Hostage Negotiations, Reading People & Ending Every Conversation Positively | DSH #348

Kidnappings and missing people, the timing element is crucial, right?

How long they're away, the less chance they have of coming back or something.

Well, it depends upon where you are.

It depends upon the industry.

The kidnapping is a business outside of the United States.

It's a very risky thing inside the U.S.

But outside the United States, they're not someplace where they think they're going to get caught.

They don't think they're going to go to jail.

So it's a business.

It's a completely different approach.

Interesting.

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And here's the episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

We got a legend in the building today, Chris Voss.

How's it going, my man?

Great.

Yeah, happy to be here.

Very happy to be here.

So what you've been working on lately?

I see you speaking everywhere, going on a bunch of shows.

Yeah, well, you know, getting out there,

we're going to do a real estate conference in the spring and

looking to

do more stuff overseas just got back from Dubai wow

heard there's a lot of money out there Dubai is a crazy place

it's it's a safe haven for money these days yeah so you're shifting into real estate you said well I've been doing coaching real estate agents with this guy named Steve Schultz

for six years

And we put out a book.

Now it's been out a year, The Full Fee Agent for Real Estate Agents.

And we decided we're going to do a conference for real estate agents in the spring.

So, you know, kind of been dabbling for a while.

Steve's an interesting cat.

He was,

I think I knew when I first met him six years ago that he played it in the NFL.

Okay.

But I knew him for four or five years before I found out he was a Super Bowl captain.

Wow.

Now normally people that attain that level, you know,

you know it in the first five minutes.

They make it known.

Yeah, but Steve is more focused on today than what he did in the past.

That's cool.

So he's a good guy.

Yeah, I like him a lot.

And I feel like you're similar, right, with your FBI past, but now you're in a whole different space with business.

Completely different space.

Yeah, and

it's a different challenge.

It's a lot of fun right now applying the ideas to every aspect of personal life.

Other than, you know, the FBI time was great.

I loved it while I was there.

I wouldn't give up a moment of it.

And it's behind me.

Right.

How stressful were those days?

Were you waking up really stressed out?

I would say no.

I'm not sure what the people around me would tell you.

But I always thought it was a privilege.

And you don't feel stressed when you're doing something you feel is a privilege.

So, and then, you know, I did it, especially the international kidnapping stuff.

I was dedicated to international kidnapping pretty much for about seven years.

Wow.

And so

that isn't any days off.

Yeah.

But I think I was a little burned out when I left, but you don't find that out until you get out the door.

Yeah.

So what's that process like?

It gets put on your desk, a kidnapping case, and you have to, from there, make some phone calls and figure out what's going on.

Well, you find out about it, and

I had a really good relationship with the Department of State.

Department of State usually are the first ones to find out about it because, you know, they got a robust presence overseas in embassies.

And if somebody in your family gets snatched, pretty good chance you're going to let the embassy know quicker.

Right.

What does that mean?

I would usually find out before FBI headquarters did.

Wow.

Which, to no end of frustration to the guys at SIAC Strategic Information Operations and Command at FBI headquarters, they thought it was their job to call me to let me know and I would call them to let them know,

which would annoy them.

But you find out and then

you're anywhere from six to 24 hours

into the game, you know,

behind the clock when you first start.

Somebody's been grabbed.

Bad guys probably haven't

had them for at least 24 hours, which means they're already reaching out to family members.

Right.

And so you start out behind the curve and you've got to catch up.

And so it was a challenge, and I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I know with kidnappings and missing people, the timing element is crucial, right?

How long they're away, the less chance they have of coming back or something.

Well, it depends upon where you are.

It depends upon the industry.

The kidnapping is a business outside of the United States.

It's a very risky thing inside the U.S.

Inside the U.S., the bad guys figure they're going to get caught, and they are

and put in jail for a very long time.

So, consequently, time is of the essence on a domestic kidnapping.

But outside the United States, they're not someplace where they think they're going to get caught.

They don't think they're going to go to jail.

So, it's a business.

It's a completely different approach.

Interesting.

Then it depends upon what country the business is in.

