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So cognitive flexibility might be the most important tool in your negotiation toolkit.
What is cognitive flexibility?
is your ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
And so if you are able to predict ahead of time, every move, well, A, that's amazing, and B, you know you're gonna have a successful negotiation.
But most of us can't anticipate every move.
Chances are there's gonna be one or two turns in the conversation that we didn't expect.
Somebody brings a fact or a want that you didn't know they were going to have, and that throws you off.
And so cognitive flexibility would be, I had a Plan A, Plan A isn't gonna work.
We're going with Plan B.
we need a plan C. Oh plan D, let's go to plan D." So that's cognitive flexibility.
Dr. Therese Houston is a cognitive scientist at Seattle University and she's made a career out of asking one powerful question.
How can we remove the obstacles that get in the way of smart people?
She's given over 275 keynotes and workshops at places like Microsoft, Amazon, Harvard Business School and the Cleveland Clinic and her work has been featured in the New York Times, Oprah magazine, Harvard Business Review, NPR, and TED Ideas.
Therese is a crowd favorite on Negotiate Anything and today she is back with a game changing new book called SHARP.
A practical guide to using neuroscience to unlock your mental potential and tackle life's biggest challenges with ease.
Because let's be honest, your brain is your business.
Now here's the secret that a lot of folks in the negotiation industry don't want you to know.
It does not matter how many negotiation tactics or strategies that you have, if you can't put yourself in the right mental state to actually execute upon those tactics and strategies.
And because I know that you want to get better and improve, I also know that you care about how the brain works under pressure, how we can make smarter decisions in tough moments, and how we can grow as negotiators.
This episode isn't just interesting.
It has the power to change the way you show up when it matters most So Teresa we've said this many times on the podcast Preparation is key in negotiation.
But of course that's assuming that both parties know that a negotiation is coming So what happens when the other side has been preparing in the background and you haven't even realized you're in a negotiation yet Have you ever seen a situation like that where somebody is completely caught off guard?
Absolutely. And surprise takes precedence in these kinds of moments.
It kind of hijacks all of your thinking.
I can give you an example from my own career of a time when I was not ready for a negotiation, or at least I was only ready for part of a negotiation and conversation went a very different direction.
So it was very early in my career.
And it was my first full time job as a professor.
And I had been hired to teach several different courses at this small college, but one of the courses that I was teaching was a course in statistics and research methods.
Statistics would be in the fall, and research methods would be in the spring, so it was a two -part course.
And I love statistics as a graduate student because that gives you power.
You get to tell interesting stories when you have powerful statistics, so I had liked statistics.
I thought I would enjoy teaching statistics.
I did not, I did not.
Students, for so many students, especially psychology majors, statistics is the bane of their existence.
So students would come in, they were reluctant to participate, they were… make all kinds of excuses about their homework.
I mean it was just… it was pulling teeth every time.
So I get done with my first year of teaching this course, and I'm doing my performance review for my manager, and I'm evaluating and asking, you know, what went well, what would I like to change in the future?
And I made a request, and the request was, could we consider having someone else teach this course in the future?
I could alternate with them, perhaps.
So, and I asked that because there were two professors in the department who used to teach the course before I was hired, so I knew there were other people who could teach the course.
So that was at the end of year one, and what she said in response was, I completely understand, let's talk about it at the end of year two, why don't you get a second year under your belt first?
I'm like, oh, that's reasonable.
So at the end of year two, year two was even harder than year one because now it wasn't new, it wasn't exciting, now it was just all the drudgery, none of the excitement.
So at the end of year two it's time to do my performance review, I do the same thing, I basically make the same case for can we please consider alternating rotating and who teaches this.
So I have my meeting at the end of the year with my manager and what I'm expecting is that you know because she said, you know, we'll talk about it in a year that she was ready to discuss when I would take turns with my colleagues.
And the thing I was ready to negotiate, Kwame, is I thought I would be negotiating, instead of every other year maybe I teach two years in a row, and then somebody else teaches it once.
That's what I thought.
We get into the conversation, and what she explained after we have a nice conversation about what went well, and what I might want to try differently in year three, I bring up the topic of teaching, rotating who teaches statistics.
and what she said to me was you know what you're gonna have to teach it until we hire someone new because everyone else who's taught it doesn't want to teach it so you're basically stuck with this until we get a new person in the department and then they'll get stuck with it and I like to think was, well that's terrible for the next person and it's terrible for me because clearly there's I'm stuck with this course you know she even used the word stuck and I didn't I didn't have I couldn't think on my feet I was so surprised by that answer that I just was dumbfounded and felt demoralized and wasn't
able to come up with any other alternatives in the moment that we could have perhaps bargained around and I just left discouraged and within two months I was for new jobs because I didn't want to be in a place that didn't value their employees and I felt very undervalued.
Also it told me that there was a history of everyone feeling frustrated with this core so why do we always stick it on the new person right you know there's always there are always tasks in any organization no one likes to do but you don't want to like dump them all on the new person right that's a terrible terrible way to go but that's what was happening so that was that was rough that was rough.
That was rough to hear too as well, especially for me as a former psychology student who also hated statistics.
You're right with me, right?
Exactly. Now I guess I feel more validated knowing that nobody was having a good time in the class.
Nobody. And it was interesting because I would come up with some of my best, most engaging examples for that class.
really clever demonstrations and models, and I still deadpan, nobody reacting whatsoever.
And I think part of the reason people don't like it is, if you go into psychology thinking you'll never have to take math again.
Unfortunately, you do.
You have to take statistics.
And so it was painful.
Yeah. You're exactly right.
You're exactly right.
And now, let's walk the person listening to this podcast through how you felt in that moment.
Because I know we've all been there, in that situation where we feel caught off guard. We feel as though we've been ambushed, really, or in your situation, deceived, because she kept you there for another year and then she said, ah, well, we do this to everybody who's new.
They hate it. You hate it.
We just need to get some other poor sap in here so we can put it on them.
And like I was all part of this.
So how are you feeling in that moment psychologically and emotionally?
So what's interesting is, you know, people talk about flashbulb memories.
I had many meetings with her in her office.
This was a flashbulb memory where I remember exactly where she's sitting.
I remember where I was sitting.
I don't remember the time of day, but I remember the entire scene because as she said these words, just the shock of my reality, right.
