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Hey, I'm Kwame Christian and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process.
Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts.
We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life.
Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed.
Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality.
So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen.
Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
How would you just start off by telling the listeners about yourself and what you do and your background?
My name is Gary Nesner.
I retired as the chief of the FBI's crisis negotiation unit.
I retired in 2003 after 30 years in the FBI and 23 of those years was I was a negotiator and the last 10 years I was the chief negotiator.
In that capacity, I traveled around the United States in the world teaching negotiations and involved in quite a few major negotiation situations both domestically and internationally terrorism, kidnappings, hijackings, prison riots, right -wing militia standoffs, and religious zealous sieges, like sieges
like Waco. So through those experiences, my own and working with my team and other negotiators, I came to appreciate some of the core skills that are necessary to be an effective negotiator, effective communicator, to become effective in building positive interpersonal relationships.
So my premise, I guess, basically is that if the skills and approaches we used in a very significant crisis life and death situation, if they work in those situations, then shouldn't they be pretty effective in the less life -threatening situations that we all get into every day?
So that's basically it.
I wrote a book after I retired called Stalling for Time.
I get it certainly on Amazon and elsewhere.
It kind of chronicles not only my personal story but the evolution of law enforcement negotiations and the key principles therein.
That book was used as a basis for a 2018 six -part mini -series on the Paramount Network about Waco.
Michael Shannon played me.
Pretty good stuff. He improved on the original quite significantly.
And we just filmed the second season this summer that'll be out next year and also done quite a few documentaries and podcasts that we talked about.
Netflix has a very big three -part documentary on Waco coming out next year that I'm heavily involved in too.
So other than that, I'm retired, living large, and enjoying life.
Kwame, I've kind of learned that you're too young, you're not there yet, but there's a time in life where you have this rare combination of elements and it's time, financial security, and health.
And you really have to think about those and decide in this great time that you have what are you going to do with it?
How do you want to spend it?
What's your hobbies, your interests, your travel desires, whatever it might be.
But when you stop to think about it, when you're young, you don't have the time or the money.
When you get too far beyond where I am, then your health starts to go bad.
So if you're fortunate enough to have reached a point where you're financially secure and you're healthy and you have the time to do things, then I think about that a lot.
And I think it's really a really important thing to consider.
I know too many people who've gotten to the retirement years such as they are and really don't have a plan or an idea and don't have a purpose.
A lot of them die, particularly men.
For women historically, it's been the emptiness syndrome that they always talk about, the children are gone and the woman might feel from my generation what's her purpose now.
And for men, it's when you leave your job, your career, your sense of who you are and what you do.
And a lot of people don't handle that very well.
And you should be thinking about what's the next phase?
What's the thing I want to do in my life next?
So that's a very long answer to your question.
I'll try to be brief on the others.
Gary, never be brief on this podcast.
No, this is incredible.
I love all of this.
And there are so many different avenues for us to explore just professionally skill wise and then also life wise too.
Because I know that this this skill that you've developed of negotiation, conflict resolution and relationship building has served you well in your personal life as well.
Because like I said, everybody that talks about you and to me has nothing but incredible things to say.
There's a reason for that.
So I think we can explore all of those things.
Well, I appreciate that Kwame.
I mean, coming from you, but I think hopefully you gain wisdom.
We all gain wisdom as we get older.
We go through life's about making mistakes and making adjustments and you never stop making mistakes.
And hopefully you never stop making the adjustments.
But hopefully you get to a point in time where your mistakes are fewer and fewer, and they're not as egregious when they happen.
And that's called wisdom.
And it's really interesting to me.
Now I feel a responsibility to be a bit of a mentor, as I'm sure you do as well, but particularly when you get to be my age, you realize there's things I wish I'd known at an earlier age.
There's things that I joke when I talk to college audiences and I talked to the guys and I said, boy, if I knew how to talk to people back then, I'd had been a lot.
I had a lot more interesting relationships in college.
Let me just put it that way because, you know, guys, particularly, we're always want to posture ourselves.
I'm a good athlete.
I have a fast car, hang out with some cool guys.
We do neat things. That's all a bunch of malarkey.