Right after I got out, a few months after I got out,

back in 2006.

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Seven,

some Americans and some other people were rescued in a rescue operation in Colombia.

The Americans have been held for six years.

Wow.

So in that particular, with that particular counterpart in that particular industry in Colombia at the time, kidnappings lasted years.

That's a long time.

A long time.

Yeah, when I picture kidnapping, I don't think in years.

I think in days, maybe weeks.

Right, right, right.

Haiti, kidnapping is in Haiti with days, weeks max.

In Haiti?

Yeah.

Haiti is

Haiti's tough environment.

Right.

And kidnapping is a way to make money.

Yeah.

So, and the bad guys want their money and want to get paid and moved on.

Yeah.

But Colombia was a different ballgame at the time.

It's very different now.

Politics, everything in Colombia has evolved significantly since that time.

And when you're speaking with these kidnappers, it's over the phone, right?

Well, then I'm coaching somebody over the phone.

Negotiations have taken place over the phone.

What I really was when I was doing international kidnapping, which I think sort of lends itself very much to uh what I do now,

is uh I was a coach.

You know, um bad guys don't want to talk to law enforcement.

You know, they figure we're uh

we don't got any money or we are uh

not gonna be a soft touch.

You know, they wanna talk to a friend or a family member.

So I would coach a friend or a family member through the negotiations.

And your one of your skills is you're good at really feeling people out, identifying if they're lying.

Now, over the phone, are you able to identify lies and pick up on cues?

Well, everybody lies to some degree.

The real interesting thing is it's not if you're lying, it's when you tell the truth.

A polygraph is set up that way.

You go on a polygraph and a polygrapher is going to ask you a number of questions that you, if you tell the truth, you will tell the truth to, like, what day is it?

What city are you in?

What's your name?

What'd you have for breakfast?

These lay down a baseline of what you look like when you tell the truth.

Right.

And so then anytime you deviate from that, the chances are that you're lying.

Now you might deviate anywhere from seven to 23 different ways.

It doesn't matter what any of those are.

You just, you've gone off your normal way of telling the truth.

So in kidnapping, what I really wanted to coach the family into figuring out, and we try to figure out,

what do they look like when they're telling the truth?

What do they sound like?

when they're telling the truth.

Because then ultimately you get to the big question, which is,

are you really going to let them go?

And then you've been talking to them for a long enough period of time that you could tell whether or not they're telling the truth when they answer that question.

Wow.

So there's certain kidnappers that have no intention of letting them go, even if they get paid.

Well, if it's a business, and it is,

yes, that's true, but it's not how you stay in business.

So you've got another motivation.

Like, maybe you're pretending to engage in a negotiation.

Yeah.

When in point of fact, you never plan on letting the hostage go.

And that happens occasionally, a variety of different types of industries

with Mexican kidnappers that are usually related to the drug business.

Now this is an aspect of criminality and not of larger society.

So if I talk about the Mexican kidnapping industry, it's not representative of the society any more than if you're talking about the drug dealing industry in the U.S., that's not representative of the normal society.

Right.

So, Mexican kidnapping industry, quite often the kidnapping is a debt collection.

And if it's a debt collection, if the circumstances tell you that it is, then there's a pretty good chance they're not letting the victim go.

Wow.

Because they've got to make a point.

Yeah, and you're not able to provide the money in your situation.

Well, you shouldn't.

Oh, you shouldn't.

In point of fact, whether or not money gets paid is up to either the family or the employer.

And it's the government's job, if it gets paid, to make it a controlled delivery,

same way that you give a bank teller bait money.

You give a bank teller bait money to save the bank teller's life.

Oh, so that money is not real, that the bank teller gives out in robberies?

Well, it's marked.

Got it.

And then the money becomes evidence.

And then it becomes evidence of a crime.

And then on top of that,

there's a pretty good chance if you trace the evidence, then you get to see who they're buying from, what they're spending their money on,

where they buy anything.

Money's a great thing to trace.

Yeah, because each one has a specific number, right?

