Today's episode is a little bit different because this time I'm not the one who's asking the questions.
What you're about to hear is a special crossover episode that originally aired on the Behaviorist podcast with my friend Howie Chand.
He's a brand strategist and storyteller who digs deeply into what drives human behavior.
In this conversation, Howie turns the mic on me and we talk about psychology, and we talk about the psychology behind negotiation, the role of humility in leadership and the lessons that come from slowing down long enough to understand yourself.
It's personal, it's real, and it's one of those conversations that reminded me why I started doing this work in the first place.
So sit back.
This is the Behaviorist Podcast featuring yours truly.
Let's jump into it.
Today's guest is one of the world's leading voices on negotiation and difficult conversations.
Kwame Christian.
He is the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute.
He is a bestselling author and the host of a top-ranked podcast, Negotiate Anything.
It's a show now with over 5 million downloads.
He's delivered a TEDx talk with over 400,000 views.
He's trained leadership teams at Fortune 500 companies, including Apple and NASA.
Are you ready to influence anyone?
When people do the trainings they're shocked at how neuroscience heavy it is, because I want to think about what are the psychological barriers that can be in my way.
How do I navigate around those?
What are the potential biases that I could utilize ethically in my favor?
This thing that I'm talking about right now is called the mere exposure effect.
Walk us through that framework, Kwame.
Walk us through the three steps.
So this is a mental model that I use that it helps you to flow through the conversation, so you know exactly what to say and when to say it.
So step one is... Let me open with this, Kwame.
Live in harmony and look to the older generations for wisdom.
Stay humble because you are not perfect.
Forgive because no one is perfect.
There will always be flaws.
Let that humility guide you.
Ooh.
How do you feel when I say this quote?
This is from your grandfather of 99 when you extracted this.
I feel free.
I feel free.
Because when you think about...
One of the things that holds people back, it's the striving for perfection, which is a myth.
And then judging ourselves against perfection, which lead to constant feelings of inadequacy.
And when I think about humility, I don't even think about it from an ethical or moral perspective.
I just think about it in terms of accepting reality.
It's just accuracy of nobody's perfect.
Why assume that they should be or you should be?
And there are very few people that are willing to hold themselves out in that way and just say yeah, make mistakes and just own it.
And holding onto that has been really liberating for me.
So yeah, freedom is what comes to mind.
So Oscar is your grandfather and he has such a long, illustrious career back in his home country.
Can you tell us more about that?
Where does that come from?
Because I think family is such a huge part of your life.
And, I think, one of your core values.
As I watch and observe you Kwame, from afar, tell me about that legacy, that lineage, how it all came to be and what you learn and garner from that.
Yeah, so it's great.
He made it to age 99, 99 years old.
And for my family, I'm a first generation Caribbean American.
My mom is from Guyana.
And that's where granddad was from.
And then my dad is from Dominica.
And I get a lot of pride from that.
It's a very clear and powerful identity for me.
And I think a lot of times, people who are lost because they don't have a true sense of self or self-origin.
I'll give an example.
My wife, she came from a family where she didn't know her father.
And that was a true source of pain for her.
And so for me, I'd think about it as a privilege being able to see very clearly my lineage to give as an honor.
And I also want to live up to that too, because my family in Guyana accomplished a lot.
My family in Dominica accomplished a lot too.
So granddad was the first permanent secretary of Guyana.
And so it was a high ranking government official position.
And he was in charge of the military and worked closely with the prime minister after independence.
And so they have a very strong tradition of service.
And just being consistent in high achievement.
And I remember one time asking granddad, how were you so successful?
How were you able to do this?
And his answer was so simple.
He said, people just knew that I got the job done.
Whatever it needed to be, I would always get the job done.
And it's just that consistency of excellence that I got from him, from my mom, from my dad, that I try to replicate as much as possible.
And it's heavy.
It's not easy, but you have role models that you can look to and say well, it's not easy, but it can be done.
Yeah.
I think one of the really interesting things about what you teach Kwame in the world of negotiation is the first step, where you have to first negotiate with yourself.
The self-heart, I feel like it's so important because many of you focus outwardly But if you have not mastered yourself, you're just not able to do what you're trying to do.
So tell me about that.
How do you first start to negotiate with yourself with all the pressures that you talked about?
What do we need to do to get ourselves to do the things that we want or should be doing?
I think the first thing is to really respect ourselves as a person.
A lot of times we are so focused on the world about our achievements or lack of achievements, the relationships, what other people want, that we don't take the time to figure out who we are, what we want and why.
And think about this.
It can be really scary, because you could be the best negotiator in the world and get exactly what you want.
And it could be the worst thing that ever happens to you, because you negotiated for the right thing, because you didn't know who you were.
Right.
So for me, it's.
It's an introspective exercise that has to happen.
And for me, it happens consistently.
I journal all the time.
I constantly try to refine my understanding of myself.
But before our tough conversations, we have to understand what it is that we want, why we want it and whether or not it's legitimate as well.
Is this coming from me?
Is it coming from society?
Is it coming from familial pressures?
Something like that.
Because a lot of times it's hard to determine where we begin and society ends and vice versa.
And sometimes we just passively absorb what it is that other people want for us and not explore what it is that we want for ourselves.
And then we might be able to communicate effectively and direct a negotiation effectively, but we might be directing it in the wrong direction, which is ultimately problematic.
When did you develop that routine Kwame of trying to understand what do you really want or what's happening in your world?
You said you have a journaling practice.
How did you develop that?
When did you do that?
I think it started pretty young and just grew in levels of sophistication.
Because studying psychology, I wanted to understand myself.
There's a joke in psychology that you can understand what somebody struggles with by what they decide to focus on within psychology.
And everybody's just there studying themselves, right?
And so I was always thinking about... who I am, what I want to be, what do I want my legacy to be.
But recently, I've really made it a practice to journal consistently.
And so I don't journal with pen to paper.
I use voice to text.
And it's pretty extreme, because the more that I've started to talk about it publicly, the more unique I realize it is.
So it's metacognitive journaling.
So any thought that I care to think again, I will write that down.
So business strategies, ideas, things like that.
But for me, my life philosophy is that we live our life decision to decision, and you improve your quality of life by improving your quality of decisions.
So whenever I make decisions, I evaluate the decision very thoroughly.
So if it was a good decision, why was it a good decision?
What led to that good decision?
If it was a bad decision, what led to that bad decision?
What was I thinking?
What was I feeling?
I dissect everything.
So I will try not to make the same mistake twice.
So for me, it's constantly leveling up through two pillars, strength and wisdom.
So wisdom is decision making, practical intelligence, not just intelligence for the sake of learning, like trivia questions, but actually meaningful intelligence and decision making.
And then strength.
This is emotional resilience, emotional intelligence, the ability to be disciplined, those type of things.
It could be physical, too, but more mental and emotional in nature.
So my goal is to level up through those two domains every day in some kind of way.
