Most people look at Ken Sterling and see a high-powered USC professor, a brilliant lawyer and a legendary dealmaker.
But what they don't see is the rough and tumble streets of New York that forged him.
Ken grew up in an environment where negotiation wasn't just a business skill, it was a survival tactic.
And he learned early on how to read a room, gauge danger and tilt the odds in his favor when the stakes were literally life and death.
Ken is the executive vice president at BigSpeak and the master of the TILT framework, Trust Influence, Leverage and Timing.
And in this episode we're exploring how to stay calm when the you know what hits the fan and how to handle bullies by giving them the autonomy that they crave.
Ken is a master at helping people get out of their own way to close the most complex deals on the planet.
To understand the true depth of his grit and his unique approach to leverage, you have to hear where it all started.
So here's Ken's incredible story of survival.
Face down in a shag carpet with a gun to the back of my head.
And...
It's just what happened and what unraveled in that time and where I tilted the room then.
And then when people see me now USC professor, USC lawyer dealmaker agent, it just doesn't compute.
They look at Ken and they're like, wait, you?
So I think that's the oh shit moment when people really know the background.
And for the people that don't know the background and haven't read some of the Inc or the Forbes articles I grew up rough and tumble in New York.
My old man was in a prison.
My mom did her best to keep the family together and keep everyone on the tracks, but i was largely on my own on the streets of new york for my formative years and in order to survive, in order to, you know, just kind of have shelter we, we did a lot of different stuff and i i encountered a lot of interesting people.
So we went from kind of the old man being in and out of prison My mom had a thing for bad boys and ended up with biker gang guys and grew up around biker gang guys and guys down in Houma Louisiana, that were bringing stuff in off the oil rigs.
Without going into lots of details,
I guess their statute of limitations has expired by now.
So I just came up in this element this good little, sweet kid who was absorbing all this and then paying attention to people.
What's safety?
What's not safety?
What's danger?
How do we leverage these situations?
How do we influence situations?
I'm still a little guy.
I'm 5'6". probably five, five and three quarters, to be honest.
So how does this little kid who in high school, soaking wet, weighed a buck 20?
How do I deal with people and bullies and things?
So I've adapted a lot.
And before I knew the TILT framework, which is trust influence, leverage and timing, I was putting this into play As I was navigating, being safe and finding places to live.
Yeah, I figured this would be a good place for us to start, Ken, because you're right.
The thing is, when people just look at your bio, they look at your LinkedIn, they look at the profile, they look at the success and they will not know how challenging your upbringing was.
But the thing is, you were resilient, you were able to overcome and you were able to navigate these situations with level of instinct that a lot of people aspire to get to after high degrees of practice.
And so I wanted to make sure that we started with the real background, because it would inform how unique your approach to business and negotiation and relationship building is.
Thank you.
It's interesting because when I think about it, I'm still a sweet kid.
People that know me say oh, you're younger than you look or you – wow, you went through all this trauma and and you seem like a happy person.
And really I am, I, I've learned a lot and I'm actually grateful.
I wouldn't go back and undo the school of hard knocks because it really taught me character and it taught me the resilience and the tenacity, which Candidly, I teach at the university level and I've taught undergrads and grad students.
I think there's a lack of ruggedness that is required if you want to get out there and make a mark.
I'll also say...
My kids are the sweetest kids I've ever met.
They're even sweeter than me.
And I love that they can be sweet and kind.
So I don't want to throw them under the bus or their generation under the bus.
I just tend to see that people from my world or my generation back then, have a different approach in terms of how we get up and how we show up.
Right.
I mean there's a level of grit that is required to succeed, especially in the business world, and the level that you've been at as a lawyer negotiating big deals, but also with Big Speak, my speakers bureau, handling some of my biggest deals.
So I appreciate that, too.
And I think you know, for me I have to go from Kwame Ken's buddy to Kwame, the podcaster here, because I would be remiss if I didn't go back to the story that you started off with to tell us how did you tilt the room?
Because that's a situation that most of us couldn't imagine being in on the ground with a gun to our head.
Can you kind of paint the picture and walk us through what happened?
How did you get there and how did you get out?
Yeah.
And the best, worst part is my little puppy.
My pit bull Miho, was out in my Porsche during the whole interaction.
Without going into details.
And again, statutes of limitations have expired, although no names are going to be changed here, because nobody's innocent.
What I can share is that I became homeless at a time –
And I did some things to make ends meet or to move up in the world.
And let's just say that I was delivering a package to this very seedy place that I should have known better than to go by myself.
And there were these two people crackheads.
Um, there were two people who were there, uh, who did some nefarious stuff.
And I, I found myself down on the ground and uh, you know I was, I was 15 years old and uh, I mean, everything flashed before my eye.