And, and this, this sense of disappointment in her, this sense of disappointment in my colleagues, it sounded like maybe she didn't talk with the two professors who could teach it, but my sense of disappointment with the colleagues, in fact, she was one of the two who could teach it.
She was one of the two who had taught it.
So she's also telling me, Sorry, Teresa, not me.
And so, so I was frustrated.
I also felt a, you know, I was, I was young, I was 28 or 29.
And so there was Also a sense of powerlessness, a sense that there was nothing that I could do that I could, as a professor, you're trying to get tenure, so I didn't have that yet.
I felt that I might jeopardize.
If I made waves, I could jeopardize my career that even if I wanted to stay.
At that point I didn't know that I wanted to leave. I just felt discouraged and surprised and frustrated with her and with the rest of the department.
So those were, you know, I'm sure there was even more to my emotional reaction, but I was not leaving there.
a happy camper. Yeah, I would imagine and I appreciate the detail in your explanation of the emotional cocktail that you were experiencing because I think that's one of the things that hurts people when it comes to emotional intelligence and emotion management is that even when they try to become a little bit more self -aware and understand what it is that they're feeling by labeling the emotions, they stop to short.
And then they just say, okay, what am I feeling?
I'm mad. Well, okay.
Anger's usually a secondary emotion.
Not a primary emotion.
Gotta go deeper. And so I really appreciate the details.
And now, well, you are a different person, Therese, you are this future New York Times bestselling author.
I'm calling it 2025.
I love it. Thank you Kwame.
It's your year. It's my year.
And so, and listeners, if you haven't listened to Therese's first episode and read her first book, make sure to read, read and listen, so it's on feedback.
and now this new book is all about applying cognitive neuroscience to realistic scenarios here too, so now with this level of Experience and research under your belt if you could go back in time and coach yourself How would you coach yourself in that moment?
That's a great question.
I think what I would do is I would say there are are, first of all, you've got this.
This is not hopeless.
You're not powerless here.
And I would say, you've been in other hard situations where you've negotiated successfully, and this is an opportunity to do that again.
So I think it really helps.
I would have tried to reaffirm, even in my 20s, I would tell myself, maybe it would be a little bit of self -deception, but I would tell myself, you've handled hard situations before.
And then I would try to feel out what it was, I would tell myself, I would coach myself, try to feel out what it is that the other professors or, like I said, this, my, my manager, what they didn't like about teaching the course, because perhaps I would be willing to do those parts, you know, the part that I didn't like was standing in front of the students feeling like I was hitting my head against the chalkboard. So maybe there were parts, maybe they didn't mind that part.
And, you know, I would have even been willing to do the grading, which is something usually people abhor.
But I wouldn't mind even doing the grading if that was the part that they disliked the most. So I would have coached myself to ask some questions.
That's one of the things I've learned from listening to this podcast, is to show curiosity and to find out, you know, what what is potentially up for discussion and might be some place where I'd be willing to step up because someone else wants to step down?
Oh, this is so good, and yes, I can tell that you listen to the podcast, Terry, because this is great leading with curiosity.
Leading with curiosity.
That's it, you know, because one of the simple rules I like to follow is whenever I'm in a tough situation, a tough conversation, and I don't know what to say next, the next thing I should say should come in the form of a question.
Because negotiation is an information game and the more information I have the better I'm going to be at the end of the day when it comes to making the decision.
And then also even if I ask a question and I know the answer, this is a nice little cognitive timeout where I can catch my breath, where I'm like, I don't know what's happening.
Hey, answer this question.
It's kind of like when the jokes about if somebody is in labor and then somebody's freaking out and is unhelpful, tell them to go boil some water.
Not because it's just me.
Let me tell my negotiation counterpart to go boil some water while I calm down in this moment.
But let's break this down because first it started off with self -encouragement.
Hey, you've got this.
That's the first thing that we initially think the opposite, which is no, I can't do this.
This is falling apart.
I'm failing. Hey, no, you got this.
Let's start with just some very simple encouragement.
And then the past evidence of success.
You described it as self -deception.
And I think about in my last book, I talked about a concept called helpful fictions.
So what we do is we say, okay, it may or may not be true, but I choose to believe it because it's helpful in the moment.
And when you think about the power of the placebo effect and how the placebo is the most consistent pharmacological effect in studies, and then you also think about the power of self -fulfilling prophecies where we believe something and our confirmation bias steers us in the direction of that conclusion, when we can be mindful and recognize when a negative unhelpful thought pattern is encroaching on our mind and replace it with something that is more powerful and positive in that moment, we counter one of the biggest challenges we face in these situations, which is a lack of self -belief.
Because if I can do something, but I don't believe I can do something, then I can't do that thing regardless of the skills that I have. And so there's a very important meta -game that's happening beneath the surface that most people don't even realize that you can and should be playing.
And we just are subject to the whims of our emotions in the situation and then we don't bring the skills that we actually have within us to the table when it matters most. I love this notion of helpful fiction.
Is that what you called it, helpful fiction?
Mm -hmm. you could come up with an example, or your mom could come up with an example of a time when you navigated your way through a tricky situation and you had the resources.
And so I think it's brilliant.
Also, Carol Dweck's fabulous work on mindset comes to mind because she said one of the most powerful words in the English vocabulary is the word yet.
So I haven't, we haven't reached a a successful agreement yet, right?
But this idea that, like, it's out there, if I just keep brainstorming, chances are, and that gives you a sense of hope.
And we need hope in these situations when we're feeling that we've suddenly encountered the biggest brick wall we could have imagined.
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So kind of playing off of your story, yes, even I too have been caught off guard in negotiation and it happens frequently.
I think that's one thing that we should just own a little bit because I think professionals often can have this facade of I'm always perfect all the time and then we compare ourselves to a level of perfection that nobody can achieve.
I remember one time I was representing a client, this was a business negotiation and she was telling me the situation.
It was a joint partnership that had gone awry, and so I was asking questions to the client, getting an understanding.
I was preparing for hours and then I entered the negotiation, started off very respectfully it was me and my client and then the other attorney and his client and we were going back and forth then two things started to get heated and then they started to tell me things about my client that my client hasn't told me and so here is one of those things where you are the lawyer and then you're you're realizing hey you know I picked my clients with intentionality I won't I have integrity and ethics and everything but it is a hell of a thing when you realize oh man, I'm representing the bad guy.
