Transcription
The narcissist is a sociopath. They want to know that what they said sunk in. And any indicator that you give them of that, then they're feeling control. They might be hoping that you fight back because then the fight back is more domination, is more pounding. They enjoy the pounding.
And by and large, if it's a bad relationship, you just need to You've spent over two decades in the FBI negotiating with terrorists, criminals, and some of the most manipulative people on the planet. So, how do you handle and outsmart someone like a narcissist or a psychopath who lacks complete empathy and only cares about themselves?
Well, when you come to Earth, when you're born, regardless of gender, ethnicity, anything, diet, religion, moment you arrive on planet Earth, the hypothesis, which I believe in, is you come basically with a set of core emotions. Anger, surprise, joy, disgust, fear. Then what creates a sociopath, a narcissist, narcissist, any of these bad types is then their experience with life as they evolve. They're still born with core emotions. That that doesn't change.
FBI, they were always trying to figure out what created a sociopath, what created a serial killer. And one of the theories was age five or six, they do something wrong. They're severely punished. A month later, they do some same thing wrong, they're not punished at all. What they learned was there are no rules as they go through life that there are no rules. And that creates feelings.
The distinction between emotions and feelings. Even a narcissist or sociopaths are born with core emotions. They have emotional vulnerabilities. They lack certain types of feelings. They don't feel guilt for whatever reason. They don't feel sympathy, but they still feel anger, fear, disgust, happiness, joy, the core that you're born with. And they still have neurochemicals. So these are the tools that a hostage negotiator looks as I'm using my skills in hostage negotiation or in business or personal relationships to start to diagnose which one you are.
Like if I you know a classic is the forced empathy from the other side. My son labeled that as forced empathy because if you and I are in interaction you're saying something to me it's going to be tough for me to do and I say how am I supposed to do that? Seven to eight times out of ten there's a 180 degree shift in your perspective because I forced you to take a look at me and consider me as a human being. If I say to you, "How am I supposed to do that?" and you say to me, "That's your problem. Now I know what I'm dealing with."
One of the most common reactions to how am I supposed to do that is somebody says, "You know, you're right. I could see how that is a problem for you. Uh what if I offer you this?" and they instantly go to collaboration. That's the majority 70 to 80% of the time. So, you got to know which ones are not. And the, you know, that's your problem. Now, you're telling me either either you're not collaborative as a person, period, or you're not collaborative under these circumstances. Now, you might be backed into a corner in a business negotiation. You might be under massive pressure. I got to know, are you under pressure or are you just a bad player? So, my first response is going to be, sounds like you're under a lot of pressure cuz I need to know if you're under pressure. Now, if you are, you're going to immediately resonate with that. Immediately, it's an involuntary response. If you slough it off, then I know you're using the attack as gaslighting, you know, narcissism, any of those things that are indicators of a bad player.
Mhm. You talk about the illusion of control. And so, talk to me about how you can use that in a conversation to somewhat allow the other person to feel like they have the power, but actually you do. Difference. There's so much power in difference. And I know somebody needs to be in control. First of all, the what and how questions, they feel differential when you ask somebody that. And in point of fact, you got an opponent on the other side you want to exhaust. And what and how questions call for deep thinking, which is exhausting. The other side doesn't know you're doing that, Tom. What do you want me to do? How do you want me to react? What do you want from me? Innocently asked. But when you got a bad actor on the other side, passive aggression is an acceptable tool cuz they're probably using some passive aggression on you. So difference is a way to hide how you're trying to wear them out. And they they feel in control. People love to be asked what and how questions because a control freak wants to tell you what to do, wants to tell you how to do it. It makes them feel large and in charge.