But honestly, I had a bunch of cash in my car.
I was thinking about that.
And I was thinking of Miho, what's going to happen to Miho?
And I didn't have kids at the time.
And believe me, I know what it's like now because I'm a dad.
Like the idea of I've got to get home to somebody or I got to get out to my car to be sure my dog's okay.
That really snapped that moment for me.
And you know whether it was divine intervention, whether it was me calling on my angels, whether it was calling on this tilt thing that I didn't even know was tilt.
I'm down there and I realized that there were two people in the room.
And I remembered a joke that my uncle told me when I was a little kid.
And it was.
If you and your buddy are out in the woods and you see a bear, what's the first thing you do?
Run faster than your friend.
Exactly.
The first thing you do is you bend down, you tie your laces.
And I'm like, why is that uncle?
And he's like, cause you're going to outrun your friend.
And I didn't really get it.
Like, of course we all get it now.
Like, okay, your friend's getting munched and you're not.
So what I realized I was I was thinking about all these things that it was kind of like in those movies with a montage and the, And then like, the solution came and it's like OK, these people are strung out.
They're cracked out.
They they want stuff.
And what I said to them is, look, I can help you.
And I was actually it was his girlfriend. who was really, really strung out.
And I started talking to her.
He was telling me, shut up, shut up.
Like, don't talk to her.
And I'm like, Hey, I've got some age.
I can get you some age.
Cause I knew she was more into the age than the other stuff.
By the way, I didn't have age and it was fine, but I started talking to her.
I got her kind of Jonesing for the age and like maybe we should let this guy go, maybe we should.
You know, maybe we should do this, maybe we should do that.
I didn't tell them i had cash in my car.
I just said if you walk me out to my car i can get you something, and eventually Got him.
She stays in.
He comes out.
We're going out to my car.
And then the minute I got out, it was dark.
I just booked down the street and I just ran.
And then they were gone.
I waited till everything was fine and went back and got my dog.
I mean, I was shaking.
I puked.
Everything that you could imagine happened.
And it.
It was the understanding of there is no freaking way I'm getting out of this.
It was like a basement apartment.
There's no way I'm getting out of this.
And then having that solution and executing that solution and understanding the leverage and the influence there.
The way to tilt it was to get somebody to find out what they needed and what their weakness was and play on that weakness.
And look, I don't advocate for people to do this to take advantage of people.
There's a whole philosophy of when rhetoric was developed by Socrates himself.
Aristotle and Plato, and they actually had concerns that when people used ethos, pathos and logos, they could influence people to do things.
So credibility, it's got to make sense.
It's got to appeal to people emotionally.
And the concern back in those days is that weaponized, that could help people do things.
And when you look at media today, media uses this in a really, really big way.
So I say all this because it's really important that yes, these are methods and techniques that I've developed.
But please, folks, don't use these for bad.
Use them for good.
Yes, 100%.
And I appreciate the disclaimer.
And I think everybody who's listening will give you a healthy dose of empathy in that situation.
They weren't playing by the rules, so you had to change the game as well.
But you bring up a really good point, especially about ethical persuasion.
That's something that I see people concerned about quite frequently, where they're saying oh, isn't this manipulation.
But the key difference between ethical persuasion and manipulation is that with ethical persuasion you are not withholding the information that the person needs to make a good decision for themselves.
And so the way that I know that you negotiate is ethical.
So don't worry.
We got your back on that disclaimer.
But also I think it just shows that The power of words too, because when you think about the leverage, who had all the leverage in that situation?
They did.
You did truly have to tilt the room.
You realize that the only way that I can...
When you think about it in terms of chess positioning, where you are physically located is incredibly detrimental to your health and the outcomes that you want.
So what is it that I can do to get outside?
I've got to figure out what their need is.
And when you think about just old school negotiation analysis, they would often say the person who needs the deal most loses.
And so you were in the situation hey, life is something i kind of need, so i'm willing to give up anything, but what is something that these people need?
Well, apparently they need drugs, so i am going to try to leverage that.
That's what i have at my disposal in this moment.
And so you did that, got to a better position and then took advantage of the opportunity.
And I'm wondering Ken, if when you think about some of those really tough situations that you've been in, if you're able to look back on those situations for resilience and strength and motivation in your tough business and legal negotiations today.
So when I think of today and.
Where people come to me a lot, they rely on me to bring calm to a situation.
And usually I say, we've got this.
The kids are healthy.
No one's on an operating table.
I bring perspective that okay, this is an important situation and there are stakeholders involved and there's going to be impacts here.
Putting this all in balance, we're going to be okay.
So I assure people we've got this, we're going to come out okay.
If I know, for example, if it's an agent on my team and maybe a deal is cratering, or maybe if one of my attorneys is putting a deal together, or maybe a new motion got filed first, I'm here for you.
