Welcome to this masterclass edition of Negotiate Anything.
With over 1700 episodes featuring some of the world's brightest minds, we've carefully curated a couple of powerful conversations for you.
What makes this so special is that you'll hear how different experts from different industries approach the same challenge in their own unique ways.
Our goal is to give you multiple perspectives so you can build your own unique style.
Success doesn't look the same for everyone.
And in this masterclass, you'll see exactly why.
Let's dive in.
We'll see you next time.
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Nisha, thanks for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
It is my pleasure.
So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Yeah, sure.
So my name is Nisha Mehta.
I'm a radiologist by training.
Still practice medicine, but a lot of what I do these days is actually related to physician empowerment and building physician communities.
I host the largest online physician platform in the country.
We have about 173,000 verified physician members.
We've got about 20,000 people waiting to join.
And it's just been a really fun way to, number one, community amongst physicians but number two, be able to have some of these conversations that we've never had had the chance to have as a community, because we tend to talk about clinical stuff.
We tend to talk about things directly related to our jobs very specifically, but life and medicine in general.
We don't hit on a lot of the topics that we should have probably learned in medical school but didn't.
One of those ones is negotiations.
I am so excited to be here, but we do a lot of teaching of all the stuff that we didn't learn in med school, basically.
This is great.
And before we jump into it, can you let the listeners know about the negotiation salary database that you have too?
We have a really comprehensive database that our physician members have actually contributed to in order to allow the physicians to be able to get apples to apples data when they're negotiating their contracts things like that, just to kind of understand nobody's price fixing or colluding or anything like that.
It's literally just thousands of physicians who have said hey, this is my market and this is what my job is like.
These are the things that I've been able to negotiate for.
So the people can kind of look and say hmm, maybe this is something that I could ask for, or a lot of times people don't even think about the different things that they can negotiate into their contract.
So it's been really nice for people to be able to go in and say like, oh, that's interesting.
I did realize there was a cap on my salary.
That was sort of set.
But here are all these other things that I can maybe bring up with my employer and talk to them about the potential to make this package what I want.
And What we found is that a lot of our members have really been able to create those jobs that they want by thinking a little bit more outside of the box from just hey, here's your contract and take it or leave it.
And I think that's been really great for our members to just also realize that there's so much more to a compensation package than just salaries.
There's a lot of salary databases out there for physicians but they don't get into the nitty gritty of what does it mean to make 250000 here versus there?
What are the differences in vacation?
What's the differences in call schedule?
What's the differences in benefits or bonus structures?
Those are the kinds of things that they really need to realize.
A number in isolation doesn't mean much.
And so a lot of times I think doctors are like, oh, well, we make this much.
And it's kind of like yeah, but making this much, taking Q3 call and getting two weeks of vacation a year, versus making this much.
And you could have a very low salary.
But if you have a lifestyle that you love and reflects exactly what you want, then maybe that is what you should be negotiating for.
So it's been nice to kind of open up the conversation about position salaries a little bit more comprehensively.
I love this for a number of reasons.
First of all, selfishly, my wife is a physician as well.
So let's negotiate those salaries.
So I like that.
Second of all, I think it's really important because it ties right to your core value of physician empowerment, because knowledge is power.
And a lot of times we cannot negotiate effectively for ourselves simply because we don't have the knowledge to benchmark ourselves.
Number one, and then the skills too.
So this is really, really important work that you're doing.
Thank you.
Yeah no, it's been really fun to just watch everyone empower each other and give each other feedback on things.
And it's so important for people to have these conversations because money is always amongst positions.
It's always a pretty taboo topic.
And As we see physician burnout just rising and people being like, this isn't worth it.
A lot more of these discussions about how do we make it sustainable, right?
And not think about our jobs as such cookie cutter algorithms.
What can we change?
What are the pieces we can move?
And especially with budgetary constraints and hospitals and things like that.
There's a lot more.
Hey, this is just what the salary is.
And so I think it's really paramount for physicians to kind of go out there and say okay fine, we're working with these numbers, but this is what we're going to do for these numbers, not just okay, this is the salary and you can tell us everything that we need to do, and we're not going to protect ourselves contractually.
So like a really common example is contracts in physician employment, contracts with hospitals where the physician will take call as much as everyone else.
And it's just kind of this blanket statement of, okay, everybody takes equal call.
Well, That's fine when you join the group if you have six people and you're like yeah, of course everything should be split between six people.
But what happens in today's healthcare environment, where sometimes we do have mass exodus and things change and all of a sudden there's only two people in the call pool?
And now all of a sudden you have the same compensation, but you're on call every other night.
That changes the dynamic a little bit.
So really trying to make sure that physicians protect themselves and their contracts against some of these forces and dynamics that are happening in the healthcare environment.
Contract negotiations have become such a big thing for physicians where they really need to be able to say like, let's spell out everything in terms of minimums maximums whatever, so that we're not ultimately being asked to step up and do a lot more than what we signed up for, but don't have any contractual recourse to say no.
Those contracts with the hospitals, that's so important to evaluate because you're right.
You sign the deal and then people leave, your workload changes, but your pay stays the same.
And that's not fair.
And now tell me if I'm off on this because I want to get the physician's perspective here.
It seems, from the outside, looking in, that let's say you grew up wanting to be a doctor so you could help people, or my family's, from the Caribbean.
If you're an immigrant, you'd be a doctor because that's what your parents tell you to do.
Same thing in South Asian culture.
So yes, I understand that very well.
At some point, you want to help somebody, right?
So you go through undergrad, you go through med school, and you have this helping mentality.
And then it's almost like these institutions can almost weaponize that against you, because it can feel almost icky to be advocating for more money when you're supposed to be there helping people.
And this is something if you follow me a lot I talk a lot about how the altruism of physicians is used against them and the altruism of healthcare workers in general honestly, not just physicians, where I think everyone understands that at the end of the day, we took an oath and we're never going to look at a patient and not do what's best for them.
And sometimes unfortunately increasingly, that is being used against healthcare workers to kind of say like well, patient care comes first.
And it does, right?
So in the moment, that's not the time for people to pick that battle, right?
But- globally speaking.
What we try to remind the physicians on our group is you need to be able to do this for the next 10 20, 30 years.
And you can do that altruistic thing five times in a month, and do it because that's what you need to be doing.
And that's what's the best interest of your patient.
But can you do it for three decades?
And more and more, what we're seeing is that people are saying, I can't do this anymore.
And then it becomes this very binary thing where it's like, I've done it too much.
I can't do this anymore.
I quit, right?
And so we're seeing this mass exodus of physicians and other healthcare workers out of the healthcare system because they just reached that breaking point where they quit.
So a large emphasis of my work is how do we create career longevity amongst healthcare professionals right?
And part of that is being able to have terms that actually are sustainable over the long term.
And so I keep trying to tell people it's not selfish to put boundaries on, Because these are the things that are going to allow you to do this for the next 10 20, 30 years and not reach that breaking point where you're just like I gave everything I had.
I missed all the holidays.
I missed all of my kids' events.
I did all this stuff.