So at the end of the month, usually it's easily over 100,000 words of dictated hope that I take.
Do you do it in the morning?
Like when you wake up?
I do it throughout the whole day.
Throughout the day?
Do you do your phone?
On my phone.
Yeah, so I'd be hanging out with my friends and then think about something and I'd walk off to the side and then just mutter into my phone.
They're like, what are you doing?
I had a thought.
I am not losing it.
And then what I do...
A lot of times during the day.
This is funny because people would think oh, Kwame's listening to music all the time, or something like that.
No, I take my journal notes and I turn them into MP3 files and then I listen to that.
And I listen to it at 500 to 600 words per minute.
So it's just like hyper learning.
So it's just constantly re-evaluating thoughts and decisions and trying to hyper optimize my life through this consistent process of journaling.
All right.
So you do your voice.
Is it like notes, like voice notes that you make?
Is there a special app that you're using?
What I'll do is I'll put it into the iPhone notes app.
And I do that because the iCloud is pretty consistent.
I've had situations where I've had notes applications and then the app like goes out of business and my notes are gone.
I'm like, never again, never again.
So iPhone is very consistent.
It's always there and it's easy for me to get there very quickly.
And then I use an application called Voice Dream.
So I take the big notes, the big note files for every single month, put it into my Voice Dream app, and then I'll just listen to that.
Wow, dude.
Constantly review.
So that gives you, like you said, the ability to kind of learn really fast the decisions that you made, like what you've done.
Almost coaching yourself in a way.
Yes, exactly.
Through that.
That's the way that I think about it.
It's like I'm my own coach.
And then it's just helped me to go so much deeper and analyze patterns.
Because that's one of the things that happens.
Memory is laughably bad.
If you're not trying to remember things with intentionality, you're not going to remember it.
You probably won't even encode it in a meaningful way for it to be remembered.
So it's not that we even forget.
It's that we never learned in the first place.
And one of the things that I recognize is that, As I would go through the journal, there were some mistakes that would come up frequently.
So it's like, oh, I made this mistake in January.
Then again in March.
Oh, in September.
Great.
Okay.
I see a pattern here.
Now let's focus on this with intentionality.
And it made me realize that most of us continue to make the same mistakes over and over again over the course of our lives, running into the exact same pattern, calling it fate and not recognizing just how much control we have over our lives that we're letting go.
Because we're not taking the time to document what we've done, why we've done it, the impact it's had.
Because sometimes the thing is you can backtrack and recognize.
Oh, I'm in this bad position now because of a decision that I made a couple of months ago that at the time was innocuous, right.
And then you recognize the ripple effects that have taken you to this point.
And without deep thought and analysis, you never would have recognized that pattern.
Gosh, it makes me think about.
There's almost a macro layer of human truths and neuroscience that we have to understand.
And then there's the micro personal patterns that we go through, for us to understand, to enable us to do the things that we want to do or that we should do to get to where we want to go.
Exactly.
Here's a very subtle one, Holly.
This is one I picked up on.
So I remember when Whitney and I, we got married on graduation day.
We've been married 15 years.
And we had our first son, Kai, like about six, seven years into the marriage.
And that was the first time we had trouble in our relationship.
It was really tough.
And I would realize that always between the hours of about 6 and 9 PM.
Those were really tough because I would be driving to get Kai to bed so I could hang out with Whitney.
Whitney wanted to slow down the process and save her the time with Kai.
Whitney's a doctor, so she had to do notes.
So she would write notes. the documentation that doctors have to do every day.
And so then I would be rushing to get Kai down at that time.
And Whitney would be trying to take her time, which is admirable.
She wants to spend time with a kid after working in the hospital all day.
And then I would be ready to hang out with Whitney.
And then she had to do more medical work.
And I'm like, you know what?
I remember when I was important.
I remember back in the day when we used to spend time together.
So I recognized that there was a pattern of thought that was happening between 6 and 930 pm that was always like negative and resentful.
But then, as we started to restructure our lives in a way that allowed us to have more time together in the evening, I recognized I was still feeling the same way.
And what I think it happened was just through the neuroplastic nature of the brain, where the brain shifts with time and thoughts and activity.
I spent so many like two or three years constantly feeling that negativity at that time, to the point where, even when nothing bad was happening, when everything was fine, it was just like a mental habit to feel bad at that time.
And I was like, what is it?
And it took a lot of time to figure out what was happening.
So what I realized I had to do for a certain period of time is really reprogram my brain.
So I always, I'm at, I think 1300 straight days of gratitude in my gratitude journal.
So what I did is I took the gratitude journal notes and And I put that into an MP3 file.
So at that same time, I would review all of the positive things.
So I started to reprogram my mind to be more positive during that time.
That's the kind of subtlety that you cannot ever find without deep exploration.
And so that reprogramming helped me to feel better at those times.
But again, it's the journaling that helped me discover it.
God, I mean.
What's crazy about this is, as you're talking through this, the listeners on the podcast need to understand that's a form of negotiation, which is what you say.
Whenever you want something, you're negotiating.
It's not like you're in a boardroom and you're doing some kind of a big deal.
This is what's happening daily in our daily lives.
Yes.
And that's the thing, because when you think about it through the lens of negotiation, you recognize that there should be some kind of flexibility and it should be a win-win.
Why am I losing negotiations with myself.
That doesn't make sense.
That's just a choice.
And it helped me to recognize, especially when it comes to the emotional perspective, we spend a lot of time in negativity when we don't need to.
These emotions, sometimes they happen as a result of something that has occurred.
A lot of times they just happen.
Sometimes you just wake up and you're feeling off, whatever it happens to be.
For me, I call it when I think about emotional intelligence.
Self-awareness is the key, is the First, is the start.
But I take it to another level and think about it like a spark.
Emotions are like a spark in a forest.
And we need to make sure that we don't cause a forest fire because forest fires are hard to put out.
But a spark, like the initial flame from a spark is not.
And so the more in tune we can get with our emotions and the faster we can recognize these sparks of emotionality or sparks of chains of trains of thought, the faster we can recalibrate and get back on track right.
So I'm constantly negotiating to make sure that I'm using the right thought patterns that are moving me in the direction of my life that I want to go.
I'm managing my emotions and making sure that I'm using them as tools, not as truths that I need to just follow.
They're tools for deeper exploration.
And so I'm constantly saying, what is it that I want out of life?
Where do I want to go?
Are the decisions and actions that I'm taking right now getting me there?
And being really honest about why, even if they are not getting me there for some reason, I still feel drawn to making those decisions.
And then you can start to get to the root of the problem.
And so it takes this understanding of self-awareness and emotional intelligence and takes it to a much, much deeper level when you incorporate journaling introspection, but also through the lens of negotiation.
Because negotiation is a process that is driven toward a specific outcome.
And I think a lot of times, when it comes to whether it's just talk therapy or rumination within yourself or co-rumination with other people, we just spin around in circles and never advance.
