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Sarah, thanks for joining us today.
Sure thing. Thanks for having me.
Yeah. It is my pleasure.
Long over due to be honest. So how did you get it started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you did?
Sure. So I've been in politics and government for that are somewhere around 12 to 13 years now, and that's really the basis of my involvement, but I've also had a career in government.
But now I've moved into the private sector and exploring some avenues there.
But I ran for public office a couple of years ago and lost. So I'm really excited to dig into that and how negotiating and fear tie into that, as well as just talking about how women in politics politics and my involvement may I've worked for a lieutenant governor and a governor as well as some state agencies, traveled the country for a campaign and been involved it really the local, state and national level and campaigns.
So I'm excited to dig in.
Absolutely. And this is a fun topic.
Fun not in that like, experiencing fear is enjoyable, but fun in that there is a lot to explore here and a lot to learn.
And so our topic going to be negotiating through fear, and so we're going to talk about at the beginning, first, we're going to discuss how to negotiate away the fear internally for yourself and externally when you're helping other people to overcome their fears.
Recognizing that you don't need to be perfect, and then in the political world, fundraising, which is always scary, both for the people who are raising funds and the people who are being asked.
And so, So how do, how do, can we use some of these negotiation principles in that realm?
So let's just start about, let's just start off by talking about fear in negotiation in general, or difficult conversations in general.
What are the things that we need to know about that?
Yeah, so I think, I think there are some pretty universal things, whether you're having a dialogue with your spouse or your boss, or you're trying to negotiate whether or not you actually want to do something like run for public office.
And I think it's getting just really clear on why you're doing what you're doing.
And what your interest is in the conversation.
I think knowing what we want to do and why is the first place where we can come to negotiation or conversation and being able to be authentic and able to bring up our best points.
And I think the other thing that's really important is understanding where the other person is coming from.
And we can go into this a little bit later, but something I use is incentive structures, it's principles from economics, but I use it in every part of my life, whether I'm negotiating with my husband and where we wanna have dinner, or I'm talking to a candidate and trying to help them explain and understand how their private sector career is gonna be very different from being in the public office and public life.
Absolutely, well, let's talk about those incentives.
So for those who are not as well -versed in economics, what do you mean by incentives?
So in a very simple sense, like think about a company who sells a good or service or product.
Like, let's think of Pepsi.
Big brand, they sell soda to a lot of people, right, and companies.
They want to offer a good or service, and they want to be paid fairly for what they offer.
We want to be able to enjoy their soda.
We want it to be delicious.
We want it to be at a fair price.
and so we want a couple of things.
Incentives for us are we want it to taste good, we want it to be accessible, and we want it to be a pretty good price.
They wanna be able to make money and offer something that where they can continue to get new people that like it and continue to buy it.
So on a very simple basis we're both looking for different things on each side of the incentive structure.
Very nice, yeah, absolutely.
And now when we think about fear, how can we wrap this concept of fear and how fear impacts us in difficult conversations with potentially some incentives.
I think that's a really interesting potential blend.
Yeah, so something that's been popping up for me and some of my work that I do, like working with other women, is negotiating things like salaries or raises.
that comes up quite a bit, but it also relates to this work in politics and deciding whether or not to run.
There's this fear because we want to be able to, or really anyone, wants to be able to ask for, whether it's a salary that's at market rate, or a salary that you think you deserve, but there's some fear there because I think all of us have some ideas in our head.
We've got our own narratives of what we think we deserve, what we've been told we deserve.
All these little things that pop up that create this idea of imposter syndrome.
Like everyone experiences at various points, but that whole fear that pops up is not a reason not to do something.
And that's that portion where we talk about fear and how we're using it.
But I think that this fear that pops up comes from I mean, everyone's got insecurities about what they how they see themselves.
And sometimes I think that's where a lot of this is coming from.
100%. And I don't know about you, Sarah, you could jump in and you could probably just say, yeah, call me your word is just you.
I feel as though when it comes to imposter syndrome, at least for me, it's something that I haven't really gotten over in terms of like, I don't stop feeling that way.
I just recognize that I will feel that way.
And I still need to do what I need to do despite the fact that I feel the way that I feel.