I'm here to help.
And second, we're going to get through this.
And putting things in perspective, it's going to be okay to not – it's going to be okay – you're going to eat tonight.
Your kids are going to be okay.
We're going to get through this.
And really reassuring them of that helps.
Because a lot of people go to that amygdala kind of fight or flight or this fatal oh, if this deal doesn't go through, I can't pay my mortgage, or I can't pay my kid's orthodontist, or there's this And I've been there so I can empathize with it.
So empathizing with what it's like for people and then me just knowing I'm not face down in a shy carpet with a gun against my head, and my kids are okay.
My kids aren't in the hospital because I've gotten a call once in a while of you know There's been an accident or something's going on, and I get very elevated if something like that's going on.
But in terms of a business deal, I stay.
Hopefully people will know this reference.
I stay like the Fonz.
Yes.
No, it's true.
It is true.
And it is, you're very hard to rattle, which I appreciate as a friend and a colleague too.
And I think that the key word is perspective.
Being able to recognize those moments where you're starting to get triggered.
Widen your aperture, recognize the big picture and realize okay, in the entire context of everything that could potentially be happening, I'm in a good spot, right.
And I think when you go through those tough situations, it helps you to access that calm that comes only through perspective.
And the other thing that i wanted to explore here too, is i want to go back to one of the things that you mentioned about leverage, because this is one of the the key letters in your acronym, and you brought in something that i don't think is explored enough, which is It's not just with leverage the asymmetry of need.
It's also the ability, there's a performative aspect for it as well.
And so you might have a situation where they do have all the leverage, but you don't act as if they do.
You have to keep your cool.
So let's talk about the necessary level of performance arts that needs to be applied, sometimes when you really are up against it.
I like it.
In performance arts part of what we do, and you are a practicing attorney.
I'm a practicing attorney and there is some performative nature to it.
The other thing is to not program your mind that David is going to lose against Goliath.
It's okay when the deck is stacked.
It's okay when they might have more leverage.
That means we've got to be more creative and more focused on finding solutions or getting a leverage point of how we're going to influence them.
And one of the best ways to do this is to build trust.
Build trust with the other side and then build rapport, because people like to do deals with people they want to talk to and that they feel respected by, and that they like and that they can take their word for something.
Okay, we're going to get this deal done.
Are we still going to be are we going to be partners after this deal?
And this happens a lot as a corporate attorney and some of the deals that we're putting together.
I'm involved in a really big one right now with the MA and there's there's some very big money and there's some very big egos involved.
And I keep reminding them you're going to be partners when this is done, and beating up on each other and saying these things about each other, these things that you wanted me to say to the other side, I don't think this is going to be good for a good partnership going forward.
So a lot of the situations I find myself in are the David and Goliath.
And yes, I will admit, they don't all go according to the legend.
Some crater and some don't go.
Well,
The mindset of going into a deal, with a negotiation and you know this, because you teach this is that yes, you can be David and you can still win.
What if?
Imagine if this was the TED Talk.
What if you can go in?
What if the The deck is stacked against you?
And what if you can tilt this, not necessarily that you're going to win to a zero-sum game.
What if you could tilt this and make it a multi-win?
And what if everybody feels good that...
David wins and Goliath doesn't have to be trampled or Goliath doesn't have to be fallen by the stone.
So I think these are things that are really important for dealmakers.
It's not a capital murder trial.
It's a deal, and usually deals mean that people are going to need to coexist with each other.
Yeah, that's it's.
It's something that can often be lost in the fog of war, when you just get caught up on othering the other side and you're realizing hey listen, this person is the obstacle that stands between me and what i want.
So i need to go like, just mow down this obstacle.
But again it goes back to that word perspective, being able to zoom out.
And then also, when you're zooming out, it doesn't just give you the composure that you need, It also gives you the ability to see potential opportunities for synergy and collaboration.
Because, like you said a lot of times, we think about it as a zero sum game, is David versus the Goliath.
Like you said, sometimes Goliath wins just because that's how it's set up.
And then sometimes David wins, too.
But there could be another way.
And I think a lot of times negotiation is that third way.
Effective negotiation is that third way.
But some people, especially when they're caught up in the fog of war, they call it negotiation, but it's really just litigation without a judge.
They're just trying to argue and defeat the other person and beat them into submission with logic and reason.
And even if you do succeed in that, in that endeavor, just like you said, at the end of the day you have to work with the person.
Most of the time you have to coexist in some capacity and people will try to come back and get back at you.
That's just the nature of humanity.
And so when you're in these tough negotiations and you recognize that the other side is having that me versus you type of mentality, where they're becoming combative and getting locked into the competitive realm of negotiation,
How do you help them to gain better perspective and collaborate in the in that tough conversation?