I gave everything.
And now I just don't have more to give.
We haven't done anybody any favors because right now what we're seeing is about 10 of the position workforce leaving the workforce every year.
And that is not a healthcare system that is sustainable, right?
So if you really want to do what's best for your patients, you need to be around and patients need to have access to care in 20 years.
And the way that we have our healthcare system built right now and the way that people's contracts are right now, we are seeing a situation where, very rapidly that may not even be the case in four or five years right.
In some markets around the country right now, you're looking at six, eight months to see a specialist, because there's just so much of a doctor shortage, right?
And that's only getting worse and worse and worse.
So my big thing is like, yes, we are altruistic.
Yes, we have taken an oath.
We're always going to do what's best for the patient in that moment.
But also make sure that we put systems into place and systems being into place, so that those things are not everyday occurrences that ultimately lead to burnout.
This is so good because I think a lot of people can relate to that fear of looking greedy or selfish by advocating for yourself.
Because, like you said, in healthcare, it's your altruistic nature that's being used against you, either intentionally or unintentionally.
That keeps you from advocating for yourself, because you're thinking hey, i need to take care of the patients, that's my primary focus, but the question is, who's taking care of you?
And that responsibility is yours, and that's really tough to do, and i love this mentality focusing on career longevity.
Then it helps people to recognize hey, by advocating for myself, I am advocating for my patients, because I'm going to be there longer and I'll be able to perform at a higher level.
And I think a lot of times people just need that permission to advocate for themselves.
And that's really the thing that holds them back.
And I think it's been ingrained into us throughout our training that we go above and beyond for everything right.
So the minute that you check off that box, that you're pre-med in college, all of a sudden you're doing all the unpaid research, all the unpaid fellowships, all the unpaid everything to get to your spot in medical school.
And then when you get to medical school, your attending physician says to you hey, show up for rounds at seven o'clock and you show up at 530 to pre-round, because that is the nature of what we do.
And the system breeds the system where it's kind of hey, you have to go above and beyond, because that's what doctors do.
And I think that that's part of the wonderful part about our profession is that people are so giving and that I see stories every day on our communities of things that people have done where I'm kind of like I want you to be my doctor because you are awesome, right.
We want that in our positions.
But then we also see the same stories from those same people saying like, I'm at my wits end.
I can't do this anymore.
I've spent four hours every night charting.
I haven't read a book for fun in a year or five years or 10 years, right?
At some point.
What we need to be able to give ourselves permission to do is say like we actually do have to start saying no.
And that is something that comes so uncomfortably.
It's not natural for a doctor to say no, right?
We do everything we can.
And that's always been how it's been ingrained into us.
So-
People are just very uncomfortable with the word no.
And sometimes people draft their responses to how they're going to respond to a request from the administration.
And it's like this long paragraph of like I'm so sorry I can't do this because of this this this this, this.
And I'm like, stop apologizing.
No is a one word sentence.
I did not sign up for that.
I'm sorry.
No, if you want me to do this, we can talk about how we can make that sustainable, but it's not a no holds bar.
Yeah, sure.
I'll do whatever you want to do because that's not sustainable, right?
So Just getting comfortable with that idea of setting boundaries and saying no is something that I think every physician and every healthcare worker really needs to learn.
Absolutely, because we have to get comfortable with the discomfort and recognize that's part of the process.
For a lot of people who are really heart-centered, it'll never feel good, but it doesn't change the fact that it still has to happen.
And sometimes we allow that emotion, that feeling to hold us back.
We say, ah, you see, I feel uncomfortable with it.
That is the angel on my shoulder saying, sit back and just do what you're told.
But really, sometimes it's just a sign that we're having a conversation of consequence.
It's your body getting ready for having a conversation that actually matters.
So we misread that emotional signal and we hold ourselves back instead of recognizing it's a sign that we need to step up and have the conversation.
Yeah, and I think one thing I've learned both in medicine and in business is just this idea that you can think that you love what you do so much right.
Like for me what I do professionally as a physician and what I do in the business world.
I just like, I love it.
I would do it for free if I could, because I love it.
For a lot of doctors where this is very different thing, where this is my passion and this is my calling.
Not, this is just a job.
So we'll see other people say to us like, oh, we're not going to do this.
It's not worth it because it's not worth $5 an hour.
It's not worth 10 an hour or whatever for people that are working and seeing their profession as a job as opposed to their calling and their passion right.
And I think physicians are in a very fortunate position where what they do does feel like their passion and a calling.
And so for me it's like I would do radiology every day of my life till I was 80, because I love it right.
And at some point it's kind of like well, if I make this much, or if I make this much, does it really matter.
Like, I love what I'm doing.
But what I need to remind myself is then what happens is whenever there is a conflict, if I'm like well, actually I'm not being paid my worth over here, then I'm only doing that on days where I don't have something better to do, but I'm not actually driven to do it on days where I have something else that I wanna do.
That becomes problematic, right?
So if I haven't negotiated terms for myself, It might be okay in my life, because maybe I'm saying I don't need the money.
I'm going to take these extra.
I'm going to take the summer off and be with my children, or whatever it is right.
I can say that in that moment, but...
When you start thinking about the workforce as a whole, that's really problematic.
If everybody's like I only do this job because I'm incentivized to do or I'm only doing it because I love it.
It actually, from a monetary perspective, doesn't make sense.
Well, especially when you start looking at changing demographics in the physician workforce, where you have more dual income families and you have more female physicians right.
50% of the pipeline into medicine right now is female.
And, statistically speaking, 70 to 80 of female physicians are married to other high-income professionals.
So the financial dynamics in their household are such that that they don't necessarily need to work.
They're only going if they really want to work, right?
So if you don't make the finances worth it, what you see is more and more women saying hey, I'm going to step back.
I love what I'm doing.
Financially, it's not worth it.
I'm just doing it because I love it, but I'm going to do it part-time, or I'm going to do it three days a month or I'm going to do whatever.
And again, what happens to the workforce in that situation, right?
So really trying to behoove employers to realize like you can feel, like you're getting a great deal, but then when you ask somebody to step up and show up, there's gonna be nobody to be there because people are gonna say well,
I'll do it on a day that I don't have anything else to do.
But if I can go on vacation instead or if my kid has something else going on instead, like you, just don't pay me enough to make that sacrifice right.
And that's what a lot of employers are running into right now.
On a macro level is a lot of people saying you don't pay me enough to want me for me to do this seven days a week, or you don't pay me enough for me to take 24 hour calls or do X, Y and Z, And then it's like well, who's going to do that right?
Medicine is 24 seven.
You need a workforce that's willing to do all of that 24 seven.
So when you look at these numbers about female physicians, 40 of female physicians will actually cut back clinically or quit medicine entirely within the first six years of finishing training.
And that is like terrifying when you think about 50% of the pipeline being female.
So what are these jobs doing wrong in terms of not giving flexibility, not giving options and paying?
Well enough that people are wanting to say hey, actually I see myself as the primary breadwinner.
I see myself as being able to go do this and be able to make enough money that it feels like it's worth what I'm giving up to be there.