I'm that lawyer, right?
It's like, I wasn't lying, they lied to me too.
What do I do in this situation?
So I don't want to have a face that looks like a meme in front of everybody.
You know, so I try to keep it together.
One of the things that I do to kind of protect my body language from leaking out is when I'm in the tougher parts of a conversation, I start to, like, I hold my chin.
And so I kind of stroke my chin like the wise old man.
I joke with Whitney, like when I shave, which she hates, I feel less intelligent because I'm like, what do I hold on to?
In this. So I'll hold that kind of like thinkers pose and then when the bad news comes, I'll just kind of clam up and try not to move, not to show too much. And then I ask more questions.
I start to get curious.
I'm like, okay, tell me a bit more about that situation.
It helped me to understand this and everything.
Give me the information that my client didn't give me.
And so I say, okay, great.
This is very helpful.
I wanna give positive reinforcement for the information that they shared because I appreciate the transparency and vulnerability.
And I say, if you don't mind, give me a second to chat with my client and then let's come back.
And, you know, I know you love The Office.
And so I remember it felt like that Andy Bernard, uh, gym, uh, situation in, like, Season 5, where he's like, what's happening?
We're dying out there.
And they're trying to keep this secret.
And Andy was saying, Yeah, I'm not Rumpelstiltskin.
I can't keep making gold out of your...
And so that's what I felt like, you know?
Like in the corner between rounds, I'm like, we are getting our asses kicked.
What's happening here?
And there is no goal to be made.
No goal to be made.
And so it was a tough situation.
But I had to make sure that I stayed calm and confident for my client because I can't just freak out in front of her.
That's not good. That's not good customer service or client management.
But I had to figure out where we were and adjust. So for those of us without beards, We can't do this, right?
Or it's awkward. Well, so what you know, what, what's your secret strategy?
So part of it was you asked for a moment with your client, was there anything else that helped you adapt to take that breath?
Was there anything else that you looking?
Yeah, I would say one of the things that I've done in the past is I've turned it into a bit of a tactile meditation with my toes, because I'm trying to figure out a way to to leak out this body language and the tension in a way that somebody cannot perceive.
Otherwise you'll see it in the eyebrows, your body will start to itch in random places.
You'll start to like purse your lips because you wanna say something but you don't.
It's my just need to figure out a way to have that escape of the tension that's not picked up by the other side.
So a lot of times I'll slow down my breathing, but also just kind of ball the toes of my feet up and go back and forth like that.
And then also just using compassionate curiosity as quickly as I can in the moment just listing what I feel emotionally acknowledge and validate those emotions.
I'm feeling surprised.
I'm feeling unprepared.
I'm feeling betrayed and deceived by my client, okay.
Well, why? Because we spent hours preparing for this and days preparing for this.
We had ample time and they still didn't give me the information but as I'm starting to calm down they were probably embarrassed by the situation.
They were probably hoping it wouldn't come out And maybe if they didn't tell me, then I would still advocate assertively in one direction without being held back.
So they were probably scared.
So I'm starting to calm down at this point.
So what should I do next?
So as the person's answering my questions, I'm going through this process, I'm kind of pretending to take notes in a lot of cases, but I'm just kind of calming myself down through that process and then thinking up more questions.
And then I realized in that moment, I need to take a break.
It's too much right now to try to be nimble in this moment, Too much of a risk to try to make a move.
So let me gather information, take some time to think, and then come back to the table with a little bit more calmness and actual good information so I can navigate more effectively.
I wanna underline you use so many good strategies in there, but one that neuroscience or at least psychology research would provide a bit more insight around.
You talked about the balling up of your toes or the scrunching of your toes, I'm immediately reminded of Die Hard, right?
or you're just little, you know, scrunching up your bare feet on the carpet.
But there's actual, there's research indicating that one of the things you're doing really effectively there with, you're grounding yourself in the moment and other ways to do that would be to like, you know, touch your thumb and forefinger or press your elbows down in the chair that you're sitting in.
Basically, if you can bring yourself back into the present moment, get out of your surprise loop and bring yourself back into the present moment, you basically bring part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex back online, and that's gonna help you be able to reason and think through this hard situation that you did not expect to find yourself in, because one of the things that surprise does is it diminishes a brain area called, it's right behind your forehead right here, it diminishes the activity in the prefrontal cortex, particularly if it's surprised coupled with anxiety, which it was in your
case, as it often is in a hard negotiation when you're surprised by a curve ball that the other side throws you.
So grounding yourself by doing something very physical and it will help bring your prefrontal cortex back into high operation mode.
Oh, this is good. This is great.
And I think this gives us a perfect segue to move toward the neuroscience part of this because breaking down exactly what somebody is feeling in the moment and understanding where it comes from helps us to have a lot more faith in the tools that we're going to use which have been outlined in your book, which of course is an idea that I got from you.
So when we're feeling that surprise loop, when we're in a tough situation and something comes up that catches us off guard, we talked about the prefrontal cortex, but let's talk about specifically what that brain structure does and the negative consequences that can come from the prefrontal cortex not functioning at optimal efficiency.
So, there are three key brain areas that behave differently when you're strongly surprised.
And I don't just mean surprised like you're surprised that your kids unloaded the dishwasher when they never unload the dishwasher.
I mean big surprise, like finding out that your client omitted some key details or you drive down your street and all of a sudden you see a police car in your driveway or someone throws something in a negotiation that you were not expecting, Like my case with my manager saying this is completely off the table.
So three brain areas, the prefrontal cortex, which is if you tap your forehead, it's right behind your forehead.
And basically your prefrontal cortex is crucial for holding multiple things in memory at once.
So when you're in a negotiation, you're trying to remember what they're saying, you're trying to keep track of what you came in wanting, all of these things.
I mean, maybe you take good notes, but chances are you still need to be holding multiple things in memory.
That crashes, all of a sudden there's only one or two things in mind, and that's probably what the other person is saying and everything that you came in hoping to say, it's just been flushed away.
So your prefrontal cortex is allowing what's known as working memory, your ability to hold multiple things in mind at once.