And we stumbled across this with kidnappers globally. Doesn't matter what kind of kidnapper you could think of. There was a lone kidnapper serial killer on the other side on a kidnapping the Philippines. That is a bad guy. What? Now questions made him feel in control. What were you asking him? It was a great case because the uh I'm coaching you in a in a kidnapping. The secret to kidnapping is coaching a family member because then you can hide your your skills. I'm hitting him with stealth skills. And the brother ridiculously coachable guy. So, we start out basically the what and how questions, you know, how am I supposed to pay if I don't know my brother's alive? How am I supposed to pay if I don't know you're going to let him go? This guy had this elaborate scheme of wanted a daily predeem to keep the son alive while he researched the family. So, I'm coaching this this guy, uh, Aaron, and I said, "Look, here's the problem. If we give in on the daily rate, which your family could pay easily, family's got a lot of dough. Mom's saying, "Pay, I want to keep my my son alive." Like, no, no, no, no. That's the way he's researching you guys. The more easily you pay, the longer you pay, the more money you have, it's going to go on forever. So, we, you know, we got to flip it on him. How do you know that? By the way, once you say yes to one thing, does that then inevitably open up the gate for it to be yes for a long period of time? Absolutely. And so then, how do you avoid saying yes, but you don't say no. It's usually with a how or what question because it throws right back on the other side.
So anyway, we're coaching the brother and on his own he says, and we don't know at the time the guy's a murderer. We It ends up being uh a rescue and a capture of the bad guy at the end. That's how we found out it was a lone kidnapper serial killer. He says to him, "When we run out of money paying the daily rate, what's going to happen?" And there's this really long pause on the other end of the line. And the guy says, "It'll be all right." So I got a team in country. They're giving me blowby-blow. I'm still back in DC. They say, "We just we just had this call. We think it was good, but we don't know what it means." I start doing a happy dance because I'm like, "He just promised not to kill our hostage. He doesn't know that he said that, but that's in essence of what we got." So, we got this dude on the ropes and he was a really bad guy. He was he was he was a killer. He was a murderer.
So what do you do in those scenarios then when you're trying to negotiate with somebody and they are nefarious and so they don't mind lying, cheating, saying whatever they like to get them. So in that scenario, even if he said, "Don't worry, I won't kill him." How do you know it's true? We've been talking to him long enough. It's the way a lie detector works. Lie detector detects how you tell the truth if you tell the truth. And so the longer you talk to somebody, your first question is, do they tell the truth at all? And you pick it up by innocent things. How long would you drive? What' you have for breakfast? Um, what's your favorite thing? Because small talk, properly designed, begins to tell you whether or not somebody tells the truth.
Mhm. Now, they may not tell the truth at all, but and that's good information to have. Then the next thing really is everybody feels safe when they say no. So, if I get you to say no, I need to know whether or not you prepared in advance. Like, did you do X? No. That's prepared. No, you did it. You expect to be braced on it. How do you say no when you're prepped for it? But I say something like, you know, boy, you love baseball. No, I don't love baseball. Now, that's an honest no. Based on delivery, I know I need to know which one I got. So, even if you don't tell the truth, since you feel safe when you say no, you'll say no right away to something, and I need to know the difference between the two.
Mhm. So, why would you want somebody to say no? In general terms, all humans feel safe and protected when they say no. I'm going to get your most unguarded response. It's mostly nurture in that everybody is taught get the other person to say yes. The yes momentum, momentum selling, every person that's ever had any sort of sales training, persuasion training, and then has become a global phenomenon. You sell whatever your commodity is by getting somebody to say yes and then you get a succession of yeses and then you got them at the end. Now there since uh every salesperson has been taught that every human being on earth has had it done to them. So you can count on somebody being yes bad. Flip side is you're taught then if yes is commitment then no is protection. And so you when you when you say no you feel safe and protected. So you calm down. Your guard your guard doesn't go off. This is so universal. Tim Ross and is a minister who said he changed his call to Jesus from yes to no. Oh, because if you're a religious leader, and I know this is going to sound disrespectful to all religious leaders, but you're selling the hereafter. You're selling spirituality. Do you want to have closer relationship with Jesus? Do you want to be able to sleep good at night? Do you want this? Do you want that? If you want that, come on forward. And he switched to, are you against having a closer relationship with Jesus? Are you against? Because these are no warranted questions.
