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When we say internal curiosity, what do we mean by that?
So when I talk about curiosity and specifically internal curiosity, I'm talking about us being an inquiry around how we think, how we feel, and how we behave.
And so when I, for example, am becoming internally curious, it's about, you know, what am I thinking at any given moment?
What are the thought patterns that I'm, what are the thought patterns that I use that work and what are the ones that I use that don't?
When I'm getting curious about my internal feelings, I'm wondering what am I feeling right now?
You know, so often, for example, we have standard ways of answering that, you know, fine and okay, by the way, are not emotions, but people you, like, how are you feeling?
I'm okay. That's, I have no idea what that means.
You know, okay, could mean I'm angry and furious, or it could mean I'm sad, or it could mean I'm feeling shame.
So internal curiosity for me and around emotions is really being able to accurately identify and get curious about what emotion it is that we're feeling or emotions, because we could also, of course, have more than one, and then around how I'm behaving, right?
So when I'm curious about the behaviors that I'm engaging in, I'm wondering, are they in alignment with my values?
You know, is this a way that I want to behave?
Is my choice right now being informed by something that happened in my past or something that's going on for me in the present?
So for me, it's really about being an inquiry.
And I believe that when we are in inquiry with ourselves, we are investing in ourselves.
We are creating a vehicle that allows for a greater return on investment, because when we get curious, we actually make better choices and we are more productive and we allow ourselves greater creativity.
So I believe that internal curiosity really fuels a better way of living in so many words.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And one of the things I like to do is play devil's advocate here.
So I'll play the role of the skeptic.
So I love that. You're like my oldest child.
Exactly. So what about those people out there who say, well, all of this psychological woo woo is a waste of time.
You know what the right thing to do is, just do the thing and then get it done.
I love that you've said that because first, I've gotten that question not only from you, but from clients, you know, who say, look, why does it matter?
You know, why does it matter if what I'm thinking right now is grounded in something that happened when I was 5 15 or 25, I'm 45 years old right now.
The choice in front of me is A or B or C, you know, what do I need right now in order to make that.
And I guess my response would be, listen, we're complex human beings and we are complicated.
And it's not always easy and people don't always know.
And in fact, there's so much that goes on at a psychological level that we are not conscious of that if we can pause for a minute and get curious, maybe we can become a little bit more conscious of, which can actually allow us to make maybe just an incrementally better choice than what we might have made
if we weren't as curious or conscious.
So for me, I guess, you know, I always like to think of, you know, do I want to be like two times tougher or do I want to be 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 times tougher, right?
And I am always looking to elevate and level up.
And so I want to go more beyond, you know, well, what's just adequate right now or what's good enough.
I want to excel and really make the very best choices for myself that I can in any given moment.
And for me, having that self -awareness and self -understanding and introspection aids me in order to do that.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
And it reminds me, I just bought a new car and it requires a different gasoline.
So it's premium, but I'm just over the course of my entire life, I've been putting in, you know, the regular gas, regular.
And so I I accidentally started putting in regular gas in the car.
So half of the tank was full of regular.
And then I said, Oh, no, I need to put in the right gasoline.
And Laura, I could tell.
I could tell very clearly that there was something not right here.
Right. That's that's amazing.
That's a great metaphor.
Exactly. Because what's inside will have an impact on what's outside.
And so somebody might look at the car and just say, Hey, it's a nice car, just drive it further, drive it faster.
And I say, well, there's a problem on the inside here.
We have to address it.
And that's essentially what we're talking about here.
That's right. We won't know about what's going on in the inside if we don't take the time to go through this process of internal curiosity.
That's right. And our internal journey shapes our external experience.
And so, you know, to understand how we are operating in our external experience and how we are contributing to our external experience, we have to, from my perspective, get curious about our internal journey and know more about that.
Absolutely. And what's interesting too, let's go back to the person who might be skeptical of all of this.
Yeah. Just do what you need to do.
All right. Let's say you are able to push through and then do what you need to do.
And then you're able to do it actually at a decently high level.
But did you enjoy that?
How was that experience?
Right. Because you can't just focus on the outcome.
We have to think about the process and how we felt about it too.
Because if you present somebody with the option, hey, you could be successful and miserable versus, hey, you can be successful and feel good about yourself.
The obvious answer is feel good about yourself.