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This is the art.
It's interesting because I was recently – someone said, what do you do for a living?
And I said, I help people get out of their own way.
And it's a lot of the work because there's – as an agent and or as a lawyer you're trying to get a deal done.
And there are people that have opposing interests.
Or at least in their minds, they're opposing interest.
Somebody wants more, somebody wants to pay less, or vice versa, or terms or different things like that.
Ego gets involved.
So the biggest thing for me is it's really hard.
Just like you don't say to someone, don't panic.
It's hard to say, okay, let's have some perspective here.
It's more of setting a table and setting a vision of.
I understand you're feeling frustrated and triggered.
Or if we're talking about Chris Boss, it seems like you're doing this.
It seems like you're upset by this, and I can understand why.
If we think about the variables and options here, we could approach just a couple of different ways.
One way is we could walk away today and we could come back and see if the deal's still on the table.
We could lean in more.
We could pound our fist on the table.
And a lot of times the client wants us to pound our fist on the table.
Tell them that if they don't do this, we're going to trial or we're doing XYZ or, you know, we're going to put an injunction.
And yes, there are a lot of attorneys who would lean into that because at the end of the day, it's lucrative for their firm and maybe they have that mentality where they want to do it.
So sometimes explaining look, I know an agent or an attorney might say this to you and they might agree with you.
If you're okay, I want to take a counter position just to be sure you're informed.
And then once I've informed you, why don't you make a decision?
So I put them into kind of the choice theory.
And once they feel like they have options, you know, people get triggered when they feel boxed in.
So part of it, of helping them get out of their own way, is helping them get out of the box that they think that they're in.
Because when they feel confined, they start really pushing.
Yes.
And I feel like people often overlook that point because people might say we got them in a corner, right where we want them.
It's like that's when they fight the hardest.
And that's when people get hurt.
So you have them right where nobody wants to be.
And the reality is the brilliance of your approach gives people choice, autonomy, and agency.
Because if you give them the perception that you are pulling away choice, autonomy and agency, then all they want to do is fight like hell to get it back and prove to you that they are their own person, that they can do whatever they want to do, even if it's a bad decision.
Even if it's a bad decision on principle, they want to kind of rebel.
And so it's kind of the counterintuitive judo type of move where you say hey listen okay, you can do whatever you want to do.
Here is another option, your choice.
And oftentimes, if it's with opposing counsel or somebody who's a little bit more combative, I will explicitly let them know.
Hey listen, your job is to do what's best for you.
And I completely understand.
And given the fact that we're having a conversation, we might as well.
Try to work together to solve this problem.
And if it doesn't work out, go ahead.
You can continue with the lawsuit.
That's fine.
But since we're here, we might as well.
And so a lot of times when you are not at as directly aggressive, it is like a pattern breaking maneuver where they're saying wait a second.
I was about to fight back but there was no attack.
What is this?
And it kind of provides them with a bit of a record scratch that allows them to kind of slow down and think through their approach.
And it's interesting because in my earlier years I didn't want to be perceived as direct or aggressive.
And what I'm learning and, by the way, I learned this with you over the years and the way that you carry yourself is that You're not aggressive at all.
You're confident, but you're very direct.
And being direct goes to trust.
I know when you and I have a conversation, I'm going to get the real deal.
And that's important to me.
I'm not going to overshare about my triggers and my childhood, but kids who grew up during uncertainty become adults.
And They don't like uncertainty.
One of the ways that you can help them deal with uncertainty is to build trust and consistency.
I was actually with Alex Rodriguez last week and somebody asked him what's the fastest way that someone can build trust with their team?
And he thought about it for a second and then he said consistency.
It was almost a no-brainer.
If you're consistent, if you show up the same way, then people know that they can count on you and they know they can trust you and they know they can rely on you and that you're predictable.
This is a really big thing in negotiations and it happens a lot with attorneys.
It's a pretty small world.
So, even though I'm in LA and there's I don't know thousands, tens of thousands of attorneys in LA in the corporate deal making space, There's probably a couple hundred that are in the deals that we're in.
We bump elbows.
If we go in there and we bloody somebody and we yell at them or we say something unkind or we embarrass them in front of their client, they'll remember that and that'll come out in another deal.
So being professional, being direct, not being aggressive, being confident in your position.
By the way, if we're talking about tilting, one of the ways to tilt things is that if someone's yelling at me, I'm not as worried.
If someone's quiet and measured And they're making some little notes like oh, what have they got up their sleeve?
So I think a nice, calm, direct, confident demeanor is a really good way to tilt things.
Well, first of all, I appreciate the compliment.
And yeah, I think when it comes to being direct, the when you're being a straight shooter, that means that you are calling it like it is in your favor and against you too.
