Chris Voss: FBI-Backed Tactics for Better Communication

Ever walked into a conversation and felt like you were on the losing end before it even started? Whether it’s a tough negotiation, a disagreement at home, or just trying to get someone to see your side, there’s a right and wrong way to do it—and Chris Voss is the guy to teach it. I’ve been a fan of Chris’s work for a long time, and getting to sit down with him was a masterclass in negotiation, tactical empathy, and human connection. Chris is a former FBI hostage negotiator, the author of Never Split the Difference, and the CEO of The Black Swan Group. His negotiation tactics aren’t just for high-stakes situations—they work everywhere. And in this episode, he breaks it all down for us. Buy Chris’s book, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 40% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. Listeners will get an additional 5% off for orders placed March 14-16 in celebration of World Sleep Week using my code JEFFERSON. Relationships come with questions, therapy comes with answers. Find them with my sponsor BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Order my new book, The Next Conversation, today! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show! Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter. Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube Follow me on Instagram Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 0:04Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 0:08Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 0:15Jefferson Fisher?

  Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication, I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast. If you would, leave a review, give it a like, give it a star. It all matters, and it matters certainly to me because I look at it also. If you have any feedback or topic suggestions, just throw them in the comments and I'll be happy to look at them. My book, The Next Conversation, is officially out. You can find the links down there in the show notes. And on top of that, if you're looking for ways to continue to further and practice your communication skills, you can go to the Jefferson Fisher School of Communication, and it has been a complete ball of fun. And they have live classes, have an AI that teaches you things to say,

• 0:59Jefferson Fisher?

  and you can practice, and all the videos and a library of resources at your fingertips. You can find those down in the show notes. Have you ever been in a conversation that really felt like a negotiation, or almost you felt out of your own depth? Well, I've brought you somebody that is the master of all negotiations, Chris Voss. You know him, you love him, former FBI negotiator, author of Never Split the Difference, an international bestseller, and CEO of the Black Swan Network, a group sole focus is to improve your negotiation skills, no matter where you're at in life. Chris, my friend, good to see you again.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, Jeff, it's an absolute pleasure. I always enjoy talking with you.

• 1:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, it's so cool to be able to talk. You're such a hero of mine. I know I've told you this, we've been able to have a friendship outside of this right here, and it's just been, you're a huge role model to me, so I want to make sure I have it on the record. I've always loved your stuff, and tactical empathy is right in line with my own mission in the world, so thanks for putting this out here for us.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, man, it's my pleasure. I think our thoughts overlap, you know, our approach to life, collaborative. I love your book. And so, yeah, it's a pleasure talking with you.

• 2:18Jefferson Fisher?

  Thanks, man. I have a quote that I pulled from your book. Now, anybody listening right now, if you don't have Never Split the Difference, you're missing out on something that I'm going to tell you is going to immediately make you a better communicator, especially when it comes to positions of negotiation. And that doesn't mean just in the workplace, also means at home too, and it's this right here. "For those people who view negotiation as a battle of arguments, it's the voices in their own head that are overwhelming them." I love it because I think there's so much truth to that, that people get so caught up in that anxiety because it's not what you're saying, it's the voices in their own head of what they're telling themselves.

• 3:02Jefferson Fisher?

  I want you to expand on that some more because I love this quote.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, you know, it's sorting out which voice in your head you're going to listen to also. And most of the time, the voices in your head are your amygdala, your fear centers. They're kicking into gear on you and they're just, they're not your friend. They're just not. You know, a friend of mine, Shawn Stevenson, who was a great guy, died tragically five-ish years ago. And I just started to get to know Shawn and collaborate with him. And I knew right away that we're on the same sheet of music because he just flat out said to us like, "Our biggest enemies are amygdala, fear center in our brain." It just was necessary to keep us alive when we were actually being chased by saber-toothed tigers

• 3:48Speaker 04

  and being, you know, chased down outside the cave, away from the campfire, or all sorts of creatures who wanted to eat us on a regular basis. But just not our friend these days. And the voice in your head can just make you do stupid things and make you paranoid and overreact. And what voice should you listen to? Like, the intuition, if you can sort...

