Negotiation Starts Before You Enter the Room

Mori Taheripour is one of the leading negotiation experts in the country, but her most important lesson may be this: negotiation has nothing to do with conflict and everything to do with knowing your worth. The Wharton professor has spent the last 22 years teaching people how to ask for what they want, not by using scripts or tactics, but by rebuilding the self-belief that life slowly chips away at. In this episode, Emma and Mori get into the fear, guilt, people-pleasing and inner work that sits at the heart of every negotiation you’ll ever have. They explore: Why negotiation is a life skill, not a boardroom tactic How fear of rejection stops us from asking for more Why people pleasers struggle to advocate for themselves How to stop taking no personally Why your biggest negotiation is always with yourself Why leverage is often perception How to ask for more without guilt or apology This is the episode for every woman who has ever talked herself out of asking. You already have what it takes and Mori explains exactly why. What's your biggest negotiation challenge right now? Drop it in the comments, we'd love to hear from you. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of Aspire with Emma Grede.

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

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Welcome back to Aspire. Today, we are continuing the Career Girls Guide. This series is all about giving you practical tools to navigate every stage of your career, from your first job to the biggest opportunity. Now, in this episode, we're covering all aspects of negotiation, one of the most important skills we use, but one of the least talked about. Now, negotiation impacts how much we earn, how we're valued, and what opportunities we say yes or no to. And yet, so many of us are taught to be grateful, patient, and quiet instead of prepared. Now, to help us break this down, I'm joined by someone who lives and breathes this work.

• 0:49Emma Grede?

  Joining me today is Maury Terapour, a negotiation expert, professor at Wharton, and author of Bring Yourself. Maury has spent years teaching people how to negotiate with confidence and clarity. And today, she's here to teach us. Before we get into the episode, please don't forget to like and subscribe.

• 1:11Emma Grede?

  The Start With Yourself Tour kicks off on April 15 in New York City. Tickets are on sale now at emagree.com.

• 1:20Emma Grede?

  So, Maury, I am so happy to have you here today because I feel like this is probably the most requested episode subject that we could ever cover on this show. Every single woman that I speak to has some horror story in negotiation. And so, when I went out to, you know, my followers, when I speak to my friends, they're like, "Please do me a favor and do an episode on negotiation." I thought, "I'll go one better than that. We're gonna do just a series, a series that really ultimately should serve as, you know, a career woman's guide, a career girl's guide," we would say on Aspire. And there is nobody better than you to talk to about negotiation.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:01Emma Grede?

  But it's true. I did my research, I called around, I was like, "Who really knows this?" And honestly, your books have been so seminal, so incredible. I feel like they've really honestly helped so many women. But I wanted to ask you, why do you believe that negotiation is a life skill that every woman ultimately needs?

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, first of all, you have no idea how thrilled I am to be here. I think I have manifested you for sure. So, I am grateful to... For all of that that you just mentioned, but it's it's really exciting to be here and have this conversation with you because we negotiate every single day, literally from the time we were, you know, babies, we come into this world negotiating. And I think what's really interesting is that we have so much practice, we know so much because it's something that we practice every day. And yet, as we go through life, and we have negative experiences, people get divorces, people lose jobs, people have scars, whether it's childhood trauma, whatever it is, that we really start doubting our relationship with negotiations. We would

• 3:05Speaker 01

  start doubting our own ability. And so, you know, if this is something that we do every day, and it connects people, it gives us voice, it gives us power, it gives us opportunity, it is an absolute necessary life skill. It's just that we start really fearing it and and really account those negative experiences as being the story, we start counting ourselves out. So it's like the thing, the skill you must have, and the one that we start doubting ourselves the most with, even though we're actually quite experienced and really quite good negotiators.

• 3:38Emma Grede?

  I couldn't agree more. How did you personally find yourself in this like world of negotiation?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I was graduating from the Wharton School, and my negotiations professor, my very last semester, said, I think you should teach negotiations. And I was like, I think you're crazy. I'm an introvert, like the notion of standing in front of a classroom saying anything, just scared the heck out of me. And I really had to ask, like, what was it about me? Or what is it about, what do you see in me that makes you think I do this well? He said, one, you totally leaned into this class. I have a very competitive edge, by the way. But he said, and you took the the mistakes that you made really seriously in so far as you learned from them. Like, growth was really important to you. And, you

• 4:26Speaker 01

  know, I was an entrepreneur at the time, and he said, and you've had so much experience, I think you'd be great. So, you know, the imposter syndrome thing set in, and I was like, no, I can't do this. And here I am, 22 plus years later. And I found my purpose.

• 4:40Emma Grede?

  How did you know that you had something and that you could help other people?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  To be honest, the first few years of teaching were really difficult insofar as I really doubted myself, my ability, right? When you do something you never imagined yourself doing. So I was very scripted. You know, I had the syllabus. I was like, I'm sticking to this no matter what. And, you know, everything was like on time and presented in a certain way. Then I looked up one day a couple of years later. I was like, this is not fun. And I don't know if I'm really fulfilling my duty to my students. I was teaching undergrads at Wharton at the time, and I love them. And I felt such a sense of responsibility to them. I think it's such a privilege to do this. So I said, you know, you're gonna try this one more time, and you're gonna do it your way. If that doesn't work, then this wasn't meant for you, and this was a chapter, and we move on. And I remember as

• 5:29Speaker 01

  I prepared for that sort of semester coming up, I really looked inward. And I thought about all the times I've negotiated in my life, and what in particular negotiations meant to me and for me in my life. And I realized every big move, every big conversation, every big decision, for good or for bad, they'd really come from a place of negotiations. Every big decision I made, I'm one of those people who ruminates, unfortunately, to a fault sometimes. And that's a negotiation. Should I do this? Should I not do this? Why am I doing this? Should I do it this way? Maybe not. And those are all negotiations. And I really started understanding that the minute I reframed what I thought negotiations was to what it

• 6:09Speaker 01

  had been in my life, it brought me the sense of power and legitimacy and experience. And I trusted myself all of a sudden. I trusted my gut because I fed it. I learned so much, and I discounted all those things. I thought like negotiations was a transaction.

• 6:28Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  You know, maybe even combativeness. I thought no more negotiations was was your power. Negotiations was the way you show up in the world and tell people what you want. And it's the way you fulfill a promise to yourself.

• 6:41Emma Grede?

  Oh, I love that reframing. You have to say that again for me because I believe that so many people think that negotiations have to be combative. And if I look at the questions that were sent through to me, so many of them were anchored into this idea, like, how do I not do this and have an argument? Or how do I do it without seeming ungrateful?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:01Emma Grede?

  So there's this kind of like double edged sword that you're doing something that you shouldn't do, and it's got to come with either one of those outcomes.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Right. So how are people going to know what you want and need if you don't talk about it? And if you don't, you can't present yourself to them in that way. So, you know, I really had to go again through all the different conversations I've had, all the examples of negotiations for me. And that's when I realized, like, this is the soundtrack of my life.