You know, when you meet somebody you're interested in, you really want to find out about them and learn about what interests them and what issues are of concern to them or what excites them in life and what's their goals and aspirations.
And if you take the time and invest the effort in doing that, I mean, it comes back to you as well.
But, you know, people want to associate with, work with, hang out with people that they respect and who respect them.
It's so terribly simple that I almost feel guilty talking about, oh, this guy's a guru.
No, it's just plain old common sense.
You know, just be a good, likable human being.
Be interested in other people.
And that gives you influence.
That gives you the ability to gain others' respect and accomplish things in life.
You know, it just does.
Yeah. And I think one of the things that's most interesting about what you said is the fact that when I've stumbled upon your work and the things that you said then are consistent with the things that you're saying now, and the things that I hear other really great negotiators say, and it's so interesting
how consistent the fundamentals are across jurisdictions, across different lifestyles, generations, and just throughout the time.
It's a, are those core truths that we should hold onto in order to be better communicators in general?
Well, you know, you could go to the old, you know, the biblically based golden rule, treat others like you want to be treated.
I mean, that's always a good one.
That translates into almost every society and every religion historically, but that makes a lot of sense.
You know, I mean, will you be taken advantage of sometimes?
Certainly. Are there people that will try to manipulate you and maybe be successful?
But overall, if you treat people the right way and demonstrated genuine interest in understanding them, then it pays dividends back to you.
And it's not manipulation.
It's just plain old, honest communication.
You know, so what makes a good Boy Scout code, you know, and the number one, I wonder if you can guess it, the number one personality attribute that I found that is present in all really good negotiators.
I don't think you'll guess what it is.
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Let me take a let me take a standard guess and then let me let me take an outside the box guess.
I think a safe a safe guess would be curiosity.
I think that's a safe guess.
Let me try an outside of the box guess.
I would say it is either going to be like humility or openness.
So humility, not always like being willing to be proven wrong, but like openness just saying I am open enough to hear what you are saying without judgment.
Those would be my outside the box guesses.
Well, and I think those are excellent ones and I think they're all very valid.
But it's funny, I thought about this a lot through the years.
You know, what are those attributes?
Because I do get asked that what's the attribute?
What are the attributes of good negotiator?
And it all came down to one word for me.
And you may laugh like ability, plain old good old fashioned like ability, just being a likable person.
Now what does that mean?
Does that mean something different to each and every other?
Well, maybe so. But I think most of us get a sense of how that translates.
So, you know, you and I are just meeting here for the first time, although we know about each other.
So, you know, I suspect we'll both leave this interview and say, you know, I really like Kwame.
You know, that was really a fun conversation.
You know, he's somebody very intellectually curious.
He's got great ideas.
I joined talking to him.
It was stimulating for me.
I hope it was stimulating for him.
And I look forward to another opportunity to meet.
Well, what made me feel that way about you?
Likeability. You're likable.
You know, I hope I'm likable, you know, and so I don't know.
People can have a different perspective and a different word, but I've tried to it always boils down to that for me.
This is so fascinating because it's one of my favorite sayings is the sign of a brilliant insight is that it seems obvious in hindsight.
And you're so right.
Right. Because when I think about the like the negotiation experts who come onto this show and the people who I know are good negotiators and the people who have negotiated with and enjoyed the experience, and I know they got a good deal and vice versa, they're all likable.
I can't think of anybody in this industry who is just fundamentally at their core, unlikable.
And I think it's so fascinating, because we, I believe sometimes it seems as though we have a bias towards the complex, because we have you coming on the podcast, you're a legend in the field.
I know you would not describe yourself that way, but it is in fact, the truth.
Right. And the principles that you've given us thus far are very attainable.
And when I think about likability, sometimes we can overthink this.
What are the elements that you believe are critical to being more likable, even in tough conversations?
Yeah, I think what makes you likable is and you touched on a few of them.
It's a demonstration of curiosity about others.
It's a desire to learn in this context from others, to hear about their experiences, to share their joy or frustration or whatever in between that they're expressing.
And coming across as honest and sincere and genuine, I mean, genuine is a really important thing.
You know, when I think of, you know, what I always tell audiences, Kwame is, all the years I was involved in law enforcement negotiations, I always got in the habit of trying to get information from the person that surrendered, whether I was talking to him or someone else.