Yeah, interestingly enough, money,

fiat currency, as we say in today's vernacular when you're talking about cryptocurrency and other things like that, fiat currencies are really easy to trace.

Wow.

Now, was there any situations where the kidnappers ended up getting the money and getting away?

Well, it's the long arm of the law.

Like, for how long are they going to get away?

I worked a case where the kidnapping, the ransom was paid five years earlier, but the evidence that was gathered so much was so well after the kidnapper got out that we identified the kidnappers and indicted them.

And five years later, they were picked up.

Wow.

So

if you can get somebody indicted, you know, the long arm of the law has a great memory.

Yeah.

Is there any specific cases that you still think about to this day or have you let everything?

I think about them all.

Oh, yeah.

You know, what are the lessons that we'll learn?

Ideally, it's always continuing to learn lessons and every now and then um

i'm still uh acquainted with some of the victims and the victims families via the various social media wow and you know you care about people and you want to see how their lives evolve and see how their family's doing and how they get through everything nice that's cool now in these stressful situations for these families you know it's very emotional um but you're probably trying to tell them not to react emotionally right well

that's a great question.

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So, a friend of mine once I paraphrased his statement: you don't fight human nature, you don't fight emotions, you surf them.

And so, let's say that

your,

I don't know if you have a brother, but let's say you do.

Your brother got kidnapped.

And I'm going to coach you in the negotiations.

I'm going to look at you and I'm going to say, look, I want you to be scared.

And you're going to go, what?

And that'll immediately snap you into a more rational frame of mind.

Fear is a problem if you're afraid of it.

And fear, and you know, that's one of the applications to everyday business negotiations.

We're driven largely by our negative emotions.

Right.

Our survival mindset, our default mindset when we get up in the morning, you know, absent any other sort of mental or spiritual hygiene, is to be negative because the negative caveman survived.

The optimistic caveman said, you know, I realize that's a saber-toothed tiger, but I'm going to go pet it.

And he got eaten.

So by and large, our survival mechanisms baked into our brains from our ancestors are largely negative.

On any given day, pessimism.

Wow.

And my layman's estimation is we're 75% negative.

Wow.

And in point of fact,

you know, you get to know somebody for a really long period of time because you want to know what they look like when they're telling the truth.

You know, business people, why do we go play golf?

We want to know when they're going to tell the truth, when they're going to hit the ball straight, and when they're not going to.

You know, know, you're trying to get a feel for somebody that's zigs and their zags.

And until you get to know that, you assume everybody's lying.

Our negative emotions, pessimism, anger, worry, concern, frustration,

you know, each one is identification of a negative emotion in the past or the future.

If you're frustrated,

then I know that that's about your vision of the future because you're being held back.

So if you could tell me right now you're feeling frustrated, I know it's something standing between you and a goal you want to get to.

If you're telling me right now that you're angry, I know it's something that happened to you in the past.

So negative emotions have a timeline, and we're driven not exclusively, but mostly by negative emotions.

So I'm going to learn how to deactivate those.

And many of those,

how do I deactivate it?

Mostly call it out.

And if it's fear, I'm going to say I want you to be afraid.

And that'll have a tendency to deactivate your negative neural circuits.

Like really counterintuitive stuff.

But under the most extensive circumstances, like kidnappings and hostage negotiations, those same rules apply to our everyday interactions.

Wow.

That's fascinating.

So it sounds like you're able to use your emotions as a power when most people will have their emotions control them.

I'm at least able to deactivate them so that they're less interfered with in my thinking.

And then also, you know, when I'm working with you,

I'm going to work on them to get less in your way.

And yes, to paraphrase what you said,

how can I help you so that most people, their emotions are holding them back on a regular basis?

Like, and that's one of the things that I teach people.

Like,

there's more friction in your life than there is in mine.

Because I know all the little ways to reduce the friction in my life that until you've shown, and once you've seen it work,

then you go like, hey, you know, that's crazy.

How did that work?

Give you an example.

Checking into the airport the other day, and my director of operations is flying with me.

Well, we're flying at the same time, but I'm flying because I fly all the time.

I mean, I got an insane amount of points built up, and I'm automatically business class because I spent the money.