Because I remember in some of our toughest conversations I was kind of talking about some things that have happened in the past.
And I said, hey, this is where I believe our team missed the mark.
Tell me if this feels right, because it seems like you all have been making a lot of changes for us.
And then my team hasn't been demonstrating a lot of gratitude for that, without recognizing how much you've already given.
Am I close on that?
You're like, yeah, that's that's right.
So sometimes I had to jump in in the middle of some email chain.
Right.
And again, that was that was my school was in session with you because your, your level of acumen and communication style is so advanced.
And it was great because I can happily say I'm going to learn from this guy.
I didn't think, oh, I know all this stuff.
And I really was taking notes and taking mental notice of the way you carried yourself, because it really impacted me a lot.
And again, I mean we've hit some friction, we've hit some turbulence and we've always approached things in a graceful, professional way, which i think is great.
I wish more people in our profession would do that.
Yeah, and i think a lot of it is based in fear too, because the one thing it's the difference between confidence and arrogance.
I think confidence is more about knowing what you can do, and it's it's accurate too, because Confidence I don't think can truly exist without humility.
And for me, humility is all about accuracy.
If I'm good at something, I know that.
But I also know where I'm not good.
I understand where other people have more insight.
And, I think, a lot of people, especially when they are in an industry like ours.
They are able to make a living off of being seen as very smart and intelligent.
And as a result, they fear any cracks in the armor, anything that could get behind the facade.
And for me when a part of my confidence comes from just accepting the fact that I know it's literally impossible for me to be right about everything.
So the other person has a lot to teach me.
And I think it allows me to sit back still be a straight shooter, be confident and direct, but also be willing to adapt and flow and make room for other people.
So yeah, I've seen it in our space, whether it's we see it a lot with lawyers, but then in thought leadership too, we see that come through.
But I think a lot of that comes from fear.
Yeah.
And I'm just going to open up here.
I resonate with that or that resonates with me so much because I was that guy.
I was the guy who was afraid, who the stakes were everything.
And when things weren't going my way, my mortgage wasn't going to get paid or my kid wasn't going to eat in my head.
And so this the wise Ken today was not Ken 15 years ago, for example and going on this journey of working with people like you and studying other people and doing some personal growth work and going to the Hoffman process and other things like that have really helped me with that perspective.
And like, soothing little Kenny's tummy, like it's going to be OK.
We're going to get through this.
And I think that's so important because the work that we do is not so much for us.
You know we, we want to be protectors and providers and papa bears for our family which, by the way, is a lot of pressure.
And that's kind of our our our primacy is take care of.
And the way that we do that is we take care of our clients.
And when people and I'm going to say me, because I don't want to lump you into it, but when I used to think about this if I'm really putting my client first, I need to be in a healthy space.
I need to feel good.
And I need to not get afraid and triggered about this client's deal.
I can't make it about me.
I've got to make it about them.
And what I see happen so often is people get so wrapped up in the trigger.
They forget, hey, we're supposed to be here for them, not us.
And I see this time and time again, especially in in conference rooms, where we're trying to get deals done or settle cases and somebody usually an attorney or a high powered agent really goes off and kind of loses their you know what.
And let's actually talk about that, because you said something really interesting earlier which I think is a paradigm shifting revelation for a lot of folks too.
Because when we think about tough conversations and tough negotiations and difficult people, we often envision that person who is loud and aggressive and yelling.
But you said something very interesting a few minutes ago.
You said, the person who's yelling doesn't scare me.
It's the person who is being measured and taking notes.
Can you tell us more about that?
Yeah, it's interesting.
We're finishing up a couple of vignettes on the story.
And years and years and years ago, I was a partner in a manufacturing company and We leased a big warehouse space.
And it was kind of these family heirs.
Their dad had owned this huge industrial complex.
And long story short, someone had dropped the ball on some of the lease terms.
And fortunately, that somebody was not on our side of the table.
We sign this lease, we buy all these millions of dollars worth of equipment, we get everything ready to roll out, the assembly line's ready to start going and the fire department shows up.
Where's your certificate of occupancy and where's your fire exit corridor and all this stuff that oops?
Wait, we thought the space was already ready to go.
It said that in the lease, by the way.
So we get into a beef with these heirs of the landlord.
And when I say kids, they were probably in their 40s at the time, but They clearly were not the gracious people that had built this community of all these kind of industrial companies in this big complex.
They were really about getting the bucks.
And it was two sisters and a brother.
Let's call him Mark.
Actually, his real name is Mark.
The two sisters are lovely.
We're in there.
We're all in the conference room in a law firm, in a big law firm with a bunch of big fancy names.
And we're there.
And this guy, Mark, whose name is really Mark, shows up 20 minutes late in a cowboy hat.
And he says My father built this park and I'm here to tell you and you and you.