This is incredible.
I appreciate the statistics.
And I also, as you were saying something.
It made me realize something really interesting because, like I said, I'm married to a doctor and I see how stressed out she is and I see how burnt out she's been.
And I tell her every week, I said, my goal is to just buy back more of your time.
So I took her Mondays.
Great.
Now you...
And I'm like, I'm just taking these days off the plate with.
It's so funny because first of all, I'm realizing I'm part of the problem, Nisha.
But you're not.
I mean, I'm doing the same thing to my husband.
It's just happening to women, right?
I'm also saying to my husband, like, you don't need to take that much call.
We don't need the money.
If that means we can't go away for whatever time, or hey, if this procedure is stressful to you, it's not worth the money.
Or why don't you just end your days earlier so that you can get home earlier and be with the kids?
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Everybody is making these decisions in medicine right now.
It's not just females.
Females have a lot more as a general 30,000 foot view.
Obviously every case by case is different, but on the macro level females in medicine have more of an ability to step back because they do have a little bit more on average financial support at home that's coming in from other places.
But the trends are the same, regardless of whether you're a male or a female.
Everybody's stressed out by all the things that are happening within the healthcare environment.
And everybody's saying, hey, we want to cut back.
And they're saying like, actually financially, we probably could cut back.
And the marginal cost, or like the marginal benefit to making X amount more and then paying taxes on it.
And then also having to maybe hire a nanny to cover those hours or whatever, right?
All of a sudden, everybody's doing math because the numbers have gotten so much smaller in terms of the incentives.
My dad is a cardiologist.
And when he was practicing medicine, he just recently, during the pandemic, stopped working clinically.
He spent 40 something years practicing medicine.
And I remember when we were younger the bonus structures and everything was there such that it wasn't a big deal to go in on call or this or that.
I mean, you were reimbursed so well for what you did for each additional thing that, at least from the financial perspective, he wasn't like.
Is this worth it?
I mean, he may have chosen to cut back for other reasons, for other things, because of family priorities or whatever.
But
There was never this, it's not worth it.
Like this financial incentive is not worth it.
Whereas now, with a lot of these cuts and fire authorizations and denials and all the things that are happening in the healthcare environment, people are like it's not worth it for me to chase this extra dollar right.
So you see more and more people on various different levels, whatever works for their lifestyle, saying I'm going to leave that aside.
No, thank you.
I don't want to take call anymore.
No, thank you.
I don't want to be in a job that makes me do X, Y and Z.
So what you're seeing on a macro level in the negotiations world in hospital systems is, I think, that you're going to have a lot of pain if you're an administrator because you're trying to kind of run things the way that they always were.
And you're making all these market assumptions, and pro forma is based on the fact that you think you're going to have a physician who's going to say yes to that.
And all of a sudden you're like, I can't find that doctor to say yes to this stuff.
We've talked to so many healthcare systems.
One of the things that we're working on is trying to be able to have like a more friendly job match for doctors.
And what we're saying to a lot of these healthcare systems is like you gotta have a little bit more flexibility.
Like nobody's gonna take this job.
We see the jobs that people are looking for and what they're taking.
And this job is ridiculous.
You're not paying them enough. to do all these things.
And you're going to sit with this opening for years potentially.
And we've had people say that.
We've talked to one oncology group at a hospital system who were like we've had an opening for three years and we cannot fill it.
And then I was like, well, tell me about what the job looks like.
And as soon as they told me, I was like it's going to be another three years if you don't change what you're asking for.
So just having realistic expectations about making sure that doctors feel like it's worth.
It is a new battle for these hospital systems because they were always kind of like oh, of course, everybody's going to want this job.
And the fact is the supply and demand curves have shifted so much that No, not necessarily.
I think that should scare everybody from both yes, on a very tangible level, from the employer perspective, but also just from a macro level, from a public health perspective.
The fact that more and more people are just like this is not worth.
It is really scary.
Agreed.
And it's challenging because we can see the challenge occurring right now and we can see it potentially getting worse.
And what you're doing is physician empowerment, empowering the individual.
And so it's going to be great to have this new wave of doctors advocating for themselves getting paid what they deserve.
And then, on the other side, the things that are outside our control are the macro forces within administrations and policies and things like that.
And that's something that needs to be addressed.
But before we get to that, solving the world's problems.
That's a little lofty for a podcast.
Exactly.
Let's talk about what individual doctors can do.
I think you set out a really great case study.
So let's say there's a physician who joined a practice and then there was an exodus, and now the workload has increased but the pay has stayed the same.
So the person says, that's me.
Yeah.
How would you suggest that they approach this negotiation?
I mean, I think that's when you go to your employer.
Right.
And you say, listen, short term, happy to help out.
I understand in the next week or two weeks, you're not going to find a solution to this.
However, this cannot be a long term problem where all of a sudden I'm just working.
Right.
So I think it's always important to be reasonable and understand that you can't leave patient care needs unmet.
And I think when you come to the administration with that understanding and sort of fighting from the beginning but just saying okay, I understand, we're in a tight place.
I want to help out, but here are the conditions under which I'm going to help out, right?
Now, maybe all of a sudden for every extra call, I'm being paid X amount, right?
You're saving that money from not having another employed position.
What are we doing with the money in that bucket in the interim, until you find another employed position?
And there you're putting the impetus and the incentive on them to also refine that person, right?
Because if they start seeing hey well, we're doing everything we can with three doctors that we used to be doing with four doctors, guess what?
Their incentive to hire somebody else and pay them a full benefits package and a salary is like zilch right.
So I'm always like come together with the other people that you're with and go to your employer and say like well, we're saving this FTE per month and this amount of money per Is FTE used very much in the non-physician world.
So basically 1.0 job position as a full-time job position is what we call an FTE, right?
So if you're saving that one FTE's worth of salary and benefits and all that stuff, how are you reallocating those resources to help us get through this period until you fill that one FTE position, right?
So coming at it with that rationale and saying like, you are asking us to do more.
You're saving money on your side of things.
How are you going to make sure that we're made whole? on that side of things.
And we'll help for as long as we can, with the understanding that we're incentivizing you also to aggressively replace us and replace the person that you lost.
Because what we see is so many hospital systems are just not replacing the person that they lost.
And then the other people are doing more, because the minute they see that the other people can do more, it's like why bother to rush to hire somebody?
So I think having that conversation with them early, saying like these are the things I need to be able to do what you're asking of me,
And this is what my expectation is.
Okay, fine.
You're asking me to take less vacation this month.
I would like it written that those vacation days are going to come back to me later on.
If I do more calls here, I expect to do less calls later.
If I take all these holidays right now, I expect those to be made up for me.
Sort of laying out that groundwork for what the expectation is and saying like I'm willing to be a team player.
I'm willing to step up, but it needs to be reciprocated, right?
And I think that that's really, really important.
And, on their side of things, if you look at what their options are.
If you say no, then they have to go to locums physicians, who are going to be much more expensive for the system, if they can even find them.
Right.