Yeah.

So I'm checking in.

to the preferred line and she doesn't fly all the time, so she's not getting the upgrade.

But of course, the line to check in there is shorter than it is anywhere else.

So I want her to check in with me, save time.

She's not on my flight.

She ain't even in the right line.

And we pull up, and most people try to talk their way into this with the person behind the counter.

And I walk up and I look at her and I go, I'm getting ready to be horrible.

And she goes, she goes, what?

Like, what is getting ready to go on?

Like, am I there to rob the bank?

You know, what am I getting ready to do?

And so what I've done is I've preempted a negative emotion.

Because I'm getting ready to make an ask that is none of my, I do not, I shouldn't be making, even though it's on behalf of somebody else.

I mean, we're not, I've got to run the right line.

I'm kind of lying.

So she looks at me, she goes, what is it?

And I go, well, she's not preferred.

And she's not even flying in the same plane as me.

And this lady just kind of laughs and she goes, that's not horrible.

You're just being a gentleman.

And she looks at her and she says, where are you going?

How can I check you in?

And she checks her in.

She tags her bags, priority, and everything.

Wow.

Gives her the red carpet service.

And then she looks at me and she goes, okay, so where are you flying to?

And I go, I actually don't know.

Ask her.

Wow.

That's crazy.

You know, not only did we get what we wanted, but the young lady behind that counter felt delighted at helping us out.

Now, most people would have walked up and said, you know, can I ask you a favor?

You know, would you do us a favor?

You know, all these nonsensical yes activities.

And the TSA pre-check line, people try that all the time.

Yeah, you know, but I know I can predict that there potentially is going to be a negative reaction.

Every time.

So instead of asking her not to feel the negativity,

I use an extreme word.

I'm getting ready to be horrible.

And she's like,

but I'm being sort of playful about it.

So it's like self-effacing humor.

Yeah.

You know, it's weaponizing self-effacing humor.

And I do stuff like that all the time.

Yeah.

In my daily life, like the vast amount of friction that almost everybody else is navigating because of the negative emotions that the people around us have baked into them, you know, I know how to proactively go after them and deactivate them so that people have fun helping me.

Yeah, I've seen you do it at hotels.

You get your room upgraded.

It's impressive, man.

You save a ton of money and it's fun.

Yeah, I'm actually to the point where

it's almost a pain in the neck to have a great big giant suite in a hotel.

Really?

Because the suite I had the other day,

there was this big meeting area in the room with the tables and extra, you know, like if you wanted to have a private meeting in your hotel suite.

And it was on the other side of this area, the coffee machine was.

And I get out of bed in the morning.

I want my coffee.

I'm going for a long walk just

in my bathrobe.

I don't have to go downstairs.

That's horrible, man.

Yeah, look at what I'm complaining about.

Yeah.

So you've been able to take these skills you learned from negotiating and apply it to the business world, which I find awesome.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Business world and everyday life, just human collaboration across the board, which sort of impacts everything that we do

because we're hardwired to collaborate, yet at the same time, most people are a little defensive.

Yeah.

So when you're entering a business negotiating, business negotiation, what are some things you were looking for in the other person you're keeping an eye on?

Well,

I'm predicting a certain amount of negative reactions to start with because we're wired to be defensive.

Like if I've got an ask at some point in time, you're going to ask yourself, you know, is this even worth my time?

Am I wasting my time?

You know, does this person care for me?

You know, is this about a long-term relationship?

So I'll start calling this stuff out in advance.

I'll say, you know, like, look, you're probably going to be asking yourself if this is a waste of your time.

And, you know, you're probably going to think that, you know, I don't care about you at all.

Most of the two millimeter shifts in this is is what would you want to deny?

Like the classic, I don't want you to think I'm being disrespectful.

And you're getting ready to be insulted.

And then you'll say, well, look, what you just said was disrespectful.

And, you know, who you to tell me not to think that.

But if I start out by saying, like, probably what I'm getting ready to say might sound disrespectful.

It's probably going to sound disrespectful.

You'll sit back and go, like, all right, you know, what is it?