• 7:28Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  We've done this forever. And it's funny, when we're kids, I was talking about the fact that, you know, I don't have kids, but I've had enough experience around kids. And I know that, and I remember myself, it's like, I remember pictures of me in childhood, and I was so sassy. I showed up in a way that it was like, I was meant to be here. This is what I want. And you're gonna have to make a really good argument as to why I can't have this, right? And at that point, nobody's ever told us, you don't have a place at this table, or you're not allowed to negotiate for this. It's, we sort of walk in, show up and show out. And that's who we are as kids. So we're courageous. And then the other thing is that when we don't get what we want, we always want to know why.

• 8:06Emma Grede?

  Oh, yes.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  So if somebody says no to a kid, it's not like it's personal humiliation.

• 8:10Emma Grede?

  That's true.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  You know? And we don't take it personally as kids. As kids, we think, you better have a good reason why you're saying no to me, because I know the answer to this is eventually gonna be yes. So how are we gonna get there? Right? And when we grow up through life, and we hear unfortunately, a lot of no's, and again, we have the bad experiences, right? Life sort of happened to us.

• 8:32Emma Grede?

  So what happens to us along the way? Because if we start out in a place where, you know, and I know this firsthand, because I have four kids, and they love to ask me, why not? So what happens to us that stops us from being able to self advocate?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  We are judged first by society and then ourselves. Those no's start to leave scars.

• 8:52Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Right? We really take, we internalize the no's. And personal rejection is what we associate with the no's. And so I think that over time, instead of letting those those no's become lessons. They become rejection and they again, the wounds, right? And then we don't let the scars heal. We start picking at them because we sit there and think, oh, God, I should have. And why did I not? And all again, the rumination. And so what happens over time is that that lessens our ability to be courageous. But we also start internalizing it. We start thinking less of ourselves. Right? We don't give ourselves credit anymore. We don't really believe in ourselves anymore. And I gotta tell you, you know, I'm teaching this. I'm very confident in how I teach and what I teach.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  But I always tell people is that if you can't be your own best advocate, there's really nothing I can do for you because that is your duty. That is your single most important duty to yourself in negotiations. Nobody is meant to take care of you. You're supposed to take care of yourself fearlessly. And, you know, with great intention, because especially for those of us that are people pleasers. I don't know if that's where you are. I mean,

• 9:59Emma Grede?

  Absolutely not, not a bone, not a bone of pleasing in this body.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Many, and you're lucky. There's a lot of, it's funny. When I first wrote my book, I have a mentor who said, Moore, you will never know what chapter is going to be the most popular. So don't start thinking you can figure that out. You let the audience decide. It was a chapter on people pleaser. Everybody's like, I'm a people pleaser. I didn't know this. This chapter is meant for me, man, woman, whatever.

• 10:25Emma Grede?

  Interesting.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that then, when you are that person who's in service of other people, what you no longer are in service to yourself.

• 10:35Emma Grede?

  When you started this work, were you aware that there would be like a specifically female track? When you start to think about negotiation?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  I think so then.

• 10:46Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  I don't think that as much now because I think that anybody who considers themselves to be an other, anybody who doesn't feel like they have that seat at the table, any, and whether it's societal, whether it's parental, whether it's cultural. I think that's sort of the same experiences that women have had forever.

• 11:04Emma Grede?

  Right? Very interesting. Yeah, quite right.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And so though I speak to a lot of women, I, and I know that of course, some of these things are, I've experienced through my own life. I do think that this notion of self-confidence, that's sort of the through line. Right, the self-love, the self-confidence, again, being able to advocate for yourself, you know, and giving yourself permission to do that without the guilt, without the shame. I think that's, that's something that a lot of people actually experience.

• 11:34Emma Grede?

  Maury, you're a teacher. Do you believe that everyone can learn to be a better negotiator?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 11:40Emma Grede?

  You do?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's a, it's a learned skill, even though I think we're sort of primed for it, like I said, as kids, but it's like any other skill. And if you think about all of the adjacent skills, right, those are all teachable and learnable, right? So having self-confidence, obviously, so working through that and all those skills that you need to be able to do that, right? And that takes, you know, a variety of things in the toolkit, being able to be present, right? Mindfulness, skill that we all learn, emotional intelligence, that's teachable, that's learnable. So, you know, all of those things, it's like, there's like, if you think about negotiations as being like the heart, like the organ, like all of those things, when they're strengthened, so is this organ.

• 12:20Emma Grede?

  So what do you feel like most people get wrong about the art of negotiation?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  I truly believe that the best negotiators are completely authentic. If you're walking in there, you're bringing yourself, which is why that's the title of my book, you're not rehearsed. There's a part of you that you really trust. And therefore, when you release all that, the pretense, and when you release the scripting, and when you release the performance, the power sits in you. And if you can be true to yourself and you show up that way, then you are then more present for the other person too, because I'm not in my head wondering how you like me, or whether I'm saying the right word, or whether I should smile, or whether I should cross my legs, or whether, I'm clear of all those burdens. I unburden myself by being authentic. And I think that people, because there's

• 13:06Speaker 01

  so many books and people who teach this, who say, say these three things, do these two things, you know?

• 13:15Emma Grede?

  Maury, that's why I have you here. Let me tell you, when people start with a five, I'm like, I'm done. I'm like, please don't count me down into this. Explain to me and I'll understand it.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  No, it's so, life is hard enough. And I think the most courageous thing we can do is to really understand ourselves and honor ourselves, just as we are.

• 13:34Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Should you get better? Absolutely. I believe in excellence. I believe in doing better and learning more and all of that. But I don't believe that I'm supposed to go through life being somebody else.

• 13:44Emma Grede?

  No.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  The other is that people truly think of negotiations as transactions.

• 13:49Emma Grede?

  Yes, explain that.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  They think it's a win-lose proposition, right? They think that somebody always wins.

• 13:55Emma Grede?

  That was literally a question that came up. It's like, if I win, does somebody else always have to lose? I was like, that's, that isn't what it is, but please explain that.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  You know, by the way, all this is fair, right? Because we go in to buy a car and we get a really horrible deal and we're like, oh God, I lost. Right? Or people get divorces and they get burned into divorce. So to them, that becomes the negotiations, right? So unfortunately, those negative experiences seem to leave a very lasting impression. I don't like this notion of I win, somebody else loses, right? Because maybe I'm a people pleaser, maybe I like everybody being happy. So therefore I must not be a good negotiator. Here's the truth. Negotiations is rooted in humanity. It is personal connections, right? And again, whether it's you negotiating with yourself or you with other people, I don't care. It's five people, it's two people. It's the connection that we make. And sometimes the connections work, sometimes they don't.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  And if you think about all the conversations you have every day, if those are all negotiations, the majority, and not just by a little, I mean, the, you know, large majority of those conversations are not conflict. You're making a decision. You're having a conversation. And through that conversation, we're trying to get somewhere better than where we were when we first started. And maybe you're happier with this, maybe I'm happier with this. But this notion of if I'm happy, you are sad. If you win, I lose is nonsensical. And it also, I think, comes from this place of scarcity.