But it's also planning and strategizing, which you really need in negotiations, you need to be able to strategize, you need to think three steps ahead.
You're not playing checkers, you're playing chess and you need to You'll be able to think ahead, and that diminishes when your prefrontal cortex is suppressed.
And basically, the combination of anxiety and surprise are going to suppress the prefrontal cortex. There's fMRI studies showing that.
So that's one brain area that behaves differently.
There are two brain areas that get strongly activated, though.
One is the amygdala.
You've probably heard about the amygdala as a threat detection center.
That's commonly referred to.
So the amygdala is deep in the brain.
It's part of the limbic system.
It's almond shaped, that's where the name amygdala comes from.
And the amygdala isn't just about detecting threats.
It's basically really salient or important information.
So that can be a good surprise or a bad surprise is going to activate the amygdala.
And when the amygdala is activated, that leads to an increase in your sympathetic, I know I'm sitting up, it increases your sympathetic nervous system.
You're suddenly feeling like that fight, flight or freeze response.
I need. And unfortunately, all too often you feel freeze because your prefrontal cortex is dropping.
You no longer feel that strategy ability that you had walking into the conversation, your amygdala, you suddenly feel either threatened or deeply surprised.
And that's creating a strong reaction throughout your whole body, you feel tense, your heart rate goes up.
That's your sympathetic nervous system being activated by your amygdala.
And then there's a third brain region we need to know about called the locus coeruleus.
That's also deep within your brain.
It's a tiny little area.
And the look and it's I think it's named after the blue area that's the seruleous part.
But the locus seruleus basically when you're surprised, especially a negative surprise, it releases a neurochemical called norepinephrine.
And norepinephrine makes you more alert, which is great in small doses that can help you feel more alert in the moment.
And so a little bit of stress and surprise is a good thing.
But a of norepinephrine in the brain basically shuts down your ability to do complex reasoning again.
It's making it difficult for you to think in complex ways.
So that might be one of the reasons that, you know, the amygdala's making you freeze, and then you feel like you can't reason, and you feel a little bit like a blathering idiot, even though you've handled other kinds of high -pressure situations, that all that flooding of the norepinephrine makes it very hard for you to reason the way you normally would.
And this is a great lesson here too.
So let's focus on the proof around the cortex and locus coeruleus too, because I think that might be new for a lot of people.
So working memory, holding multiple things in our memory at one time, so it affects our strategy and planning.
And then with the locus coeruleus, we have the creation of norepinephrine and essentially we have way too much, which makes it difficult for complex reasoning.
So, in a nutshell for the listener to keep it as simple as possible.
Sure. When you need to be smart, you are dumb because your brain does not work.
Exactly. You're in overload mode.
So you most need to be smart.
It's a beautiful way to put it.
And yet your brain is dumb.
And it can get frustrating, and there are ways around it, thankfully, which we can get to in a little bit.
I just want to reassure people.
If that's your automatic reaction, it's your brain doing the right thing.
So evolutionary psychologists, what they point out is that it's good that all of your plans go away when you're surprised, right?
If you think of prehistoric humans, our ancestors, when there was a surprise, you needed to forget whatever plan you had to go back to the cave, you need to drop everything, we need to run, or we need to have a new plan, we need to climb a we need to do something." So the fact that you drop all of your previous plans and are just very present in the moment, that's a really good adaptive survival strategy.
However, it hurts you in negotiations, because you don't need to climb a tree.
You need to reason through with this other person and come to an agreement that works for both of you.
So what I'm thinking here is an issue of humility that is lacking in a lot of circumstances when it comes to emotion management.
So for instance, I think we think very highly of ourselves and we feel like we should not be feeling the things that we do.
So somebody who is good, who is enough, who is worthy in these circumstances wouldn't feel these types of things.
And that's something that almost operates as a psychological and physiological reaction, and everything that happened in the past is happening again, I can't do it.
This is just confirmation that we can't do it.
But then if we understand what it truly means to be a human, then we can appreciate that if I'm in a situation like this, in a lot of cases, this just means that my brain is doing exactly what it should be doing.
My amygdala has identified a threat, and now all of my cognitive resources are going to be focused on addressing that threat, What I need to do now is recognize that, help myself to realize that everything is okay so I can start to decrease the production of norepinephrine.
I can decrease the production of cortisol so I can think a little bit clearer and bring the prefrontal cortex back online.
If we can just accept our humanity in the moment and realize that, as a human, I will have these very, very predictable cognitive responses, and there is a pathway for me to reverse engineer success in this circumstance, then we can get to a point of stability a lot faster.
But since we are trying to fight to this very basic evolutionary psychology, we're fighting the wrong cognitive battle at the wrong time instead of just accepting who we are and what we are and then doing what it takes to get back online.
What I love about this is you're tapping into just intuitively what psychologists are finding.
They call reframing, you need to reframe in that moment.
right? You need to, you know, whether it's taking a metaphorical deep breath or a real deep breath, but you need to reframe that moment.
One of the things that athletes and top ranking military personnel do really well is they've been trained to reframe, okay, I'm ready for this.
The fact that my body's having a strong reaction is actually going to help me.
All too often when we have a strong stress response, we think, oh no, this means I can't do it, my palms are sweating, this means this is failing, I am failing, this is a train wreck.
But instead to think, oh, look at that, my body is showing up to help me out.
All right, go body, right?
So, and researchers actually find that this kind of reframing, this researcher named Jamison who does a lot of research on this, who finds that this kind of cognitive reframing of good job body, you showed up, you're gonna help me get through this, that allows you, that simple reframing actually changes things in the brain so that you are able to, instead of feeling an avalanche and feeling like you're at the bottom of that avalanche, instead you are able to rise to the occasion and able to use resources in ways that are productive so you can actually perform better.
So instead of freezing, you impress yourself as well as the other person because you can draw upon resources that instead of debilitating, they can improve your performance.
Wow, this is great.
This is great because one of the things that people struggle with is the emotional side.
And I think in the negotiation space and difficult conversations, I say it all the time and I'll say it again.
A lot of times we've been giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen.
You know, it's not that people don't know what to do or say, they just can't figure out why they can't do or say what needs to be said or done under the circumstances.
And so if we can take the time to understand this psychology, and then understand what we can actually do about it.
Now we're putting ourselves in a position to take advantage of these situations and perform.