Yeah.

And then you'll listen to me and you'll say, you know, that wasn't disrespectful.

You were just being honest.

Because you you prepared them mentally.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a little bit,

I've read a lot of neuroscience, so I can't give you all my sources.

But the emotional pain centers in the brain are very similar, very close, if not exactly, where the physical pain centers are.

So you're sitting in the doctor's chair, and the doctor says to you, I don't want you to think this is going to hurt.

And then he jabs you with the needle.

You're going to be angry.

Right.

But if he says, this is going to hurt, and he jabs you with the needle, and you're going to say,

it wasn't that bad.

and so getting people a legitimate opportunity to prepare themselves for negativity in advance really lets people brace themselves yeah that's cool I want to go through a couple of your tweets that I thought were interesting all right

so you tweeted out if you're not being criticized you're not pushing hard enough oh yeah and I saw a lot of hate on that one but could you elaborate on that yeah well you know

You got to be willing to be criticized because most of the people that are criticizing you or it's criticism out of envy.

I once read, you'll never be criticized by somebody who's doing better than you.

So if you're afraid of criticism, you're not pushing it hard enough.

There are more people you could be helping.

Interesting.

A friend of mine, Eric Barker, writes a blog that I still read to this day called Barking Up the Wrong Tree.

And he studies success.

And, you know, what really works.

Not what we wish would work, but what really works.

And he told me privately six, seven years ago, for every hater, you've got ten people that support you.

So haters are a sign of success.

Yeah.

So if you don't have any haters, you're not reaching enough people.

I like that.

Yeah, because people try to avoid the hate, avoid the criticism, but I think it's necessary to be successful.

Yeah, the people that are criticizing you are not were never on your side to begin with.

Right.

I like that.

So how do you inoculate yourself from it?

You know, look at it as a sign of success.

Yeah.

You also tweeted out if you start a sentence with, if I were you, and then give advice, that that's selfish, right?

Yeah, how does

advice is problematic to begin with?

And then if I were you,

you know, there, a lot of people, there's no empathy there.

You know, how do you, how does a person actually want to know, if I were you, it's usually you haven't been asked

to start with.

Yeah.

And then if you were asked,

how do you put the person in a better place?

And if I were you, never really puts people in a better place.

And I is usually, if not always, a self-centering word.

So you got to be careful of how you use it.

And when somebody is using I

early on,

I don't know that they're...

If they know where I'm coming from, how do I know where you're coming from?

Well, you got to tell me.

You got to show me.

Empathy is an action.

Empathy Empathy is about displaying understanding.

It's not about having understanding.

Having understanding is the first of two steps.

And the second step is how do you display understanding?

Yeah.

Yeah, it seems like in the digital era, there's a lot of narcissism.

I'm not sure if you're seeing this.

It's simultaneously encouraged and criticized.

Yeah.

Right?

Is social media is all about,

you know, take pictures of your highlight reel.

Yeah.

And are we envious of our highlight reels?

And then we criticize people for being self-centered when the highlight reels are encouraged.

It's very schizophrenic.

And narcissism is a word that is thrown about a lot these days.

Yeah.

It seems to be the word of choice.

And, you know, I'm not sure how often it's true and then

if it's encouraged.

So, yeah, narcissism is out there as a thought.

And narcissism, narcissists are everybody but us.

That's true.

You'll never admit it if you are one, right?

Yeah.

One of the things I really like that you do is you end all your conversations, whether they're positive or negative.

You end on a good note.

Got to end on last impression is the lasting impression.

And it's a subtle

advantage.

that most of the people really miss because

everybody seems to get a lot of emphasis on a first impression.

As if that then inoculates you, protects you from all harm.

And it doesn't.

You know, what really matters is the last impression.

And there's a fair amount of information and data out there that shows that the last impression is a lasting impression.

And

what people do most of the time is you'll send an email when you're upset.

And you'll start it out positively and you'll slowly get more and more angry.