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Your fear centers from your intuition. And I even sometimes say to myself, like, what is my gut telling me? Cause I get, I get problems overcoming my amygdala too. You know, if you're tired, it's been a long day. You didn't get a good night's sleep the night before. Like your amygdala is just spoiling for that opportunity to get to, to take over the controls. And if you can listen to your gut instead, your guts really, really accurate. It's a real help. It's just sorting the two out.

• 4:40Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, there's something about the voice inside your own head. It's, it's how our brain does that. I really don't know. It doesn't matter. It's going to happen anyway of just what, what's the voice that you're listening to? And what's really your gut? You have this line about getting a no isn't the end of a conversation. It's the beginning. What is the importance of getting to know in an argument or a conversation?

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, we didn't even realize how significant that was when we first wrote the book. You know, the books collaboration between me and, and my son, Brandon, Brandon Voss, uncredited co-author Tal Ross. And Tal is doing his best there and did a phenomenal job capturing our thoughts and putting in our voice. But like, when somebody says no, something happens to them. The, the person who utters the word no versus the person who hears it. The person who says no feels safe and protected. And so that's how that becomes the beginning of the conversation. Because having feel like they protected themselves and it feels safe. Then they're more open to dialogue. They're more open to listening.

• 5:52Speaker 04

  You're, you're not a threat or the issue isn't a threat. There's this Pavlovian response to uttering the word no that opens people up. And that's why in so many cases, if you're willing to give it. The space, Noel will start the conversation.

• 6:10Jefferson Fisher?

  You find that it's just because, I mean, as we were little kids, I mean, for anybody listening, I know if you have your own kids, or you remember it being a kid, we just have a gut reaction and go, no, even if you know, like to my son, this is your favorite meal. What are you talking about? And he's just, no. Or my daughter just decides she no longer loves strawberries. I'm like, you couldn't eat enough strawberries yesterday. It is this sense inside of us where maybe it's just our own independence. Where do you think that comes from? This desire for us to immediately just go, no, I'm going to go for what's safe and that's not filling me right now. I need to just say no.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it's an interesting question. I mean, the parental dilemma is your kids don't do what you tell them to do. They do what they see you do.

• 6:58Jefferson Fisher?

  No.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  And your kid saw you say no. You know, your kid see you say no to them all the time. And that's how you assert your autonomy and control of the situation. So they want to be like you. They're seeing you say no, and they're like, oh, okay. Saying no is a way to assert my autonomy, to protect myself, to gain control of my environment. It makes me feel good to say it.

• 7:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  And that's what's happening.

• 7:30Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. And that's really what's happening. Just it feels good to say it. I think that explains it perfectly. You have a way of, which is brilliant, of asking questions to get to a no. For those listening to us right now, what is the importance of flipping a question to get to a no, rather than finding a way for them to say yes to it?

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, and that is the craziest thing. So it's kind of like a two-step explanation, maybe three-step. Everybody's been bamboozled with yes. The yes momentum, momentum selling, ask them three questions, three different questions. The answer to each question is a microagreement or a tie-down. And would you like to make more money? Would you like to live in a bigger house? You know, they seemingly, and there may be at a point in time where this worked. And I think everybody has been hustled by this at some point in time in their life. Before you realize that you were being led down a path and you got led down the path so

• 8:33Speaker 04

  many times that your gut instinct, oh, last time somebody tried to get me to say yes, you know, they ended up trapping me. And so then you have a Pavlovian response, you know, Pavlov's dog, the bell rings, they feed, then every time the bell rings, the dog salivates. Well, every time somebody tries to get you to say yes, they led you down a path. There was a trap, there was a bear trap there. That, alright, so the minute somebody's trying to get me, they say yes, there's a trap. So there's a psychological Pavlovian response. So, and as stupid as that, and true as it sounds, it seems stupid that the opposite would be true, that people feel safe when they say no. And they'll open up. And, but in point of fact, they do.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  We were, we were teaching this, we were doing a course for a company that does business with hospitals. Probably about five years ago. And this woman in the, the head of their sales is trying to get the head nurse of this particular hospital to accept this system, had been a yes oriented approach. And she says, look, this woman is in a no mode. She says no to everything I say. So I'm like, alright, flip your questions. She's like, no, that's, that's not gonna work, that's stupid. I mean, if I just reword it and she says no, it's gonna change things? And so she got up out of the room, left the training, went to the hallway, sent the head

• 10:00Speaker 04

  nurse a text, are you against implementing this program? The head nurse immediately texted back, says, no, just let me know what we have to do to uh, to move forward. And she comes walking back in a room with her phone in her hand, she can't believe what's on, because you guys are not gonna believe what just happened. And so people condition themselves that when they say no, they're safe. And they're willing to entertain stuff that they've been blocking previously just because saying yes scared them.