So where do you have leverage and being able to point out to them like well, I do have the option of saying no, because I was really good about negotiating my contract from the beginning.
And technically I don't have to be on call more than Q4.
So.
I'm willing to do your Q3 call while you need me to.
However, this is what the cost of that is going to be, right?
So understanding that you say well, if I say no and I exercise my right to say no, these are your options.
You're going to have to try to find a locum's physician, or let's say you're an ER that needs three trauma surgeons on call in order to maintain your level one trauma center status and guess what?
We don't have three anymore or we don't have coverage every night anymore.
And you could potentially lose your trauma center status.
Like you've got leverage, right?
But you got to be able to point it out, obviously in a respectful way.
But say like I do have some ability to say no actually.
And this is what the consequences would be.
So how can we work together to make sure that neither party is being taken advantage of?
Nisha, this was a masterclass.
Let me summarize this breakdown because this was great.
So first we have to address the mentality shift because I think a lot of times people say oh negotiation, it's me just asking for what I want.
That's an element of it.
It's not you taking something.
The way that you frame this is that you've turned this into a collaborative problem solving conversation.
You entity have a problem.
Doctors left.
I have a problem.
I'm overworked.
Let's talk through how we're going to solve this problem.
So we have to address that mentality thing first.
Step one.
Go to your employer and have the conversation.
We're not just going to sit here and think about it and complain about it for seven months and not do anything.
But go to the employer early because think about it.
If you come up and you say nine months down the road, the doctors left, it was really hard.
It's like, was it really hard?
Because the last nine months I've been making more money off of you and you didn't say a thing.
So you lose a little bit of credibility taking longer to make that claim.
And then I love the fact that you put in the reasonable approach, because it's not an extortion or hostage situation where you're like pay me or I'm not working now.
And then patients are suffering.
They're like, listen, I'm a team player.
I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.
And I know it's not feasible for you to make a decision today, but we're starting the conversation and soon we need to address something.
We have to solve a problem here because this is not sustainable.
And for me now as an employer, like that word sustainable is in my head.
Because as business owners, we are professional firefighters.
Bad things are happening all the time and we're all over the place.
And there's a problem that I think might be a problem, but nobody said anything about it.
I'll try to ignore that.
Got so many other things to do.
And so we have to be constantly saying, hey, this is an issue.
And even though it might not appear that we need to address it immediately, just know it is not sustainable.
So it might not be broken right now, but it will break in the future, at a date not yet determined.
That will surprise you and be another fire.
And I think that that bit where you talked about in terms of like I was saying, approach it early.
I mean when you hear that the other person is resigning right before.
Even if they get put in their three month notice or their six months notice, doctors tend to give a little bit longer notice.
Right.
But let's say they've given their three month notice.
Then at that point you and your team go to the administration and say what's our plan right?
You don't wait for it to become a problem, or you don't wait to just magically get a call schedule where you're on every three and then you're like fighting backwards.
You're saying, okay, before you guys make that schedule, what is the plan, right?
And just staying ahead of it.
Because then people are kind of like, okay, well, it is what it is.
We'll address it later.
That later just keeps getting pushed back and back and back and back, right?
So you say like no, we don't even want that call schedule to come out until we've talked about what the expectations are and what we're going to do with it.
So being proactive and having the conversation for sure.
I'm glad you clarified, because early is very subjective, because somebody might listen to this and they say OK, once they leave.
Then I'll have the conversation.
But if you have noticed, you would want to address this with a sense of urgency.
That's a really important distinction.
And then also getting into the leverage piece.
This is critical because, when you think about leverage, leverage is a tool in negotiation that allows you to get concessions.
And sometimes people are unsure of how to use that and still maintain a good relationship.
So you did a great job of saying hey, you have the leverage and you can use it because it's legitimate in the context of the situation.
But you have to make sure that you're using it in a way that doesn't make the other party feel unduly threatened by the way that you're doing it.
Right, because you do have that leverage, but if you flex it too much it might damage the relationship.
Right, I think for me that piece of like the ability to walk away from the table has been so critical in my happiness in life and medicine.
I feel like I get that thrown at me all the time.
It's always been the dynamic for my like job searches because my husband is in a very small field.
So I'm always following him, right?
So like when he matched for his fellowship at Duke, I then had to find a job in that small area.
Or when he took on his private practice position, I then had to find a job in that area.
Because for me, I'm a radiologist, right?
I can work virtually.
I can work in person.
There's a lot of different environments and there's a lot of radiologists in every city.
Whereas like for... plastic surgery, which is what my husband does, there's a very niche market.
So his job searches have always dictated my job searches.
And I've run into this situation a lot where people are kind of like well, We know, we've got you in this area.
We know there's only two openings in the state right now or in the city right now, or whatever that you could take.
And your husband's already here.
So you're going to take whatever we can give you.
And I've had to kind of look them in the eye and been like, No, actually, I don't.
I understand that you're saying I have no choice, but I'm telling you, I do have a choice, actually.
Number one, I could do teleradiology.
Number two, I can find a job that works...
I could go do locums.
I have all these other options.
And honestly, if I don't earn money, I mean I wouldn't be happy because I didn't have a job, but I don't need to earn money.
So if you're going to give me a package that makes me feel devalued every day that I come into work, then I'm going to say no and wait for something because I have the luxury of being able to wait.
And so that tactful sort of, I understand your position.
You're trying to get the best for you guys.
I'm telling you for me, that is going to be something that I'm going to resent every day.
And I just don't want to put myself in that position.
So I'm going to walk away from this right now.
Let's stay in touch.
If you have. the time where you can give me what I wanted.
I'd love to reopen this conversation.
Otherwise, I'm going to wait until somebody has the job that I want it.
And I have the luxury of time, right?
And being able to walk away from that.
I have never not immediately, within like the next half an hour than gotten exactly what I wanted, right.
So in the same way, right with this whole concept of physician side gigs, people are like what is side?
Like, why do doctors need side gigs?
Why does this matter?
And I'm like.
Having the diversification and having the backup plans gives you so much leverage at the negotiating table right.
Because I can say to an employer they know that I've got bills to pay or whatever, but I can say like, I make enough money through my real estate.
I can afford to be without a job for X, Y and Z, or I make enough money for my business that I can be afford to be without a job for this amount of time.
And The nice thing is is nobody can make me do anything that I don't want to do, because I'm not this one trick pony that has all my eggs in the physician income basket right.
So it's not that I think that any physician needs a side gig.
I think we make really great money and we're all going to do fine in the long term.
It's more.
Are you giving yourself leverage in a very challenging environment to be able to say I don't actually need this job or I can walk away?
I can take a few months off.
I can X, Y and Z, because a lot of times the employer has been in this position where they're like well, what are you going to do?
Where are you going to go?
You know, like, of course you're going to take this job.
And for a physician.
They're like, oh, you've got 200 something thousand dollars in student loans, right?
The average physician has about $300,000 in student loans.
And that's a lot of leverage that the employer has to kind of be like.
We know you have fixed expenses.
Like you can't not say yes, right?