And the very tail end will be, and that's what we want from a great partner yeah

that's not what we want from a great partner I mean there's almost always a shot at the end yeah and it's it hurts you even if you're trying really hard to collaborate with people so always end positively yeah even if somebody's made you angry you can and you can tell the truth like even if you're really unhappy with somebody You could say at the very end, look, it's my hope that we would work this out.

It's my hope that at some point in time, we collaborate and have prosperity for 20 years in the future.

There are very few people that you wouldn't want to work it out with and that you couldn't find a way to collaborate for the next 20 years, for the next generation.

I mean

if I was Palestinian, I would want to work things out with the Israelis so that 20 years from now we look at this as a start of prosperity for everybody, for our children, for our future, for everybody.

I mean by and large you should want to collaborate with everybody.

Yeah.

If they'll let you.

Yeah, I love that.

It takes a high person to be able to end on a good note.

I feel like a lot of people, their emotions or their ego gets in the way.

It does.

And I don't think a lot of people actually know.

Like, to really always end positively, even if you assume this is going to be your last interaction with somebody.

And

even when I assume it's going to be my last interaction with somebody,

I'll say, look, at some point in time, I hope things change around so that we can collaborate positively in the future.

And there isn't anybody that I don't hope that with,

unless somebody that once wishes me dead.

And then why do you wish me dead?

I mean, probably because

of an injustice perceived in the past.

Well, maybe we can talk about a collaboration for prosperity for the future instead.

Wow, even if someone wished you death?

Yeah, because, you know,

what got them into that downward spiral in the first place?

You know,

what's the resentment?

I want to make everyone that I interact with feel like that there's a possibility for prosperity in your future.

Wow.

So you're big on just forgiving and moving on.

Well, there's two things.

Do you forgive or do you forget?

Forgiveness is about self-preservation and self-maintenance because resentment is a poison that you wish the other side would take, but you actually took yourself.

So

I can forgive someone, but when do I expect them to change?

When they've demonstrated to me that they're capable of changing.

You know, to forgive is to not, you don't have to have amnesia.

You know, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.

So I can forgive you for a past wrong as soon as you show me that you can follow a different course, then we can collaborate together in the future.

Yeah.

But, you know,

failing to forgive only harms me.

I saw what it did to my father.

So he left his home at 18, never talked to his parents again, and it just ate his health, man.

Wow.

Yeah, it destroyed him mentally.

Yeah, yeah, it'll do that too.

It's like I said, it's a poison that you take.

Yeah, yeah, I don't want to leave this world with any resentment towards anyone or, you know, not forgiving people.

That's a good lesson.

Yeah.

Going back to identifying liars, though, this stuff fascinates me because I'm not good at identifying them.

How are you able to do that with people?

You know, let it feed your gut.

And interact with people.

Again, you're looking for what somebody looks like when they're telling you the truth.

A couple of, you know, a year, a year and a half ago, a couple of podcasts, interviews that I did in Dubai when I was there.

They're like, let's play two truths and a lie.

And I'm like, okay, okay, okay.

And I realized as soon as I started interacting with people and started asking them questions, then the one that was a lie was the one that they told me the story differently.

And so you've got instinct is really good.

Spotting somebody who's lying isn't all that hard.

Now, what do you do with that information?

Like when I was an FBI agent, me figuring out that you're lying isn't that hard, the hard part is getting you to trust me enough so you tell the truth.

You know, are you lying offensively to take advantage of me?

Are you

lying, deceiving, misguiding me defensively to protect yourself?

Yeah.

Most lies are defensive in nature.

People don't know how to tell the truth.

They're just trying to protect themselves.

So your lying might not be nefarious.

And even if you're trying to take advantage of me,

I want to get you to the point where you'll see that long-term we're both going to make much more money working together than

the zero-sum short-term gain.

So the real issue is, how do I get you to tell me the truth?

How do I get you to trust me with the truth?

There's always stuff you're holding back.

How do I get you to trust me with that stuff?

There's levels to this game, man.

You're like thinking two steps ahead of people.

Two, but never more than that.

Yeah.

That's one of the reasons why chess is not a great analogy to negotiations or life, as a matter of fact.

Because

if the chess pieces could move off the chessboard,

then it would be a little bit more of an analogy to life.