• 10:32Jefferson Fisher?

  I think that's just so cool. I mean, just how funny to use how our minds naturally work. I mean, for, for a wonderful, positive way, it's just finding how, you know, our own idiosyncrasies and our defaults of saying no. If you're anything like me, when you get home, you want to take off your work clothes and just get comfortable. One of my favorite sponsors of this podcast is called Cozy Earth. And the reason why I went with Cozy is because I already use their stuff. Their sheets are on my bed right now. My wife loves their pajamas. I, when I get home, I take off my suit and I put on a hoodie and some sweatpants. You can go to cozyearth.com/jefferson and for this weekend only, March 14th through

• 11:17Jefferson Fisher?

  the 16th, you'll get up to 45% off on Cozy Earth. You can go to cozyearth.com/jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 45% off to celebrate World Sleep Week. Nothing better than that. Let's, for people listening right now, what are some great lean-ins or let's say lead-ins for how they might begin a question to flip it to no? So how would you teach somebody to begin a question to get a no answer? I've heard you say like, are you against?

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Would it offend you? Would you hate? Or is there a certain way? What's the magic behind it?

• 11:57Speaker 04

  You know, how can you give yourself a lot of practice to start with? First of all, to test see if it worked. And the most common thing is calling somebody on the phone or even stopping them and saying, have you got a few minutes to talk? Flip that to, is now a bad time to talk? That will get you your practice. Now, I'm, I'll tell you in advance what the reaction is going to be when you say it's now a bad time to talk. They're going to hesitate for a moment and then they're like, no, no, what do you got? Or they'll say, as a matter of fact, it is a bad time. And then they'll tell you when they can't talk. And what you want is you want a conversation where they don't feel guarded. And I've never had anybody not give me a better time. And plus, in many cases...

• 12:46Speaker 04

  They may be able to talk to you, but they're distracted. A lot of people make the mistake of multitasking. Um, when

• 12:55Speaker 04

  we were talking about, you know, the bourbon that my company's launching, you know, I got my bourbon shirt on the difference. Nice. You know, anything I get, I'm a human billboard. I'm gonna advertise my stuff when I get the opportunity.

• 13:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, I can learn some things.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  But the guy that did the bourbon, previously he'd done a documentary film on my company, Tactic Olimpia. If you're interested. Uh, it's on Amazon.

• 13:20Jefferson Fisher?

  Yes, please.

• 13:21Speaker 04

  But so he screened it for me, first time in Vegas. The, and the plan was a month and a half later, I was gonna show it at a function in Beverly Hills. And the night I saw it, you know, I loved it. And I woke up the next morning and I realized there was a fundamental flaw with the documentary. I was, I was not gonna allow it to go out unless this thing was fixed. So, um, it's a Sunday afternoon and I gotta talk to him. We gotta fix this now. I sent him a two-line text. Is now a bad time to talk?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  You're not gonna wanna hear what I have to say. So, in point of fact, he was on a Zoom call. And he texted me back immediately and said, I'm in the middle of a Zoom call. And I can talk to you at three. I'll call you at three. Now, if I'd have called him, he would have answered the phone, because we have that kind of a relationship. We're good friends. He's gonna pick up the phone. Which means he would have taken my call while he was on a Zoom call, which means he would have done a bad job at both. I don't need that. I need his undivided attention, because we got a problem and the clock is ticking on us really hard. And so I need him to let me know when he can speak to me, undivided attention. Is now a bad time to talk? What is a bad time?