But what we do is we just create this whirlwind that just exacerbates the emotional challenge that we're facing.
So, for me, I always want to drive toward a specific outcome and make sure that I'm setting sail in the right direction.
Yeah, as I'm listening to you, definitely seems like there's a daily, regular practice that keeps you with self-awareness, with emotional intelligence, with recognizing those emotions.
What other things that you feel like people should be doing on a day-to-day to get more in touch and be better when those moments come, when you do negotiate with somebody and try to tackle that in the best way.
Well, I think one of the things is Going back to what we talked about humility, getting an accurate assessment of ourselves, because what's really funny Howie, is that when we talk about other people, we can really easily point out this person is getting defensive.
This person is avoiding accountability.
Look at that.
Why can't we just say it to ourselves?
And it makes us, it makes, it's very hard.
And so what I recognize though, is that the difficulty is strictly an emotional barrier, and it's not real, in a sense that it exists outside of our mind.
Because once we can just start to accept those things, then we can start to make changes.
Then we can start to change the way that we interact with people.
Because sometimes now the difficult conversations that in the past might have been challenging look like this
If I'm having a conversation with you, I'm like you know how I've been thinking about what you mentioned last week.
And I think you're right.
I was thinking about it in this way.
And it was beneficial to me at this time, but it was very hurtful for you.
And I apologize for that.
And going forward, I'm going to try to do better.
What do you say to that on the other side?
You know, it's like you came out trying to, I'm going to put Kwame in his place.
Oh, he's already there and he apologized and wants to do better.
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
Yeah, you can only go up.
It's good from there, right?
That's it.
And when you are willing to just own things, a lot of times it's jarring for people.
I recognize that there were times where people thought I was being like flippant or nonchalant or sarcastic, when I would just quickly accept ownership and move on, because you have to do like the finger wagging or you know the conflict.
They're so used to people protecting their egos and like putting up shields and defenses.
Right.
But if you're just open and you just say recognize, OK, I've done that exploration.
And that fear that was leading me to make that decision, I've addressed that.
And so now when it comes to accountability, I've already explored it with myself.
So I'm not afraid to open myself up and explore it with you.
And now we can just talk about what the path forward is going to be.
It's really reassuring, but also, at the same time, it coaches the other person on how I expect them to respond in similar situations.
Because nobody's perfect, number one.
And one of the things I started doing is asking people in my negotiation trainings or keynotes.
I was like imagine if you could create a friend the same way you could create a player in a video game.
And one attribute was perfect, never wrong, never made a mistake.
Would you want that?
Everybody's like, no, that's gross.
I don't want that.
It was a terrible friend.
Why would we want?
So why are we aspiring to be that which no one wants and does not exist?
That's weird.
That doesn't make sense.
And then when you also think about it, there's studies and experiences that will show this.
A lot of times.
Making a mistake and owning up to it accelerates the relationship and makes things better than they were otherwise.
I remember one time I was using Instacart and I made my order.
Then I looked at the app and it said it was delivered and I looked around.
It was not there.
I said, maybe they dropped it in the backyard.
I don't know.
I go in the back and it's not there.
And then I get a call, a frantic call, and they're like, hey, this is Instacart.
Did you get your groceries?
I said, actually, no.
I'm looking around.
They're like, we are so sorry.
This person has stolen several families' food.
We apologize.
We've already reordered your food and gave you a discount.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
That was it.
Wow.
That was it.
So I've been using Instacart ever since.
It improved.
Look at that.
Right?
It improved my relationship with the company.
Wow.
Why would I then miss out on the opportunity to connect with people and improve my relationships there?
So humility is really a powerful tool.
I think that's one of the biggest things that people miss.
Kwame, it's so interesting that we're talking about negotiation, but we have spent the last few minutes talking about this sort of how do you have that mindset?
How do you have humility, self-awareness, emotional intelligence?
What are...
Because negotiation is not a new topic.
It's been out there for a while.
Are there things that's out there that drives you crazy, where people talk about negotiation and you're like no man dude, that doesn't work or that's a myth.
Are there things out there that's like that?
Yeah, I think the absolutes in negotiation are annoying.
Some people would say always make the first offer or never make the first offer.
And I'm like, you're showing me your negotiation skills by how definitive you're being.
That's my perspective.
Because we have practical experience and then we have science.
That says a very simple, non-controversial answer.
So if I have more information or as much information as the other side, I'm going to try to make the first offer.
If I have less information than the other side, I'm going to let them make the first offer.
Let's break this down really simply.
So imagine if we were negotiating and you're applying to a job with me.
You get the job.
Congratulations, because you're stellar.
And I'm I say, well, so what would you like to make?
And you say, I want to make $150,000.
And I say, whoa, absolutely.
Let's do this right now.
What did I do?
He said that so quickly.
How much money would I leave on the table?
Simple thing, right?
Within that situation, you didn't have as much information.
You made the first offer and you made a bad first offer.
Or the other side is you say, oh, I won $300,000.
I'm like hey Howie listen, I love you, man and I respect you too much to even engage in this negotiation.
I'm sorry.
You need to find something better.
And now you overshot it.
So either you can – you're operating off of hope.
You can undershoot it and hurt yourself and leave a lot of value on the table, or overshoot it and seem silly or lose credibility.
And the thing is an offer is nothing but information.
In that situation, what you want to do is you want to sit back and let them make the first offer, so then you get information that comes with the offer and then you counter that offer.
But if I have more information or the same amount of information, then I'm going to use the tool of anchoring, because I recognize that anchoring is a priming bias that has a disproportionate impact on the perspective of the end of the negotiation.
Every offer is going to be compared to the anchor.
It's the concept principle.
So it's one of the strongest tools in negotiation.
So for the people who say I never make the first offer I'm like so you're going to allow the other side to use the most powerful tool in negotiation?
It's like I'm going into a gunfight and it's like, forget the gun.
Give me the knife.
Always use the knife.
Always use the knife.
Always use the knife.
No matter what fight you're in, just use the knife.
Yeah.
Bringing a knife to a gunfight?
I don't want to do that.
After this quick break, Kwame shares his first principle on negotiations and how using that principle will help you avoid bringing knives to gunfights and follow blindly what other negotiation experts may tell you.
If you want to get the blueprint to influence human behavior, I've got something special for you.
Five levers, 40 methods, all science-backed and proven to work.
Use them ethically and effectively.
Whether you're selling, leading or building your personal brand, these principles will help you get the results you want.
Grab your free seven-day course of the Behavioring Blueprint.
Head over to howichan.com backslash behavioring or click on the link in the show notes.
All right, now back to the show.
Yeah, so that's my thing.
Whenever people talk about absolutes and they're like always do this, never do that, I can usually come up with a circumstance where I have personally or coach somebody who has done the opposite effectively.
We have to be able to understand the principles that lead to the outcomes that we want to drive.
And for me, that's my love of psychology.
My undergrad degree is in psych, like I mentioned.