Right? But a lot of times we're not willing to do the internal work in order to get there.
That's right. And I think, you know, what's really important to me sometimes too, is, you know, we're always talking about like, well, what's your next step?
You know, what are you going to do next?
What's your next best choice going to be?
And I like to weave in the idea of how do you want to feel next?
You know, like in your next step, how do you want to feel?
Cause it's not just about the doing part of that.
I mean, we like to believe that we are doing and thinking beings and we like to kind of think of this feeling being is something that like, yeah, maybe we experienced during Christmas time because it's nostalgic or during our anniversary when we hold up the idea of having a loved one, or maybe if we
lose a parent and we experience grief, but like all these other feelings, like, you know, I'll put, I'll keep them at bay for now until I'm ready to address them.
But the truth is that we are walking around feeling beings all the time.
And so if we can have a greater understanding of where those feelings are coming from and integrate them with our thoughts and our behaviors, that integration to me means more integrity.
It means more thoughtful and meaningful choices that allow us to move forward with our values intact.
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Hey you, I'm Andrew Seaman.
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And Joe, in your opinion, what are some of the biggest psychological mistakes that people make during negotiation?
Oh, I love that question.
Thank you. I think the biggest mistake is thinking that little things don't matter.
If I could say, hello McFly, every little thing is important.
From the moment you walk in, how you set up the meeting, how you greet the staff, you know, saying hello to the security guards, the receptionists, everything else.
Being attentive to others in the smallest of ways, being polite, shaking hands, being mindful not to elevate emotions.
Something so simple, you know, you and I were talking recently about that we can increase FaceTime with each other if we but would just angle each other a little bit.
Because to look at each other straight on is in effect very antagonizing.
And the minute that we can just sort of, even if it's just rotating a little in the chair, we can just soften the mood.
Turn yielding, making it an art form that, you know, I'm gonna let you speak and I'm gonna let you speak fully and completely.
And then I hopefully you will yield and then it'll be my turn.
And you know, I mean, I can tell you all the horror stories of people in negotiation and somebody's, you know, working their phone or somebody's picking their ear and you say, no, I can't believe I'm seeing this.
And that's because nobody has told them that everything in the theater of negotiations matters.
Everything. And, you know, from, you know, facial reactions, right.
So we often talk about facial reactions and somebody will throw out a number and immediately you'll see the wrinkled nose and, you know, the shaking head.
And right away now you've got to deal not just with the possibility of a no, but you're dealing with someone who is demonstrating this, which makes it even more difficult because now you have to overcome this display and so forth.
So it's, I would say it's that recognition that the small things don't matter.
I think most people in negotiations work the facts and work the, but, you know, I know in the FBI, we would literally rehearse, you know, how we would walk in, who would walk in first, where we would sit, who looks at whom, how are things transacted, who will say what words, all because, you know, in the theater
of the interview or the theater of negotiations, it's the small things that really matter.
You're absolutely right.
And I think that's one of the most interesting things about what you bring to the table with your expertise to really hammering home that reality.
And I think about the, one of the classic sayings from chess is every move has a purpose.
You don't just make moves for the sake of moving to the pieces.
There's always a reason behind it.
Absolutely. For instance, when do we call recess?
When do we take us, when do we ask for a break?
When do we stop sitting down?
I remembered I was giving a lecture at up North at a really prestigious university, and they were shocked when I said, well, why don't we just get up from the chair?
And it's like, like what?
Yeah. Why do we have to remain sitting?
Just get up from the chair, put the chair in front of you, you still got the conference room there, and decide that you want to stand and talk about what you're passionate about.
Why are you talking passionately about something sitting down?
And it's how we orchestrate that.
The use of the hands to explain, to envelop, to demarc that we're talking about one thing, and that we have studied it carefully, dynamically, and that we have made a decision of how we're going to proceed.
Just those gestures potentiate the message.
Can you imagine if I had just said that with my hands on my lap, it would lose its meaning, and yet we know that when you use gestures and you combine it with, for instance, a certain cadence of speech that people just can't stop but listening to you.
And that's a great way to reveal your commitment to what you're saying.
So, everybody, now you have a reason to follow our YouTube page so you can see Joe explaining with these gestures because this is going to, maybe it doesn't sound silly, maybe this is the point, but it was almost hypnotic, right?