• 14:42Speaker 04

  I don't wanna talk to him when it's a bad time. I want him to give me an alternative time, and I need 100% focus. He's, he's dialed in, he's prepping for bad news.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Now, I don't know what was going through his mind. When you prep somebody for bad news, the worst that happens is they imagine something equal to what you have to say. Nine times out of 10, they imagine worse.

• 15:07Jefferson Fisher?

  Yes.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  I don't know what was on his mind. But again, the clock is ticking and we don't have time to argue about this. He calls me on the phone. I say, look, this is a problem. Derek Gault, he's the head of coaching. We left him out of the film. We have to put him in the film. He's been too critical to everything we've done. Now, we've been working on this film for a year. And Nick could rightly say, we've been working on this for a year. You know, what's the matter with you? This is gonna cost me money. It's gonna be a problem. But since I dialed him up with those two text messages, he says, okay, this is what we gotta do. I need Derek's schedule. We gotta get Derek on camera. That means I gotta get a camera crew to him, or we gotta get him to a camera crew. And we're showing this film in a month.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  And it's gonna take, once we get the film, it's gonna take me three weeks to edit it in. So we have to do this now.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  And I'm like, done, and done, and done. But it all started with me not letting him have a multitasking conversation, which was the point of is now a bad time to talk. I need focus. And that's what's gonna happen when you throw it out there to people.

• 16:18Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, it's like the magic that can happen. All you have to do is just to turn a phrase. What I see,

• 16:26Jefferson Fisher?

  for those that are listening to me and Chris right now, I think a good takeaway for how to get people to answer no is to begin with a negative in the first part of your sentence. So instead of asking someone, is it a good time to talk? Is now a bad time to talk? So you find ways to flip the positive words and the negative words. Would it be terrible of me to ask you this? Would you be offended by is now a bad time? Use words that are negative in the first part of your sentence, and that's gonna flip for them to have to answer also in the negative, rather than try to say something positive in the beginning. Would you agree with that?

• 17:09Speaker 04

  That's perfectly described.

• 17:11Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, well, I think that's a, and I'm gonna do that in my own life. Also, I wanna make sure we get this. This is Tactical Empathy on Netflix.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Uh, yes. Yeah, it's on Amazon.

• 17:20Jefferson Fisher?

  Amazon, sorry, Amazon. I'm gonna put that in my cart. I wanna bookmark that, yeah. Record it in my memory. I think that is one of the just magical ways by just a simple turn of phrase will create so much power in the conversation that the other person really just has no clue about it. It's still the same thing. You're still wanting to get that same information, but you're using the fact that we naturally want to say no because no is very comfortable. Not that they're trying to turn you down, it's just no is more comfortable to say. Um, and so by using that to your advantage, you're going to get more of what you want. There's something else that you teach that it's called an accusation audit.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:03Jefferson Fisher?

  I, I love these. Uh, when I first read the book and saw that, I was like, this is brilliant. Uh, for anybody who has not heard what an accusation audit is in your world, can you just tell us?

• 18:18Speaker 04

  It's principally, we tried to make it self-defining. So think of yourself as an accountant who's gonna do an audit. Now do an audit slash assessment slash inventory of the negative thoughts the other side might be harboring against you. Their accusations. And be liberal. Um, think in lots. You know, once you start thinking about this, a lot of stuff will occur to you.

• 18:46Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. You say be liberal, like be creative.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Be creative, yeah. And, um, and then what you do is you lay it out upfront. Now, what scares most people about this is even if they are, believe that labeling, identifying a negative diffuses it, and it does. There's actually a brain science that backs it up, not denying it. Uh, you say something like, it's gonna, it's, it sounds like, I'm gonna sound disrespectful. Instead of, I don't want to sound disrespectful. I don't want to sound disrespectful is the wrong way, that's a denial. I'm going to sound disrespectful is the correct way. It's a prediction, it's an observation. So if it's there, it deactivates it.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  Now, what scares everybody is that you can plant the negative. You can plant the negative emotion. You can't plant emotions in people's heads. You can't plant negatives. You can't plant positive. You can only work with what's there. So the accusations audit is probably one of the single most effective, most used strategies that we coach people on to break open negotiations, to break down barriers, to solve problems in an accelerated fashion, to really get to the heart of the matter really quickly. Because it just deactivates and disables the negatives and inoculates from any that may pop up.