So people think it's the law degree and the master's of public policy and the years practicing law and years as a mediator that got me to this point.
But when people do the trainings, they're shocked at how neuroscience heavy it is.
Because for me, I want to think about what are the psychological barriers that can be in my way?
How do I navigate around those?
What are the potential biases that I could utilize ethically in my favor?
I want to utilize those and the psychological principles that I could use.
That'll look and sound differently, even if I'm using the same principle with different people.
And so if we are very skilled negotiators, we can create bespoke strategies in the moment for the situation or the person in front of us.
Kwame, I love that.
What are other highly leverageable but underused strategies, principles that you see out there?
That's happening today.
I think here's a good one.
Very simple.
Sometimes you might hear a song the first time you hear a song and you're like, song's all right.
And then by the fifth time you hear the song, you're like, man, I love this song.
This is my jam.
And you're going to see a pattern here.
One of the things is I just, I look at humans as a human.
I want to say I too am human.
We are silly animals, honestly.
We're silly animals.
And this thing that I'm talking about right now is called the mere exposure effect.
It's the exact same thing.
I love that one.
But because we have been merely exposed to it multiple times and it was not negative, it was neutral or a little bit positive we then start to like that thing more.
And think about people that we see every day just walking on our path of life.
You start walking past the same person enough times and then you say hi and then you start a conversation.
How did this friendship happen?
They just happened to be in my presence numerous times.
That's it.
And so I think one of the things that people miss out on is that they rely too heavily on negotiation skills and not creating personal connections.
And so if I recognize that there is a possibility, a prospect that I might have a negotiation or tough conversation with somebody, I start building the relationship right now.
Because even if I don't have one, if I don't have that tough conversation, it never manifests itself.
At least I still have a friend or a good relationship.
But if I can start making strategic deposits into the relationship bank account, having deeper conversations over time, then when we have this conversation we have much more resilience.
We have a firmer foundation.
And I don't need to use as many negotiation skills because you already feel positively toward me, because we have a relationship.
I've recognized that, As I've gotten better at negotiation, I've had to use classical negotiation techniques less.
And right at the beginning of this call we talked about how my background is on brand and strategy.
But the worlds are so intertwined.
This idea of the mere exposure effect is there's a reason why ads work.
There's a reason why the most dominant brands in our world are ones that show up consistently again and again, and And again, never wavering.
They're just there.
Every page, every thing you click, everything on TV, you see them there.
There's a reason why it's happening.
It is just the way it is.
It's really that simple.
And think about this too because there are people now that they will reach out to me for trainings or licensing deals, whatever it happens to be, because they heard me on a podcast or they listened to the podcast.
And what's funny is that they already feel like they know me by the time they reach out.
I don't need to negotiate.
I just, I don't need to negotiate as much anymore.
It's either they come and give me great terms and it's fine as it is, or they come expecting to negotiate because of my reputation and there's less resistance.
So I'll actually, yeah, let's go ahead and break some news.
Let's have some fun.
So I'm going to be working with the optimism company, Simon Sinek's company.
Just sign the deal with them and I will be creating a really one-of-a-kind piece of content that will live within their library.
I can't go into the details of it yet.
Congratulations, Kwame.
Congrats, man.
Thank you.
I appreciate it, man.
And it was a negotiation like I've never had before because I was excited for this.
I was all prepped for it.
I was like, Kwame, this is the deal of a lifetime.
Let's figure this out.
And 30 minutes in, they were just telling me how much they liked me and my content and my approach.
And then they said, we could do a deal like this.
It could do that.
It could include this.
And what do you think?
So about 30 minutes in.
I quote verbatim what I said was I honestly don't even know what to negotiate for.
This is going far better than I ever could have imagined.
Wow.
Literally what I said.
And so I'm just realizing a lot of times we over index on the tactics and strategies and we don't focus enough on just the human connection that's required.
If you do a good job of leaving a really strong positive digital footprint and have good relationship with people, that handles the majority of the tedium associated with negotiations.
It goes both ways, too.
Simon has been putting out content.
The optimism company has been putting out content for a long time.
And so you have the feeling of that, too.
You know them.
You know what they do.
So it's both sides, right?
That's a great point.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah, because if you have no idea who they are, you'll be like, wait, wait a minute.
Let's talk about terms a little bit more.
Let's go through this.
Am I being scammed?
Do I need more?
You know them.
And they know you.
Right.
Yes.
I'm recognizing that the majority.
If you're doing it the right way, the majority of your negotiation can and should be happening before the actual traditionally recognized negotiation.
Right.
No, I love that.
Well, the other thing, though, we talk about this mere exposure effect.
What about your family?
Your family sees you every day.
And yet I feel like one of the hardest negotiations happened within the four walls of my house.
So what do we do there, Kwame?
Yeah, this was a tough one.
This is a tough one because everything has its counter.
Right.
And I thought about this to a couple of things, especially when we think about spouses and the tough conversations they have.
It's a couple of things.
Number one, if I lose a business deal, I'll be annoyed, but I'll get over it.
It's fine.
You did not exist in my consciousness before this.
And now I can just forget about you.
Right.
It was like, okay, wait, I'm going to forget about you.
And then I wake up in the morning.
There she is.
And so I think it's the reality that the stakes are so much higher because there's so much invested into it.
And it's not just that you're negotiating with somebody else is you're negotiating with somebody who has become a part of you as well.
And that, that can make it really tough.
And I also think of the hidden element that makes spousal negotiations so tough, especially if you have a family, is that a lot of times we are two income families, so everybody's working.
And now you've gone through the whole day.
You've made a lot of decisions at work.
And then you come back from work and you have to take care of your kids.
And then you put the kids to bed.
Now you're exhausted.
You have ego depletion because of decision fatigue.
Your brain is tired.
You're emotionally exhausted.
And now you want to talk about this really heavy conversation, right?
The best time to bring it out.
Everyone is exhausted.
You're done.
So I think a lot of times just because of the way that we and the timing with which we have these conversations, it makes it so much tougher.
And I think also there are...
And I hate to see this in myself, but I see this with everybody.
There are these times where you could be having a really bad day.
Then you have a business call and you're like, hey, how's it going?
Oh, great.
Everything's fantastic.
I'm having a great day.
You having a great day?
Yes, I'm positive.
And then the call hangs up.
You're like, man, I hate everything.
And then you go, it's like listen, we are willing to give this professional, positive facade to other people.
And then at home is hey, this is who i am.
I am a monster.
Right now, everything comes off right, the mask comes off.
Your home, your family, it's just like the kids, our kids, do the same thing.
They're at school, they're like bottle citizens.
And then when they come home dude, no man, i'm just gonna do whatever i want.
I'm home exactly, exactly.
And it's tough man because again, we take the mask off because we're tired.
We're just, we're tired.
And so the level of care that goes into the conversation.
A lot of times because of timing and being tired, it just isn't there.
We're just simply not our best selves.