Yep. I would totally agree with that personally.
And I think that most people that I've kind of been able to talk to in Posture Syndrome about would totally agree with that.
And I think the difference between impostor syndrome is something that's the debilitating fear, and it not being a debilitating fear is doing it anyway.
It's this idea and understanding that maybe the fears that are coming up are things that are supposed to be there.
What if every single person who's ever run for office has been so scared and fearful and thought they're not good enough?
And so I think it's this idea of doing it anyway and realizing that you're in really good company if you've got some fears or some jitters of what you're about to do.
And it probably means that you really care.
Yeah, it means that you really care and that you are self -aware if you are overconfident and you say, Oh, I won't have any problems. Nothing.
This is gonna be super easy.
Yeah, you might be missing something.
Yeah, and sometimes that fear can be a helpful signal to, to focus your preparation.
Because sometimes maybe you are experiencing that fear insecurity, because you genuinely aren't good enough or have the skills at that time.
Notice, I say at that time.
And so you say, All right, what do I need to do to acquire said skills?
Okay, great, I'm going to do that, and then I'm going to do it anyway.
Just like you said.
And then you grow a little bit and you realize it pops up all over again when you are up for promotion or you're starting a new podcast or a new business venture, right?
And you have to, like, grow that competence all over again.
It's the people who do it anyway who get to the other side, who are able to channel that.
And the thing is, is no, it doesn't go away.
I still have it. I do too.
So I'm glad I'm not weird. Okay?
So when we talk about negotiating that fear internally, I think we discussed that with the insecurities, that fear, but what about others?
How can we help them to overcome their fears so they can do what it is that they need to do?
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So that's something I'm still exploring myself and my work, but one of the things that I've found is to break things down to a really simple level, like get kind of fun and childish with it.
And I'll give you an example.
So when I was in my last salary negotiation.
I was scared out of my mind because I had done all my research. That's the thing about, like, even if you have done all your research, and I have noticed this with women in politics, they do their research for years and sometimes they still don't take that step forward, that research is wonderful, but it's actually getting to the point where you move through that.
And in my last salary negotiation, I was so scared but I knew I needed to practice, so down with my husband and I said you need to help me.
Just like, let's role play through this with boxes of cereal.
And so I had him negotiate with me about which cereal we were going to buy for the cafeteria and it sounds ridiculous and silly but that idea of working through those and taking that something so trivial that isn't related to money or doesn't have all those money scripts and things like that, taking something like… he was negotiating for Fruity Pebbles and I was going through that process, we got to a compromise and then we worked through the salary negotiation with the numbers before I went in for the salary negotiation.
And it was probably, I mean, that didn't take away the fear.
Spoiler alert. But it made it so much easier.
And so one of the things that I've been exploring lately is when I'm working with women who are running, doing things like pulling out some K cups or sugar packets or whatever we happen to have on the table and We're sitting down doing fundraising calls and making it about like, let's ask me for some sugar packets and let's negotiate.
Making it so simple and really taking all the stuff out of it really helps to simplify and make it a little less scary.
Because if you can negotiate and get comfortable with the sugar packets and the compromise or the cereal, it makes it a little bit easier to actually go do it.
Yeah, you're making it more approachable.
I think that's really what it comes down to.
and what's interesting is that these examples that you're giving, they're fun.
They don't have to do with money, but they're fun.
And the same thing, like the same underlying principles will apply that's the cool part right?
Okay the issue isn't about really the negotiation.
The issue is about what you're negotiating for in that case, because you didn't have any problem with cereal but you had a lot of problems with money.
We get it, now we're great.
So here's what we're going to do, we're going to have some fun reps, and we're going to practice.
You're going to practice your skills in a low stakes environment and then it'll help you to have more confidence when it comes up.
But I really appreciate you saying that you'll still feel it.
You'll just be able to function at a higher level.
Yeah. And now let's say, that was a good example of how your husband worked with you in that situation to get you to feel more comfortable.
Let's say you are talking to somebody who you think would be a fantastic candidate but she says, you know what, I don't feel comfortable doing this, I am very afraid.
I don't think I'm qualified, even though she clearly is.