• 20:11Jefferson Fisher?

  You don't know what

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Film for IMAX.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 20:27Jefferson Fisher?

  This is my nerd, weird communication brain. Like, how much I love. I love this so much. Uh, I've been dreaming of this conversation with you. What is the one thing that somebody can do in their conversation that is going to apply the principles of an accusation audit? And let's put in maybe a home scenario and a work scenario.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, I'm glad you asked that because my staff is doing this to me all the time. And why do they do it to me all the time? Because it works at home. Like, they'll walk into my office and go, is that, is now a bad time to talk? No. You're gonna hate me for this. Uh, I, I got, I, you know, my girlfriend, I gotta take my girlfriend to the grocery store. Like, I don't know what it is. Like, they're, they are, they're throwing, they're throwing this one word out, you know, uh, and when you're doing the accusations audit, I mean, go for the strong word. You know, don't, don't pull your punches, which is why they say, you know, you're gonna hate me for this. Like, no, I'm not gonna, you know, my first reaction is like, well, you know, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna, are you gonna, are you gonna set my house on fire?

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Are you gonna dump your garbage in, in my, in, inside my truck? Like, I imagined something horrible and, and then they'll ask me something that is less than what I was worried about and, you know, they're preempting it. And so, you're gonna hate me for this. Start that on your ass, on a people in your, in your life. Now, why, why is everybody on my staff doing this to me instantly? Not because they're trying to show off. They got an inkling of this and they actually started using it at home. And they changed all their conversations at home. And so they're like, hey, this works. And if it works at home, it's gonna work, you know, out on the street on a regular basis.

• 22:16Speaker 04

  So, yeah, start, start trying, you got an ask of, this is gonna make somebody uncomfortable. Say, you know, I don't, and don't say, I don't want this to make you uncomfortable, which is again, the denial. Say, you know, you're gonna hate me for this. And then, and then see what happens. Do it playfully. See what happens on small stake stuff, you know, get some data.

• 22:38Jefferson Fisher?

  What I find so fascinating about this is that it uses our contradictory nature. Like if I, if I was gonna tell you, like,

• 22:50Jefferson Fisher?

  now you're probably really exhausted today. Naturally, you're gonna be like, no, I'm not exhausted. Like, you naturally want to find another word. Oh, no, I'm not exhausted. I mean, I'm tired, but I'm not, we naturally kind of just have this contrarian sense to us, some more than others in our lives. And it just plays to that so well. Like if I was going to tell you, where, like you talked about the bad way to do this, the wrong way to do it is to say, I don't mean to offend you, but now you've only almost confirmed that you will, you've almost guaranteed you will now offend them.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:25Jefferson Fisher?

  But if you come at it from, you're probably gonna think this is offensive, but, and then tell them that. Now they're gonna think, like, the contrarian in the heads goes, no, that's not offensive. No, you can't offend me. Like that, now they have to push against you. Do you find that it's this contradiction that we like to have of just natural disagreement with somebody? No matter what it is, it's like our gut instinct and it's that disagreement that makes this work so well.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I, I think you're definitely on the right track. I think it's probably two or three things. Um, and very similar to the contrarian.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Correction as well. I mean, it's, it's a correcting, not, you know, I don't feel that way. That's both, that's both contrarian and correcting. And people love to correct. I mean, you know, people love to correct.

• 24:13Jefferson Fisher?

  We do, yes.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  So I think that's, yeah, you know, there's a famous Judge Judy thing. You know, this guy is, girl's accusing this guy of stealing her purse and. You know, she's sitting there and she outlines all the stuff that was in her purse and, and then of course she throws in there like forty dollars in cash. And the guy immediately says, there was no cash in that purse. And the judge starts to laugh and said, the only way you know that is you stole it.

• 24:43Jefferson Fisher?

  I love that. Yeah, Judge Judy, what an icon.

• 24:49Jefferson Fisher?