And if you are kind of like well, actually this consulting gig that I do on the side pays for my student loans, I can walk away.
Right, it gives you more of an ability to confidently say, and have the meat behind it, that in a worst case scenario of course approaching the whole conversation as I don't want to walk away, but if you force my hand and make the deal that bad, then I will walk away.
And for them to believe it, because they understand that you do have the means to survive without them, is really powerful.
Absolutely.
Oh, Nisha, this is so good.
I appreciate you.
Before you go, remind the listeners again about the work that you do and the platform you've created.
Yeah, so you can find pretty much everything that we do.
We're jumping off point to everything we do within our communities at www.physiciansidegigs.com.
That'll link you to our communities.
That'll link you to our resources, our educational events and all of those sorts of things.
And then, if you just want to learn more about me in general, I have a self-titled site which admittedly, is not updated very often, but we'll give you again the jumping points to wwwmishamethamdcom.
Perfect.
And one last thing I have to say listeners.
Nisha is very gracious because we had a spectacular conversation last year that some podcaster forgot to record.
So thank you for accepting.
I see the recording button in place right now.
We'll not run into that problem again.
I checked it like 10 times, Nisha.
I was like, never again.
And shout out to Dr Ekta Shah for letting me know.
Hey, didn't you say you had Nisha on the podcast.
She's a great member of our community.
So yeah, when she heard I was coming on to your podcast, she was very excited.
So yeah, I'm glad she connected us and made that happen again.
Absolutely.
This is great.
Thank you again.
And can't wait to have you back on.
Awesome.
Thanks.
Talk soon.
You've just heard one powerful perspective and now we're moving on to the next.
A fresh voice with a new angle on the same challenge so you can keep expanding your skills.
Let's dive in.
Ben, thanks for joining us today.
Thanks so much.
It's great to be here.
Yeah, it's great to have you, man.
How about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Happy to.
So my name is Ben Cook.
I'm CEO of a negotiation startup called Riva HQ.
What we do is salary negotiations.
So basic premise is that two thirds of people today don't negotiate salary.
Main reason why is combination of they don't know how and negotiation is an intimidating, scary process for the majority of people.
But the unfortunate fact is by not negotiating, people put themselves on a slower career trajectory.
They settle for less today, that impacts their raise tomorrow, and so on and so forth throughout the course of their career.
It ends up costing the average individual about a million dollars in foregone wages, or collectively about 188 billion.
That gets left on the table by Americans every day.
That's what Reva does.
We try to solve that problem, try to help end the pay gap through ending what we call a hidden negotiation gap.
And I came to Reva by way of some research I was doing at Harvard Business School on social media negotiation how to negotiate in the digital age, how negotiation strategies shift when you move into a digital ecosystem.
And I brought that work through a bunch of lecturing and publishing at HBS and working with the US Congress to try to break some of the gridlock that gets in the way of making popular bipartisan deals, thanks to a lot of very vocal, very angry but in the minority people on social media.
Wow, this is quite impressive, quite impressive.
So i appreciate you joining us because the work that you're doing is very important on on a number of different levels, and so listeners ben ben and i were chatting beforehand and we're trying to figure out what angle do we go, because the salary negotiation with riva would be the obvious one.
Um, and then also thinking about we're coming up on uh, You know, it's always political season here in the US, but elections are coming up.
Right.
So we have to have those those negotiations.
That's important, too.
But what we started to realize is that most people are late, understand the importance of negotiation, that it's an important skill, but still that logical understanding isn't enough to get them to take the step to actually negotiate.
Right.
And so today we're going to talk about the mindset of a negotiator and what that really means, and how we can improve our mindset in a way that will then improve our ability to show up and actually have these negotiations effectively.
So Ben, when you think about mindset and you think about all of the work that you've done in these various areas industries, what would you say is like the biggest revelation that you've realized through this process?
For you,
Such a good question.
You know, I think um.
When I was working at HBS, surrounded by other negotiators, talking to people who negotiate all day, every day, I was just I'm a negotiation nerd, right.
I loved it.
They all loved it.
We were all like, negotiation is the best thing ever.
It's playing chess, but in the real world.
It's all of the complexities, all the value creation that could come out of it.
I'm a fan.
It's what I love.
It wasn't until I started doing Riva and trying to reach that group.
We call them the negotiation hesitant.
And it's exactly what you described, right?
These are people who, it's not that they don't know that negotiation is important.
I mean there's been such a cultural mindset shift, particularly as it relates to pay gap and being able to advocate for yourself effectively.
There's been so much cultural chatter about how it's really important to negotiate.
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But when it comes down to actually getting in that room and having that conversation.
Two thirds of people don't do it.
So that was, I think, a big lesson for me to try and understand what that was, what's driving that.
So we've done about 5,000
We've had about 5,000 clients come through Riva now.
And I think the biggest thing that I've come to learn is that for most people, negotiation feels like conflict.
They have this mental image in their mind of two people sitting on opposite sides of the table and making steely eye contact and firm handshakes until one person blinks.
And now negotiation over?
Um, it feels like an argument.
People hate arguing, people hate conflict and the last thing they want to do, particularly when it comes to like a job negotiation.
Either you're going to have to it's a raise, you're going to have to do this with your boss, so that sucks, but Or it's a new job offer and you just got out of weeks spent looking for a new job.
You're nervous.
You're excited.
This is, you know, this whole new chapter in your life.
And the last thing you want to do is what feels like.
Put all that in jeopardy by suddenly introducing conflict.
So I think most people have that mental image where negotiation is an argument.
For me, that literally couldn't be further from the truth.
Negotiation is about two people who have a shared goal.
We always say this with hiring, right?
At the end of the day, your shared goal is that you want to work together.
Whoever you're talking to, right?
They want to retain you.
They want you on their team.
Everyone's goal at the end of this conversation is for you to be teammates, right?
So that's not a conflict situation.
That's two people sitting on the same side of the table jointly problem solving, coming up with creative ways to get around the roadblocks that are getting in the way of a really exciting next chapter.
A bunch of value creation coming together.
I think that's you know, for me, like the biggest mindset shift is just moving from thinking on.
Negotiation is a big argument to negotiation is about working together to overcome the barriers that stand in the way of what you both want to do.
Absolutely.
Well said.
Well said, because you're exactly right.
It's a collaborative problem solving endeavor.
And I know for me, whenever people say, well, what do you how do you appear in a negotiation?
How do you carry yourself in a negotiation?
I say, listen to my podcast.
I mean, the conversation, like the tone I'm having with you, like this is how my negotiations feel.
And I think we blow this way out of proportion.
And so I think a lot of listeners would say, OK, listen, I like this Ben guy.
All right.
I understand what he's saying.
Logically, again, it makes sense.
Now you've had the opportunity to work with and serve over 5000 clients with Riva, which is just spectacular.
Kudos to you on that.
And when you actually get into the minds of your clients.
I'm assuming, and I might be wrong on this, Ben.
So you correct me if I'm wrong that there's still a little bit of a block sometimes where you can share that information and say this should be problem solving.
You're working toward the same goal.
And they might.