And of course, the question we always ask is, what did we say that made you come out?
Because we want to know, you know, what's, we want to repeat this.
And you know, the answer was always the same, and it's insightful.
And the answer is, I don't remember what you said, but I like the way you said it.
Now, if you could package that, that's worth pure gold.
She'll talk about everything from taking feedback to managing imposter syndrome and her career pivot to directing.
I really don't want you to miss this.
So here's a sneak preview of Anna on what it felt like to take a big risk.
It was like that feeling that you're when you're going to like vomit, where it was like, oh, God, it's coming up.
Like, I'm gonna say I want to pitch myself to direct the movie.
And I kept like trying to stuff it back down because it was so scary.
And then like a day later or something, I was pitching myself.
And it was like the weirdest, most ambivalent pitch probably in the history of cinema.
Because I was like, pitching myself, but going, guys, if this isn't the right thing for the movie, or you don't think that I'm ready, I shouldn't do it.
Because I really wanted to do what was best for the movie.
I loathe false confidence.
I want to be honest, and I want to work with people who can make room for that honesty.
Right. So I was really delighted that almost all the producers were on board, even with my very ambivalent pitch.
Confidence. I've always thought of a bit of a misnomer.
Confidence is what you say after the fact, when you look back at something that's happened.
Before, you just have to find someone to push you into the void of something new.
It's funny that you say the void because I had, I was like lying in bed before I'd said it out loud to anybody.
It was like I had the image of me behind me, pushing me off of a cliff and going like, you're going to figure out how to fly on the way down.
To hear my whole conversation with actor Anna Kendrick, make sure you're following Hello Monday with Jesse Humpel, wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh, this is so good.
So just going through this list, you said curiosity about the other person, you want to learn about them.
You want to hear their experiences, you share in their joy or frustration, and you come across as honest and sincere.
I want to focus on those last two, sharing in their joy or frustration because in the podcast, we talk a lot about emotional intelligence, the importance of acknowledging and validating the emotions.
And thank you. And when you think about the emotional element of it, this is much easier said than done.
Because, all right, somebody's feeling frustrated, they're feeling upset and everything.
But I might fundamentally disagree with this person.
I might not like what that person is currently doing.
And in your case, you're dealing with murderers, people who are the toughest kind, how do you share in their emotionality?
Well, there's, I found there's generally something good in almost everyone.
I mean, you know, I was asked the other day about David Koresh, who was a pretty manipulative, pretty unlikable person in a lot of ways, although he had great loyalty amongst his followers.
But there are aspects of his personality that you could find likable and charming, even an interesting that made you want to learn more.
What makes this person tick?
You know, how did they view the world?
And I think, you know, I think that's important.
I suspect having a cup of coffee with Charles Manson would be interesting.
You know, it's not not that you're going to take him home for Christmas dinner.
But, you know, I'm sure you would walk away.
I mean, I interviewed Ted Turner once.
You know, I can't say what it was about.
And I'll never forget that interview as long as I live.
It was just amazing to be around that man and to see his brain move at a million miles an hour.
And that's probably the way he became so successful in building this, you know, news media empire.
People like that fascinate me, you know, and and so you mentioned curiosity before, and I think I think that's part of it.
Instead of looking for reasons not to like somebody because of this quirky habit or this outside personality, this inflated ego, whatever it is, rather, if you say, well, that is very, very interesting.
You know, that's very interesting to hear his take on life or her take on life or her perspective.
You know, so I think, you know, I think it's hard to fake sincerity.
I mean, you can get away with it now and then, but I think a good negotiator comes across as someone wanting to help someone get out of it.
In my former life, the kind of negotiations I did want to help you get out of a situation.
And when I say that and express that, it comes across in a believable way.
And, you know, that's when you typically get to a point where the perpetrator will say, Gary, I, I just don't know how to get out of this.
Now, for me, I mean, you know, the the the marquee lights just went on.
This person is now soliciting my opinion, my perspective, my thoughts, you know, and this gives me now the the opportunity to say, well, you know, I know one thing, killing your boss isn't going to get your job back and, you know, maybe we can explore some other ways for you to address this wrong that you
think happened to you in your workplace.