And one thing that I've started, we've started to do is actually be intentional about when we have these conversations.
Okay, listen, this is not the time.
And this is one of the best things you can do in these conversations too.
I always say you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Sometimes you say something, you can't put it back and you're just stuck with a mess.
Right?
So I've gotten to the point where sometimes I just say Hey listen I, this is an important conversation.
I want to be transparent.
I don't have it today.
We should have this conversation, but I am not at my best.
I'm hungry.
I'm sleepy, whatever it happens to be, but we have to be more mindful of timing.
That's the cocktail thing. chaos that often goes into these conversations.
Yeah, but I love that, though.
I think back to this understanding of yourself and being able to say these things.
It helps the actual conversation to be more productive.
But if you're just saying, oh yeah okay, let's tackle it now, even though you're feeling depleted, that's where it's a train wreck.
You're just not going to go anywhere.
I remember recognizing one of my triggers was just overstimulation.
Because we can tell from this conversation, I love depth of thought.
And when kids are around, they hate depth of thought.
Stop.
Dad, dude, just stop already.
Stop thinking deeply.
I see you're on the brink of a breakthrough, but I need you to stop and watch me spin.
Okay?
If we didn't want to talk about a big family decision and the kids are present, I'd really struggle.
I don't remember...
One time in my keynotes I always talk about have you ever been accused of yelling when you didn't think you were yelling?
And then the joke is, yes, you were yelling because you sounded like a jerk.
And I remember one time Whitney said, why are you yelling?
I was like, I'm not yelling.
Oh, my God.
I am yelling.
I'm overstimulated.
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
It's challenging.
But I think once you start to understand where the challenges come from, then you can start to create solutions to actually move forward in them.
That's why I think I love your whole construct of compassionate curiosity, which obviously when you're in that depleted mode and you understand your spouse is depleted understanding and being compassionate and being curious, it just helps that go along much more smoother, rather than I'm just going to force this conversation, no matter what.
We need to solve this right now.
Yes, I agree.
And I've had friends say, Even if I wasn't actively going through the steps of it, just keeping that in mind as a mantra helps me right.
Okay, is this compassionate?
It could be a really good filter.
Is this compassionate?
No, there's no way that I can market what I'm about to say as compassionate.
Is it curious?
No, I feel as though I have the conclusion that I understand.
I understand everything.
And I'm going to tell you what it is.
Okay, so it's not curious either.
Maybe I should adjust my approach a little bit.
And it's so funny because when you're in the trenches everybody says they're.
They struggle in these conversations.
And for me, I've had the podcast for so long, like sixteen hundred plus episodes.
One of my favorite things to ask is, so how do you handle these conversations at home?
How does it go with your spouse?
They're like, oh, I'm terrible at home.
I lose all my skills.
Everybody struggles with this in a similar way.
Because you start to care more, and the closer the deal is to your heart, the harder it is for you to manage your emotions and bring the skills to the table.
And one of the guys I was training one time said that something that he would say to himself that would help him was.
I asked myself what would Kwame say in this situation.
And then it helps me to find the right answer.
And I was like, damn, I should do that.
Why don't I do that?
Because whenever I'm having these conversations and I get emotional, I don't sound like Kwame Christian.
I sound very unrefined.
That is so good.
That is so good.
There's actually proof for this, right?
Where, if it's too close to you, it's actually beneficial for you to have a third party do the negotiations so that person can be more sort of impartial, level-headed right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
There's a saying the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for an attorney because you're too close.
And so for me, what I say is, what would I tell a client to do?
What would I tell a friend to say in these circumstances?
Because it's very clear for me to give that advice because I can be truly objective.
And so when I started saying it that way to myself, okay, what would I tell somebody else to do?
Then it became really clear and it had made it easier for me to respond appropriately.
Walk us through that framework, Kwame.
We're going to see the three step.
So what are the things that we need to remember?
What are the three steps?
Yes.
So this is a mental model that I use that it helps you to flow through the conversation, so you know exactly what to say and when to say it.
And so two quotes before I give you the three steps.
So Leonardo da Vinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
And it took us years to make it this simple, because you use the exact same three steps as you negotiate with other people as you would with yourself, to calm yourself down and get clarity as well.
And then the other one is Bruce Lee.
He said, I don't fear the man who knows 10,000 kicks.
I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
And compassionate curiosity will be your compassionate, nonviolent kick.
So it's never a question of whether or not compassionate curiosity applies.
It's just a question of how.
And you just flex in order to apply it.
So step one is acknowledge and validate the emotions.
So we'll assume that there's some emotional barrier.
We're going to label it.
Listen effectively and validate.
Not endorse, but just say we can understand how you came to that conclusion or understand why you feel the way that you feel.
This lowers the emotional temperature of the room.
Step number two is get curious with compassion.
So asking open-ended questions with a compassionate tone to gather information, to build empathy, build rapport understanding and build trust.
And then the last step is use joint problem-solving.
So it's not me versus you.
It's you and me versus the problem.
We're going to work together to find a solution.
And so you just flow through this.
So if there's no emotional challenge, just start with getting curious.
If, as they answer questions, you start to recognize emotionality, just label, acknowledge and validate the emotions.
And it helps you to flow.
And the thing is, it'll sound differently to different people.
So the way the words that you use might be different from the words that I use, but it's still the same framework.
And then I'll use the same framework to different people, but just in the way that I talk to different people, it'll sound differently.
But again, the mechanics are all the same.
What are your favorite questions to ask?
So in the second part, especially.
So I would ask questions that get to the heart of understanding.
So not just what somebody believes, but why they believe it, like the emotionality behind the belief.
Because a lot of times, if you are disagreeing with somebody or you don't like the conclusion they've come to, we try to target and attack the logic, the steps that went to it.
But a lot of times, especially if somebody is believing something that you disagree with and there's not much evidence behind it, there's probably something inside of them that believes this because they want to or feel like they need to believe it.
And if I can get to the real heart of that, then it opens up a lot of possibilities.
Because sometimes what I can do is recognize that, as I'm going through this, the reason they believe what they believe is because it is attached to their identity, something that is really core to their sense of self.
And so, as I'm navigating the conversation, I'm saying how can I detach this specific outcome from their sense of self so I can allow them to feel good about the decision and feel good about themselves, and while still adjusting the conclusion?
And so sometimes we just ask these surface level questions but we don't go deep enough, either because we don't have the sophistication or the skills to go deep enough, or because we're not comfortable with that level of vulnerability or frankly, because we don't care.
Especially when people disagree with you, you start to see them as the other.
The other side, right?
The other side, right?
And it becomes me versus you.
And it almost feels like a concession to treat somebody with empathy, especially if they're not reciprocating that empathy.
It's really tough to listen deeply to somebody if they're not listening deeply to you.
And so there's a lot of ego that we have to put aside in order to be effective in these conversations, which explains why it's so important for us to do that self-work before the conversation.
So the same framework for me.