  Something I wanna make sure and, and bring up so that, uh, my listeners can hear this. The phrase, "Sounds like there's a reason for saying that. Sounds like you have a reason for saying that." What is the power behind that phrase that somebody can use immediately in their next conversation? And what will that do for them?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that is one of the magic wand phrases. Uh, and we've, for whatever reason, just for the fun of, you know, we, we label the number go to. Phrases, magic wand phrases, because it just changes so much instantly. It's like waving a magic wand. So you. What is behind what somebody said is always more important than what they said? It's always more important. You know, some people call it the question behind the question, the thought behind it, like what makes them say that? Is so much more important. You need to know what their thought process is. And your guess. At best is gonna be accurate about thirty percent of the time.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  Which is not a bad accuracy, you know. It's not better than half, but it's not, it's not a horrible percentage. But that means about two thirds of the time, your guess is going to be wrong. So you need to pull out why they said that. And, you know, it sounds like you have a reason for saying that. It seems like you have a reason for saying that, whatever sort of take you want on that. You want to approach them in a way, and that's different than a question. Cause if I say, what makes you say that? The word what causes you to stop and think? You're going to go into in-depth thinking, which means you may not have the energy to answer, number one, because in-depth thinking is tiring. And number two, you're going to think about it before you answer me.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  And I really want an unvarnished answer. I want it coming right out of your mouth without sucking a lot of energy out of you. And I know that if I say, it seems like I have a reason for saying that, you are more likely to give it to me straight right off the bat. It doesn't feel judgmental on your part. It feels very encouraging. It feels open and collaborative. It opens all these doors to sharing information that is not exhausting and actually developed for poor. So it's, it's, it's a great way to find out what made them say what they just said.

• 27:08Jefferson Fisher?

  Listen, I care about you. If you're listening to this podcast, I care about you. And because I care about you as somebody who also loves communication and conversations, I know that you can't just have all these conversations in your head. Yeah, I can give you advice, but sometimes you need more. You need to talk to somebody else who's trained in helping guide you through this. And that's where therapy comes in. I go to therapy. It's incredibly helpful and a sponsor of this podcast is BetterHelp. What they do, it's an online platform where they can connect you with online therapists. All you have to do is fill out a quick questionnaire and they match you with a therapist. And if it doesn't work out with somebody else, they can easily switch you to somebody new.

• 27:49Jefferson Fisher?

  But the point is you're getting it out and diving deeper for better answers because conversations come with questions. Therapy comes with answers. You can go to betterhelp.com/jeffersonfischer for a discount on your first month. That's betterhelp.com/jeffersonfischer.

• 28:08Jefferson Fisher?

  I find that in my world, I cross-examine people in a deposition. And if I say, "Sounds like there's more to that," which is very similar, I mean, it's the same type of method here, they always have a reason for saying it. You know, they always have more behind it. And I think you're absolutely right. It's such a good way of getting more information out without making them defensive, like making them feel like you're on the attack.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a great circumstance, too, because in that deposition, probably by definition, you're a threat. And so they're going to be reluctant, and you want them to pull that information where they don't see you as a threat. And also, if it's a deposition, it's probably going to go on for hours. It doesn't really help you to exhaust them, because the more tired they get, the less information they're going to be able to supply.

• 29:00Jefferson Fisher?

  Right. Here's a question I got. What is the Chris Voss way of handling passive-aggressive people?

• 29:12Speaker 04

  It would really be, first of all, they may be the, what I refer to as a seven percenter, which is, "Person I don't want to deal with, anyway." Yeah. I learned a long time ago, "Do I have to deal with this person?" My former boss, Gary Nessler, used to say, "Our approach to negotiation was best chance of success," which means by definition, it's not a guaranteed chance of success. So I'm going to gauge the other person, how passive-aggressive are they? Do I have to deal with them? Do I want to be handcuffed to this person for the foreseeable future, for forever? A friend of mine, Joe Polish, refers to these people as "halves," hard, annoying, lame, and frustrated.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  And Joe says, "Just don't deal with halves. Cut them out of your life." And so if somebody's passive-aggressive, my first question to myself is, "Do I want to be handcuffed to this person over a long-term period of time?" And if the answer's no, then I'm out.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. If you're passive aggressive now, for me personally, there's a really good chance that you're gonna get fired. I'm not gonna continue the relationship.