• 15:18Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Right?

• 15:19Emma Grede?

  Well, that's why my thinking is always, and listen, I talk, come at this from a place of, you know, I've been an employer of a lot of people for a long time. And I see the nuances and the differences. I'm certainly not saying women are not as good as men at negotiating, but they come at it from a different point. They come at it from a scarcity point of view. If I get this, then somebody else gets less. If I ask for this, then my team is going to get a little bit less. And so the point of view is always much more like what's happening in the environment. And as a, you know, a consequence of what I get, somebody else has to suffer.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:58Emma Grede?

  And that's just not what I see in the men that I negotiate with.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  But it's also, so let's talk about societal issues because it's very real. We've not made up these things in our head, right?

• 16:06Emma Grede?

  Absolutely not.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  And forever, we had been told, I work a lot in sports, right? And, you know, in the sports industry, pretty female dominated. You can think about finance this way, plenty of other industries. But we were always, we only saw a few of us. So we always thought there can only be room for a few of us. Right? And if there's room at this table for only one person, damn it, I'm gonna be that person. Right? And the minute I'm collaborative, the minute I appear understanding, maybe they'll think that's weak. So you know what? I'm gonna show up with my armor on. And that armor comes from a place of fear. It comes from doubting yourself. Because if you're self-assured, you don't think that it's gonna be you or them. And if you, and if it is you or them, it's because you are not, this wasn't meant for me.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Right? And so because we've been in places where there's so few of us, we have bought into the lie that there will always be a few of us. That's just not true. And so, you know, this notion of women not having negotiated so often, there's plenty of studies to show this, right? There's, there's so much evidence for this. It says, you know, as a result of not wanting to be judged, first of all, because I don't wanna appear greedy, I don't want them to think that I'm in it for myself, which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with being in it for yourself.

• 17:25Emma Grede?

  Absolutely, no.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Because I don't want them to judge me, I'm not going to do it. Right? And because I don't wanna be losing, I'm not gonna make room for somebody else. And, you know, and the self, never mind the self-judgment, right? Do I even deserve this? Right? So if you come from a place of, of not believing in yourself, deservedness becomes the conversation. Right? I don't know if I can ask, because I don't know if I deserve it.

• 17:48Emma Grede?

  Which is actually, I think, a starting point for so many women. And I feel like, you know, I was raised in such a way where I always thought I deserved it. You know, it's like, if you get up and you go to work and you try really hard, I just assumed that I was deserving of it. And that was the starting point. Because I think in those early roles, you know, when you were really negotiating for like tiny things, you know, like a $5,000 pay rise, like you had to believe that. Your work equated and equaled you being able to get that thing.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 18:21Emma Grede?

  And so for me, it was that simple. But I do think that this idea of, you know, what is our level of self belief? Like, that's almost like the the the starting point.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 18:31Emma Grede?

  There's something that you talk about a lot in your work, which is this idea of what happens in negotiation before you even get in the room. And I would love you to talk about that. Because to me, that was just like the, ah, like, you know, the the part that made me like such a fan of your work and your way of thinking.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm gonna add something before I go to there.

• 18:50Emma Grede?

  Please.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  And it is something that sort of traditionally women have also not necessarily sort of succeeded in when it comes to negotiations is that we almost felt like we had to be given permission to negotiate, right? We don't recognize the negotiations when we're in it, which is why we don't think we have experience. But we also don't know that we're allowed. And therefore, we miss the moments. And people always say, when is the right time to negotiate? I say, when you need to negotiate. That's the right time.

• 19:17Emma Grede?

  Yeah, no one's, no one's coming down and picking you and saying, this is the moment.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  No, it's when you, if negotiations means that's when you speak your voice and that's when you speak your truth, then you decide when you're gonna speak it. Now, maybe you walk into your boss's office and they look like they're having a bad day. Probably not the right moment, right? But we're also emotionally intelligent, and so we know how to pick and choose. But nobody walks around to men and say, you know what, it is, you are now having the permission to negotiate. They're like, every day is a negotiating day for me.

• 19:43Emma Grede?

  So what do you say to someone who's listening to this that says, yeah, but you know, there are, there are seasons for this, like in the place where I'm working right now, you know, there's times when we get to talk about our pay increases or a change of, you know, job. What do you say to that person?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  That's fine, but also if you put it off, you may no longer feel the courage to do it. You may miss that moment. So you can have the pre-conversations. You can go up to your boss and say, listen, I know that the annual review is coming up in a few months. I would love to have a conversation with you before that. Right. And so you've already then verbally committed yourself to this. Right. And there's no turning back at this point because your boss may turn around and say, yeah, no, you want to have that conversation with me. And so now it's sort of that accountability, right?

• 20:27Emma Grede?

  You've voiced it.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you create those moments. No, when it's, first of all, don't look for the perfect moment. There is no such thing as a perfect. The perfect moment is when you're ready. And that's, you create those opportunities.

• 20:39Emma Grede?

  Maury, I love that you say this because it's very, very different from what is my bottom line.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:43Emma Grede?

  Which I think is again, part of that scarcity mindset. People go, I won't take less than. And I'm like, that can't be the starting point. The starting point has to be like, what are your values?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 20:52Emma Grede?

  Right?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  What, what, what do I want to abide by?

• 20:55Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Because if it doesn't go your way, at least you can look in the mirror and say, you know, I'll do better next time. What did I learn from this? But if you negotiate a way or compromise of things that are so important to you. Let's say for me, it's honesty. Right. And part of it is I'm a really bad liar. Right. So, and my reputation is tied to these things. So knowing that, I know that to abide by that value, I need to prepare in a way that will eliminate the opportunity to have to, or the need to have to lie. So I think I go through all the potential questions they're going to ask. Right. I'm going to be ready because I want to know how much I want to give you. I want to know how I'm going to frame it. I'll do it honestly, but in a way that I'm not going to lose my leverage. So knowing that, I will always keep that promise to myself.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Because at the end, and I don't like using the word winning, but feeling whole comes from that, the fulfillment of that promise.

• 21:49Emma Grede?

  And just for people to like to crystallize that, right? So knowing your values and knowing what you're not going to do. Like, what is the conversation you're having in your head? Like, frame it up for me. You're, you're literally saying to yourself, what?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Who am I? What's important to me?

• 22:07Emma Grede?

  What's important to me?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  What's important to me? And I'm not talking about a thing, or a price, or anything like that. What makes me who I am? Part of the understanding yourself, it's the messy truths that people are so afraid to really uncover or think about. But if you do it beforehand, you've dealt with those monsters, right? You've battled them.

• 22:28Emma Grede?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Go get your therapy, and I'm a big fan of therapy. I'm a big fan of, these days I do a lot of sort of energy work. If I am burdened, I'm not free.