And I think this gives us a great opportunity because I want to make sure the listeners have access to the best resources on the planet.
when it comes to these topics, and out of curiosity, are you familiar with or know of any great books on this very topic that we could discuss at this very time?
At this very moment, there is a new one coming out.
Thank you Kwame. I actually have a book called Sharp, 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life With Brain Science.
I am so proud of this book, and what this book does is it does exactly what we're doing in this conversation.
that says, Here's a problem that all of us have faced at some point, maybe lots of times, and what is the neuroscience say to help you get through it, right?
And it takes neuroscience that might you might have trouble reading the paper on your own.
And I distill a key finding so that you feel motivated, like, Oh, there's a reason I behave that way in that moment.
And and the research also shows there's a better way to do it.
There's a way that I can kind of move through my biology, get to the other side of this and actually perform better rather than perform worse.
And that's what the book is all about.
I'm really proud of it.
I use the techniques in it all the time, at least on a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis because, you know, some days you wake up and you're firing on all cylinders, right?
You wake up and you're focused and you're creative and you're motivated.
And then there are other days when you're not, when you're not firing on all cylinders but you need to be.
So how do you get there?
and that's what this book tries to do.
It gives you the gift of your best day.
It says, even if you don't wake up feeling this way, you can get there within five, 10 minutes, and here are the tools to do it.
That is incredible, I'm excited for this, and I'm excited to explore the concept of cognitive flexibility, because this is something that is new to me, new to the team, but then also something that we could see was immediately, practically applicable to negotiation and difficult conversations.
So can you tell the person listening about cognitive flexibility and what it means to us in difficult conversations?
So cognitive flexibility might be the most important tool in your negotiation toolkit, if I can be so bold.
It's at least in the top five.
So what is cognitive flexibility?
Cognitive flexibility is your ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
And so if you are able to predict ahead of time, every move in a negotiation, A, that's amazing, and B, you know you're gonna have a successful negotiation, but most of us can't anticipate every move.
Chances are there's gonna be one or two turns in the conversation that we didn't expect, that somebody brings a fact or a want that you didn't know they were going to have, and that throws you off.
And so cognitive flexibility would be, I had a plan A, plan A isn't gonna work, we're going with plan B.
Oh, we need a plan C.
Oh, plan D, let's go to plan D, right?
So that's cognitive flexibility.
And there's, when we think, we've probably all known someone who lacks cognitive flexibility, psychologists would call that cognitive rigidity, but I just think of it as a lack of cognitive flexibility.
One of my favorite examples of low cognitive flexibility comes from Friends, I love the TV show Friends.
and there's an episode where Ross buys a couch, a big bulky couch. And he's at the furniture store and he only lives a few blocks away and he asks what the delivery fee will be.
And he's, you know, alarmed by how much it's going to be.
And he's like, we can take it ourselves.
So he's there with Rachel.
And the two of them pick up this heavy, bulky couch and they're carrying it out of the store together because Ross is going to, he's not paying.
He's stuck with his idea, I will get it up to my apartment.
They cut to a scene where they're in the lobby of the a building where he lives and they need to get it up the stairs.
They get Chandler. So now it's Rachel, Chandler, and Ross.
And they try to get it up the stairs.
And Ross is stuck on this idea.
We're doing it without anyone else.
We're not paying anyone to do this.
And they start to get it up the stairs and they get stuck.
And Ross just starts shouting, pivot, pivot, louder and louder.
And it's not working.
They can't pivot, there's no room.
And that's what a lack of cognitive flexibility looks like, where we're just, there's a loudspeaker, we're saying, you gotta do it with plan A, we're going with plan A.
There is no plan B, everybody get on board with plan A.
And just like Ross, nothing budgets.
This is incredible for a number of reasons.
First, practically speaking, it makes it so, it takes it from theoretical to something that is tangible because we have all been there one way or another.
Two, this is great because like I mentioned before, Whitney, my wife loves friends, and she would love this reference.
Number three, another reason Whitney would love this is because we have a similar situation with a couch where there was a couch that I got.
I'm like, I'm not getting rid of this couch if you don't want it upstairs, Whitney, we are taking it downstairs.
And Whitney was not interested in helping me.
I was like, man, I'm a man, I can take this down myself.
I did not, you know, I didn't like statistics.
I don't like math and geometry is, you know, associated.
And I do think, so I get this down from the second floor down to the ground floor, and then I make it to the basement.
I'm like, yeah man, I'm doing this, I'm doing this.
Then I got to the turn.
This is where the geometry came into play.
this couch was not budging.
I said, okay, after a few hours, let's pull this thing back up.
This couch is not budging.
I left it there for days, not going to get in this couch. So eventually, we had, we had to hire somebody to come in with a saw and take the couch out in pieces.
I guess if we're going to round this out, if you don't have cognitive flexibility, then And your negotiation might fall into pieces.
Well, you definitely need to rewatch that episode of Friends, because I think there's a similar outcome to Ross's couch. That's awesome.
This is great. And Therese, one of the things I love about this is that when we were evaluating just all of the episodes with great negotiation experts that we've had throughout the years, we're just trying to synthesize what the core skills of great negotiators were, and one the skills that we discovered was adaptability.
The great negotiators can adapt and flow.
They're willing to do that.
And novice negotiators are less adaptable.
They might prepare but prepare in a very rigid way, almost scripting it out to the extreme.
And then they almost feel as though it's an indictment on their negotiation skills and their negotiation strategy if plan A does not work.
So instead of going down to plan B, plan C iterating and things that.
They'll just say, no, it's plan A.
And they are negotiating with ego and not strategy.
So I love the fact that this has a very strong and peer reviewed underlying basis for it, because since it has been explored so robustly, now we have a better opportunity to address this in a more skillful way as negotiators when we find ourselves in situations where the proverbial a couch is stuck in the stairs.
Well, and it's interesting because adaptability would definitely be another word for it, what cognitive flexibility encompasses, right?
There's creativity, it has to be part of it, but it's also that spontaneity in the moment.
Are you adapting? Are you flexing?
Are you generating things that you're gonna be willing to live with?
And I think that might be for novice negotiators, one of the tricky things.
they're not sure what they're going to be willing to live with on the spot, right?