I'm going to use that to manage my own emotions, to calm down and get an understanding.
So I don't go into these conversations seeking validation from other people.
I already got that enough for me.
I don't need you to overtly respect me.
I respect myself enough for both of us.
Thank you.
We're good.
I can stay ruthlessly focused and pragmatic on what it is that I'm trying to accomplish.
And by being able to set aside my ego and just focus on them, completely on them, and what they need.
It helps me to get what I need out of the interactions.
Got it.
So you kind of keep asking open-ended questions like, why are you feeling this way?
Or how are you feeling?
What is it about this decision?
Why do you believe this?
So you keep asking that until you get a satisfaction of all.
Right now I sort of understand the why behind the why behind the why.
So we can get into solving it together.
Yes.
And you want to hear.
Something that makes it even trickier is the fact that when, especially if it's a conflict, if there's some level of emotionality, Just recognize there's a difference between what you say and what they hear.
Because you could be asking a question that is completely legitimate and everything, but if they hear any animosity in it,
Like an attack or something.
Exactly.
Are there trigger words, Kwame, that we need to stay away from?
Yes.
Does it trigger?
Okay.
Absolutely.
And one is why.
So we want to figure out why, without saying the word why, which is often very difficult in the circumstance right.
Right.
Because if I say, so why do you believe that?
They're going to see, regardless of what my tone is, the word is going to sound aggressive to them, especially if they're already triggered.
They're going to get defensive instead of explaining, right?
So instead I'll say, oh, so out of curiosity, how did you come to that conclusion?
Out of curiosity softens it and changing a why question to what or how softens it even further.
Or help me to understand.
Most people don't feel threatened by somebody who's asking for help.
Help me understand.
So again, we want to extract the information, but we also have to be mindful of creating the psychological safety necessary for them to feel comfortable being vulnerable with you.
Yeah.
It's so funny.
As we were talking about this, Kwame I keep thinking about when we talk to family.
They'll be like Hey Howie, stop Kwame-ing me with these questions that you learned from the podcast, man.
I know what you're trying to do.
Don't do that.
How do we say these things in a way that's, I don't know, like authentic transparent, but then not coming across as we're doing some?
It's a manipulation by going through a framework, especially with your family, right?
You don't want to get called out for this.
And fun fact, some of my clients, they say, they would say that to each other.
Are you Kwame-ing me right now?
And so whenever – because sometimes Whitney, she would say, are you using compassionate curiosity?
I'm like, yes.
Yes.
I am.
I really try not to be clinical about this.
Yes.
I am doing that.
And I think one of the things is we have to practice because it's just like anything else.
There's nothing that we – there are very few things that we do that we're just like naturally good at as humans.
Yeah.
Because everything – requires skill and repetition and practice, and so it's.
It won't.
I want to just emphasize it will feel clinical and abnormal at first.
That's why you have to keep on practicing it right.
Think about anytime we've entered a new business or maybe gone to a school or something like that.
There's some kind of jargon, there's some kind of slang that's utilized and it's going to feel and sound weird for a while, but then the more you use it, you're going to find your authentic voice within it.
So I can flow really easily with compassionate curiosity in a contentious negotiation.
I still use it as a foundation for higher level negotiation techniques.
I can use it when I'm being really empathetic with somebody that I love and care about.
But again, the mechanics are the same, but you have to be able to practice it, to figure out what your voice will be and how you can move to make it feel a lot more authentic.
Is there a time where you abandon it?
The third part is problem solving together.
But what if the other party just doesn't want to solve it?
Well, for me, what I do is when it comes to step number three.
This is where I layer on higher level negotiation techniques.
So in the majority of my everyday conflicts, like 95 of them, the compassionate curiosity gets me through it.
It's just a small amount that need a little bit more.
And so that's where I would say all right.
This is great, because compassionate curiosity does something really important for these higher level negotiation techniques and persuasion tactics.
It creates the conditions for persuasion.
So think about it.
A lot of times when we're having these conversations, there might be somebody who uses a script that they learned online, or a one-liner and everything like that.
They know they're using it correctly.
They've articulated it, but it doesn't work.
Why is that?
Well, you haven't created the conditions for persuasion. persuasion.
The person is still emotionally triggered.
They don't trust you.
They don't feel heard.
You still cycle through compassionate curiosity so they can feel heard.
They're less emotionally reactive.
So now your persuasive techniques are a little bit, they actually can work, right?
A lot of times if you're trying a classic negotiation technique with somebody who's emotionally triggered, it doesn't matter.
Both of us have kids.
If my toddler's having the tantrum, I can't do it.
What do I do about that?
Nothing.
Nothing works.
You'll make it worse.
Anything you do will just make it worse.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You can't send a message to a person who is not psychologically ready to receive it.
That's it.
That's key.
And so if the person is emotionally triggered, the amygdala is firing.
That's the emotional side of the brain.
We need to walk them to rationality so the frontal lobe is firing, right?
Where they can actually process things in a meaningful level.
And if we are trying to use one-liners and negotiation techniques and logic against somebody who's inner toddler is raging, it just doesn't work.
Forget about it.
Doesn't work.
Oh, that's so good.
I think that's like a, such a key insight.
So much of the work is creating the conditions for yourself and for the other person.
So for yourself is the constant work daily to hone your skills and do that.
And then all that conversation itself.
You got to bring them to this world of all.
Right now we're ready to actually go to step number three.
Cause if not ready, nothing's going to happen.
There's no, no deal is going to be struck.
Exactly.
And one important thing too, that people really struggle with is the distinction between empathy and endorsement.
Empathy is just understanding.
I understand how they see, think, and feel about the situation.
What's your perception?
What's your perspective?
What are your emotions?
When you're thinking logically, how are you seeing this?
That's empathy.
I can empathize and understand and vehemently disagree with whatever it is that you're saying.
But I want to communicate that understanding to you so you feel respected.
And what's funny is that when people are having these conversations, they feel they say if I listen deeply, if I listen respectfully, if I validate what they're saying by demonstrating that I understand it and saying that from your perspective, I can understand where you came from.
Don't I just embolden them to stay put?
It's actually the opposite.
Because a lot of times the person feels invalidated so they feel the need to press harder on those points.
But if I show them, hey, listen, I understand you.
The issue is an understanding.
I understand you.
I still just have a different need.
Can we move to that point?
They feel that checkbox of respect is satisfied.
So here's an example.
When we were on vacation in Jamaica, we needed a reservation for this restaurant.
We go to the restaurant and it's a beautiful restaurant, open on the beach and everything.
An Italian restaurant there.
And I said, Hey, first of all, I apologize.
I don't have a reservation, but we were wondering if we could squeeze in a family of four.
They're like, sorry, you need a reservation.
I said, okay.
So reservation is mandatory for this restaurant.
Then she said, yes, it's mandatory.
I said, okay, that makes sense.
I understand that, that protocol.
And I was wondering if it would be possible though, to just get us in, because it appears as though there are seats available.