• 22:38Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  And when I'm not free, I can't, I can't possibly advocate for myself. But I'm not, my thoughts are not clear. My courage is diminished. I want to feel free. I want to feel whole. I want to show up, not as my perfect self, because I'm not. I want to show up as Maury.

• 22:59Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Like, this is who I am. And, and you don't have to love me, but I'm going to be respectful, and I'm going to be kind, and I'm going to be likable. But this is me, all day long, every day.

• 23:10Emma Grede?

  So you go in and you've already done that work. You've already asked yourself, like, what is important to me? What else needs to happen before you walk into that room?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Goals. So, once you do that, and that's why sort of the order of it matters.

• 23:24Emma Grede?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  And so, goal setting is, is really important. And the really great thing about goal setting is that there's so much science behind this. The research is profound. And what we know to be true is this, is that people who set aspirational goals always do better in their negotiations, right? It's as though you rise to the occasion.

• 23:43Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  And aspirational is scary. Aspirational is not comfortable. Negotiations isn't meant to be comfortable, right? And, and what you want in life, if you see comfortable, that's as good as it's going to get.

• 23:56Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  And probably less, because if you start negotiating in a place of comfort, think about, the only place to go from there is, is down. But here's the most empowering thing, is that, when you think about it, if, if, if I am aspirational, if I'm brave, if I have courage to dream big and want more for myself, when the research tells me that, that I'm likely to get that, or if I, if I don't get that, it's like reaching for, if you don't get to the moon, you'll at least hit the stars. Then that feels so uplifting and empowering to me. And that's why I spend so much of my time talking to my students about this because you know what? What this is telling you is that life doesn't happen to you, you happen to life. And that's what so many of us give us, give our power away in negotiations because we think somebody else has determined the outcome.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  No, my friend, you were it all along, right? And you were in the driver's seat. Now, if you ended up looking up and you're all of a sudden in the passenger seat, it's because you opened the car door and you walked around and you sat in that passenger seat. So you gave up your power, but you could have, you could have actually owned it.

• 24:56Emma Grede?

  So Maury, what's the difference when you say set an aspirational goal?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:00Emma Grede?

  What is the difference between doing that and setting a high bar for yourself? And completely overshooting? Because again, as somebody that sits in a lot of rooms with people, I will often have somebody come in and do something. And I'm like, what? You, you need 10 more years' experience in a different company for that thing. Like, so what, so how do people balance? Like where is aspirational enough and where is just practical?

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Because negotiations is persuasion. So this first part of it that I was talking about was persuading yourself. That's why it's so important to know your value and understand your worth. But the second part of that is now you have to persuade other people. And it's really hard to do that without data. And it's because data is sort of a universal language. It's objective, right? So I can ask for anything if I can give you the data for it, right? Know your market value, right? Know price points, know your pricing strategy reflects all of that data, right? In the negotiations, when you're asking for a raise and you know what you're in your position at other companies in your industry, people are making. And you come in armed with that information as well as the data of, you know, what your accomplishments are,

• 26:13Speaker 01

  what you've managed to do in that position. When you come in armed with that, it feels like you're speaking truth to power.

• 26:21Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  As opposed to this place of, well, I want this because I deserve it. Okay, that's cute, right, but tell me why? Or, you know, I'm asking for this because I think I'm the best in my job at this. Through whose whose eyes, right? This great Japanese proverb that says even a sheet of paper has two sides. Right? This only works if I understand what your side is so I can communicate it in a way that you will understand it and vice versa.

• 26:48Emma Grede?

  And isn't that so important, making sure that you have run through what the other side's point of view is?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 26:56Emma Grede?

  Because again, so often it's so easy to be like, you know, I've got this goal. I know exactly what I want and I've got my information together. But you haven't considered what's happening with the person in front of you.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. But I have to say this, so I almost take preparation and split it into two sides. The first is always prepare from your perspective first. What do I want? What are my non-negotiables? What are my goals? All of that. Have perfect clarity, like very lucid. And then you can say, okay, now let me think about this person. What do I need to know about them? And I know you've talked about this. You may be one of the only people I know that's like, I love negotiations. I'm like, that's my girl. But it's this notion of being really prepared and really curious.

• 27:39Emma Grede?

  It is, and the curiosity is something that is so, so key. But I learned very early on because one of my very first jobs was, you know, I was the middleman. Like, I was the person that nobody wanted to pay because there was somebody on this side and somebody on this side. And my job was to like broker the deal. And you learn early that, you know, a good negotiation isn't about winning or losing at all. It's about finding this like beautiful middle ground, you know, where something is mutually advantageous. And when you're kind of the middleman, the middle girl, you're like out of it. You could see that so clearly. But I think it's so hard when you're in one of those seats. And that's why I kind of love this idea of you talking about the role of listening.

• 28:23Emma Grede?

  And it is so important to think about yourself. First, but that listening piece has to come in where you understand.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there's no greater power in negotiations than a curious mind.

• 28:36Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Honestly.

• 28:36Emma Grede?

  So how do you negotiate, though, without over justifying? You know, because I get that of coming in with all of the data, with a list of your accomplishments, knowing what you've brought to the company. But again, it can move into this space of you kind of like feeling like you're in a position where you're like begging for something that you rightly deserve. What's the, what's the line and how do you feel that out?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Really great question. I'm thinking about running it through some of the mistakes that I know that people make. Maybe space, maybe silence.

• 29:10Emma Grede?

  Well, that's a hard one for people, isn't it?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Oh, God. Just. I mean.

• 29:16Emma Grede?

  Make the asking, shut the fuck up.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Sit on your goddamn hands if you have to, right? Shut it, right? Because and, and it part of it. I, it's amazing how so much of it comes from not having self-confidence. Because when you make that presentation, you've done all the work, right? Because we want external validation, we expect it at that moment, right? So we expect we're going to make the presentation and somebody's going to say, great. Most people won't, right? And by the way, people think in silence. People don't speak through their thinking, right? So give themselves a chance to think. So you've done your work. You've done your homework. You've come up with the arguments. You've presented your case. You've done your work.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  You sit back and you just relish in just the accomplishment of having done that, right? Now the ball's in their court. Honor that. Let them show up with their counter, counter to this proposal, right? The minute you start talking, it's as though you're saying. By the way, if you don't like it, which I see all the time, you know, we can negotiate this, right? Or this is negotiable. Immediately you're saying, you know what, that number I gave you, I thought was already high, so we can negotiate it down. That's the immediate message that you're sending them because I probably shot too high so that we can negotiate this. If you just drop the mic and you sit back, especially if it has data, if it has that that information associated

• 30:44Speaker 01

  with it. Now what they're thinking is, damn, that was good. Right? And maybe they think it was really strong argument. I don't like it. But now I have to come back with my best game, right? Like my counter has to be all that because what they said feels really strong.

• 31:03Emma Grede?

  So Maury, where do you go when it turns in, when you're sitting opposite someone who is a really strong negotiator? And it gets combative when you feel like, okay, what I've done, I've followed all the steps, it didn't necessarily land, I'm opposite somebody who's really good at this, and it moves into that place where it feels not where you wanted it to go.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Yes. And you start like, this is happening, you can feel it.