They've thought ahead of time, like, I'm willing to go here, but I'm not sure I'm willing to go there.
And in the moment, that might be part of what's difficult, I'm sure it would have been for me in that moment in my twenties when I was having trouble figuring out how to respond in the conversation, what would I be willing to live with?
As you get older, you get a better sense of like, yeah, I can do that.
That's not so bad. Right.
Right. Right. Now that we have an understanding of what cognitive flexibility actually is, now let's talk about what we can practically do with this information.
For the listener out there who is trying to figure out how they can be more nimble, be able to adapt and then, of course, be creative in the moment, how can we improve our cognitive flexibility in general and then utilize it in the moment?
I'll offer a couple of different strategies.
I'll first talk about the one that I discuss in the book.
And that is, it's going to sound like it's coming out of left field, but there's so much science to back it up.
And that is exercise, physical exercise.
And so the idea here is and it's got to be aerobic.
So you know, just, you know, doing doing a strength workout, maybe that will help with the research hasn't shown that yet.
But what research does show is that if you do some aerobic exercise, let's say let's say, you know, there's going being in negotiation.
You're going into a conversation with your manager, or maybe, you know, hiring conversation where you think you're going to get a chance to negotiate, but you don't know what's going to happen or you don't know what's going to be put on the table.
Doing 20 minutes of aerobic activity that morning beforehand will improve your cognitive flexibility.
And we get into the neuroscience of what's happening there.
But it's a very reliable way to do it.
And to the point where if you're just going to be in a brief zoom call, I'd recommend running up and down the right before that Zoom call, right?
It can be as simple.
You don't have to go to the gym.
You don't have to do a spin class, even five minutes of aerobic activity.
And in fact, that's what I did before our call today.
I ran up and down the stairs here in my house because that's gonna improve your mental nimbleness, your cognitive flexibility.
So that would be a strategy if you know that the conversation might require a negotiation.
Now there could be some where you don't know that it's going to happen.
So a thing that you can do there, when a part of what's happening, you know, when we talked about the different brain areas, one of the things that's happening there is you're having a stress response.
You know, you mentioned cortisol, I mentioned noradrenaline, I mean, norepinephrine, your body's having a strong stress response.
So another thing that you can do in the moment is to reduce your stress reaction.
As long as you can notice, oh wow, I'm feeling stressed, there are things you can do in that moment to bring your body's stress down.
And I can demonstrate one of those if you're willing, Kwame.
Yes, I would love that.
Yeah, let's do this exercise.
All right, let's do this.
So we're gonna do a breathing exercise and the idea here, I'm gonna lead you through it and other people can join in and do it themselves.
This is something that you can do in the moment, but if you practice it ahead of time, you'll be able to do it without much thought in the moment so that when you feel yourself stressed out, you won't.
It'll be easy to do.
So here's what we're gonna do.
I'm, we're going to do what's called a skewed exhale.
So it's a long slow exhale.
So we're going to inhale, for the count of five, we're going to hold for two, and then we're going to exhale for seven, okay?
So five, two, seven.
And there's great research showing that, well, I'll tell you more about the research after we do it.
So let's, let's do it.
Okay, so just, okay, so exhale.
So inhale, two, three, four, five.
5...hold...2...exhale...2...3...4...5...6...7...again...inhale..2...3...4...5...hold...2...exhale...2...3...4...5...6...7 All right, so how do you feel?
I feel great and it's so interesting because five seconds and seven seconds, it doesn't feel that wrong when you say it, but then when you actually start to do it, it's like, wow, five seconds is, it feels longer during that exercise.
That was what was so interesting.
I might not have been exactly at five seconds.
It was probably in the whole part, but it does like a slow inhale.
So for the first time you try this, you find, especially I find the long, the inhale, especially if you start strong, it can be hard to do an inhale for five seconds.
So you kind of have to do a small sip.
And if it doesn't work at first, go four to six, right?
Do a four second inhale.
The key is the long, slow exhale that activates your vagus nerve.
And when you activate your vagus nerve, you're activating your parasympathetic nervous system.
Basically it's telling your brain to calm down.
activating your vagus nerve is one way to immediately reduce activity in the amygdala.
So that brain area we talked about that's being activated and put on a high alert gets to calm down.
Basically you're telling your brain, hey, it's okay, we got this.
But your body is telling, you don't have to think, we got this.
Your body is telling your brain, we got this.
If I'm breathing slowly, it must not be that bad.
And so this is a great, and it can be hard in the moment, right?
If you're in a negotiation, you don't want to suddenly start counting.
But if you've practiced this, then it would be very easy, even as you're thinking about other things to get into the long slow exhale.
So it's a good thing to just you know, start today, start practicing it and you know, if you're listening to this on your commute, let's start practicing right now because that can be helpful in your conversations with your spouse, with your manager, with anyone where you might find yourself in an unexpected stressful conversation.
Amazing. This is this is so good.
And also let me finger wag and chastise the listener.
Listen, I know you didn't do it.
Okay, so to do it right now.
Okay, so do it. And here's the thing when I realized that because everybody can listen to this and say, okay, I got it vagus nerve, that sounds great, and everything.
But then think about it.
Now you're going to go into a really tough negotiation not having practice this and now you're going to try to breathe differently under duress.
It doesn't make sense.
And so we have to practice these skills when we are not under duress.
So you actually have this habit.
So when it matters most, you're well practiced in this.
So I want to make sure that the listeners do not, the person listening doesn't just say, okay, yeah, this is like a a little cheap trick, no, this is one of those things that could actually make or break a negotiation because if you don't keep your cool under the circumstances and then you get upset, you might say that, what is it?
You might make the best speech that you'll ever regret.
You know. Yes. And so a lot of times these conversations can hinge on semantics.
It can hinge on the tone, word choice.
And when we're not thinking clearly, we're more likely to make a mistake.
So I just want to make sure that folks realize how important this is.
And you're basically bringing, you know, it is the stress response that surprise, especially in a surprise laten with anxiety for you.
And it's going to ramp up activity in the amygdala, which you don't want and reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex, is breathing exercise, brings everything back in balance so that you're able to reason more clearly and suddenly you're able to surprise yourself with solutions that perhaps you didn't come up with ahead of time.
And you're like, oh, I actually can think on my feet.