They might have an intellectual understanding of what that means, but then there's still a barrier.
What is that barrier?
You know, I think there is this it's the taking the plunge moment.
Right.
People again, like they hear me say that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This should be problem solving.
But it is literally that moment when you press send on the email, when you walk into the room and there you are.
And oh, my God, I'm suddenly going to have to go through with this.
You know, so this comes up a lot, right?
People will tell them okay, your best way to build leverage right is to get your existing employer to wanna retain you.
You know, maybe a couple of competing offers create a multi-party bidding war, then it's great right.
Because you don't have to be the bad guy saying pay me more money.
You're saying I don't know right.
Like, I really want to stay.
I really see great opportunities in this new company.
Help me make this decision a little bit easier, right?
People get that intellectually.
But then there's that moment where, oh God, I got to actually do the thing.
And I think...
I think people really build it up as this thing that you either... can do or you can't, right?
It's either this, you know, there are, oh, there are people who, who can negotiate and they're, they're, they're people like me.
And that just feels so anathema to the way I lived my whole life.
I never negotiate.
Right.
So I think there's two things that, that, that kind of get through to people.
The first is, yeah, they say, oh, I never negotiate.
And you're like, well, listen, are you a parent?
If you have a kid, I guarantee you negotiate all the time, constantly, every day.
Do you have a partner, a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend?
Guarantee there's some negotiation, right?
Because again, it's two people with the same goal live harmoniously together, raise a happy kid, et cetera, et cetera.
But they're roadblocks in the way.
And so how you navigate around those roadblocks together is negotiation.
I mean, okay, maybe it doesn't take place in a boardroom, but it's the exact same skillset.
The other thing is this mentality of you know, there are people who can negotiate and there are people who can't.
One of the things we tell Reva clients all the time is I know you're scared, you're nervous, you're intimidated to do this today, but developing this skillset is going to serve you for literally decades to come.
This is not the sort of thing where you either are born as a negotiator or you're not.
It's a muscle.
The more comfortable you get with it, the more you do it, the more you show yourself.
You prove actually in your own lived experience that negotiating doesn't backfire.
People don't actually yell at you.
You don't get kicked out immediately when you go talk to your boss.
Actually, most of the time, people respect you more.
It leads to more durable relationships.
It leads to more trust because it's based on a foundation of openness and honesty and saying here are the ways, here are my roadblocks right.
Here are the things that are getting in the way for me I want to overcome them.
That's the foundation for a really healthy relationship.
And when people actually have that felt experience, when they take that first plunge, it gets easier and easier and easier over time.
So yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a muscle.
It's not like a, you know, born with you one day, you know, you either are.
You aren't exactly well said, well said, and i i like what you said.
Let me do a little bit of a summary.
Um so, the fear actually taking the plunge right, because we all have that fear.
But then there is like an elevated level of fear when it's like oh, It's do or die right now.
This is when you do it.
And then people can say yay or nay.
And they often say nay at that point.
And I think one of the things that's tough is that nothing's really forcing you to do it.
It's an option and especially in the salary negotiation context, it would be much easier for the employer to give you an offer and you just accept it.
That just makes their job easier.
They save money and save time and effort.
So they're not going to say um Ben, are you sure you don't want to negotiate with me on this?
That's just not how it happens.
So we miss out on those opportunities because we don't make that decision.
The other thing is talking about the mindset.
Let's go to that great book called Mindset by Carol Dweck, where she talks about the differences between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
Where you
It's almost like the distinction between believing in skills versus talents.
So somebody who has a fixed mindset, they say it's a talent.
Either you have it or you don't.
And if you're not a born negotiator, you're not going to become a negotiator.
It's done. determined at birth.
But with the growth mindset, you realize, no, this is a skill that I can develop with time.
And so for me, I'm a recovering people pleaser.
I used to be deathly afraid of difficult conversations.
And that's why I built this whole company.
Because once I went to law school and discovered negotiation And I learned that I could actually get better at it.
I became addicted and I just wanted to be able to share it with as many people as possible, because you can improve.
But I think if we stay in that fixed mindset too long, it becomes a rigid identity where it's not like I'm afraid of negotiating, but I can improve my skills and confidence and then and then effectively negotiate.
They say, I never negotiate.
And they state it as if it is a stable and like a static identity.
I am one who does not negotiate.
And so when we think about identity, a lot of times we make identity based decisions.
What does a person like me do in a situation like this?
Well, I'm a guy who doesn't negotiate.
What are you going to do?
I'm not going to negotiate, right?
And so I think it really holds us back and we don't realize how much we are holding ourselves back in these conversations.
Totally.
I love that.
And you're totally right.
This is textbook Carol Dweck.
If you have that growth mindset, yes, this is not just a core part of my identity.
There's no gene that correlates.
Yes, you are a negotiator.
No, you're not.
But you know, it's really funny and what you just said, right?
So you have this experience, you went to law school, you were like, oh, I can negotiate.
It's really funny to me how many people you would think, based on their job, based on their experience, how many of them still have that hesitancy.
We get so many clients who negotiate every day on behalf of their employer.
But when it comes to advocating for themselves, oh God, no way, couldn't do it.
It's really funny how people will just put on those sort of identity-based ads and then make identity-based decisions.
That actually brings me to one of the things I'm involved with on the side, which is this program to help train Congress how to negotiate more effectively.
So we work with congressional members and their staff on, you know, senior staff that are the legislative aides doing most of the work behind the scenes on basic negotiation techniques.
And it was when you made that comment about identity-based decisions that I think that really stuck out to me, because so much of the gridlock there is, people making those identity based decisions.
They're saying, oh, well, I am a Democrat or I am a Republican from this district.
And you know, Based on that identity, I'm gonna say yes or no categorically, to any piece of legislation that looks like this
When you get them.
So the exercise we do is we'll try to get, we assign little negotiation exercises and we assign Republicans to play Democrat roles and we assign Democrats to play Republican roles.
So they are forced to stop thinking about these issues in the way that their identity naturally, would lead them to think.
And instead, they start looking at the negotiation process as, I mean, we make it a game, right?
It's a little fun exercise.
It's scored.
You get points for winning on this issue versus winning on that issue, making trade-offs.
When they start thinking that way, they do so much better.
They have these huge breakthroughs and everyone ends up way better off because they were able to overcome those roadblocks.
Work together, accomplish something.
I mean, They end up better off.
Their constituents end up better off.
The country ends up better off.
But it's getting out of that.
Here I am.
This is my fixed identity.
I'm going to make a decision accordingly and instead think about You know, I mean, a huge part of negotiation is empathy, right?
It's understanding the other person's point of view, what's important to them, understanding what's important to me.
Mirror those things together.
Hey, there's a lot of overlap.
How do we make that happen?
So I just I love that.
You know it's the more you can think holistically about yourself, about the other party, empathize with both.
Think creatively, you know, and not just go, yeah, I'm I'm X. I'm not a negotiator.
I'm a Democrat.
I'm a Republican.
End of story.
Exactly.
And I think I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this, because I think it's okay to make identity-based decisions if you're using the right identity.