And then the guy that she's running against is significantly less qualified.
I don't know if I'm heading close to home with any of this, but how do you have that difficult conversation with her to help her to feel more empowered and overcome those fears?
Well, first, I will say, I have never talked to a woman who has not cited one of those reasons for not running and every single one of them has already been more than qualified.
And so, I mean, just side note for anyone who's listening, if you're thinking about running, you're already qualified, like do it anyway.
But but back to the point, like when I talked to a woman who cites those reasons, there's always going to be a million reasons.
One of the last women that I really pushed to run, she had already done a lot of her homework.
So this was a woman who kind of wanted to run, she was keeping it really close to the vest, but she had been going to the public meetings for the body she wanted to run for, for a while at that point, like literally taking notes, doing research, doing homework, all she has a full time job and a family.
And she continued to do this for about two more years before she decided to run, right?
Amazing, right? Like these are women are incredible candidates to run for office and so are men.
But women are incredible candidates because they do their homework and they really put together their plans anyway, so she was preparing along the way.
And I could tell she was really scared.
And she didn't want to come out with the fact that she was running, but I'm putting it together, and I'm going, you're going to public meetings, you're doing all of your homework, you need to run like, this shouldn't even be a question.
And so I looked her in the eye one time after one of these public meetings, and I said, You have to run.
And she kind of paused and just kind of stared at me with this like, blank fear stricken face.
And I could tell like all the thoughts of maybe I shouldn't run or I'm not good enough, or I'm not qualified, or running through her head.
And I just kept pushing her.
I mean, everyone needs some like that in our lives.
A lot of times we don't have that person close to us.
Right. And so talking through those things, like, you are qualified, you've done the work.
I think one of the most helpful things that I've done, in terms of being able to understand that we're really ready is like identifying the thought, like what is the thought that's holding us back?
Or what's the self -doubt?
It's, I don't think I'm qualified, or I don't think I could win, or I don't think I could do whatever.
And then writing down and understanding all the times where we've done something that fits the bill, right.
So in my case, when I ran for office, I was super scared.
And I was like, I'm not qualified.
I can't, you know, I don't know if I can play ball with all the people on council.
Cause I mean, you're walking into a situation where the city manager has an agenda, every single person who comes to give public comment, has an agenda.
Every single city council person has an agenda, but the thing is, is I'm somebody who was sitting there after 10 years, being in politics, saying that to myself.
And I realized the fears that I had were the same as somebody who's just dipping their toe in.
And so this is pretty universal in terms of looking inside yourself and saying and like, no, I'm going to do this anyway.
Because the thing I think more people are starting to become aware of is that we need diversity in opinions, ideas, stories, backgrounds, all of it.
And so that's why we all need to, I mean, if somebody wants to run, they should run.
That's why. Absolutely, yeah.
Now I think one of the points that you made that was so profound and at the same time, so simple that I think people would miss it.
When you were talking about, you or your friend who you were trying to get to run, you looked her in the eye, you were very direct.
You didn't come up with any like long winded oration.
You said you need to run, four words, direct eye contact.
You don't need fluff.
Sometimes you need that direct message.
And I'm assuming, you correct me if I'm wrong, she did not say, you know what, Sarah, you're right.
I will in fact, run based on those four words.
No, that's not how it works, right?
Earlier you mentioned Pepsi.
Is there ever a time that Pepsi will stop marketing or advertising?
Probably not. Probably not because that works.
Repetition is one of the simplest ways to convey a message and you need to keep on saying sometimes you can do this.
You're qualified, you should run and just keep on doing this over time and eventually it becomes part of them.
You should do it. You're qualified.
You should run, right?
And so it's almost like marketing.
It's a blend of negotiation, difficult conversations, but also marketing because we have to be persistent over time.
It's very rare that we get people to overcome their fears right there in the moment.
Sometimes it takes a little bit of repetition.
Oh, yeah, yeah. One of the things that people struggle with is the idea that they need to be perfect.
And so let's talk a little bit about that.
And first, why that's a problem, because I don't know, share.
It sounds perfect. Sounds nice.
Why can't people try to be perfect?