• 31:28Emma Grede?

  Why don't they understand? I said, I followed all the tips.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yes. What don't they understand? We never say, what don't I understand?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  They must be wrong. Can't they see it the way I see it? What's wrong with them? No. This again is quite simple. I mean, first of all, I'd say breathe. Breath work is so important, and people don't give that enough. They say, think that's so simple. But the truth is that, I don't know if you found yourself in this place, but I get really hard massages, right?

• 31:55Emma Grede?

  I love a good massage.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Like dig deep, right? And my masseuse was laughing a while back. He's like, and he, he goes so hard anyway. So I know the moment he says, this is going to be a little tough, breathe, that means death is abound, right? Like, we are going in. And so he's like, take a breath. And I literally went, and he goes, that was a breath? It's because the anxiety, the thing I expected to be coming, I had anticipated it to be so bad. That I couldn't even breathe through it. So this is the same thing in conflict. Give yourself that breath, that let the oxygen fill your lungs, right? Because that oxygen actually is bringing you clarity, right? It's giving you a moment to retreat, even if it's just a moment.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  So that's the first thing. The second thing is, we call this going to the balcony in negotiations, which means that when you are both right here and you're going at it, it's very hard to see somebody else's perspective. And it's also hard to evaluate your own, right? Because we're in it. We're deep, right? This is the mud. We're wrestling, right? So when we talk about going to the balcony, it's like if you can just envision this, it's sort of like lifting yourself up from that moment and saying, what is it that I'm not seeing? What is it that they're not seeing? Is there room, right? Is there something that we're missing? And so it's like almost that immediate evaluation of the situation. Some people are really good at doing that there.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  The other thing is, who said it has to be done today, right? Maybe you just say, you know what? Maybe we just need a little space, right? Let's just take a little time. Let's go for a walk or, you know, maybe you come at this tomorrow. Like, and the American culture is so efficient. We're so hyper efficient. I always say this is the only place where I know that we eat while we walk, while we take a call and listen to a podcast all at once, right? So take a moment, you know, go back, go back to your corners.

• 33:51Emma Grede?

  Yep.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  But really sort of ensure that they know the reason you're doing this is because you say something like, maybe we're missing something.

• 33:57Emma Grede?

  Yep.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm missing something.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app.

• 34:38Emma Grede?

  I always say that I think it's so important for people to know that on one side of a negotiation, it's always usually more important for one side than it is the other. And it's all right if you need some time. Like you don't need to make a decision to be fine with what's being offered to you. You can say, thank you, I need some time to think about this. And that is okay too, because it's your life. These are big decisions and not everything can be done in the moment. I wanted to ask you what you saw like in the the kind of differences and the nuances of negotiating in a place that is like completely new to you

• 35:19Emma Grede?

  versus somewhere where, you know, let's say you've been working in a place for a really long time. Like, are there are there big differences between sort of where you're known versus if you're walking into something that is a brand new situation?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's really interesting. I think that it could go one of two ways, right? Familiarities sometimes breeds bad habits. So a new location could be like a restart. It's sort of void of perceptions and biases and all those things. And even yours of that of that place, right? We associate certain places with certain things. But I think that it really goes back to the story that you're telling yourself, your own narrative, right? And if your narrative is one that's that always leans towards anxiety and fear, then it doesn't matter, right? Because no matter where you are at, it's going to feel on you're going to associate either the bad with that

• 36:15Speaker 01

  or at the new place, you're going to be like, oh, God, I'm never good at someplace new. Or, oh, I feel so uncomfortable or they don't know me or I wish I knew this place. I don't feel comfortable. So I think that whatever narrative you're telling yourself, you can control that. And so neither of those situations should feel uncomfortable or different. If it's new, learn. If it's old, reset. Right? And, and so all of these things come from a place of let's just make sure that we're not selling ourselves short. Because truth be told, you can navigate anything with curiosity. And you can navigate anything with experience. And so I think, again, this, how we tell ourselves these stories becomes really important.

• 36:57Emma Grede?

  You think you can navigate well or negotiate well when you actually have less leverage?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. What does less leverage mean? Leverage is perception. Right? All the studies show us that leverage has so little to do with the size of your company or the number of employees that you have or the amount of resources that you have. If somebody else thinks you have leverage, you have leverage.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  So leverage is all about how you show up. If you walk in a room held, head held up high, you're smiling, you're shaking somebody's hand firmly, you're making eye contact, you own that room.

• 37:35Emma Grede?

  All that matters.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Oh, it's the only thing that actually matters. Because they would be like, oh, she looks like she's the boss lady, right? She looks confident. And then immediately, they think that you, of course, have reason to feel that confident. So you have leverage. You know, I always tell people, I'm like, you want leverage? Then tell yourself you have it. Walk in your power. This is why the power poses are so important and you walk in with that, that I've got this. It's everything because they immediately think that you do.

• 38:07Emma Grede?

  I cannot believe I'm going to ask you this question. Does the outfit matter?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes.

• 38:13Emma Grede?

  Is there research to say the outfit matters?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  I think that, well, I'm doing this sort of, this is, this is my own research. But I'll tell you why I think the outfit matters. Is because I know this to be true, is that I will never, like, for me, I negotiate all the time because I teach, teaching is negotiations, big presentations, being on stage. If I am not comfortable, I don't care if 20 people tell me I look good. But if I don't feel like I look good, I know that I've given up some of my power. And so this may be counter to what you're thinking, but I'm not dressing for you. I'm dressing for me. And that's why I think the outfit matters.

• 38:53Emma Grede?

  Can you negotiate well on a Zoom?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yes, hard, but yes.

• 38:58Emma Grede?

  Harder, though, now?

• 38:59Speaker 01

  It is, it is, because I believe that the the energy we get off people really feeds us. It can direct us. What makes it hard is because we're also very distracted. Our level of concentration, I mean, it's so diminished. All the studies show us this. I know you know this. So the thing that becomes really important is that you know what your distractions are and you completely block them.

• 39:25Emma Grede?

  Yeah, because you speak about this a lot, right? Presence.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:28Emma Grede?

  Like be in the room.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Presence is power. Presence is power because one, you know, the two parts of this. One is it feels really good for your counterpart. Right? You certainly don't want to ask a question and your phone buzzes and you're looking at your text before the person's about to answer the question, because I know how I would feel if I was that person. I'd be like, oh, I'm competing with your text message. This answer is not going to be that important to you. So you know what? Why am I going to be open and honest or vulnerable even about this? Right? So do what's important to you, because clearly I'm not. Right? So it's so disrespectful. But the other thing is that if you get distracted, you are losing the ability to be strategic because part of listening is the ability to not just listen with your ears, but it's

• 40:12Speaker 01

  listening with your heart, it's listening with your mind, it's listening with your eyes, right? That really connected mindful listening is impossible if you're not present. Right? So Zoom, if you get on a call, if you're negotiating, and by the way, there's a step before the negotiations, I think, is even actually more important, which is that notion of like information sharing. Information exchange is that step before. It's not transactional. It's the getting to know you stage. It's the building of the rapport. Increased amount of curiosity at that moment, because what you're saying is that we're going to negotiate something. That's the transactional piece. We're going to get there, but for right now, I just want to know who you are. All right?