I was so in, I was so almost invested in what it is that you were saying, it certainly did have a much greater impact when you started to focus on the way that you were gesticulating.
Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that I found with exceptional speakers was their use of their hands.
I look at Colin Powell, who is really one of the great speakers out there.
He's a great thinker, a thought leader, and obviously a great general and secretary of state.
And you look at how he used gestures to really powerfully message, and throughout history, we have seen great examples of that.
And I find too many executives know the numbers but don't know how to communicate that information powerfully.
You know, the fact that I can tell you that look, this is our best offer, right?
So, now you're up against a wall and my thumbs are in a gravity -defying position.
This is it. There's no more movement here.
I am not vacillating.
I'm not in any way going to change my mind.
That's it. That puts an end to the back and forth.
You've reached that point where say, guys, ladies and gentlemen, this is it.
This is it. And that message of visual as well as vocal becomes much more powerful, and they have to react to it.
And it makes so much sense because when you think about everything as communication, we have our voice as communication, our demeanor as communication, our tone, our intonation, our body language, what we're wearing, all of those things are communicating a message.
Absolutely. The clothing that we wear, like you said, the gestures, the something so simple as, you know, how I reach for something, right?
So, the person that's jittery versus the person that reaches for it smoothly, the higher we are, the more competent and confident we are in an organization, the smoother our gestures, the lower we are, the more tentative we are, the more jittery the gestures.
So, we would literally rehearse.
All right. So, now we've been at this for two and a half hours.
I'm going to reach for that glass of water and it's going to be smooth.
And I'm going to drink it.
Think of how many people have been criticized because they've been seen on the media where they go to grab water and it's shaking.
You know, I'm not going to name names, but I mean, I've seen Silicon Valley people, I've seen, you know, heads of state doing this, not realizing that that tell, that behavior is unsettling.
And as I said, in the theater of negotiation, everything matters.
Everything matters.
When we think about the people in the audience, they're having these difficult conversations with their friends, their colleagues, their family members.
They're negotiating high stakes deal.
What is one thing that you would suggest that they do to start becoming exceptional at their craft?
I, you know, there's obviously, there's thousands of things that I could say, but if there's one powerful thing and it's the simple nonverbal is just simply sit next to them, tilt your head, can't your head slightly, which communicates, I may have an agenda, but I'm being receptive to you and query
it, do a benign query.
Tell me about what you're thinking.
What, you know, what drove you to this?
What is behind this?
Try to understand without imposing what you have to say.
One of the things that I learned in dealing with other nation state actors is that they had reason to hate us.
They had reason to not cooperate with us.
But when I gave them the opportunity to vent or to let me understand their position and not immediately interpose myself, but to give it time, I found that that was a powerful elixir.
And of all the things that I could talk about, I think this is one where, you know, we talk about active listening, active listening that yeah, that's fine.
That's 1980 stuff. I'm talking about benign curiosity.
That benign curiosity is infinitely more powerful.
And it's and its effects are so dramatically more more demonstrable because benign curiosity is something that we rarely get and we treasure that.
Wow. I've never heard it described as benign curiosity.
I think that's, it's brilliant in its simplicity.
And for you, when you think about the term benign curiosity, how are you conceptualizing that?
Well, it's something so simple as I get into a foreign city and, you know, I get in a cab or whatever and, and, you know, I may ask the person, you know, what, what is that on that?
Oh, that's, that's really cool.
I may ask them, you know, I was born overseas.
So to me, I, you know, nobody in Florida was born.
It comes from Florida.
Everybody in Florida is from somewhere else.
So I'm always asking folks, where's your family from?
And I, I always get a positive person.
Oh, really Lebanese.
I love Lebanese food.
Best candy in the world, best candy in the world.
And, you know, and they just, you know, and open up.
But in negotiations, benign curiosity is a demonstrable attempt on my part to understand their position, to understand this is how we value it.
What most people, most people make the mistake is they immediately begin to challenge.
No, I don't want a challenge that will come.
I want them to voice how they got to this place.
And in doing so, they may also reveal the weaknesses in their argument.
Well, we consulted experts and, and, you know, and we think that this is where it's the value point where there's a lot to impact there.
You know, it's like, well, I mean, that's, that's fantastic.
So you've been looking at this for years, right?
And you've been doing, and the more interested you are in, in their process, what you're building in psychology, we call this transference and counter transference.
We're, we're at a deeper level.