You're, you're talking to a someone who has live in her life by perfectionist ideals.
And it's like, I'm going to tell you right now, like, no one's perfect.
I'm not perfect. And getting stuck in this idea of trying to be perfect before we do something or doing things perfectly.
One takes the fun out of everything.
And two, honestly just gets in the way.
Yeah, perfectionism is a very interesting topic for me.
Because it's something that like I have, I mean it's something that, I mean as a very type A person, you probably know this already.
You want to do everything, you want to do everything the right way and perfect and that's often not how life is.
And I think that walking away from that a little bit and realizing that, I mean you're human, we're human, we're all human, it gives you a lot more freedom to play around with the possibilities.
I know that's very out there lofty in the sky.
But let me let me give you a really concrete example.
Right. So, and this kind of dives into our next conversations in the future about fundraising.
But I was running for elective office and there was somebody that I was fundraising, I was going to be asking for money.
Key donor or donates to a ton of campaigns.
So probably expecting that I'm going to be asking them.
And I was so worried about the perfect ask and the perfect conversation and how to ask this person for money.
Even though they had kind of insinuated they were gonna donate to me.
I realized at the end of my campaign when the donation check never came in or it was about two weeks before the campaign ended I don't think I'd ever actually asked because I was so worried about having the perfect asking conversation with this person because I regarded that I had a lot of respect for them.
In some ways, they had a lot of leadership in the community and they were going to donate to me anyway, but I was so focused on how do I ask it perfectly and not offend this person that I never actually asked.
Long story short, I eventually realized that rectified the situation.
They donated. We're Either forget to do something or allow ourselves to not do something because we're so worried about doing it perfectly yeah, I think perfectionism and procrastination often times our Manifestations of fear so you try to think that you are being productive when you are being You know, you're you're avoiding what it is that you actually need to do I can't tell you how many times Sarah there's other that I need to do just like let's talk about administratively, like, Hey, why me send that email, fill out that document, those type of things.
And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot bear it to do this.
And then when I finally do it, you know, it takes about 45 seconds.
But one of one of the things that I found is that oftentimes fear feeds on time, the more time you give it, the bigger it gets, the fear just grows and it becomes more and more debilitating.
So, of course, you don't want to make snap judgments and and put together shotty work.
But you want to say, all right, what is enough.
Taking another term that I think it was from us.
This decision making book was called satisficing.
So it's something that is sufficient, it suffices in this situation.
And it satisfies what it is that you need is not perfect.
But is it good enough, right?
And in the majority of cases, you just need to get things done.
It just needs to be done.
And then if you'd spend a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, making it perfect.
It is imperceptible to everybody but you.
Oh, it totally is. Have you heard of minimal effective dosing?
You probably, I'm sure everyone has, it's from Tim Ferriss.
It is a strategy that I started implementing during 2020, during the pandemic.
And I found that it was like a very effective antidote for perfectionism for me.
because I like I broke it down and I'm like, I feel like I have to do like 110 % of everything on this one task, right?
So I was like, what would be minimal effective dosing?
And I would literally like write it down and I would do it.
And I found like the ball started rolling on so many things and as the ball starts rolling, it starts coming together and it's certainly not perfect.
But so many more things come out of it and I think creativity is able to be used a lot more of the time in those situations.
And so it's similar, and I love it.
Techniques like that, I think, are just really helpful in just ripping off the Band -Aid and just doing it anyway.
100%. 100%. And I think this is a good time to transition into asking for money, the fundraising.
So let's put this all together.
In that situation, in politics, you're asking for money, so you can have a campaign.
It's a necessary evil in this world, right?
Yeah. And so when you're making those requests and trying to court to the big donors, what are some of the negotiation tactics that you've used that have been successful?
Sure, yeah. So one of them is just, I mean, I think, as you know, any attorney or anyone's going into a negotiation, you do your research in advance so like, you know where the person's coming from.
And in our case, donations are public.
So you can actually look them up.
You can go to the Secretary of State's office, you can go to your local board of elections.
And you can actually see how much various people have donated to campaigns, which is awesome, because if you're curious about a donor, you know how much they donate to, say, state races versus local races and you kind of narrow that gap.