That's so insane to think about because as a woman, one of the things that I've been really kind of hopping on about in my adulthood is the ability to say no because I say yes to everything. And what's incredible is as you were talking, I was like, "Wow, it does give you the illusion of power. It makes me feel like I am in control. So when you come to me and I say no and if you're doing it in the technique that you're saying is I'm completely unaware of what you're doing. Right. Right. And then and the other nice thing about it is I haven't necessarily got a commitment from you. Mhm. But if you have obstacles after you've said no, you'll share them with me because you don't feel like you're digging yourself into a hole. And unfortunately, after you've said yes, you think everything that you share digs you further into commitment. And so if there are obstacles to where we're going, I want to know it. I I don't want you to feel that you were bamboozled or talked into anything. It's not going to stick. And I do need to know the obstacles because they're going to get in the way of us collaborating. So if I say, "Is this a ridiculous idea?" You'll say, "No, it's not ridiculous, but here are the issues." Mhm. And then you lay them out to me.
I'm going to go back to a lot of my community are unfortunately have dealt with really bad actors. So, do these still work on people who are narcissists or psychopaths? All right, guys. We'll be right back with Chris. But for one second, if you're struggling to build your confidence, to set boundaries, to stand up for yourself, whether that's in your relationship or in business or with your family, and you don't feel like you have a voice, then you've come to the right channel. Smash the subscribe button down there so you can get notified every single time an episode comes out. Let's build our confidence together. So, smash that subscribe button. Now, back to the episode.
Nothing works all the time. So, when you've got a couple different things to try, it's not that it failed. It gave you different information. Now, narcissist sociopaths, they still have some emotions. They still have the core emotions. They're still emotionally vulnerable in certain ways. And so then you just need to use an oriented question, a how or what question, a label or a mirror to begin to give you a clear picture of what they respond to and um what works.
What's the label in the mirror if explaining? The label is uh seems like you're angry and that won't escalate somebody who's already angry and a psychopath. So depending upon how they see you, oh, it may be more necessary to say, "I know you're angry." Because sometimes it seems like your angry is tentative. It usually works best if we don't have lots of relationship time. But if you don't want me to be tentative, you want me to know, then you say, "I know you're angry." Or, "It's clear you're angry." And in a relationship with somebody who's attacking me with anger, they're gonna probably want you to say, "It's clear I've made you angry. It's clear I've done something wrong." Especially when anger isn't manipulation because they're yelling at you because they want to feel in control. They want to they're yelling at you because they want you to feel I've done something wrong. Now, the mere act of formulating that in your head actually helps you get your feet back under you. You have to stabilize to some degree to even say it and that's why it's hardest at the beginning and then it begins momentum. So, that's a label.
Now, mirror just repeating one to threeish words of exactly what they said. What do you mean? Give me an example. Give you an example. Ah, see. And how did you feel when I did that? You wanted to respond. Yeah. And I felt like you were listening enough that you wanted to engage and ask me a question about it. Yeah. Yeah. Even Even when you see it coming, like people mirror me on a regular basis and I like it. Now, here's a critical factor with a mirror. If you've listened versus heard, if you've listened, when I say something, you either comprehended it or you're curious about it. I need to hear that in your tone. So, I said, "Give you an example." That showed you that I comprehended what you said. Now, if I go, "Give an example." That means I'm curious about what you said. Either way, I had to process it. There are some people that do mirroring with a flat tone and the tone indicates no processing at all. I run into a guy on a street that's been studied I'm com familiar with. Bump into him on a street in Brooklyn a couple weeks ago and he mirrored me and it was a flat affect and I thought all right so that annoyed me. What about that annoyed me? And I said dude you you're you're showing no comprehension at all. You actually said that too. Yeah. And he said, "No comprehension at all with no with another flat a effect." And I said, "Man, look, um, you're mirroring me and it's annoying me." He said, "Well, I don't even know I'm doing it." Yes, you do. I'm trying to help you get better. But he's gotten into such a habit of a flat affect. I I realized after the fact like, "Why did my skill on me bother me?" And I realized his tone indicated neither comprehension nor curiosity. And when I talk, I want I want to know that what I said sinks in. The narcissist a sociopath. They want to know that what they said sunk in. And at any indicator that you give them of that, then some of the goals are beginning to be met and feel in control. They might be hoping that you fight back because then the fight back is more domination. It's more pounding. They enjoy the pounding. So, it's it's it's giving them the illusion of control and taking away. You know, if they're predatory, that's predatory behavior. You're not running from them anymore. You're not fighting back. They kind of don't know what to do with that if you're just listening and comprehending or you're curious. How am I failing you? And the way I said that was curious and differential like I want to I want to I want to please you. Yeah. So the tone there's there's some real magic in the tone once you start to listen to it. I'm getting the upper hand invisibly. Yeah. Ah the upper hand invisibly. Yeah. Oh that's so good.