You know, there may be other alternatives.
Maybe you can take some legal action or whatever.
But, you know, you're talking about engaging in a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Now, if I told him that two hours earlier, I hadn't yet earned the right to be someone he listened to or paid attention to.
But through the course of our interaction, if I've been respectful and genuine and I've demonstrated that I understand what he's going through and how he feels about it.
If I'm good at doing all those things, then we will get to a point where I've now earned the right.
I've worked for it.
I've earned the right to to be of influence.
You know, you and I have never met in person and you say, OK, I know Gary's work.
I've heard about him from others.
But in the 10 minutes now that we've spoken, you would probably and I don't mean to put any thoughts or words in your mouth.
We probably say like, hmm, it was interesting talking to Gary.
I might run this idea by him that I've been thinking about, you know, and see what he thinks.
I don't know what makes us like other people or be likable.
It's kind of like the Supreme Court judge said about pornography.
You know, I can't define it, but I know when I see it.
Well, I think we know likability when we see it and in genuineness and sincerity.
Again, you can be fooled sometimes by people.
I have. I'm sure everyone has this person comes across initially is really nice.
Then you say, this person's interests are not in my best interest.
It's OK. You know, we gain the wisdom to pick that out.
But for the most part, you know, we have pretty good instincts about the people we're engaging with.
And do they give us a good feeling?
I just mentioned I'd just done another podcast.
And I mentioned that I recently met a new friend in.
And my wife knows the couple better, better than I do.
And I didn't like this guy first.
I just didn't get a sense of humor and I just, you know, you know, my wife, what do you think I said, you know, I don't know, I don't know, not my kind of person.
And but after two or three more meetings, I think it's great now, you know, and I really like the person, you know, I get his humor now.
I've finally got it.
And and it's kind of fun to be around.
You know, it just you have to be able to invest a little bit of time in that.
Oh, there are so many gems of wisdom.
The first one I think is something that I believe is the most important thing that's ever been said on the podcast that I really want my employees to hear is that and I quote, murdering your boss isn't going to make the situation better.
So you may want to have that printed and put behind your office chair there, you know.
Exactly. But you know what, what that on a serious note, what that describes is a situation driven by emotion, high emotion.
And the first job of a negotiator in the law enforcement context and sometimes in the civilian context is to lower the temperature to deescalate, to, you know, stop the confrontation, stop moving around in the quicksand is how I used to like to say it.
You know, when I was a kid, every movie growing up, they had one episode with somebody walking in the quicksand and they'd move around and go down quicker.
You know, I don't even know if quicksand exists, but I used to love that in the movies, but it's a great vehicle.
But, you know, it's you know, we just have to think about these things, you know, and and I think I mean, I make mistakes all the time.
Don't don't. Oh, this is scary.
So why is he must have this perfect life?
You know, I mean, you know, we all make mistakes and we all misread situations and we probably say things we regret.
But overall, you know, hopefully when we have an important situation that we're dealing with domestically or otherwise, you know, hopefully we say, you know, I really need to focus on listening to this person and understanding them and try to convey to them that I'm doing this sincerely and genuinely I
I want to know I want to know your journey.
How did you get to this podcast?
You know, how did you get to your work as a negotiator?
Kwame? Well, you you know, you had told me earlier that you felt years ago you were pretty bad at this and you probably took it as a personal challenge.
So how can I make myself better at this?
How can I be the best person I can be and be successful in engaging with other people?
Well, in relaying to you what I just did, if I got that right, and I think I did because your nodding, you know, you're saying, Yeah, he heard me before, you know, that's not trickery.
It's not manipulation.
I'm just I was listening.
And I want you to know, I was listening.
And it's an important.
It's such a simple thing that we forget it.
You mentioned earlier, and I think you were so spot on with that Kwame that, you know, sometimes the most powerful things are so simple.
And yet we just we don't do it.
You know, that's why what I know, there's a lot of gurus in our business.
And you know, when somebody says, you know, whenever I see some of these 10 steps to close the deal, be successful, and I said, Okay, that's great, whatever.
But it's not what I do, you know, I mean, you can do those 10 steps.