We're establishing a connection because I'm not challenging anything they say.
I just want to understand as best I can, where they're, they're coming from.
Now, obviously some, some people are going to be stoic and they're not going to reveal very much.
And sometimes, you know, some negotiations, you know, it's, they're transactional and it's, it's like, okay, you know, the car dealer, he's going to hit me up for $1 ,200 because that's what the, this model car on average, they're going to hit you up for.
And that doesn't mean I'm not going to try and negotiate.
But I, you know, I want to try to explore as much as I can about them.
I want to explore the words that they use.
You know, you, you said that you were troubled by this.
What do you, what did you mean by troubled by it?
Is it, is it like an external, is it internal?
Is it, you know, is it something else?
So I use that information to, to dig deeper.
And the more they talk, the, the greater the, the connection that there is, as long as, and this is critical, you remain neutral and it's benign curiosity.
And, and that's different than active listening.
Benign curiosity is taxing.
I, I had, well, you'll appreciate this because I know you read a lot of my stuff.
I had a spy case one time where I had been interviewing this guy for hours.
And when we got up at the break, my partner looks at my back and she says, did you spill a drink?
And I go, why? She says, you have sweat from your belt line all the way to your shoulders.
And I said, Benign curiosity came in because the worst thing I could have done was challenge a suspect.
But by being benignly curious, I got him to talk in ever more details and never interrupted him once.
I would just, well, what do you mean?
You know, what do you mean by that?
And I think it's a very effective tool to use.
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We can acknowledge without agreeing.
That's the first thing.
And also remember, empathy isn't a concession.
A lot of times when it comes to these difficult conversations, let's say you're somebody who is really upset about what's happening.
Things need to change.
Everybody needs to be in on the change.
And then they're talking to somebody who disagrees.
They might feel it's a concession to empathize.
I'm not going to listen to them or appreciate what it is that they say.
Absolutely not. They need to change.
Not me. Right? That's the approach.
And the thing is, it's not that empathy is a concession.
It's a necessary part of the equation.
Imagine if you're a soldier and they say, okay, we're going to invade this territory.
All right, good deal.
So what is the territory?
Look, hey, no, no, no, we do not care what the territory looks like.
We're going to go in.
We're going to do our thing regardless of what the territory looks like.
Wait, sir, don't you think it's important to know what the territory looks like in order for us to competently move forward in this engagement?
No. Screw the territory.
Yeah. How are you going to persuade somebody if you don't understand where they're coming from?
You don't need to agree.
You just need to recognize what the barriers are.
And once you appreciate and acknowledge what those barriers are, then you can structure your argument or your conversation to address those specific barriers.
So what would this look like?
So we can say, yeah, it doesn't seem like you think this is such a big deal.
No, I think they're blowing this way out of proportion.
I think there are bigger issues, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, yeah, it sounds like you think that this is doing more harm than good.
Is that a fair assessment?
Yeah, it's doing more harm than good.
Look at all the riots.
Look at all these things.
It sounds like you think that kind of restoring order should be one of the priorities.
Absolutely. Okay, great.
All right. So now they're starting to calm down.
It's not that I agree with them.
I can acknowledge and listen and see, yeah, that makes sense.
I think order is something that that's really important.
So what do you think is causing all of this?
Now we're transitioning into getting curious with compassion.
Well, everybody got mad because of that George Floyd situation.
So what in your opinion, what happened there?
Well, you know, a cop made a mistake.
He shouldn't have done what he did, but I don't think that's a big issue in this situation.
Okay, fair enough. And so what do you think in the minds of the people who are protesting?
What do you think this means on a bigger scale, not just in this particular situation, but on a bigger scale?
Okay, well, it sounds like there seems to be a bit of a pattern.
I'm not sure I haven't seen anything in my experience that suggests there's a pattern, but it sounds like they're, they're complaining about some kind of pattern of injustice or something like that.
Okay. Could it possibly be that because of your perspective and your lived experience that you just haven't had the opportunity to see that?
Well, I guess it could be.
Well, yeah. All right.
See now we're slowly inching our way toward it.
Because the thing is we're, we're letting them convince themselves.
I barely said anything.
I just asked some questions and listened and then saw where they were coming from.
Okay. This is what you're seeing.
Now I get what you're missing.
Now I can have the conversation and pull you in that direction.
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