Um, okay. Talk to me about the two most powerful words that somebody can say to transform a conversation. And the question is, would a bad actor, narcissist, or psychopath also fall in that trap? Yeah. Well, that's right. If you get a that's right out of somebody, they feel hurt. They feel you got it. You know, you want me to obey you because you think that's the role of a wife to to obey. That's right. Suddenly you get it. You realize now you're getting them. They're feeling heard. They're feeling obeyed. They're feeling commanded. Now, the interesting thing about what I just said, I didn't agree with any of it. That's true. Which you never notice. No, I didn't at all. And that's really like the magic of real empathy. Like the other side has no idea you didn't agree. They feel heard. They feel obeyed. And then you're back to feelings. And you're you're starting to trigger the feelings. And that's what you want them to feel. Yeah. Well, I want I want to see how far I'm going to get to start with. Oh, yeah. Was is the feeling of in being in control what they're really after? Oh.
In quote normal collaborative negotiations, we believe there's three types. Assertive analyst and accommodator. Fight, flight, make friends, caveman response to threat. Each type has something more important than the agreement. So, what I'm driving with on a narcissist is there's probably something more important than agreement. It's probably feeling of being in control. Assertive wants to feel respected. They want to feel respected and heard. I'm a naturalb born assertive. You make me feel respected and heard and I suddenly get collaborative. Because being respected and heard is more important than anything else. Accommodator is hope oriented, tends to be very relationship oriented, very optimistic. The only way you really turn an accommodator off is if they feel there's no relationship ever to be had ever again. Now, why should they talk to you? Because they're about they're about the long-term relationship. Hopeful opportunities. It's more important than an agreement. I don't care if we agree. I care if we have a relationship. Analyst. Analyst is after data, information. I don't care if we agree. I just want to know if I got all the information. Each one of those things, they have something more important than the deal.
Now, the narcissist, the sociopath. First, you want to find out if being heard and feeling in control is enough. If it is, bang, you're there. How would you test that? You start getting that's right. Go dead silent. See what the follow on behavior is. Continued diagnostic. Get let me gather more information. If it's not, I've hit a milestone, but I haven't hit the goal. So now I need to know what the goal is. You don't know what the goal is till you've hit a few milestones. Let them feel safe in control. Let them feel like they have the upper hand. Now I'm going to find out what's going on. Ongoing victimization from a predatory person, which is what a narcissist and a sociopath are. You need to know what the secondary goal is. And by and large, if it's a bad relationship, you probably just need to start getting some opening to think and plan and get out. Crisis hotline last century when I volunteered to start this whole journey, their analogy was quicks. Somebody's in the quicksand, you don't get them out of it by getting into the quicksand with them. You got to stay out of the quicksand. So, in bad relationships, there's this quicksand downward spiral that people just get caught up in. You just need enough time to think to start to plan to get out because you got to get out. Easy to say, hard to do. But if it's a little at a time, just like you got in, let yourself get out a little at a time. Wow, that's so good. Coming up. I don't advocate this in normal relationships, but when you got a bad actor on the other side, then this stuff is fair game. What up, my homie? Okay, can we talk about something that still carries a bit of shame? Most women don't want to own their pleasure. We're taught it's taboo, but pleasure, my homie, isn't dirty. It's healing. It's powerful. And it actually helps you reconnect with the most important relationship on earth, the one that you have with yourself. And that's why I'm absolutely obsessed with Lilo. They don't just make toys, they make artful, high-tech innovations to explore your pleasure your way. So whether you're curious or cautious or ready to go all freaking in, then Lelo makes it easy and fun to try different sensations and discover what actually lights you up. You may want to start with the Sona 3 Cruise. It uses sonic waves, not vibrations. There's no buzzing. There's no numbing. It's just full body next freaking level. O's that'll make you wonder why you waited so long. Go to leelo.com and use my code Lisa 15 for an extra 15% off stackable with other promos. That's Lisa 15 at checkout. So go check them out.