Go me. Yes. And another thing too, we are empowering ourselves.
And then a lot of times too, the response that people have to your lack of response is kind of intimidating sometimes.
So for instance, I imagine if you're in a tough negotiation, somebody just feels like they dropped the hammer on you and they want to see you squirm.
And then you just maintain your body language, and they don't realize that you're, you know, squinching your toes.
And instead of responding immediately, you just take this time to take a deep breath and exhale before responding.
You're showing a level of power and composure that is often unsettling to the other side because they're like, well, I just tried to throw them off.
They're not thrown off.
And as a result, I am thrown off.
Where do they get this confidence from?
And so there are different games that we're playing because of course we want to manage our own emotions and put ourselves in the best position to succeed and use our skills, but also we don't recognize these, like the game behind the game that's being played with reading body language.
They can sense that willingness to own the moment and not just react but choose to respond with intentionality.
That has an impact too.
It does and it's brilliant, because if the person you're negotiating with doesn't listen to this show, if you go silent while you take that long, slow exhale, the other person might suddenly start negotiating with themselves, right?
They suddenly, well, okay, but you know, so really what I'm saying, and now they take it down, right?
And they weaken their position.
So taking that breath, people are uncomfortable with silence.
It is a power move.
So we've got something interesting today, and I think we'll have some fun with this.
We received a letter from a listener who's dealing with a tough situation, and I think it's one that a lot of people can relate to.
Ashley from our team is going to read the letter for us and then you and I will break it down together.
And also, by the way, if you, yes, You, listener, I'm talking to you.
If you're ever in a tricky situation or have a workplace dilemma, or just have a story you want to share with us, we'd love to hear from you.
You can send your story to our producer, Simone, spelled like Simon at negotiateanything .com.
So that's S -I -M -O -N, at negotiateanything .com, because we're always looking for real situations to dive into.
All right, let's get into it.
Here's Sarah's letter.
Hey Kwame, I wanted to share something that happened to me recently.
I started a new job with a one -year contract.
From the beginning, the company told me that after the year, we'd sit down and negotiate a long -term role and salary.
That was the plan. But then out of nowhere at the three -month mark, my manager called me into a meeting and said, we love your work and we want to offer you a permanent position right now.
I was flattered. Honestly, I was excited.
I didn't want to seem ungrateful or slow things down, so I said yes right there in the meeting.
And about 30 minutes later it hit me.
I hadn't asked about salary, I hadn't asked about title, I hadn't even asked about what would happen to that negotiation we were supposed to have later.
I got caught up in the moment, and the truth is I wasn't ready for that conversation.
I said yes too fast. Now I'm in a permanent role, but I don't feel like I negotiated anything.
I keep thinking, why did I rush?
And I can't find the answer.
My question is, how do I stop this from happening again?
Thank you. Wow. I am really feeling for her because at three months, you haven't begun to think about the conversation that you expect to happen a year from now, right?
And especially in so many jobs, you're still in the learning mode.
you're still trying to get a sense of the culture and she was not prepared for that conversation.
In terms of what's happening for her, that she's frustrated with herself, kicking herself, and it's interesting because surprise, surprise takes precedence, right?
The amygdala doesn't just respond, that part of your brain doesn't just respond to negative surprise, it also responds strongly to really positive surprise like this.
And so this is an important moment.
This is an unexpected, important moment.
And so she's flooded with strong emotions, and she wants to show gratitude, right?
So it's probably very hard for her to say, well, can we slow this down a little?
I wasn't expecting this.
I'm delighted, but this is coming so out of the blue.
I really need a moment to get my bearings.
And so I'm feeling for her.
I just wonder could she go back and have a negotiation now, even though the job has been offered, but to be able to say, there were some things that we didn't iron out in that conversation that I realize we do need to talk about, right?
Would you be open to having that conversation and letting her manager set when that timeline is?
But to give a little preview, there were things we didn't talk about that I'm wondering about so that she can get clarity as well as, you know, expectations are everything in the job, especially in your first year.
You want everybody to be on board with the same expectations so to get clarity on what she would like to see in terms of that role.
So I'm just wondering if the door isn't as closed as she feels that it is.
Yes, I agree. And I think when you find yourself in these situations, a lot of the time, we catastrophize and then we don't think creatively.
Even after the fact, we're still flooded with emotionality like regret, anger, frustration.
And so we have to figure out, okay, we need to separate fact from fiction, separate fact from feeling.
What do I feel is true?
What is actually true?
And then recognize, oh, wait a second, that might be true, but it might not be true.
I might still have the opportunity to negotiate.
I'm still in this game.
And one of the things that I find that is really helpful to do in a negotiation when you make a mistake, depending on the circumstances, but in this situation, it's very helpful to just admit a mistake.
The longer that we take to try to rectify the situation, the less likely it is that we actually do something and the less credible we seem as well.
So if we come down the pike like 90 days later and you say, you know what, I'm not really feeling comfortable with this.
It's like, well, why didn't you say that 89 days ago?
Before we made all these commitments.
And we have to recognize that a lot of times, fear is a very sneaky emotion.
And a lot of times, the overthinking is just a very sneaky manifestation of fear with better branding.
I'm going to think through this, I'm going to think through this, I'm going to think through this, but fear feeds on time.
And a lot of times once you get to this point, you get to a point of diminishing returns and all you're doing by thinking and overthinking is making yourself more fearful, which makes it less likely for you actually to do the thing?
So once I recognize that maybe I would take a day to just make sure that I'm reading it correctly so I could sleep on it and think more clearly in the morning, I'll just say, Hey, I want to say, I appreciate your appreciation of me, and I appreciate the job offer.
And I want to admit that yesterday I was so excited and I was caught off guard by the offer that I just said yes.
And it wasn't until after the conversation that I remembered our previous conversation when we talked about the fact that we would negotiate this.
And we didn't address this, this and this.
So I'd be, I'd wonder if you'd be open for a conversation to address that.
And just by simply owning it, being transparent and vulnerable and putting yourself in a better position to succeed you can now have that next conversation.
But if we stay at home and just like catastrophize and think over it, we're not really making anything happen.
We're just making ourselves feel worse.
And I think you've got so much good advice there in terms of acknowledging too, acknowledging to the person who made that offer to say, I was so excited and so honored.