But I think a lot of times we use the wrong identity.
It's a limiting, unnecessarily limiting identity.
So I'll give an example.
So I want to make sure I'm...
What I think about is, if I am experiencing weakness in some way, I want to make sure there's some kind of mechanism that helps me to still make the right decision.
So I recognize if I'm super emotional, I'm not thinking clearly.
And so there has to be something in place that kind of overrides that.
So I'll give a kind of a fun example that pulls us out of the negotiation context.
So I've been, I've been traveling a lot.
I like for the next month and a half.
Like there's a trip every single week and airport food is not healthy.
Yeah.
Okay.
Not healthy.
And I often don't schedule my days very well where I'm like rushing to the airport late.
And then like, like it's my first time every single time.
And now I'm starving in an airport.
And so I go past like these, these breezy spots and I'm like, that oil smells delicious.
Let me go get me some of that.
And so I slowed down and I say, mommy, think like an athlete.
What would an athlete eat?
If an athlete were in this situation, what food choice would they make?
So yeah, I went past the fried food, walked 10 extra minutes, got a healthy burrito bowl type of thing.
Right.
And so that that identity that I wanted to embrace helped me.
So, when I think about the difficult conversations I have sometimes with my wife, for example, I am I'm not Kwame the lawyer.
Whitney has told me she does not enjoy Kwame the lawyer.
What does Kwame the loving husband do?
Or when I'm with my kids, what does Kwame the patient father do?
Now, in the workplace, what does Kwame the negotiator do?
If I see myself as a negotiator, what are the things that a negotiator would do?
A negotiator, first of all, would negotiate.
Let's just start there.
Second of all, the negotiator would empathize.
Because I'm not gonna go in here just completely oriented toward myself and my own goals.
A negotiator would start off by empathizing and understanding the other side, right?
A negotiator would actually think about how we could potentially make this a win-win.
Consider your goals and move in that direction.
And so I think we have to think about would think really critically about our mindset as it relates to our identity, which minds, which identities are serving us in the moment and which ones are limiting us, and then how we could flex it as necessary.
I love that.
I love that.
You know this.
I was mentioning so when I first took over Reva.
We we, we built this fully automated product and it worked.
It was great right.
People would use this sort of a chat bot experience and it would devise their negotiating strategy.
Write up a customized email for them, send it off, send back.
Really, really impressive from a technological standpoint.
But what it didn't do was meet people where they are. empathize with them.
And then I think the biggest thing, so what we moved to was a coaching-based product.
The biggest thing that the coaches do is they connect your negotiation to your identity, to your personal goals.
And so you know so many people come in and they're every client right there.
Like I don't want to be greedy.
Like, you know, I feel so money grubbing.
I'm asking for my money.
I'm so uncomfortable doing it.
I don't want to be greedy, but you know, and it really is, you know, it's really hard.
You know my my partner and I are wanting to start a family and we have certain financial goals we need to hit before we get there.
Or my kids are entering high school.
I see college tuition coming.
I know that's going to be really expensive.
I want to provide for them or even, you know, some of the like cute ones.
Right.
You know, I want to I want to propose, but I got to save up for the ring.
Right.
You connect it to here are these personal goals.
Right.
Those are not selfish, greedy, money grabbing goals.
Wanting to be able to put your kids through college.
That is not you being, you know. some kind of like greedy jerk.
This is about you being, and this is what I loved in what you just said, right?
You are the father.
You are the mother.
You are providing for the people you care about.
You are providing for, you know, the opportunity to get married, whatever it may be, whatever your personal goal is.
When you connect it back to that and then the coach can remind you that that's what you told me in our first session.
So don't back down now, right?
This isn't about you.
This isn't about you know.
Oh, I'm trying to advance my career.
Do this, get a little bit more cash so I can buy something nice.
I mean, that's fine too.
But so often you know, when you remind someone of who they are, what their goals are, and you know what that identity is.
That's going to serve them in that moment and you can reinforce it.
That's when you get people to take the leap.
So, yeah.
What would an athlete do, right?
What would Kwame the father do in this situation?
He's going to stand up and advocate for himself so that he can put money in the banks, put his kids through school, stuff like that.
Honoring that human element of negotiation is.
That's what really helped Reba go from this great product that worked, that we couldn't give away for free, to now 5000 negotiations and counting all the millions we've put in people's pockets.
It's been a really cool process just to watch how meeting people where they are.
It's almost a negotiation with the client, right?
It's been a really fun journey to watch.
That's incredible.
I think that's a great example too.
Like everything that you said.
And I'll just, and aside, it's just mind blowing that it didn't take off.
I think that's just so fascinating, right?
But again, we are negotiation nerds. see the world a little bit differently.
I think eventually, you know 10, 15 years down the line, your time will come with that element of the business.
But until then, human to human contact, that's what is what's working.
And that's great to see.
And I think when we, when we think about the identity, because you brought up a really good point.
And I think a lot of people in the audience could either personally identify with this or they can at least identify somebody else who could identify with this.
They can negotiate really effectively on behalf of others. but not on behalf of themselves.
And I remember talking in a presentation and I knew the woman from before she asked the question and she's like yeah, I'm not a negotiator talking about the identity, but yeah, I just don't negotiate for myself.
And I said, so you have kids, right?
She said, yes.
And I said, would you have trouble standing up for your kids if they needed help?
Oh, no, I definitely stand up for your kids.
I was like, all right.
So I want you to pretend like you're negotiating on behalf of your kids.
You're not negotiating for you.
You're negotiating for them.
And I want you to envision them throughout the negotiation.
You're doing this on behalf of your children.
And so triggering that just being able to envision somebody tangible that they cared about, that they were advocating for, helped them to get over it.
Love that.
That's, I might steal that.
I'll tell our coaches to do the visualization exercise beforehand.
But, you know, it really is true.
And I think you know there are lots of those sort of you know Approaches like that that can help people with the mindset right.
You know, there's commitment devices, right?
I have already gotten the job offer and like, I got to tell someone something here.
Either I'm leaving or I'm staying or I don't know, but... you know, here I am, I got to do it.
This actually comes up a lot.
People will get a new job and then they're terrified to tell their boss you know like, listen like, your start date is in three weeks.
So gonna have to have that conversation.
But yeah, even just, well, yeah, yeah. like visualizing what you're doing it for writing down.
Like I, this is an exercise we do for anchoring.
We will get people, we use a framework called wish, want, walk away.
So what do you wish you would get out of this negotiation?
What do you realistically want?
I mean, I wish that they would give me a McLaren on the side, right?
But something realistic that you wish for what you realistically think you want to get out of it and where you would genuinely walk away, actually physically writing those down.
We usually have them like take an actual pen and paper and write them down.
Then, when they get into the negotiation and the first number comes out, and it's below their walk away, right?
They have already gone through that process.
They've already done that thing where they've written down I will walk away if it is less than X that sticks with them.
It really does.
You can actually, anchoring is so powerful, you can anchor yourself by writing a number down.
And so I love those little moments where you can use what feel like these little tricks almost, but they actually make a huge difference.