But if you're not coming across in a personable way, if you're not conveying genuineness and sincerity, you're generally not going to win the business, or you're not going to keep the business.
And so that's the secret sauce.
That's, that's the ingredient that makes it work.
You know, we can all follow the cookbook.
All right, okay, I'm gonna negotiate with so and so let me open up.
This is a chapter on selling widgets.
Okay, I do these six things.
And I mean, that's great if it works for people, but it's not me.
Yeah. Oh, and I mean, it speaks to your authenticity, which is part of the efficacy as well.
Because you don't need to refer back to any like tips or tricks or anything.
This is just you being you implementing these techniques and strategies with an authenticity over and over again.
I always go into a negotiation thinking I'm going to be successful.
Always. Not because I recognize I will make mistakes, I will say things that I probably shouldn't have said, I will express things that could have been expressed better.
But at the end of the day, that person is more likely to say just what I told you earlier, I don't remember what you said, Gary, but I like the way you said it.
I mean, I've literally had that mentioned to me in any crisis.
And I said, well, there's power there.
There's a power there that we don't recognize, you know, that the way you said something, the way you project your genuineness, your likability.
I mean, it's so important.
I just, you know, how many times you've been to a social function, and you know, you you know, you you're there with your significant other.
And, you know, one of you is in the living room, one is the kitchen, you don't even see each other all night long, you get back in the car to go home and you say, that was your night.
Did you have fun? Yeah, yeah.
Would you meet anybody?
Yeah, I met so and so those new people that moved down the street.
What an interesting couple.
You would not believe where they live before they came here.
They lived in Senegal, and they did this and they did that.
And they had these experiences.
And all of a sudden, you can tell that your significant other is very animated about something that they heard that they found very interesting, and enjoyable.
Good stuff, good stuff, you know, and yeah, learn something, have a new experience, talk to somebody different.
I love it. I just think it's the greatest thing in the world.
So there are a couple of other things that I'd like to add to your list, because it's not just the fact that you have the skills and strategies and everything, you have the authenticity, and you have the the genuine sincerity as well.
But I can tell when you're talking about human connection and interaction, there's like a genuine exuberance and excitement that you get just from learning about other people.
And I want to go deeper in that to see how we can begin to start to cultivate that level of exuberance.
Because I think if you're just genuinely interested in people, you start to almost organically utilize some of these tools that you've talked about already in the podcast episode.
So how do you generate that genuine curiosity and desire to learn?
Yeah, I don't think it's a formula or you just, you know, change hats and say, okay, I'm going to go in this situation, now I'm going to do all these things.
I think you have to develop these skills in your everyday life.
You know, if you want to be really good at this.
I have a friend, Dr.
Mike Webster, who was a psychologist with the RCMP for years, and I used to bring him to every one of our negotiation courses.
He was the most effective communicator I've ever known in my life.
And it was so sincere and so genuine that literally everybody he meets thinks they're his best friend.
And there's not a phony thing about it.
He just is interested in people to a degree to which I've never seen before, you know, and I pale in comparison.
But you know, it's that kind of, I always tell a story.
And if you've heard any of my podcasts, you may have even heard the story.
So for forgive me for those who have heard before, but I have a habit when I travel and give speeches, less and less these days, and I go to a hotel, I have a target du jour.
And my target du jour is whatever poor unfortunate person is sitting next to me at the hotel bar.
I don't, I don't like room service.
And I don't like to sit in a restaurant by myself.
So I go to the hotel bar and I, you know, have a glass of wine and a steak or watch the basketball game, talk to the I have made a little game.
I'm going to find out everything I can about this person.
And I always tell a story.
I'm in Memphis, Tennessee, and this guy comes in, and he's in a real rush, and he's wearing medical scrubs, you know, and he walks up to the bar standing right next to where I'm sitting.
And he tries to get a drink to take back to his room.
And the bartender goes to make his drink.
And I said, excuse me, sir, I couldn't help but notice is there some sort of an emergency here in the hotel?
He says, No, no, no, no, I said, Well, I saw you have medical scrubs on so I assume something's going on here.
He said, No, no, no, I'm coming back and coming back from work.
It's all mask where you work.
He said I'm a medical device salesman.