So it's one thing just right off the bat pre -work researching.
But the other thing I like to walk into a situation or a negotiation over money and fundraising is knowing what the interest is in the campaign.
So every single person who's donating to a campaign has a different reason for why they're donating to that campaign.
Some people are going to be close to you because they love you.
And they're your friends and they're your family.
And they just want to see you succeed regardless of whether or not they even agree with your policies.
Some people are going to be those community members who have a vested interest in what happens in city council or the state house or the governor's race.
And that could be anything from they want to make sure that the community has great standards to they literally have an incentive over, or an interest in certain policies because they literally affect their bottom line, right?
So, like, think of a governor who comes in and is more restrictive on certain businesses.
That could be an interest point.
So there are a lot of different reasons.
And knowing where, so this is really important.
Knowing why you're running and knowing what your values are, I think, are the key to being able to walk into these situations, and know when to ask for money, and then also when to walk away.
Every single, I think there's, I think fundraising and money and politics gets a really bad wrap, because you read the headlines, right?
There's been stories in the past year that have just shed a light.
And that's really the 2 to 5%.
The vast majority of money in politics is not this secrecy stuff.
And I think that's something that we don't really realize until we're in the political realm.
But I bring that up only to say knowing when to walk away.
I've never had a situation like this, but I've heard of stories where there are certain donors who want certain things and the money has strings.
Thankfully I was never in a situation with my campaign where any money I took had strings, but if it had, knowing my values, I probably would have walked away from that.
And so knowing when the negotiation turns to I'm no longer comfortable negotiating with you, and I would need to walk away and save the relationship, as opposed to taking the money and then having a problem on the on the flip side.
Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's really important for people to recognize too, because you brought this up.
I think people miss it, right?
Because not all money is good money.
And if you're not very clear on your values, what you're stand for and what you hope to accomplish and your, your ethics, then in the moment, you're going to feel a lot of pressure.
And pressure is a sensation that causes you to make worse decisions, whatever type of pressure it happens to be.
And so you don't want to leave that up to chance in terms of hoping that you just come up with the best decision on the fly in the moment under pressure with an audience.
Instead you want to prepare and say, okay, What is it clearly that I want in general?
What are my values?
What are the, what is acceptable?
What is unacceptable?
And then let me go in and have this conversation.
Exactly. Yeah. And so, when it comes to fundraising, what would you say is one thing that people can do in general?
If they find themselves in a situation where they're the politician, they're looking for bigger donations, what would you say is one thing that they can do to improve their quality of fundraising?
The one thing I would tell and this is just across the board, the one thing I would do is tell anyone when you're asking for money, look somebody in the eye and actually ask.
I think that some people think that they have a conversation and then they dance around it.
And they think they've made the ask but they really haven't made the ask.
Ask. The vast majority of people you're asking money for, for like, in any way, tax or individuals or groups, they're expecting you to ask, so make the ask.
It's the same thing as making like a salary negotiation.
Like you got to actually make the ask and then pause and leave some space.
Allow them to respond.
That would be the one thing.
And then if I get out of the second one, it's if fundraising is really getting you to the point where you're like shaking in your boots, find a way to look at your campaign and your values and see yourself as a brand, or a product, just momentarily and detach you as the person away from that.
Because a donor who's not your friend or family, they're looking at you as somebody, a type of leader, like a leadership product, somebody who's going to go there and do a certain thing and that's separate from your personal life.
And I think it's really important to do that because sometimes if you can't detach that, it's not you personally, it's this how you lead and what you do separate from that, it can get way too scary and way too personal for people.
Absolutely. Oh man, this is great.
This is really great Sarah, we really appreciate it.
But before you go, can you let the listeners know again about you and how they can get it?
Yeah, absolutely. The best way to contact me is looking me up on LinkedIn, Sarah Jantosh.
I love connecting with people who are interested in running for office and helping people remove those barriers.
I've been in politics for about 12 to 13 years now on various local, state, and national level campaigns, and it's something that I'm really interested in.
So reach out to me regardless of political party because I'm interested in supporting the people who really want to make a difference in our communities.
Fantastic. Sarah, thank you so much. Congratulations.
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