 1:15:57Lewis Howes?

  So you gotta show them the future potential as opposed to.

• 1:16:00Chris Voss?

  Now the contrast, the fear of loss is our ultimate decision-making tool. People most of the time will sacrifice the future because of the present. But what you need to do is not sacrifice the future over the present. So I'll say to you, so two million dollars today is worth more to you than 130 million dollars in three years?

• 1:16:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's good.

• 1:16:20Chris Voss?

  And then you go like, wait a minute, no, that doesn't make any sense.

• 1:16:24Lewis Howes?

  So you need to reframe it for people.

• 1:16:25Chris Voss?

  Right. Because people are almost always framed on the wrong thing. Almost always framed on today as opposed to where could we be tomorrow?

• 1:16:35Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff. I gotta come to one of your workshops.

• 1:16:37Chris Voss?

  It'd be a lot of fun to have you come here.

• 1:16:39Lewis Howes?

  It's a two, they're two-day workshops?

• 1:16:41Chris Voss?

  Two-day, two-day.

• 1:16:42Lewis Howes?

  How can people sign up for those? Where can they go?

• 1:16:44Chris Voss?

  Alright, so go to the website, blackswanltd.com.

• 1:16:50Chris Voss?

  And the hack to that is actually to sign up for the newsletter. Because we always put the announcements for that stuff in the newsletter.

• 1:16:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you get the employee discounts in the newsletter too, right?

• 1:17:01Chris Voss?

  You get the Chris discount.

• 1:17:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly. You put those in there so every six months they get a little employee discount for people that sign up for the newsletter. That's great.

• 1:17:09Chris Voss?

  The newsletter has a text to sign up. Send a text. FBI empathy, all one word, lowercase.

• 1:17:19Lewis Howes?

  FBI empathy.

• 1:17:20Chris Voss?

  Empathy. Don't let your spell check put a space between FBI and empathy. If you send that to the number 22828-22828, FBI empathy, you get a response back to sign up for the newsletter. Once a week, short, sweet article on how to get better as a negotiator right now. And then plus, it's a link to the website, it's a link to everything.

• 1:17:45Lewis Howes?

  I gotta get on the newsletter. That's gonna be good.

• 1:17:47Chris Voss?

  It's good stuff.

• 1:17:48Lewis Howes?

  Newsletter, workshops, how often are you doing the workshops?

• 1:17:51Chris Voss?

  Once a month.

• 1:17:52Lewis Howes?

  Once a month, all around the country.

• 1:17:53Chris Voss?

  All across the country.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  The book is available, Never Split the Difference, amazing book.

• 1:17:59Chris Voss?

  Buy it on Amazon, it's the best price.

• 1:18:01Lewis Howes?

  And is there an audio version of you speaking it?

• 1:18:03Chris Voss?

  Well, I didn't, I didn't speak it.

• 1:18:05Lewis Howes?

  Someone else did.

• 1:18:06Chris Voss?

  Professional.

• 1:18:07Lewis Howes?

  Professional.

• 1:18:08Chris Voss?

  Did it.

• 1:18:08Lewis Howes?

  Well, I gotta get that too. I gotta listen to that. For me, I feel like you can never get enough negotiation training. You can all, you know, it's like you said, you're getting, staying the same, getting better or getting worse.

• 1:18:20Chris Voss?

  Right.

• 1:18:21Lewis Howes?

  And if you're looking to be, to grow in your life with relationships, with your career, with business, negotiation is going to be the key, is mastering that. So that both parties feel like they're getting a great deal.

• 1:18:34Chris Voss?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:18:35Lewis Howes?

  That's the key. So, go get the book, audio book. I'm going to the workshop, I'm gonna go this year sometime. If you have it in LA, I'm coming. Do you do them in LA?

• 1:18:43Chris Voss?

  We're, we're gonna have one in LA.

• 1:18:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I'm gonna come.

• 1:18:46Chris Voss?

  All right, yeah, well, yeah, absolutely.

• 1:18:47Lewis Howes?

  If I'm in town, I'm there.

• 1:18:48Chris Voss?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Lewis Howes?

  Um, if, sometime this year if you're doing one. And you also have a masterclass.

• 1:18:53Chris Voss?

  Yeah, the masterclass is out there.

• 1:18:55Lewis Howes?

  It's out. And this talks, this breaks down a lot of workshop.

• 1:18:58Chris Voss?

  Which by the way is a sign of the apocalypse. If Martin Scorsese and I are in the same platform, it's a sign the world is coming to an end.

• 1:19:05Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. Well, it just shows you how needed this information is and how important this stuff is. The psychology behind negotiating. And they can go there and get that. And they, you break down a lot of role playing there and other exercises as well, right?

• 1:19:17Chris Voss?

  There's some good stuff in there, yeah. A number of exercises, some, we've got some exercises that we don't have anywhere else at all.

• 1:19:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay. And I see more on Instagram now.

• 1:19:27Lewis Howes?

  A little bit. I don't know if that's you or your son.

• 1:19:29Chris Voss?

  No, no, it's me putting that stuff out there. Instagram is a good platform.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:19:34Chris Voss?

  I like the stuff that's out there. I follow your stuff on Instagram.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 1:19:38Chris Voss?

  And it's a great way to tap into some people that are putting out some short, sweet messages that, you know, I like to tap into the people that are helping other people get better. Which is what's on your platform, which is why I like to.