And he pointed to my two partners and I I'm here to tell you and you and you that we're not budging one inch and you're going to pay for these tenant improvements and we're we're not giving you rent blah blah blah blah blah, blah.
And, I was there in shock.
I was younger but I knew enough because I'd been around enough bullies like this, especially kind of the motorcycle gang.
And I said, hey, can we take a break?
I took my partners out in the room, and I'm like, just keep your calm.
Let the lawyers do the talking.
This guy's a bully.
And just let him blow off steam.
And what ended up happening is his sisters ended up turning against him.
Because they saw that he was just being a buffoon.
So it's just an example of the way people show up or the bully mentality.
You don't always have to stick up for yourself.
You could let your lawyers do it.
You could let other people on the other side of the table.
It's really interesting when they're all a little afraid and they know there's some uncertainty of a big lawsuit and they know that Bro is a little unhinged.
Then they start to kind of bring things together.
And we actually resolved that in a pretty decent fashion, more in our favor than not.
And I think a lot of it was that that guy just showed up really in a very arrogant, angry way.
Fearful way that doesn't look like he's fearful, but he was clearly fearful.
Hmm, One of the things that's most powerful about this to me is the fact that as soon as you saw that, you said timeout.
We're slowing this thing down.
And if you think about it from the lens of just sports, we understand momentum is real and we can understand the directionality of conversations and energy.
And sometimes, especially when we are starting to feel emotionally flustered, we will lose our sense of direction in a conversation and become a little bit confused.
The biggest mistake you can make there is assuming that you have it under control.
And so just like in sports, sometimes you just need to call a timeout.
Listen, I don't know what's happening, but it's clearly bad.
Let me talk this over, gather myself and come back.
It's an elite level negotiation move.
But I think a lot of times people are too afraid of the fact that they believe it might reflect poorly on them.
But it doesn't reflect poorly on you if you are taking a break and avoiding making a costly error under pressure.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is he walked in, cowboy tough guy, and said, we're not budging.
And clearly he budged.
You're starting off with a ridiculous, unnecessary bluff.
And the last thing is when you – and maybe this –
I'm taking some liberties here, but I'm going to an acronym of great negotiation.
Experts said it's called TILT.
You might be familiar.
When it comes to influence, sometimes you have to recognize that you are not the most influential person to the person in the room.
You have your lawyers who have your back.
It's their job to get in the mud.
That's not my job.
That's why I paid you.
And then you also have the sisters who are there, who are more even keeled and have a better understanding.
Hey, listen, get your boy.
I'm not going to say that with my voice.
I'm going to say that with my eyes.
And then you handle that yourself.
So it's so funny because I think if you're just looking at it just with a camera, with no captions or anything, and you see what happens, you would say well, Ken didn't do much of anything there, but you did a lot.
So much at an elite level that's beneath the surface.
But once you actually start to bring it to the fore and highlight it, you realize that so much of negotiation excellence is in the subtleties of human interactions.
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It was really interesting because I was very junior in my career when that happened and I was still figuring life out.
I still am.
But in those days it just really seared into my brain of wow, this guy's behaving in a way that shows he's really uncomfortable.
There was a real amygdala hijack going on there for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
And again, it's it gives you power to to know you've handled tough situations like this before.
And now you can see the commonalities in this situation to listen.
This is this is a different version of a bully.
And now we have a new we have I can identify what this is.
And what's interesting, and tell me what you think about this.
I find that when you are up against a bully in a negotiation, you're in a situation where you're dealing with somebody whose negotiation skill set is usually very shallow.
And when you were a bully, you have most likely been a bully for a very long time.
And this bullying behavior still is part of your approach because it works in the majority of cases if somebody is not well trained and they can't handle the emotion or the heat.
But then if you find yourself up against somebody as a bully and you're up against somebody who does not fear your aggression, then what else is there?
It's not that much.
And once you can just manage to stay there, stay calm, stay in the eye of the hurricane, as I would call it.
You realize the bully is not as scary as it originally seems.
You're 100% right.
There's two pieces to that.
As a skill set for them and their toolkit, it's pretty clear that their toolkit is very narrow.
If the best they can show up with is to be a bully.
And then there's this cognitive disconnect that If they're so triggered and activated, there's got to be something going on.
They're either afraid of a different outcome or they can't get us there through ethical or professional or graceful ways.
The only way they can really see through this is to try and bully.
Again, unless someone's got a gun to my head, and then maybe I can talk my way out of it.
Maybe that was the one time pass.
Unless someone's got a gun to my head in a conference room, I we can pause.
We can go take a water break.
We can go walk around the block.
We can walk out.
There's always options rather than having to just stay in the path of the bully.
100%.
And let's talk about options because I believe options are a critical point of leverage too.