• 40:50Emma Grede?

  Always and that's so lost.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  But it feels so good. It feels so good. When you know that some, I don't know about you, I'm sure that almost everybody you sit with is super interested in you, but you know, but this notion of like, oh, they actually care what I want to say?

• 41:07Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  They see me?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  I mean, every human being wants nothing more than to be seen and to be heard. Right. And so when you can grant somebody that gift and say, you know what? Yeah, there's a transaction. That's actually not even that important. You write this right here. This is the most important thing. So tell me about yourself or, or what's that painting you have behind you? That's really beautiful. Or, oh, does, is that your son who does, is he playing football? Oh, my God, my son plays football too. How do you feel about that? Do you get a little worried about it? You know, now what you're saying is, and by the way, never mind the fact that you come in knowing what college they went to, what their job was, all of that. Right. But when you say that to somebody, what you're really saying is I'm giving you the gift of seeing you and you're, there's nothing more important in this moment than you.

• 41:55Emma Grede?

  My, I am so happy that you said that because it to me is just, it's almost like a lost art. You know, I have been working for so many years. And so, you know, the, the goal when I was the, the middle man was always to get in front of the people, like to take your relationship off of the phone, off of the email and just get in person with people because in person with people, you know, you'd see their nail color, you would understand like what tube stop they got off of. You talk to them about their kids, they'd walk in and tell you something about their day, you'd create a connection and through that, you know, I remember like writing down, you know, I'd be like Jeff from Mercedes has three children and he loves, you know,

• 42:40Emma Grede?

  going to Spain, like whatever, but like just that, um, the immediacy of the connection and where your relationship goes when you can be like, oh, how was your vacation in Spain? And, and now I feel like because of so much that's happened in the wider culture, but certainly in the workplace, we stopped thinking it was a good idea to get to know people, our clients, our vendors, our colleagues, you know, it's like, maybe we don't feel as comfortable in asking those questions. But to me, it's like, how do you forget like just the negotiation piece? Like, how do you do business with people that you don't know?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  How do you do business with people you don't know? And how do you expect this to become more than a one-time deal? For any entrepreneur, any business owner, you know, you don't want that one-time deal. You want business in perpetuity, right? Where relationships actually matter. And the other thing is, you may decide that this business isn't right for you at all. And how are you going to discern that if you've already gone in and signed the contract? Right? So you treat this as an opportunity to learn when your main objective is not the end result, but the journey and the conversation and the connection. And you know what? If I end up not doing this deal, at least I've learned a lot about you. You know, and if not today, maybe in the future.

• 43:58Emma Grede?

  Maybe in the future. Life is long.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Life is long. And guess what? You've so enjoyed this conversation with me that if today you can't afford my services, when you can, you're going to be like, you know what?

• 44:10Emma Grede?

  I'll see you then.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Emma, she was great. I really enjoyed that. Can we go back to Emma? And you've now sort of sown the seed, right? And that's where long-term, you know, opportunities come from.

• 44:26Emma Grede?

  Yeah, and I can't tell you how many times that's happened in my career. That something hasn't been right for right now, but it's come back around full circle. And then you've kind of got the inevitability that when you're in business, when you're employed, whatever your professional situation is, shit goes wrong.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:43Emma Grede?

  And when you're in relationship with someone, your ability to make things right, to get on the same team and say, you know what? Like, we need to work through this problem, situation, emergency. When you know each other, when you've bothered to get to know one another beyond the relationship that you're in, the immediate one, everything changes.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 45:04Emma Grede?

  Everything changes. You do stuff together and you figure it out. And, you know, things just become better and stronger. And I just feel like it's interesting to me that that's somewhat lost a little bit now.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, there's so much lost these days. The power of connection, the power of conversation. I mean, the minute conversations became reduced to like text messages, right? And the humanity that's lost in that, it's really incredible. Because again, it's all in favor of the efficiency. To me, you know, negotiations is so elegant. It's this like beautiful dance. Like, I've got one painting in my apartment. It's a painting of this couple doing the tango.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  That is negotiations to me. It's this beautiful, elegant back and forth and the rhythm. And when I step forward, you're moving back and we trust and we're moving together, the flow.

• 45:55Emma Grede?

  I love the idea that you have like a negotiation painted in.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just, I see them and I think.

• 46:01Emma Grede?

  That's the best, by the way.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  But I'm like, they're negotiating.

• 46:03Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  They're building trust, they're moving together and one can't be ahead of the other and the other can't be ahead of the other. We flow because we know each other. We flow because we are in rhythm but understanding. That's information exchange. So if that's information exchange, if that is done well, then this next stage, believe it or not, that can all be done by email. I can now negotiate a contract with you.

• 46:25Emma Grede?

  Because you have enough information.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:27Emma Grede?

  You've gathered the data, you've done the work before you get into the room and you're armed with exactly what you need.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  When you spend time getting to know each other, then you're less likely to question someone's intentions. What I'm trying to communicate to you, you're likely to receive it the way I mean it, or at least come a lot closer. That delta is not as big, right?

• 46:48Emma Grede?

  Or at least give somebody the benefit of the doubt because you know what type of person they are and what their intentions might be.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  They've sat with you, they've talked to you, right? And if you do information exchange really well, by the time somebody makes an opening offer, it should not be this like, this surprise, like, "Oh, how dare you." It should be like, "Oh, I knew they were going to be expensive, but they told me all about their story. They told me how they do business, they told me what their products, the raw materials they use." I mean, you're in the clothing manufacturing business, right? It makes a difference, right?

• 47:16Emma Grede?

  It makes a difference.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Right, and so if you have educated me through information exchange about all of that, I understand your value proposition. So I can assume buying something from SKIMS is going to have a certain feel to it. It's going to have a different quality and the quality assurance and the care that goes into it.

• 47:35Emma Grede?

  It will, Maury.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Well, I know this, that's why I buy SKIMS. But that's because I know what I'm getting, because I know. And never mind that by the time I put it on, it feels a certain way. But I'm willing to pay the price because you've told me why I should.

• 47:48Emma Grede?

  How do you teach people to deal with rejection without internalizing it?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Because they're not saying no to you, they're saying no to that thing. It's not about me, right?

• 47:59Emma Grede?

  Creating some distance.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  So you, this doesn't work for you. You're allowed not to like this, right? Doesn't mean you don't like me. It doesn't mean that you're rejecting Maury. And guess what? I love a good no. I love a good no. By that, I mean, if you say no, I'm going right back to that like childhood mindset. I'm like, tell me why it doesn't work. Or I can understand this may not be right for you, but give me more information.