And I look in, this is like at 40% capacity, Howie.
And she says, oh, did you call and see the ability?
I said, oh no, I didn't call.
I'm just and I might be wrong, but I'm just looking at the restaurant and it seems as though there are a lot of openings.
And so she says well we, at this time, at five o'clock, we want to keep capacity, a certain amount of capacity, and we're right about there.
So we don't want full capacity.
But around like seven or eight, then we want full capacity and then we taper it down.
And.
But what's interesting at this point, as she's explaining this, she's losing steam in her conviction of the point.
But I'm just there listening empathetically.
And then when she's done, I reflect my understanding back to her.
And I was like, OK, I understand that.
So just me now me asking you, would it be possible just this once?
Because we're going to leave tomorrow.
Could we possibly get in?
She's like, yeah, you can get in.
So what persuasion technique did I use?
I listened respectfully and asked twice.
That's it.
But if I would have argued this point, if I would have said, hey, no, this is silly.
Look at all these open spots.
They're open spots.
What would she have done?
She would have said, no, you don't understand.
The protocol is this.
The rule is this.
But instead, by me just acknowledging and validating the rules, just saying, okay, this is the rule.
So it sounds like your goal right now is to follow the rule.
And the rule is this. okay, I understand that.
I get it.
Boom.
Then that's all she needed.
That's all she needed.
So it's really counterintuitive.
But again you recognize why it's not just compassionate curiosity externally, it's compassionate curiosity internally.
Because if I wasn't able to keep my cool, then I wouldn't have been able to get to that outcome.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
So much of that is just understanding this idea, being in that right position to have the conversation and work towards a goal.
Oh my God.
I mean, we're just people.
Like you said, we're just, we're just people, man.
We're, we are relationship driven.
We're irrational creatures and we, we can't get past that a lot of the times.
That's it.
And then if we just own it, then life becomes a lot easier.
I just think about any other like animal interaction we get.
If i rub a dog's belly, the dog's gonna like it to give it on the tree, then i'm gonna like it.
So if i just start saying this is irrational, this is illogical, they shouldn't be doing this, i'm like you sound like you don't understand what humans are.
Because humans are irrational, they are illogical and they often do not do that which we think they should do.
And if we just stipulate, if we just stipulate to that and just say That's what humans are,
It doesn't make sense, but I can understand psychologically how this works and I'm going to do what works and suspend my own emotions in order to get the job done.
Then it becomes a lot simpler.
Kwame, I want to ask you this.
One of your hobbies is playing chess.
Chess.com is your favorite friend.
What are some parallels you can draw with chess strategy, negotiation strategy?
What does it teach you about negotiation?
Why does it excite you so much?
Oh, so many options here.
Let's go with something that's a little bit off the beaten path.
So one is the concept of sacrifice.
So in negotiation, we have concessions.
We recognize that we need to make concessions.
But what I've realized is that especially when people who are conflict avoidant or formerly people pleasers, when they have these tough conversations, they will make not strategic concessions but emotional concessions so what they'll do is i'm feeling pressure i will give you something in order for you to alleviate the pressure on me right so in chess we have sacrifices but they're always strategic sacrifices where we say the only reason i'm making this sacrifice is because it advances my position And so in negotiation and difficult conversations, we have to keep that in mind.
We have to understand where it is that we're going and why, what is valuable to us, and have a broad perspective of that.
It's like in a business deal, it's never just money.
It's never just one thing.
There's so many different things respect opportunity flexibility timing, whatever it happens to be.
Right.
So I say okay, based on my understanding of the board, I recognize that I can sacrifice a piece that was important to me, but in doing so I'm gonna make sure that I improve my position on the board overall.
So that's how it applies to concession strategy.
The other thing is dynamic tension.
So in chess there's this concept dynamic tension where there's a piece that you have that can kill one of my pieces and that same piece that I have can kill that same piece that you have right.
And so what happens is that novice chess players, they would recognize that and they'll just make the kill the next move.
They'll just say, this feels heavy.
I'm going to kill them before they kill me.
And it might end up putting them in a bad position.
The really great chess players, they recognize that sometimes you have to play with that tension.
Sometimes, even though you're feeling that pressure, the right thing to do in this circumstance is to stay put and maintain this position.
And if you can maintain your nerves and hold that position long enough and they break on that, then you're going to end up in a better position.
And so, when it comes to these tough conversations that we're having, it's all about pressure management.
So am I feeling a need or a desire to say something or do something or make a concession, because it is indeed the right strategic choice.
Or am I doing this simply because I can't handle the pressure?
Yeah.
That is huge.
I love that.
I love that.
Because, like you said, the whole like people pleasing thing for me I think for you as well growing up it's part of the thing, where it's I need people to like me and all that.
And what you just said makes so much sense.
It is such a it's so insightful because you are pressured to give away something because you want to be liked.
And so that's that, over years, developed this habit of every time you come into conflict, you feel like you need to give it away, or you've given it away so much.
You just keep giving that shit away, which ends up you being in a worse position, and then you resent yourself for that.
It's mind blowing because then you realize that the real game is with yourself.
If I can figure out what I'm feeling and why, it is very instructive.
And so we have to recognize that we need to recognize that we are humans with emotions.
We are not our emotions.
So yes, the semantics become important to me.
So now I'm practicing saying, yeah, I'm experiencing anger right now.
Kwame is not angry.
I am not anger.
I am experiencing anger.
That helps me to detach just a little bit from this.
So I can say, yeah, it's okay.
I think it was Carl Rogers.
Rogers, the psychologist, would say.
He would describe it in terms of You having a human.
I am my own human.
My human is experiencing anger.
Where is that anger coming from?
Oh, it's coming from this.
I understand that.
And this anger is making my human want to say this.
But the only purpose of saying such a thing is to hurt the other human in the interaction.
That's what humans do.
That's a silly thing, right?
So I'm not going to do that.
And what you can start to play around with your emotion, not as something that you are feeling like yourself, like where you need to do something about it, where you're a slave to your own emotions, but you're saying okay, I'm going to use my emotions to instruct me and deeper my own understanding of myself so I can navigate this interaction and navigate the world more effectively.
Now we can use these emotions as tools that deepen us and improve us, rather than things that just lead us astray.
So good.
I realized I'm going to ask you this question but it's probably going to be really hard, but you're going to try your best.
1,600 episodes.
What has been an insight that made you change, whether it's the way you negotiate or you live your life.
What has been one of the most impactful things that you've learned throughout talking and learning from so many people.
This is going to be...
This is going to be an interesting one.
I need to be able to say it respectfully.
Okay.
So this was one of the most incredible things that I've discovered, because I've had some of like the biggest names in negotiation have come on the podcast.
Right.
And brilliant, brilliant, brilliant people.
And I do not want to take away from that.
And there are a lot of people who are unknowns.
I want to have as much diversity as possible on the podcast.
So different people might not even be in the negotiation itself, but they have a lot to add.