Because In negotiation, I think we spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about the actual interaction with the person on the other side and not the moves that we can make away from the table that give us the leverage we need to tilt the room in our favor.
So can you talk about the strategy as it applies to leverage?
So it's interesting.
As you were saying that, I was thinking and this is a term in our industry, you know BATNA and WATNA.
You know, what's the best alternative?
What's the worst alternative?
And we all kind of know the best and worst before we go in the room.
What are the seven things in between the best and the worst that most people aren't thinking about?
And again, the bully is probably only seeing one extreme or another.
They're not seeing all the things in the middle.
So having a clear head, being creative, asking people – and you're really good at this – asking people questions or getting people's buy-in.
So sometimes – and we're in the middle of this big deal that I was talking about and there's some really major law firms involved, some really major egos involved and there's some really tricky terms that are being discussed.
And instead of us going through and doing all the red lines, I'm saying okay, look folks, we're down to three meaningful issues here.
They're meaningful to us because we're stuck on these.
We understand they're meaningful to you.
You understand they're meaningful to us.
You're clearly the smarter people in the room How would you approach this?
What do you think a solution out of this is that isn't your current position?
And that really helps a lot because it helps other people get into the mode of they have a choice and asking them to be creative.
So, instead of us proposing something that they're going to whack them all down, we're saying to them okay, so you know where we're at.
We know where you're at.
What do you think is a way forward here?
And using that type of method with people really helps a lot.
It's a good kind of log jam opener.
Yeah, I think it's powerful.
And really, especially if you're working with somebody who has an ego, this is a healthy way to challenge their ego in a way that doesn't inflame it and direct their I are toward you, because you're saying hey listen, you are smart.
In fact, I think you are smart enough to solve this.
So considering where we are, what's another solution that could work for both of us?
You know what?
Can I am smart?
Here's an answer.
Oh, you got me.
You got me.
It's risky.
Yeah.
And sometimes it's smarter or what I've been using more is more experienced.
You're more experienced.
You've been doing this a little bit longer than I have.
What do you think?
Or what have you seen in some other deals?
You've clearly done some more complex deals.
There must be some other creative solutions you've come up with here.
So it really kind of depends on where their sweet spot is and helping find that.
And this method works with bullies, because typically bullies are the ones that are coming on strong that are slammed down on the table.
It's this way or the highway kind of a thing.
So saying, oh, we understand and we're at an impasse.
We all want to get this deal done.
This is a one plus one equals 10, not one plus one equals two.
So in your experience and doing other similar deals, how have you handled this before?
It also reminds them and empowers them that it's within them to find a solution right.
I love this.
There's so much going beneath the surface and i think a good way to remind ourselves is um, just when you think about you taking off the y from the bully, they're just the bull.
You become the matador.
You never try to lock horns with a bull or a bully.
It is not conducive to productive conversation.
But if you recognize all right cool, I'm going to let this emotion just go past me and then stay right here in the center then you're in a good position to actually make moves from a position of power within the conversation.
And What's interesting too is, if you take the time to listen to these outbursts, they are not just speaking in the language that they're speaking in.
They are speaking in clues and evidence.
It's like, oh, interesting.
What does this person care about?
It seems like he mentioned his father first. eight times when he said, my dad gave this to me.
Okay.
It sounds like he was a really great man and he meant a lot to you.
Okay.
Interesting.
And I might be off, but it sounds like there is an element of his legacy that is important to you that is having some effect on your decision making here.
So can you help me to understand what is making this so important to you?
Because it seems like this is more than just business.
It's like, oh, wow.
Now I'm not afraid of you, but I see you got some problems.
Let's dig into it.
Yeah, exactly.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
And I.
Part of the work that you and I do is to understand people.
That doesn't I mean we're still human and we're still kind and we're still empathetic.
It doesn't mean because we label somebody like that, that we're putting them down.
It just helps us to understand where they're coming from.
Yes, 100 percent.
And this reminds me of I was chatting with my wife, Whitney, last night.
And I said you know what an emotional goal for me is like a goal rooted in emotional intelligence is, if there is somebody who's operating against me, my explicit emotional goal is to not feel the way that they want me to feel.
And when you think about a bully, it's a tactic geared toward destabilizing you emotionally.
So you make bad decisions under pressure.
And really, when we think about it in a sick kind of way, the bullies are actually offering us peace.
And so what they do is they enter your life, they steal your peace and then they ransom it back to you.
Listen, if you give me all the terms that I want, I will give you the peace that I stole from you.
And if you can get to a point where you are not emotionally affected by their outbursts, then it feels like a superpower.
Because again, like we said before, they have a very shallow toolbox.
And if you say I'm not going to make the cardinal sin of negotiation, I'm not going to trade substance for emotion, You're offering me emotion.