• 48:23Emma Grede?

  And so few people do that.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Because they hear no, they're like,

• 48:27Speaker 01

  yeah, you have a dagger.

• 48:29Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Because immediately you're saying they're rejecting me. No, they are not rejecting you.

• 48:33Emma Grede?

  There's so much to learn from rejection, right?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yes, but ask the question.

• 48:37Emma Grede?

  Ask the question.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  That door closed, but another one will certainly open. And they have the right. They have the right to say, no, it wasn't right for them. Right? So instead of saying, oh, I understand. Or worse yet, well, can we lower the price for you? You know, no, that didn't work. I totally understand. Give me more information. We'd love to do business with you. Maybe this isn't the right time or what have you, but we, just give me more. Let me know what, what maybe could work or what could we have done better? Right? If not now, then maybe later. But you learn from those, right? And I think you become better business person for it. I think it builds resilience. It builds grit, right? But nobody's no is going to stop me.

• 49:20Emma Grede?

  What is the one mindset shift you would impart? And you would love people to know when it comes to negotiation? If there was just one thing?

• 49:28Speaker 01

  You've done this before. You've done this forever. It's really important for me for people to understand that this is not new. You are experienced. I've never stood in front of an audience that is not experienced in negotiations, but you're not counting those as moments, right? And so you think you're not good at this. Of course you're good. I mean, if, even if you're sitting here, that means you've survived multiple bad negotiations, but also have had great wins, right? So. You've done this before. You've done this before, right? It may look new, it may look different, but you know, it's you are experienced. And can you get better? Always. But we can get better at everything, always.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I feel almost uncomfortable. People are like, she's a negotiations expert. Because expert feels so final. Expert almost says, I have nowhere to go from here.

• 50:18Emma Grede?

  You're down, yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  No, every person is new, every conversation is new. I like relish those things. And so, you know, can you get better? Yes. But are you better at this than you think you are? Emma, 99.999% of the time, that's a yes. You're just not giving yourself credit.

• 50:38Emma Grede?

  God, that's, I mean, that's really good information. So I asked my audience before you got here if they would ask some questions. Will you take them directly from, I have my, I've got my phone. Oh God, there's so many. You know what? Do you know what's so interesting?

• 50:53Speaker 01

  I'm getting nervous looking at you.

• 50:54Emma Grede?

  No, it's funny. I mean, there's a lot of questions that talk about guilt here. That's so interesting. Like, what, you know, it's like, how do I do this in a non-invasive way? How do I ask in a kind way? How do I not feel? I mean, that's just, that's just wild. People are worried about how the person on the other side feels. How much should we be concerned about what the person on the other side is feeling? And not to overstate your ask and ask for too much.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Oh God, no, that second part, no. I'll go there in a second. But this notion of, I do believe that likability matters. I do. Because I think that no matter who this person is, you have to come at it from a place of respect. I think people will say more, will open up more, will be more vulnerable, will be likely to do business with you again if there is this notion of likability. And that doesn't mean you have to like me. That just means I'm going to show up and I'm going to listen to you. That means I'm going to show up and pay attention to you. That means that all the devices are shut off. I am at that moment again, making you feel really important. And so, that's really the only thing you owe them, right?

• 52:09Emma Grede?

  That's it.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 52:10Emma Grede?

  That's it.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  That's it. Be respectful. And people often then think that what you're asking for is the most important thing. It's actually how you're asking for it that's important, right? So instead of worrying about, am I asking for too much? Worry about how you can feel, make them feel. Comfortable and respected and and create that openness and that that conversation. How you ask, it matters. It really does. And that's why I can't understand the people that come in and brute brute force and the aggression and all that. I don't think that anybody likes working with somebody who belittles them.

• 52:47Emma Grede?

  No way. That's my that's my next question. What is the wrong way to negotiate?

• 52:50Speaker 01

  There is no wrong way, Emma. I really wholeheartedly believe that. Because wrong for who? I mean, if I am somebody that says there's no prescriptive way, like bring yourself and be authentic. For somebody who's aggressive in nature, they've probably had a lot of successes. So who am I to turn around and say, because I don't negotiate that way, that is the wrong way? Now, again, can you improve? Yes. Or there's even if you are somebody that has that more sort of aggressive personality. Are there things that you can do to improve? I would say yes. You know, make sure that you are paying more attention to people. Make sure that you have more questions for them. Make sure that you're curious.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  But I can't tell somebody that you are wrong in the way you are negotiating because you are different than me.

• 53:37Emma Grede?

  This is the last question. How do I? This is this is such a sweet question. How do I make sure I don't walk away with any regrets?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  So regret. Regret is a really powerful feeling. I used to think that regret was like the worst thing in the world. And I write about it in my book. I used to refer to it as like this heavy blanket that we wear. Like, it's very hard to get rid of regret. I can get angry. I'll go to a boxing class, right? Go for a run, right? I can be sad and I can get over that. But because I'm somebody that lives in my head so much, regret would just take over. And, oh, my God, I should have and would have, and why didn't I and all the rest of it? And then I realized that. Here's the thing, like, again, the burdening of myself and not being able to move past that. Because what what is all that going to do? I'm not going to learn anything from it.

• 54:26Emma Grede?

  Nothing.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  So I started to look at regret very differently. I started to think this. First of all, if I regret it, that means it was meaningful to me. That conversation, that negotiation, that moment. And I let myself feel it because I feel like if I bottle it up, it'll show up some other way, right? But then I'm like, okay, so what could you have done better? Right? What did you learn from it? What could you have done differently? Right? And now what regret has allowed me to do is that if something is that important to me, how can I be better the next time? Because what I've now immediately done is I like controlling the things that I can control because only those things will allow me to get better. So if I can learn, if regret becomes a moment in time where I've learned a lesson,

• 55:11Speaker 01

  not only to understand what was worth fighting for, but also how I could have done that better, then regret actually becomes in some ways kind of magical because it's a life lesson. It's a moment, right? But you're not dwelling in it because then it feels like you are giving up your power. Use regret as an opportunity to feel actually better and more powerful and more educated and just learn. Why is it so hard for us to be present all the time? Because most of us are either living in the past, thinking about all the things we should have done differently, regret, or living in the future and all the things I'm supposed to do. But that's part right in the middle, which is so beautiful. I'm not trying to regret

• 55:55Speaker 01

  this too, right? And I'm trying to own this moment. I'm trying to be in it. Is it always good? Hell, no. When has my life ever been good all the time? Never, right? But I don't want to miss those moments.

• 56:07Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  And so don't regret this now. Like, do something with what you have in your power in this moment. Like, you can change it. You can learn from it. You can do something with it. But don't give away this moment. Like, do something with it.

• 56:20Emma Grede?

  I love your thinking about that. And I, you know, as a mother, I try to teach my kids. I'm like, guys, if it feels terrible, it's a teacher. And, you know, in the most simple way, it's my way of explaining to them, like, look for some kind of lesson in this. Like, look for whatever it's trying to tell you. And I feel like, you know, had I have had that type of information in my twenties, that some of this stuff that felt so bad in the moment was actually there to teach me something. It just is so, so useful. So I love your, I love your framing of that. I really, really do.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  So I want to feel like this all meant something.