• 30:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Now, what happens if I feel like I have to? What if I'm handcuffed to him? What if I've taken myself hostage? Then probably gonna start labeling. And then if it sounds to me like you don't wanna give me an answer. Cause passive aggressive, what they do is they throw stuff back on you. What do you want me to do? Is one of their favorite questions after you've just told them what you want them to do.

• 30:53Jefferson Fisher?

  Right.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Cause they know how exhausting that is. They'll be like, ah, you know, look, I need you to go down. I need you to do this. This is a problem. This is a problem. We need to fix this. And they'll be like, well, what do you want me to do? Like, like they, like they're deaf. Cause you just told them. But it's a great strategy for exhausting you and wearing you out, which is what a passive aggressive person is often gonna do. So, I might label them. I might, it sounds to me like what I just said was confusing.

• 31:26Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. My first.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  When you say labeling.

• 31:30Jefferson Fisher?

  When you say labeling, define that for, for us real quick. How, how you apply that?

• 31:35Speaker 04

  The basic, a label is a verbal observation which starts with, it seems like. And then you make your observation. It sounds like, it looks like, sometimes it even feels like. And if somebody's passive aggressive, they're dragging their feet. You can say, it feels like you're dragging your feet. Uh, let's just make it an observation based on an emotion or a dynamic that you see. It's a verbal observation. And if, if you see it, if, even if you sense it. It's now fair game to observe it verbally slap a label on it. Identify what you're seeing and say it, say it out loud. And depending upon how you're wired or how it's presented.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  That's why the choices are basically like it looks like, sounds like, it seems like it feels like. It's a very collaborative thing to do. It's you're open to correction. Somebody can say, well, you know, don't, don't, don't tell, don't tell me what I am. My answer is gonna be like, I didn't say you were. I said, that's the way it look. Or that's the way it sounds. So it's, it's a, it's not accusatory for leaving it or not.

• 32:48Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah, that's, it feels very related to the, the whole sense of, like we say, correction. They'll, they'll wanna correct you. So if you do something simple as labeling of, you know, I'm, I'm feeling like you feel nervous about this conversation. Are you feeling easy about this? It's just you labeling that they're going to correct you and go, no, no, I'm not uneasy. I, I just, and they give you the truth versus you trying more to skate around it. So labeling is just verbally saying out loud what you're sensing and feeling in that moment.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah, well said.

• 33:24Jefferson Fisher?

  One part of what I feel makes Chris Voss, Chris Voss is what I guess the younger kids would call the vibes. Like you have this vibe that you know is your vibe. Where did you grow up, by the way?

• 33:40Speaker 04

  A small town in Iowa. I'm a small town Iowa boy.

• 33:45Jefferson Fisher?

  Got it. And it's, I don't know where your accent comes from. Is it, I don't know how Iowan sounds.

• 33:52Speaker 04

  It's convoluted, no.

• 33:54Jefferson Fisher?

  Yeah. But it's this, this tone that you have that like, if you had told me like, look, I just wanna, I want your couch. I'd be like, no, Chris, you can't have my couch. I know it's a great couch. I shouldn't have it, but I just, I really liked this couch. And I feel like, gosh, you know what? You sound so good, Chris. Here, you can, you can take it. It's, um, what I'm getting here to is just the power of the voice and the volume and the tone.

• 34:23Jefferson Fisher?

  Which you just have a signature style on. And I know that you talk about that is something that you were trained on. You know, that late night DJ voice. So what kind of lessons can somebody take from slowing down their words and lowering their volume regardless of their gender?

• 34:42Speaker 04

  People connect to you a lot easier. And the connection tends to stick. If you're communicating with a high volume of words with a lot of energy, with a lot of emotion, it has a really fast half-life. It goes away really quickly. And you want to communicate in a way with people that they kind of resonate with, you know, it resonates with their bones. They don't feel pushed. The energy is not necessary to continue the relationship. Yeah, I learned it on a suicide hotline, you know, then continued to learn it as a hostage negotiator.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Ran across the hit and a therapist one time that said, that's exactly how we get people to relax. And so then ideally, the perfect combination, if you can, if you can downward inflect, if you can slow down. And you don't have to have a deep voice, like women can downward inflect by simply dropping their chin downward in inflection. And then the occasional smile, like it just gives people a warm feeling. It's something they're drawn to that they resonate with. And you put the two of those together, it tends to really, it really lasts. It sticks. People like it and they feel comfortable with it.