I'm not going to give you substance in return.
I'm not going to make that mistake.
And if we remember that, as long as we keep our cool and hold on to our autonomy and agency and recognize that I'm the one that's in control of whether or not I make a bad decision, we can let this outburst go past.
Use it as a tool to gather information through their emotionality.
And then, again, just try to steer the conversation in a productive direction.
This is great.
OK, Simone, I see you leaning in.
Simone's ready with this question.
So tell me, brother, what do you what do you have in mind?
I actually have a question for both of you.
And it's like both of you are lawyers.
And now you're empowering people to negotiate.
It's not the other way.
Leave that to me.
I will negotiate on your behalf.
Why are you doing the opposite?
Why are you doing it in the opposite direction?
Is there any kind of motivation for you guys that you say okay, I'm going to help people, or why you're Giving that superpower to people?
What is your first motivation?
One of the reasons that I like to teach.
I'm still teaching at USC and it's altruistically, it's a give back and I like it.
It also keeps me reminded that. of the importance of openness and learning.
So when I'm helping people understand how to tilt the room and how to get better outcomes for themselves or their families or their clients, it feels very rewarding in terms of empowering and enabling people.
It also helps me keep my tools sharp as well.
So it's a real multi-win.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And very similarly I you know my motto.
I believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations.
So I recognized how liberating it was when I was able to lean in and have these tough conversations.
What back when I was a people pleaser, this was just life changing.
So I want to give that gift to more people.
And then also from a legal perspective for me.
I recognize that there are more problems that people can solve than they realize.
And you can often, even if I go in as a lawyer and I make, I solve the problem.
In bringing me into the conversation when you didn't necessarily need to.
You made the problem worse because, even though I solved it, we haven't addressed the underlying issue within the relationship that led us to this situation.
So I want people to be more empowered to solve their own problems so they can live better lives and then use us appropriately too.
Because, just like with Ken's story, I think about the times where I've been in a tough conversation with negotiating on behalf of a client.
And I tell them, hey, listen, let me be the bad guy.
I don't need to deal with these people.
You need to.
So I can step in and protect you in this moment, but you still have to have the underlying relationship.
So I think it's still important for people to have that core skill because even after litigation, after mediation, whatever it happens to be the litigator, the lawyer, the mediator, the judge, they're going to be gone.
And most likely, you're still going to have to find some level of productivity within this relationship.
So I think it's a core human skill that people don't get.
And then the last part is just.
We learn all of these things that have varying degrees of relevance to our actual life going through school, but we never learn how to communicate effectively.
Most of us haven't taken a class on just basic communication, expectation setting.
Conflict resolution advocacy influence, and those are all things that you will do day to day if you are a person who happens to interact with other people during your life.
So I think about it as a public good.
I want to create the largest online freely available audio resource library on the planet.
And we've done that with 1700 plus episodes going almost 10 years now.
And so it's it is very altruistic.
And you know this journey has been, has taken me in a much different direction than I thought.
It was truly altruistic.
The business side just kind of happened and I'm happy about it.
But that's that's really what it comes from for me, too.
Great question.
I love this.
OK.
So Ken, before we go, I want to give a send off for people to get them really excited about the book, because we've had a lot of great authors on and we've there's so many great negotiation books.
What is it about your book that makes it so different from everybody else's?
That's the question of the last quarter as we've been reworking the book.
What I'm really enjoying about the new version of the book is that it's got relatable stories.
From the streets, from kind of the mid-level workings and then at some very high-level legal Wall Street, MA type investment banking.
So there's something for everybody here.
And we all make deals every day, probably an average of 20 to 30 deals.
Who's going to go first in line?
Who gets to use the bathroom first?
All these negotiations, all these deals.
So if people can be better off and again not necessarily needing to take advantage of people, but if they can get better outcomes for themselves or their families or their teams, then it's a really good outcome to do that.
So what I love about the book now is that it's got relatable stories and practical takeaways.
Yes.
And let me take it a step further if I may.
Um, because I think what the other thing that makes it cool is the fact that these aren't just like case studies of other people's situations.
You are very unique in that you've been on the ground level of some of the hardest situations possible.
We just shared one of the many stories that are in the book.
And so I can't think of anybody else who even has the capacity to approach this topic from that level and be so real and authentic, because you've been using these skills throughout your life in so many different scenarios, different parts of the world, in different industries, with different people.
I'm so excited.
I can't think of another negotiation book that I'm more excited about the release for, because This there's never been anybody who has been positioned to approach the topic from this way.
Thank you.
Yes, my pleasure.
Well, Ken, thank you, my friend, for coming on the podcast.
And thank you for being such a good friend.
And thank you for all the speaking gigs.
Big speak is the best.
So thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you.