• 56:56Emma Grede?

  Yeah, yeah, because it does.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  It does.

• 56:59Emma Grede?

  Because it does.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  It really does.

• 57:00Emma Grede?

  Okay, my love, I just have a few rapid fire questions for you. You ready?

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:04Emma Grede?

  I'm the worst at rapid fire. We all know that because she's long-winded. All right. What is the hardest thing that you ever have had to ask for in your career?

• 57:13Speaker 01

  You know, actually, those moments have not been working for other people. They've been working for myself, probably with my relationship with my business partner. And I think it's because we were probably not meant to be in business together to begin with, but the, the differences in values. Um, I was very young. He was much older than me and it was really hard to sort of exercise my power or, or really my voice because I didn't believe in myself because I bought into this notion of because I was younger and less experienced, I must have not been right.

• 57:44Emma Grede?

  And we've all been there.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  It was feeling like I was, I was in a prison that I created. And the best part of it was when I finally actually did negotiate it in a way that was meaningful to me, where I actually believed in whatever the outcome was, I could live with it because I was asking for it and it was, it was my voice and it was my values and it was my, you know, my power that, um, even though that outcome was, by anybody's standards, was not very favorable. It was the most freeing moment ever because I finally used negotiations as the opportunity to speak my voice. I, I stood in my truth and that really mattered.

• 58:26Emma Grede?

  This might actually answer this next question, but what's a negotiation that you're proud of? Not because you won, but because you handled it well.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  I handled it well. I don't know if I handled it well. I handled it. When I, uh, told my father I didn't want to be a doctor. Most would argue it came way too late. Like I went through all the things. Right. I went through college, pre-med, I took the MCATs twice.

• 58:49Emma Grede?

  No.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Oh God, like the, the amount of, of pain that I went through because I was trying to fulfill again his, his promise, my promise to him or what he wanted for me. And finally, when I said it, I mean, it was like the, the worst of things, like the, the, I let him down. So I don't know if I handled it well, but I did it.

• 59:16Emma Grede?

  And here you are.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Here I am.

• 59:18Emma Grede?

  What's one word you've had to unlearn in negotiation?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Impossible.

• 59:23Emma Grede?

  I love that.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  All things are possible, even if, even if it doesn't work out, it's not that it was impossible, but maybe it wasn't the right thing. Not impossible. I think that a lot of people walk into negotiations, and again, this comes from the scarcity mindset where they're like, either it's me or you, or there's never gonna be a way, we're so far apart on this. You immediately relinquish the ability to problem solve. You immediately relinquish, you know, this notion of together we can find a way. And so we kind of get lazy because we're like, can't be done. Look, possibility takes hope, promise and work.

• 59:56Emma Grede?

  Hmm. What's the question that you always ask before a negotiation?

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  For myself, it's have I asked for enough? Because I know that I've had the tendency to undervalue myself. Am I afraid to ask for more? Have I understood what I'm worth? Like really that notion of, and it used to be have I asked for too much? Which is part of the questions that you were reading to me of, so the women, the guilt, right? Not anymore. I think it's have I asked for enough? Should I ask for, you know, like pushing myself?

• 1:00:25Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Of other people, um, a lot of times it actually has less to do with that particular negotiations, but more about something bigger. What's important to you? What do you want to do in five years? Like if it's an employee, it's like, what do you want to do in five years? What do you want to do in 10 years? Because what I'm indicating is that maybe I don't have enough to pay you today, but I want to know what's important to you so that in some other way I can compensate for that and make you sort of well on your way to this, this next level of your journey, right? But what's important to you? Like what, we don't ever ask. We sort of assume and we ask less when we know that. So in marriages, in relationships and friendships, because we think we know everything there is to know about this person. And so we stop listening.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  We're not curious anymore. But just that notion of what matters to you? And sometimes people are dumbfounded because they're like, huh? Like, why does that matter? Because you matter, but what matters to you? And I think that those are really because it tells me things about them. It tells me if their goals are short term or long term. It tells me that, you know, something that's really meaningful for them. That's maybe different than this negotiations, but maybe this can be a part of that bigger picture for them. It feels like you're allowing them space. It feels like you want more from them than just a thing.

• 1:01:45Emma Grede?

  Yeah. And I love that when you talk about relationships because it changes. We're talking just about people and, you know, those things really shift and they change. All right, my final question for you. What is a book that changed your life?

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Changed my life? So the one book that's been consistently, it's so boring. But the one book that's been consistently in my, like, you know, on my syllabus as required reading, it is How to Make Friends and Empower People by Dale Carnegie.

• 1:02:17Emma Grede?

  Classic.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Classic.

• 1:02:19Emma Grede?

  Classic.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  And I sort of got goosebumps just now, but I think that.

• 1:02:23Emma Grede?

  But it is, it's so good. And so you said you recommend that on your syllabus, like it's a must read.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  It's a must read. One, I think it tells my students immediately what to expect from the class because I do mine to work. Like I'm, this is, if you want a transactional class, you're in the wrong class. You're going to learn all of that, but you're going to learn how to be a better person, a better human. And you're going to know that I come at this from a place of humanity. And so that's more important to me than any transaction you're ever going to do. Because I think if you don't have this, you don't have that. So this is about to be some internal, like messy, look at yourself, here's the mirror. Let's work through this class. And it's also going to be a reminder of things that I think we so undervalued. And here we are in the world, right? But.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  How to treat people, how kindness matters, how empathy is a superpower, it's not weakness. How, yeah, and there's like, if you read the book, for those people that haven't, I mean, it's, it takes you 10 minutes to get through it.

• 1:03:23Emma Grede?

  I mean, read the book.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and half the time you go like.

• 1:03:26Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, obviously.

• 1:03:28Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  But if it's so obvious, why don't we do it? When have we forgotten to notice people?

• 1:03:34Emma Grede?

  It's a great reminder book. It's like a, it's a good book for like the start of something.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:40Emma Grede?

  You know, it's like to just like get your framing correct.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Yes, we just need to be reminded that it's really important to treat people well. Because how else do we expect to be treated well? Right?

• 1:03:53Emma Grede?

  It's the start and the end of everything.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:03:56Emma Grede?

  It really is. Maury, thank you so much.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:03:58Emma Grede?

  You've taught us so much and I'm so grateful to you. Thank you.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  I'm so grateful for this opportunity. I really am.

• 1:04:03Emma Grede?

  You're beyond brilliant. Thank you.

• 1:04:08Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Executive producer, Ashley McShan. Derek Brown. And me, our executive producers from Odyssey, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Legrosso. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox. Kirk Courtney. Andrew Steele. And Carlos Delgado. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale.

• 1:04:52Emma Grede?

  Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hillary Schaff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekle, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelled G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.