But let's just focus on the core of negotiation expertise.
What I've found is that there is a very small difference or, okay, why am I sugarcoating this?
There's essentially no difference in the quality of negotiation expert from somebody who has a really big name and somebody who is completely unknown.
That was fascinating.
Once you get past the being starstruck that there's a negotiation legend in front of you and you just listen to the tools and techniques, which are stellar, you recognize that they're not necessarily more stellar than anybody else's negotiation techniques.
They are just better branded, more well-known, and they have more marketing and more lore behind it.
So it really was a very interesting exploration into the concept of thought leadership as a whole.
And I recognize that, and you'll love this, Howie, because thought leadership isn't about substance.
It's more about branding.
It's more about bias.
It's more about the stories.
It made me realize that everything is placebo.
There was a study where they had people in an fMRI machine so they could see what was happening in their brains, and they had them rate these different wines, these two wines.
One wine was like $500 wine.
The other wine was $5 wine.
And I'm sure you know where I'm going with this.
Speaking to my heart, buddy.
Speaking to my heart.
So they tasted the $500 wine.
You see more brain activity.
And they're like, yes, this wine is better.
They taste those $5 wine.
They're like, ooh, no, this wine isn't good.
And you see the brain activity.
It corresponds with their experience.
But the punchline is, it's the exact same wine.
They just believe one is more expensive.
So they believe it is going to be better.
And so-
That's when I really started to make a turn, because I was playing this game of meritocracy where I say, all right, cool.
I'm going to read one book a week.
I'm going to take pages of notes on it.
I remember I had Guy Winch on the podcast, a great thinker in psychology.
And I was like, guess how many pages I took of notes on your book, size 12, single space.
He's like, how many?
I was like, was it what, five, six?
I was like, it was 63.
And I'm just, I'm learning and learning.
My goal was read a book a week.
Read it at three times speed.
Take as many notes as possible.
Review the notes as an MP3 file.
So every day, when I was good and ready to go to the gym, I'm not listening to music, I'm reviewing book notes.
So I could quote everybody.
And I was just focusing so heavily on getting better.
Then I realized I don't need to get better anymore.
I need to become better now. at marketing and branding.
And then when I started to turn that corner and focus on the marketing and branding, that's when the business started to take off.
So the biggest takeaway is that, when it comes to success in the world, there's a baseline level of intelligence and substance that you need to have.
And you can get to that point pretty quickly.
After that, it's the stories that you tell about yourself, and whether or not you can get the world to believe them.
That's a big unlock, Kwame.
That's a huge unlock.
And it's a huge opportunity for anyone, really, anybody.
It is the authority bias, isn't it?
Anybody that's way higher in the status ladder, you view them as gods almost.
You put them on a pedestal.
But I think even Obama said this.
When you sit down with the world leaders in the same room, you start to understand that you have a seat at the table when you're there.
And everybody is...
The same.
I mean, we're humans.
We make mistakes.
We all put on our pants, one leg pant at a time.
There shouldn't be this big, oh my God, I can never get there.
Oh my God, you're so brilliant.
They are brilliant, but they're closer to you than you think.
Exactly.
And that was huge.
That was huge for me.
And yeah, and I think everybody in their own way can learn a lot from this, whether it's in your own life.
It changed the way that I started marketing at home to my own family.
I don't know about you, but my immigrant mother is often concerned about the status of my finances.
I'm just like, I'm doing well, mom.
What do I need to achieve?
The perception.
You need to get the perception of whatever it is that she thinks you need to have.
It is the immigrant mentality.
Lawyer, doctor, you were a lawyer.
Now, what is this?
So I realized that oh, there's a lot that I know about my business that my family doesn't know.
So I started marketing to them, telling them more about the wins and talking about giving them like updates, as if they were investors.
Now they feel a lot more secure.
It's not that anything changed in the business.
I just started to market myself better.
And so when I started to recognize that, it helped me to start to play a different game.
And it's recognizing that both style and substance have a place.
But Now honestly, if it comes to the level of success that I want to have, if I was forced to choose one, I think style gets you more success.
This is coming from somebody who has three degrees.
I was playing the game, quote, the right way.
And then to realize, oh okay, that there's another side to this that is significantly more determinative in terms of your stature and achievement.
It's It was jarring.
It was a realization that I did not want to have.
But I know there are people who follow me who are like oh man, things really took a turn at a certain time.
Things are really picking up.
Yeah, because I started to learn how to play the real game.
It's not a meritocracy.
There's no such thing.
Like you said, you have to reach some sort of a level of the work and you understand the substance.
And then at every level that you go from there, you're playing a different game.
You're adding on, layering on a different skill to get higher.
But if you keep playing the same game, you're going to stay in the same game.
Literally, you're going to be in the same place.
So, yeah, absolutely.
Kwame, one last question for you.
This has been absolutely fantastic.
I've learned so much.
I have a lot of epiphanies throughout our conversation.
So thank you for that.
And I think, as you continue to reach more people, I'm really excited or more people, to learn about what you have to offer and what you have to teach.
I think it goes way beyond, I would think, traditional negotiations is really helping us become better human beings and making our own impact on the world.
So for you, if you had the superpower Kwame, of being able to send a letter to yourself at any point in time in your journey, when would you want that letter from yourself to arrive, and what might it read?
Oh, that's so good.
And then we have the whole philosophical question of if I change one thing, it cascades into a lot of other things.
No, time, space, continuum will not change.
Nothing will change.
But it will help you in that specific instance.
It would simply be choose video.
Choose video, man.
Yeah, I went all in on podcasting.
And I did well.
We got up to number two in careers, have what close to 16 million downloads listeners in 180 different countries.
It's been the catalyst for every major success that i've had and i recognize.
With all that being said, it pales in comparison to the power of video, and if i would have chosen youtube versus the podcast, i would have had a bigger following at this point and it would have led to a smoother transition into the advent of social media for short form video content.
It would have been a smoother transition.
So honestly, that would be the move.
A tactical choice, Kwame.
A tactical, bold choice.
Tactical choice.
Who was it that said, the best time to start is 10 years ago.
Second best, we start now.
Now the people listening to this podcast will be like, that's why he's always, oh, okay.
Yes.
Going all in.
Amazing.
Thank you, Kwame.
Thank you so much, brother.
Thanks for coming on my pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
What a conversation.
Here are three big takeaways from my chat with Kwame.
Number one set the tone early.
The person who anchors the negotiation shapes the entire outcome.
Number two relationships build leverage.
Trust isn't built just at the table.
It's built long before you sit down.
Number three Master your inner game.
Negotiation is not just an external strategy and tactic.
It's self-awareness, it's emotional control, and it's intention.
If this episode helped shift the way you think about influence and negotiation.
Leave a rating and review wherever you're listening, because it helps more people find a show and it keeps conversations like this coming.
I will see you in the next episode.
And in the meantime, go change behavior and change lives.
Take care.