And I go, Oh, that's interesting.
So mask, why are you wearing surgical scrubs?
Well, I go into the surgery and I show doctors how to install artificial knees and ankles and so forth.
I said, so you teach doctors now, just giving him a big promotion on the social pecking order.
He's someone that teaches doctors.
And anyway, we talk and talk and talk.
He didn't get back to his room with his drink.
He stayed there for 20 or 30 minutes.
His name was Jim, his wife is Mary.
I know his kids names and knew where he live, what kind of car he drive, where he went to school, and how he got into this business, how long he'd been doing it, how much he enjoyed it on and on and on and on.
And finally, time for me to go to bed.
Party's over. I said, Jim, I got to tell you, I learned more about this field of artificial joints than I would have ever known about.
I said, this is fascinating stuff.
I've never talked to anybody that does this.
They said, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He said, What was your name again?
Oh, my name, he didn't got my name.
It's Gary Nestner. And he said, Oh, what did you do?
I said, Well, I'm retired.
I was the chief justice negotiator for the FBI.
Good night. See you later.
And I walked out and he's been like, you know, I know he was thinking, gee, he might have heard a good story or two as well.
I didn't give him much of a chance, Kwame.
So it wasn't fair. But what I'm saying is you can invest the time and effort in getting to know somebody.
People like to talk about themselves.
They like to be in the frame of reference where they're comfortable.
And you'll get your turn.
If I had engaged with Jim long enough, we would have gone around to him asking me about my life and my career.
And that's fine. You know, I didn't give him much of a chance that.
But, you know, I tell another story.
I was in Texas and I'm at a bar and there's a young man next to me.
His hobby is tightrope walking.
Now, who do you meet that does that?
So next thing you know, he's showing me videos on his camera of him walking in his backyard with a rope tied between the trees.
And he's got the balance beam.
It was fascinating.
You know, what made you get interested in this?
Why do you do this?
That's unbelievable.
How you know, all the whole nine yards.
We're still Facebook friends.
That was 10 years ago.
You know, and I just think everybody has a story.
Everybody has a story.
And if you invest the time in listening to the story and not just the story, but how they feel about it.
You know, it's not just what happens to us in life.
It's how do we feel about it?
You know, what impact does it have on us?
You know, if somebody tells you about, you know, they were close to their grandmother who died last year.
And then you see them start to choke up.
Well, it's more than just saying, Oh, too bad your grandmother died.
No, now you got to say, sounds like you and your grandmother had a very close relationship.
Yes, yes, we did. She raised me.
Wow. Can you tell me more about that?
Or, you know, whatever it might be.
You just tune your ear into picking up on what's important to people and giving them a chance to share it.
Oh, so many gems. Let's let's do a bit of a callback here.
Because one, one of the things that I'm hard to control Kwame, I'm hard to know I love it, because you're giving me so many targets.
This is this is great for me.
And one of the things that you were when you go, if you were going to go back to that, the story you told about the person who wanted to to kill their boss.
And I don't know Jim, it's just stuck in my head.
But one of the things that you mentioned was, it took two hours for him to say, hey, I'm stuck in this situation.
I don't know what to do to get out of it.
And now, with this conversation that you had with Jim, who's married to Mary, right?
He has two kids with that situation, it wasn't until the very end that he said, hey, what's your name?
And then you shared, you know, I'm Gary, blah, blah, blah, right.
And so, one of the things you mentioned at the end of that story is you said you will get your turn to share your piece.
And then earlier, you said you have to earn the right to be able to move into that next step of the conversation.
And so, I want to dig deeper into the reality that a major portion of your success comes from your patience.
It's just diligent applications of the core principles that you've been discussing this whole time.
And just going through it over and over and over and over again, until the person feels comfortable enough to move.
Yeah, you remember, I mentioned you a little early in our conversation that I always go into a negotiation feeling I'm going to be successful.
Because I'm comfortable and secure in knowing what I can control and what I can't.
It's the old Serenity Prayer.
So, what I do know is I can control my behavior and how I present myself.
I can't control the other person, the client, the vendor, the dispute person you're with, whatever it might be.
I can't control that.
I can try to influence it.