Because again, you're talking to people right on the margins, because people know they should negotiate.
Just need that little push to say yes, I actually I'm going to stand up for myself.
I am going to walk away if it's less than that number.
I'll actually give a slightly tangential example here too.
This is because a lot of what we do is trying to help people who, for whatever various systematic reasons, end up disproportionately unlikely to negotiate.
This is women, minority groups, people who look like me, white man, pretty confident, negotiating right.
I'm used to saying, I want this and having the world be like, yes, sir.
But so one of the things we've been really conscious of is not just having that mindset particularly
So the example I have in mind is gender in negotiation.
And it is true that women can be disproportionately subjected to backlash for being seen as too pushy.
But there's some great research coming out of the kennedy school.
One of our advisors, hannah riley bowles, has done some phenomenal work looking at things that women can do that counteract that bias.
So really simple trick.
We advise almost every one of our female clients to do this.
You blame Negotiating on someone else who told you you should.
Because what that does is.
It frames it as you being such a good team player that you listen to the advice of your mentors spouse parent friend, whoever it may be in your life that you can say they told me I should ask for more.
Then you can go and negotiate as ferociously as you want.
But that initial step to say oh, this was someone else, counteracts that bias really really, really effectively.
So it's.
It's funny how you know picking something that's sort of as as a high stakes, as negotiation, where you know a little difference can result in a, in a big difference in outcome.
A little difference in the way you prepare.
Some of those little tricks actually go a really long way to, uh, getting people paid fairly.
Absolutely.
And Ben, I'm glad you said that.
And it's funny as we talk, I'm seeing like just a flow chart of all sorts of different podcast episodes.
This could turn into right.
Because what you're talking about there is negotiating through bias.
And I feel like there's not enough research out there that speaks to the fact that hey, Different people are perceived differently.
This is scientifically proven.
So for me, in my last book, I wanted to encourage people to say, all right listen, bias is nothing more than another strategic consideration.
What are the biases that are going to be at play?
And now I can work around it.
So a lot of times we look at it in a, we assume a position of powerlessness where we say ah, I'm black.
They're going to be biased against me.
I'm a woman.
They're going to be biased against me.
And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But what we can do is we can say, Hey, These are the biases that are against me.
Roger that.
Got it.
I have strategies that I can use to overcome that.
And it's really powerful.
And that example that you gave is a great one, too.
And I know there are going to be people out there who are saying, you know what?
How about people just be less racist or less sexist, right?
And 100%, we need to have those trainings and whatnot to help people to recognize those biases.
However, in the meantime, you are still responsible for taking care of yourself.
And we can't just put our hands up and say oh, the bias got in the way and I decided not to really put forth my best foot forward, right?
So I think this is really important that you said that.
I really appreciate it.
I just to totally echo that.
So a big part of Reba's mission is to try and help close the pay gap.
And it's funny because I have lots of conversations with people who totally agree with the mission.
But their focus is always oh, we'll change this policy, or we just got to have more awareness and advocacy about this issue.
And that is really important.
Policy changes can have a huge role.
But at the same time, those are decades down the road for us to truly achieve those things.
And there are people today who who, I mean, working with Reva, right?
Our average increase is 25K.
That is like dollars in the pockets of human beings. they can spend them tomorrow.
And for me that's where I really get excited and get my motivation from is like okay, let's meet the world where it is right now.
And I love that, right?
Yeah, there are things working against me, but I might also be negotiating from a position where I don't have much leverage.
It doesn't change the fact that I gotta assess that situation realistically, think through my strategy and then go actually do it.
It's a really empowering way to think.
And this is something that I love is seeing we have clients come out of working with us and they'll tell us that it really shifted the way they think about themselves.
And they'll be like, hey, I can stand up for myself.
I can advocate for more.
And, you know, you sort of set them down this trajectory.
We've been doing this just long enough.
Now that we've got clients who are coming back and they're you know they'll send us a note and be like hey, just negotiated a raise for myself.
Inflation's high.
I deserve it.
And I love those stories just because it's.
I think learning that you can do something that's as intimidating as negotiating is a real proof point for yourself that yeah.
You know, despite everything that might be working against you, meet the world where it is and plot out a strategy.
You can get where you need to go.
It's really cool stuff.
Yeah, it's empowering.
It reminds me of Atomic Habits by James Clear, where he talks about when it comes to habits, your identity is built up of just repeatedly doing certain things.
You are what you repeatedly do, and every time you do something that reinforces an identity that you want to have, it is a vote of confidence of you as that person.
So you're changing lives.
It's incredible.
Um yeah i i, i do really.
Um, you know Well yeah, totally.
Right.
Every, you know, it's, it's you, you vote with your minutes, right.
You vote for the kind of person you want to be, with every minute and every decision you make in that moment.
But yeah I, I do, you know I I, I love that.
You know, our impact is not measured in hugs and rainbows.
It's, Millions of dollars in the pockets of people.
It's not in the pockets of behemoth corporations.
So I love doing it.
It's a lot of fun.
That's awesome.
I'll just mention one other thing.
So the way we do our coaching is we use recruiters to be the coaches, because they just know all the ins and outs of hiring in their different industries.
Smart.
And what's so fun about it is how we've been able to scale up on the coaching side so quickly, because every recruiter says this is the most rewarding thing I've ever done, right.
I've spent the last decade negotiating on behalf of Amazon or Google or Raytheon, trying to get more money for us, less money for the people I'm working with.
Now I get to switch sides.
I get to sit on the other side of the table.
This is meaningful.
It's fun to just watch people be able to, back to that kind of identity, right?
They say hey, I actually have a skill set that is really useful for other people, not just something I can sell on the open market.
That's fun too.
That's awesome, man.
I'm happy for you.
I am pumped.
And I'm glad that we're able to spread this to the world.
And just based on the vibe I got from you and how awesome this episode was, I can't wait to have you back on again.
But remind the listeners again about who you are and what you do and how they can get in touch.
Yeah, absolutely.
My name is Ben Cook.
I'm the CEO of a negotiation startup called Riva HQ.
We're at rivahq.com.
And yeah, we work with everyone, from every background, every industry, at every level, all across the country.
You only pay if it works.
We charge commission only.
So we only make money when you make more money.
So come check us out, reevehq.com.
Love it.
Everybody, there will be links in the description of the episode.
Ben, thanks again, man.
Really appreciate it.
It's been fantastic chatting with you.
I hope to be back.
This is a lot of fun.
A lot of really interesting things that I think we both shared mindset between the two of us.
So love it.
That's the power of a masterclass.
One topic, multiple lenses, and real world application.
And now the question is, what will you do with it?
Negotiation isn't theory.
It's practice.
It's self-awareness.
It's choosing courage over comfort.
So pick one insight today and apply it in your next conversation, because skill doesn't come from listening.
It comes from doing.
I'll catch you in the next one.
Hey, if you're still here, that means you really like this episode.
So why don't you leave us a review?
Five stars, please.
That really means the world to us and it helps other people find the show.
And now I will catch you later.