• 1:19:51Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Chris, for constantly transitioning from what you learned, saving the world, to actually helping everyday people save their world. You know, transferring those skills and sharing them with us. The thing I love about you is you dive deeper into the same thing and just try to spread it to more people. You're not trying to take on all these new things. You're just going into one thing that you're master at. And really going deep. And helping a lot of people save money, make money, and really have just better relationships. At the end of the day, it's relationship that you're teaching. You're teaching how to be better in relationships, how to build bridges as opposed to creating walls between people.

• 1:20:34Lewis Howes?

  There's a lot of walls every day that we create, whether it be the Starbucks, a hotel, a hostage. And so I acknowledge you for the consistent work you're doing. I really value it, and I know a lot of people do as well.

• 1:20:46Chris Voss?

  Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

• 1:20:47Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if I asked you this question last time, so I'll ask you again and see if it changed. Imagine it's your last day on earth many years from now. You're as old as you want to be, 100, 200, however old you can be. And eventually you've got to turn the lights off, and it's your last day. And you can pick the day, but for whatever reason, all the content you've created over the next years, you've got to take that information with you. So no one has access to your books, your workshops, a masterclass. It's gone with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind a message to the world, the three things you know to be true about everything that you've gone through,

• 1:21:28Lewis Howes?

  that you would share with the world, three lessons, or what I like to call the three truths. What would you say are the three things you would share with us?

• 1:21:36Chris Voss?

  Yeah, be curious, be nicer, be grateful.

• 1:21:43Lewis Howes?

  Simple, powerful.

• 1:21:45Chris Voss?

  Yeah, any one of those will put you in a mindset where you're gonna achieve a lot more than you would ever imagine. I mean, that'll, that'll, that'll put you on a path. If you're grateful, you recover. If you're nicer, you, you, you wound less. If you're curious, you learn more. So, recover.

• 1:22:10Lewis Howes?

  Nicer, curious, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:12Chris Voss?

  Wound less.

• 1:22:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:22:13Chris Voss?

  That'll take you a long way.

• 1:22:15Lewis Howes?

  That's great. And what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:22:18Chris Voss?

  Oh geez. Yeah, maybe, maybe having a sense of, of what you could be. You know, it really is, again, another cliche, it's not about how you do it against other people, it's how did you, you know, what was that, what would happen if you met the person you could have been? You know, it's probably, probably a spectacular person. So, you know, everybody's, everybody's capable of astonishing stuff. Astonishing stuff. And so, you know, just having a sense of going after it.

• 1:22:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great. Chris Voss, my man. Appreciate you, brother.

• 1:22:56Chris Voss?

  Pleasure, man, thank you for having me.

• 1:22:57Lewis Howes?

  Powerful stuff.

• 1:23:00Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I hope you feel like a more powerful negotiator. That's what this is all about. Having a win-win experience in your life with the people you care about, the people you wanna be in business with, the people you wanna be in a relationship with, and the people you meet and interact with throughout your daily adventures in the world. Again, we are always negotiating. You wanna make sure you don't break any bridges, you don't wanna burn any bridges, you wanna make sure you're optimizing every relationship to the best of your ability. And it's not always gonna be perfect, you're not always gonna get what you want. But what I loved about Chris's information is you can save a lot of time, specifically in negotiations that are wasting your time.

• 1:23:41Lewis Howes?

  You can get your life back by unneeded energy on negotiations where you know it's not gonna work out for either of you, so why keep pushing? If you enjoyed this, make sure to share with a friend. You can text a friend right now, LewisHowes.com/902 and help them become better negotiators in business and life. Post it on your Instagram story, tag me over on Twitter, Facebook, @LewisHowes. I love to see who's listening, where you're listening, and what you got out of this. So, LewisHowes.com/902. Also, you can shoot me a text right now. I'm sending out weekly inspirational audio messages, quotes, information that I don't

• 1:24:22Lewis Howes?

  share online. And all you need to do is text me right now, 614-350-3960. Just text the word "podcast" so I know you came from here, and I'll be sending you some inspirational audio messages, kind of like mini podcasts on the top of my mind, what I'm thinking, what I'm experiencing, what I'm going through. I want to connect with you over there. So, I try to text as many people back as possible, but I want to connect with you. So, text me, 614-350-3960. And I love this quote by Warren Buffett, "You can't make a good deal with a bad person." So, be aware of who you're making deals with, and have that intuitive feeling inside when you're doing those deals by asking the right

• 1:25:03Lewis Howes?

  questions. And John F. Kennedy said, "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Every day, we are in negotiations with other people and with yourself. You know, should I get up and work out? Should I eat this sugar? Should I go out late? Or should I go to bed and get rest before a big presentation? We've got to learn to be able to negotiate with yourself as well in the best possible way. I am such a fan of you. I believe in you so very much. I love you. I appreciate you. If you haven't heard those words lately, I want to make sure that you hear them from me, because I care deeply that you give me your time and your attention to listen to

• 1:25:45Lewis Howes?

  these tools and strategies to help you improve your life. And I want you to say them to yourself. I want you to be proud of yourself this year. I want you to continue to say what you're proud of about yourself, because I think we seek the validation to be proud of by other people, but we so often never say that I'm proud to ourselves. I want you to know that I'm proud of you. You're doing the work. You're stepping up every day. And even though you might not be perfect, don't worry, I'm not perfect. I make a lot of mistakes. I don't hold to everything I say I want to do and my goals. I mess up. It's okay. It's how you learn from the experiences in our lives. And continue to try to do as much good that you can for the people around you. That's what this is all about.

• 1:26:29Lewis Howes?

  I love you, I appreciate you, I'm proud of you. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.