You know, they're confined by the chessboard.

Right.

And then secondly, if the chess pieces, if they could move when they were scared.

Hmm.

Emotions.

Emotions, right.

Because, and so

what does that have to do with two moves?

Imagine a chessboard where with every move, all the pieces got scared enough where they moved a little.

So after two moves, pretty much every piece on the board is probably on a different square.

So all the analysis you did beyond two or three moves max was a waste of time because the pieces got scared and moved.

Yeah.

So you got to reassess periodically because people get scared and they move.

Yeah, there's only so much preparation, studying, and learning you could do.

Once you're actually out there on the field, it's way different, right?

You should do some prep.

Yeah.

You should think at least two moves in advance.

Now, if you're thinking four or five moves, you're thinking too far.

Interesting.

So let's equate that to years.

How many years too far do you think is too much?

Ah, well, you know, there's almost a philosophical question because...

It's a cliche and it's true that people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they could do in five.

Right.

A year or two in advance.

And if you're learning, a friend of mine, Michael Mogill runs this outfit called Chris Video out of Atlanta.

And Michael's into learning.

And I heard him say several years ago that if you're not embarrassed by what you knew a year ago, you haven't learned enough.

I love that.

So how far in advance do I look?

You know, we're looking,

what are you doing up to now?

It means you're probably going to continue on the same trajectory.

Like unless you're learning,

your habits are going to persist, your behaviors are going to persist.

You're probably pretty much the same cat a year from now than you are right now, because most people don't learn.

They stick to the same habits.

So I'm going to think.

I'm going to see how you're operating right now and how much learning you're doing right now.

And if I'm impressed with how you're learning, then a year from now you're going to be very different.

We're going to be very collaborative.

Wow.

But

if you're not organized now, if you're haphazard, then my planning is actually not going to include you a year from now.

Wow.

And that's like just business partners you're talking about?

Right.

Yeah.

Very much so.

I mean, who adapts?

Who learns?

How much of an emphasis are they?

How ambitious are they?

This is something I've discovered recently.

If you're ambitious, you love to learn.

Yep.

And you love to be innovative.

Now, if you're competitive, you're never going to be that much better than your competition.

Because you're competitive and if you're in first place, you win by a nose, you're still in first place.

And so you're not going to get that much better.

Right.

You lose the motivation once you're in first.

That's exactly the point.

Yeah.

Once you're in first place, you chill, you relax, and there's a pretty good chance people are going to pass you by.

But if you're ambitious, like

you want to

master it, it's going to get more complex all the time.

There's always going to be novelty to be discovered.

It's going to be an adventure.

Curiosity is is at a high level.

And where you are a year from now, it's going to be very cool because you just, you had an amazing year.

I love this because there's always been a disconnect with my business partners.

And now that you're saying this, I just love learning.

And they didn't share that passion.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's exactly it.

And yeah, I mean, then it's a fascinating world.

You can't get enough of it.

Yeah.

And a goal is a stepping stone, a milestone.

For somebody who's ambitious, a goal is an end point.

And they reach a goal or they get close to it.

What really annoys me is if somebody says, all right, so we didn't reach our goal, but we got close.

I'm like, ah, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You got close.

It's not good enough.

That ain't enough.

You got close to your milestone.

Where are you going from here?

Yeah.

So ambition versus competition to me is a fascinating difference.

Yeah.

Is there anything on your bucket list, goals that you want to accomplish still?

Wow.

My problem, which drives my team crazy, is

no,

because that's like the famous line from Star Trek when they ask Captain Kirk where they want to go.

And he says, I don't know that way.

Where do you want to get to?

Where do you want to?

I don't know.

Let's just go that way and see what happens.

I'm a little bit older.

Let's go that way.

So,

yeah, I just want to...

What I'm looking for a year from now,

you know, right now we're working on being in Dubai more.

Yeah.

But I know that our methodology works well in China,

not with Americans with Chinese, Chinese with Chinese.

Interesting.

The book sells very well in China.

Wow.

Not in English, in Chinese.

Oh, wow.