And, yet then later, I thought, oh, wait, we'd agreed we would have this conversation down the line.
So let's come back to it.
Or can we, can we have a longer conversation now that I've had a chance to think about it?
I like to make a joke when I want to go back and renegotiate, I like to joke.
So I had a 2 a .m. moment and the other person's like, What's a 2 a .m. moment?
And I'm like, well, that's where I wake up at 2 a .m. And I think, we didn't talk about this.
Right. And the other person usually gets a nice laugh and they, they ignore, because we've all been there.
We've all been there when we wake up in the middle of the night and we realize there was a part of the conversation that didn't happen.
We've all had that.
And so to acknowledge that in a joking way, then the other person's like, okay, great.
So, what did you wake up thinking about at 2 a .m.?
And their chances are maybe they didn't wake up because they're in the position of power.
or maybe they didn't wake up at 2 a .m., but there are probably things that they left the conversation also thinking, you know what, we didn't put a bow on that.
We didn't tie that up as neatly as we could've.
Oh, well, I'm busy.
I'm moving on to the next thing.
She's signed on, right?
They're just relieved as opposed to stealing the need that you're feeling.
So I think making a joke out of it can also be a nice escape hatch. That's great.
I love that one. I am definitely going to borrow that one and I will cite my sources.
There you go. And one last thing that I want to make sure that we address because I want to make sure that we get Simone an opportunity to ask his follow up questions is talking about creativity.
And so this is something that is very legitimate and very important in negotiation, but it's almost become like a buzzword. We say it, but then we don't understand what it really means or what we need to do to put ourselves in a position to be creative and help the other side to get into a position where they are willing to be receptive of our creativity.
So can you talk a little bit about the challenges to creativity in a negotiation?
Because we keep on hearing it's important, but then we never talk about what makes it psychologically and emotionally difficult to put into practice.
Creativity is hard in so many of our jobs, right?
There are people who, you know, are loosely titled creatives, right?
That that's their job to be creative much of the time, But so many of us are operating creatively, just in a small sphere of our work.
And we aren't used to thinking creatively about our job possibilities, especially in a high stakes negotiation, and maybe where you negotiate on the behalf of someone else.
You don't feel you have the creativity that you would like.
There are ways to improve creativity.
I was disappointed.
I did a little research. There's not much research on creativity in negotiations.
I'm hoping that there will be more research on that going forward, but it's not something that seems to be as well researched as other aspects of negotiation skills.
But there are some ways that you can improve your creativity.
I don't know that this would always work for people, but going for a walk improves creativity.
So an interesting strategy that you could take if you're negotiating with someone you know, right?
You wouldn't wanna do this with, you know, you wouldn't, if you're on a team of five people and you're doing a big negotiation for a merger, you don't want to all go for a walk around the neighborhood in downtown Manhattan.
But if you're just negotiating with one person that you happen to know well, going for a walk can make both of you more creative.
There's great research. Steve Jobs was famous for his walks for creativity.
Victoria—there have been other—Virginia Woolf, I mean, was famous for being—using walks for creativity, and there's research showing that walks can improve creativity.
So if the other person's willing to take a walk with you while you negotiate—now granted, maybe that you can't take notes when you're walking, and you really want to be able to take notes.
But if you don't think that that's gonna be something that's necessary and you're just trying to do brainstorming, It's a really interesting strategy that you could employ.
I love that. Yeah. And it ties in with the cardio idea or example that you gave earlier, too.
Just getting the blood flow.
And especially with a lot of us who are taking virtual meetings.
I've done this a lot when I'm trying to brainstorm with my team or something like that, just go on a walk.
I need better connection in my neighborhood.
There you go. It does help.
It does help. And I think we, when we're thinking about strategizing for negotiations, let's say we have a big one coming up.
If we have the opportunity to just grab lunch, grab breakfast, grab coffee or something with the person who's on the other side without even having much of an agenda.
Hey, we're going to chat in a little bit.
We're going to work together on this project.
Let's meet up. Let's talk about it.
Better yet, let's walk to the place together.
You know these are ways that you can really incorporate these without it feeling like a tactic.
It just, we are humans are made for upward ambulation.
And so it's like, we say, hey, let's be human together as we go eat food.
Nice way to do it. Well, and also what I'd recommend when you so that walk is going to help get make both of you more creative and you want you know, again, I haven't seen research on this.
But one of the things I'm thinking, I predict researchers are going to find is when one person shows cognitive flexibility or creativity, the other person is also willing to show up in a way that's more creative right that I like I said, I haven't seen research on that, but I wouldn't be surprised if we find that that's the case because if you show that you're being creative, the other person can feel potentially a pressure to like, okay, why can't I you know, you've reached deep, let me try to reach a deep friend in response.
The one other tip I would recommend if you do go out to lunch, get a high protein lunch, or get a high protein snack.
And that's gonna sound random, but there's great one of the ways that researchers will improve creativity in the lab is they give some people something called l -tyrosine.
L -tyrosine is a it's an amino acid, but it improves creativity.
So l -tyrosine is found in protein.
So you know, you don't want to pop an l -tyrosine pill at the beginning of negotiation, that might be a little weird. But eating something with protein will improve your l -tyrosine.
So if you know that over the course of lunch you're gonna be negotiating.
Don't just order the fettuccine alfredo.
Get some chicken on it.
Very nice. I love it.
That was great advice.
Good for physicality as well.
And Terese, I could talk to you forever on this.
This is great. I really appreciate you coming on.
And before you go, please remind the listeners again about your most recent book and how they can get in touch with you and work with you too.
So my most recent book is called Sharp 14 simple ways to improve your life with brain science.
And it's available wherever you buy books.
You can also check out my website.
Theresehouston .com.
I'm sure Kwame will put it in the show notes.
And I do workshops.
I've done workshops around the world around how to give feedback.
And now I'll be doing workshops around how to have your best brain day.
And I also am available for consulting to help people show up in ways that they can feel really good about.
Amazing. This is another amazing episode, my friend.
Thank you for coming back on.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you. It's so good to be here, Kwame.
Thanks for having me back.
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So if you haven't already Subscribe stay connected and let's keep building the movement together when we become better negotiators We create better outcomes for ourselves and for others hit subscribe share this with someone and I'll see you in the next episode