• 36:04Jefferson Fisher?

  I find that it's this, this sound, when you can hear it in somebody's voice, you just think to yourself, I want them on my side. I don't know what they have, but listening to it, I want them on my side. What I try to picture often when somebody is communicating, I kind of apply a music style. Like if I had a CD album for this person's voice, what would I apply? You know, would it be something very Frank Sinatra? Would it be something super loud and crazy? Would it be hip hop? Like, what is the vibe of this person? And it all takes different walks of life. Some people are not for other people and it's, some people are easier to listen to and some music is easier to listen to.

• 36:49Jefferson Fisher?

  So I think you're spot on with, you know, having the ability to slow down is going to make people more drawn to you. Would that be right?

• 36:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, drawn to you, less rushed, less cornered. They feel voluntary, they feel collaborative. It just makes it easier. Yeah, they're very drawn to you with it.

• 37:09Jefferson Fisher?

  You have just been such a, truly a legend in how the way you've turned, in my view, arguments and negotiations on their head. It's just, that's not how we think about them, but it's the way you, the techniques you teach are really, I just find groundbreaking. So the person right now who is thinking, I don't want anybody to disagree with me. I want everybody to agree with me. I want every conversation I have, an argument that I'm in, I want to win it. And everybody needs to go along with my plan. What would you say to that person right now who feels like they always have something to prove in the conversation?

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're driving people away from you. You're just, you're consistently, you're gonna find your meaningful conversations are gonna be fewer and fewer. They're gonna be farther and farther apart. You know, the ones that you win will obscure how much you lose. I think of it as a Las Vegas slot machine effect. Like, people get addicted to the slots. What are the numbers? How often do you win on a slot machine? I've read that the arithmetic, the algorithm is if they let you win one in every 84 polls, you're gonna keep dumping money into the slot machine.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Because the win is so celebratory, like if you got something to prove, and you got somebody over a barrel and you force them into submission, it's like the slot machine going off, the bells and the whistles are ringing, the lights are flashing, you're getting this huge hit of dopamine anticipation, it feels so good, and you don't realize that you lose eighty-three out of eighty-four times, and they're slowly draining your bank account. So if you've got something to prove, you're just slowly driving people away from you, and suddenly, you can't remember the last time you had a breakthrough, or nobody in your industry talks to you, or

• 39:17Speaker 04

  and people, you know, pay you the annoyance tax, make you, just so you go away, and you've got all these small wins, but they don't accumulate, they don't add to much. You're not doing as well as the other people that somehow, they get along with people, they're not as argumentative, but they've got a bigger house than I do, they've got, you know, they've got a better car, they're making more money. How did that happen?

• 39:38Jefferson Fisher?

  I think you're exactly right. This idea of when you're trying to come in and prove everything and push people away, like you said, you're only draining your own bank account, a bank account of life. And I think that's, I think that's why I was listening. All right, what I learned today in our conversation, and I wish this was seven hours, is that, one, it's easier to get questions answered when you flip them to get a no rather than a yes. And one way to do that is you can begin with a negative in your question. That's going to help get a negative response to keep you down the road. Second of all, accusation audit.

• 40:21Jefferson Fisher?

  It's a way of simply saying how you assume that they might be feeling in the conversation, and the idea here is one way to actually correct you and tell you more of what they're feeling behind the scenes. Or three is labeling, and that is simply visually saying out loud, it seems like, it sounds like, it feels like, of what you're perceiving, that's also going to get them to open up in this conversation. Chris, did we, did we hit it? Did we cover it?

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Well said, brother. Very well said. I love talking with you.

• 40:52Jefferson Fisher?

  Man, it's the best. It really is, from somebody who, this is just like my... I feel like I'm a minor league baseball player talking to Babe Ruth. Like it's just, I think it's just so cool.

• 41:04Speaker 04

  That's kind.

• 41:05Jefferson Fisher?

  I get so excited talking to you and love, love what you do. Thank you for coming on the podcast. It's a true honor. Thanks.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Pleasure's mine, Jefferson.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Make them remember you.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, 18th, 19th.