So, you know, who knows?

How's China going to open up?

Yeah.

For business opportunities?

How's India going to open up?

Like, I don't know.

You know, let's find out.

You're going to have to learn some Mandarin.

That's a big market, though, for sure.

There's more than a few people there, huh?

Yeah.

Well, we got a business coach, someone we're developing as a business coach.

Chinese female who negotiates very effectively in China with Chinese.

And the other fascinating thing is,

I know she's in and out of Dubai on a regular basis, Chinese female negotiating successfully with Arab males.

Wow.

And doing very well.

That's an interesting, wow.

I'm trying to picture that.

Yeah.

What does she sell?

She She sells a lot of negotiation consulting

and business consulting.

And she sells collaboration.

She sells human relationships.

Nice.

Similar to what you do, basically.

Exactly.

At the end of the day, it's about collaboration.

Love it.

What do you think of the way Trump negotiates?

Have you read his book?

I have.

I read it a long time ago when it first came out.

Yeah.

You know, he and I are both last century guys, although I'm not as old as he was, but I was in New York just as he was emerging.

And I liked the book at the time.

I thought I learned a lot from it.

I think his co-author captured what he had to say at the time well.

I think there were lessons to be learned.

Like, you know, one of the great stories in it when he bought the Plaza Hotel, way back when.

And

admittedly, he was a bit of a micromanager.

And so he started micromanaging the owner of the hotel.

And so what the guy did was ask him everything.

You know, you know, what color, what kind of paperclips do you want us to buy?

You know, started asking him everything, understood

that what he was about.

And so Trump was like, stop bothering me.

You know, come on, I'm paying you to manage this place.

Go ahead and manage it.

I mean, and he respected a guy that understood his nature and instead of fighting it,

found a way to collaborate with it.

I'm convinced that that's the way his son-in-law, Jared, navigates with him.

He doesn't fight with his nature.

He accepts it for what he is and he collaborates with it.

Interesting.

So I think of Trump much more as a marketer than a negotiator.

Yeah.

And I think he's everything you would want and a brilliant marketer.

He doesn't care about failure.

He just keeps throwing mud at the wall and sees what sticks.

And then when something sticks, then he stays with it, which is what, you know, what's marketing?

Throwing something out there and looking at your data and staying with what works.

So I see him much more in that vein.

Absolutely.

I saw you on the board of a nonprofit Global Citizen Forum.

Can you tell me about that?

They are really about making the world a better place, international citizenship via foreign direct investment

as a nonprofit mechanism and as a for-profit mechanism.

But there are a lot of

You know, we find out about the successful billionaires in the world that all they want to do is sit on their mega yachts and drink expensive champagne and not contribute anything to the world.

But there's a significant number of equally successful people

that accept that keep your expectations of your governments low and you won't be disappointed.

Don't really expect governments to solve the world's problems.

In a private sector, start bringing answers to the government.

And let's collaborate and work.

You know, how can we make the world a better place and make some money at the same time.

But our principal goal is, look, we've been really successful and

instead of taking away from the world, we want to add as much back into it as we can.

So, you know, that's that's a nonprofit that I really enjoy being a part of.

Love it.

What are you working on next?

What are you passionate about?

And where can people find you?

Well,

our YouTube channel, we're building that up significantly now.

We changed the name of it to Negotiation Mastery.

And we've also got a social media app, Fireside.

But the best way to find out what we're up to is really to subscribe to our newsletter.

You go to the the website, blackswanltd.com, B-L-A-C-K-S-W-A-N-L-T-D like limited.com.

And on the upper right-hand corner is the Edge.

You can subscribe to it.

And you get useful negotiation advice, concise, which means,

you know, you don't wear yourself out trying to figure out what we're saying.

And then you get told about what's the latest stuff that we're working on to help people get better.

So the best thing to do is subscribe to the Edge.

You find out about

where we're going internationally.

You find out about our training.

You find out about a lot of cool stuff.

Love it.

Yeah, we'll link it in the video.

Thanks so much for coming on today, Chris.

It was my pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for watching, guys, as always, and I'll see you tomorrow.