And my experience is that the best way to have a positive influence on it is for me to maintain self -control and to listen and engage and understand.
That still doesn't guarantee an outcome.
I can tell a negotiator, you can do all these things perfect and they still kill themselves.
I used to, you know, when I was teaching negotiators, suicide is a very frequent thing that police negotiators do, the most.
And, you know, I've had police officers, I've done 100 suicides and no one's ever killed themselves.
I said, well, you're unlucky.
You know, I mean, I'm sure you're very, very good at what you do.
But I said, you know, if you do enough of these, somebody's going to kill themselves.
And it's not your fault.
And you have to go in there knowing this because you don't 100 % control them.
You don't. You can try to be a positive influence.
But if you go in knowing the limitations of what you can and cannot do, it's like in a business negotiation.
I know I'm going to engage with the client in a certain way, but the client may have issues beyond my control.
They may have a comptroller or a finance guy that is totally fixated on price.
They may have a CEO that has a habit of overturning any decision anybody else may.
There could be a myriad of problems beyond this person's control.
But all you can say is I'm going to really focus on my interaction with this person and make this as positive as I can, knowing I'm going to lose some of these deals.
That's okay. Don't burn a bridge.
Don't say, just wasted two hours of my time.
You just say, well, you know, I'm sorry we didn't win your business on this one.
I hope. I hope you'll give me another opportunity if you find that the direction you are moving in is not satisfactory or you have some other needs where you think I might help you maintain the relationship.
Don't don't get sour.
Don't get bitter. Don't be, you know, aggressive in your response.
And that'll come back and pay dividends.
I've had a number of clients when I was in the private sector who went with the cheaper deal.
Very high percentage of time they're disappointed because they didn't get what they wanted.
They went with the low bidder and they got a crappy product.
And then they come back to you.
Oh, okay. I'd like to discuss that thing we talked about before.
I said, I know my price point was higher, but I still think there's a qualitative issue here that I think in the long run will benefit you and your company.
So things like that.
Don't burn bridges.
Just, you know, let insults bounce off you, you know?
But you know, I start a chapter of each of my book stalling for time with a quote and my favorite quote of all time.
And that's why I put it in the book was the partial quote from Rudyard Kipling, you know, if you keep your head about you and all else are losing theirs, well, that's a powerful thing.
I mean, you know, who, well, let me give you another example.
I worked at TWA 4 .7 hijacking back in 1985 and out of Beirut.
And I spent a lot of time, five years working that case.
And I interviewed every American 150 Americans are on the plane.
I interviewed every one of them multiple times.
And there would be a case where the plane went from Athens to Beirut to Algiers to Beirut to Algiers to Beirut.
And I would ask Kwame on the second landing in Beirut.
Can you tell me where you were on the plane?
And you would say, we landed twice in Beirut.
You know, totally lost your ability to think and engage in survival kind of skill sets needed.
Then I talked to another person, Kwame 2.
Where were you? And I said, oh, well, I was in seat 21F.
I was there for like 10 minutes and then they moved me to seat 4B.
I sat next to so and so and such and such.
And here's what we did.
Here's a very detailed memory.
And say, you say, how can these two people who experienced the same thing have diametrically opposed recollections about what happened?
Well, there's some psychology involved in survival and some people block things out.
Other people really raise their game up and go into a survival mode of gathering information.
But, you know, these are interesting things about human behavior.
And the more you know about that, the more helpful it is.
Yeah, it makes so much sense.
And Gary, I could talk to you all day.
And one of these days, we will.
I'll make it out to the East Coast where we'll hang out some time in person.
But before you go, I want to ask you one question that comes up a lot where people will hear about the like the empathetic approach that you're talking about, understanding, listening.
One of the things that I've really appreciated about this episode is that, like you said, there are no gimmicks here.
There's no quick tricks or anything.
It's just diligent and patient and disciplined application of the fundamentals over time, understanding that it will work one way or another.
Right. You're in control.
Either you will move closer to the right direction, whether or not you get a deal.
Yeah. Put unrealistic expectations on yourself.
I can control myself.
And I know how I'm going to approach this engagement, this sale, this, you know, discussion, whatever it is, you can control that.
And, you know, that is greatly enhances your probabilities of success.