Okay. So you had said um that's right. Explain to me the difference between that's right and you're right. I love it when you say that's right because I know I'm scoring points with you internally. I know that you feel that what I just said was the truth. So at a bare minimum, you feel I'm really listening and dialed in to you. So but we say your right to make somebody feel in control. So hearing your right to a manipulative person, they love that. Everybody learns along the line as a defense mechanism when somebody's really pestering you. If you say you're right to them, they'll probably stop pestering you and they'll feel really good and they'll leave you alone for a while because it saying you're right makes me feel good. Makes me feel in control. And so that if you're in a toxic relationship now, they're going to they're going to watch whether or not you walk to talk. But you're right is a great way to get give yourself some space. You're right. You told me never to do this again. It's clear I wasn't listening. It's clear my actions indicate I'm disrespectful. A wife's job is to obey. You're starting to you're starting to hit their buttons. I don't advocate this in normal relationships. But when you got a bad actor on the other side, then this stuff is fair game. I totally agree. I don't like to lie. I don't like to say things I don't mean, but you freaking better believe if my life was in danger at any moment, I will say what I have to to get out. Um, and so I I really applaud you saying that. Um, and what I realized was it seems to work if you say you're right to a narcissist and you get the bad actor to say to you, "That's right. That's the kind of perfect combination where they now really feel like they're in control." Yeah. That's Yeah. Exactly. And then you start to figure way out of the labyrinth that you didn't get into in one day. And if you give yourself the same amount of time to get out of it that you got into it, in point of fact, you're going to get out of it a lot faster. The hard thing is the exit's going to be abrupt. And when an there there's one of the most spiritual guys I ever I ever met. Um, my minister in uh New York City was Norman Vincent Peele's protege, guy named Arthur Calandrew. And at the time, I'm running a suicide hotline, crisis hotline, and we got to let the executive director go. And I'm trying to salvage this relationship. And it's just not working. It's a relationship that's not working. Bad match, bad this, bad that. They want a bad person. And I go to Arthur and I'm like, I figure he's going to counsel me on, you know, how to be soft, how to be gentle. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you do this? And Arthur just co says to me as no gentle way to cut somebody's head off and I'm like if I ever run across anybody that's God's guy on earth, Arthur is in that category. And if he's telling me that if it's time to end the relationship that you cut it as quickly and cleanly as possible and that's the least painless way to do it. Arthur was God's guy. And I figure, all right, if the relationship's got to be over, you got to cut it and you got to go. And whatever your spirituality is as a human, that's the best move possible. That's so cool.
Um, okay. So, as we start talking about this, you talk about leverage. Yeah. And that's one of the aspects of our thinking. Me, you know, my team, I think we've evolved so much. We think so much more now in terms of influence versus leverage. Oh, what's the difference? Typically, leverage is thought of as your ability to hurt somebody. How, you know, deny if you don't make this deal, there's going to be consequences. You know, I'm going to fire you. I'm going to tell people about you. And you don't think consequences are good? I think they're a last resort. And I think that there's a way to gently bring it up. Oh, say more. Well, in in a I'm coaching some guys in a business negotiation now and they say, "Look, if if they don't straighten it out with us, I don't know how that they expect us this to not get out. It's going to ruin them in the industry. People are asking us now what it's like to deal with them." And so in that circumstance, if you're going to threaten somebody with some somebody, you know, I'm going to say some of the effect of here's my problem and this is my problem and it's not your problem. I'm an honest guy. That's my problem. People are going to ask me what happened when I when we did we work it out or not. Now that's not your problem. That is my problem. That's the dilemma that I'm faced with. So, I don't want you to feel backed into a corner for me to drop the threat. I want you to think what I need you to think without me saying it. And so, what's what do I know in advance? As soon as I start saying this is my problem, then you're taking a different perspective. You don't feel threatened. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It feels like you don't have the defenses up. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm trying to keep your defensiveness down. I don't want you to see me as a threat, but I need to share with you consequences. I'll give you another one. Yeah, please. Um, inappropriate sexual comments in a workplace. So, very carefully constructed iMessage. It has three parts. Oh, okay. When you, I feel, because now it has to be in that order. Mhm. The when you you describe the negative behavior. Now, that's the hardest part because when you begin to describe the negative behavior, when you're tri going in your mind, you're going to get triggered and you're going to start name calling and you can't name call. So, like when you you can't say are an You can't do that. You can say when you dismiss me. When you dismiss me. when you make inappropriate sexual innuendo. Oh yeah, I forgot about the situation. Or when you make even inappropriate is a value to term. So you say when you state sexual in innuendo, you want to make it as neutral as possible. You know, it's the old school separate the person from the behavior. So describe the behavior. Well, who says it's inappropriate? It was sexual innuendo. It's arguable whether or not in their mind whether or not it's inappropriate. You want to stay away from the stuff. Remove their defense mechanism as much as possible. Now, I feel there's a 180 degree shift there because you is an engaging word. I get your attention real fast when I say you when you you're expecting a personal attack name calling when you're an I'm not going to do that, but I've triggered your guard up a little bit. you're expecting a further onslaught. I is a self-centering word. It's one of the few times you want to go with I feel because now there's such a 180 shift in the in the instantaneous momentum. The predator is a little caught off guard a little bit. I feel you have to use a negative emotion. Not too negative. I counsel usually I feel concerned. I feel angry. That's a little strong in this case. When you make sexually inappropriate remarks, I feel concerned. Now, the kicker, here's here's the punch that you're setting them up for. The because the consequences and the consequences have to cost them. An example of missing the punch at the end. A woman that was one of our coaches, she says, "When you make inappropriate remarks, I feel concerned because it makes me uncomfortable." That's a cost to you. That's ineffective. As a matter of fact, he might like that it makes you uncomfortable. That's what I was going to say. That may be that goal, right? When you make inappropriate remarks, I feel uncomfortable because it's going to stop me from being loyal to you. It's going to stop me from following your direction. It's going to stop me from supporting you in the workplace. Now, that's leverage. That's the cost to the other side. Now it matters. The because has to cost them. Now the iMessage, it's got to be in that order and it takes practice. How can I usually roll one off the top of my head? Practice. It's one of the most complicated set of our skills. And even if I practiced all week this week and let's say end of the week Friday, I could do an iMessage just like that under any circumstances. If I go for a week without thinking about it, it's like any other skill, I start to deteriorate. So then, okay, fine. You give yourself a chance, you write it out, you prep yourself, and you use it in the moment. That's so true. And thank you for saying that because I believe my own confidence, the way that um to for me to be able to set boundaries, to stand out for myself has all been constant practice. I say this a lot. One of my favorite movies is Karate Kid. Wax on, wax off. I am waxing every single day. And so I love that like be prepared because when you're in that moment, I'm just going to speak for myself. I can absolutely get in my own emotions and my own emotions definitely trigger the fight or flight and I either become the chihuahua that just like barks because it's the only way I feel like I can defend myself or I completely shut down. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
One of the reasons why I often use a late night FM DJ voice. Explain to me this. There are three types of voices I think you say. Right. Well, there's the late night FM DJ voice, which is downward inflecting, which uh Sandy Ho, my team, top women's coach, she says for women, if you don't have a lower voice, all you're going to do is drop your chin when you talk. Mhm. When you when you drop your chin when you talk, you downward inflect. Oh. Even if you sound like a Chihuahua, the downward inflection is the key. M there are times when you need to project you bring your chin up and so you can practice that and do an automatic inflection override with the positioning of your chin no matter what kind of voice you have. The soothing voice is a neurochemical reaction. I will calm you down. Now you can fight it but you can't stop the fact that I've started a calming effect in your brain. Now, the smiling voice, same thing. Neurochemical reaction. When I run across somebody that is just really angry, some clerk someplace that does nothing, get battered by the people that come in and complain, I'll have to hit him with a smiling voice maybe three times