But it doesn't guarantee it.
It just doesn't guarantee and go in there knowing that fine.
You know, I'm going to give this.
It's like the football player that loses the big game.
But he said, you know what?
I didn't I didn't leave anything off the field.
I gave it my all. And we didn't win the game.
It was unfortunate.
But, you know, I gave it everything I could.
Well, I think that's what we all want to do in life.
You know, I I don't expect success, but I want my performance to be the best it can be to enhance my chances of success and sales and relationship building, whatever it might be.
Makes sense. And when you think about the the reality that in life, there will be some bad actors, there will be people who try to manipulate you.
There will be people who will pretend to be sincere and genuine, but they're not.
That happens. And you mentioned it in passing, but I want to go back to that because that's that fear is something that holds people back from fully wholeheartedly and authentically engaging in these conversations.
And so for the person who says, Gary, I I understand what you're saying about empathy and being vulnerable and being open.
I understand that. But I'm afraid of somebody taking advantage of me.
What do you say to that person?
And they may. And they may.
But, you know, the more comfortable you are with yourself, the better you're able to assess someone else and and their motivations.
You know, you asked me earlier, I think I can't remember the form of the question.
One of the, you know, the attributes of being a successful negotiator.
I mentioned likability, but it's also being yourself.
Negotiators, I saw this more times than I can even begin to tell you in law enforcement context, when negotiators feel the stress of a situation and then try to be something they're not, it's a recipe for problems.
You know, but if you can be yourself, you know, you know, that's what's going to come across.
You know, I tell negotiators, OK, your best friend from when you were a kid lives on the opposite coast and calls you up in the middle of the night, lost my job.
Wife is leaving me.
You don't say, you know, it's pretty late here in the East Coast, Kwame, and let's let's talk later this week.
You know, good luck with all that.
If you're a true friend, you're probably going to spend the night on the phone with that dear friend of yours, helping them deal with this crisis.
You will be successful if success is possible.
That's the same approach you have to take with somebody that you don't have the relationship with.
I'm going to invest my undivided time and attention and energy to trying to resolve this conflict, help this person figure out a way through this problem.
And more often than not, that's going to lead to success.
Oh, this is so good.
Gary, do you see this?
You see all these notes?
Two full pages of notes.
I don't know if I was interviewing you or just listening to the podcast, but regardless, I got a lot out of this and I'm sure that a lot of listeners did as well.
And with the time left, just remind the listeners again how folks can get in touch with you and about the book and those type of things.
Yeah. The book Stalling for Time My Life as an FBI Hoss is Negotiator, which sort of chronicles my career and my life story and the law enforcement negotiation profession.
You can certainly get that on Amazon or any other book vendor.
I have a website, garynesneroneword .com.
And you know, there's a lot of stuff on there about articles I've written and podcasts, links and interviews and things of that nature.
And I can even be contacted through that.
So, yeah, I always respond to folks.
And my wife gets laughs at me because I'll even do an interview with a high school class.
I get stuff like this all the time.
I said, what else I got to do?
You know, I'm not trying to make money.
You know, these kids are not enough to reach out to me and brave enough.
I wouldn't have done something like that at an age.
You know, you go to somebody that's a public figure and you say, hey, could we talk to you on our class?
Would you call in and talk to us?
I mean, unless I'm really busy, I'm going to do it.
You know, why not? You know, I'm going to set myself up for problems here.
But now I've got to go disconnect my phone number, Kwame.
But, you know, it's all part of that, again, at my age, wanting to give back a little bit.
And, you know, it's always it's always nice.
There's never a way to put a statistical number, but to know that there's a lot of police officers, particularly out there who are alive today, because they didn't have to go in and confront the dangerous subject, because the skills that my colleagues help teach throughout the law enforcement world,
you know, it really saved a lot of lives.
And that's, you know, that's pretty good.
I can live with that.
I would say that's a little bit more than pretty good.
My friend, this is it's incredible work.
We appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and just thanks for your incredible career.
No, thanks. It was a pleasure.
I'm glad we finally get to meet in not in person in video or whatever.
So yeah, call anytime.
Appreciate it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before.
Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again.
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I'll catch you later.