in a row. Oh. And then and then you'll see it you'll see it come over. So, it's just a matter of sticking to it. The first one doesn't hit then because they're already in, let's say, a bad space. They they they they got so many negative neurochemicals going that I may have to hit them two or three times to soak them all up. Oh, okay. And they don't get annoyed by the happy tone. Even if they do, and sometimes they'll get annoyed because they don't want to they don't want to be happy and they caught themselves being happy and they're mad. And so I'm like, I'm going to keep going with that kind of a voice. In general terms, a playful attitude, you'd be shocked at how far you can get how quickly with a playful attitude in in day-to-day interactions. And so with the narcissist, the attacking person, they're they're not going to want that playful attitude right away. They're going to want the differential downward infl I understand. I understand. Careful that you don't let that go into condescending or placating. Oh, cuz that would just wind them up even more, right? They'll sense that. Uhhuh. And how do you know the difference? Practice in all your other conversations. That's so You definitely have the DJ uh late night voice, which is very soothing by the way. Um, what's the third tone? The assertive voice. I would describe myself as just being direct and honest. Is there a way to combine them? Because I feel like you're direct and honest, but you do it in the DJ voice. Yes. Oh, because a bare bones, direct and honest voice inadvertently triggers a fightlight respon a fight response in you. Oh yeah. And you shut down and I we'll get into an argument when we shouldn't have. I mean in in broader applications, I think that it's law enforcement is taught to give loud and clear commands. They don't realize because of training. They're doing it because they're trained. They don't realize in point of fact they're making it harder for the other person to think. A that's what I was going to say. I could just see if you're in a negotiation, let's say you've got a hostage situation, would assertive ever work? It's always counterproductive. Yeah, that's what I would have thought. Yeah. Yeah. It feels good in the moment. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Could be addicting, but it's it's it ends up being counterproductive. Okay. So, you try to stay in the late night DJ voice. Late night DJ voice. You know, there's another interesting trick. People are ridiculously vulnerable to curiosity. Like, you can't resist genuine curiosity on my part. And if I'm curious, I turn my head to the side when I said that and I brought my chin up slightly. And that gives me a curious tone of voice. But you also like if if if I don't say a word and we're talking and I go, "Oh, yeah. You just did the head tail." Yeah. You felt my interest. You felt that I was dialed in and that I wanted to hear more. There's a couple of physical signs that are kind of universal. As you're listening to me, you're a good listener and you got a head nod. Oh, thank you. Head nods a universal sign of interest and understanding comprehension. If you're nodding your head, I feel like you're dialed in. And if you're curious, you know, you feel drawn to that. You can't resist my curiosity. So, it's a physical and and a verbal uh reinforcement that we've found to be universal. That's so good. And going back to the type of people that you'd be talking to, if they want to maintain control, showing the curiosity actually feels like, oh, you're really interested in me. Like it just adds to that control factor. Yeah. Um, okay. I love all the steps that you've given us. This has been so fascinating. Now, let's go to though. You say don't compromise. The unfortunate aspect of compromise is if I don't get everything I want that no matter what I got, I'm going to be disappointed. And so Daniel Conorman, he won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in behavioral economics, which is a loss stings twice as much as as an equivalent gain. So if I repeat that again, a loss stings twice as much as an equivalent gain. Oh, it's an emotional condition of humans. So if I give in by five, I'm going to feel I lost 10. Which is why compromise tends to be a downward spiral no matter because we're both going to feel we gave up more than we actually did. And then we get into this whole concept of fairness, which like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I love the way you call it the fbomb. The fbomb. Yeah. Fair is the fbomb. If somebody drops fair, things have gotten emotional. Ah, really? That's a sign. That's not fair. Oh, yeah. Okay. You have been triggered. Uh, so that compromise is guaranteed disappointment. You know, I'm a last century guy. Yeah. Back when newspapers had cartoons, you know, cartoon panels. And there was this one, it was the Lockhorns, and it was a husband and a wife. and the husband saying to the wife, you know, why don't we compromise? That way, we'll both be unhappy. Uhhuh. So, compromise is is is guaranteed disappointment. And if you're looking to gain the upper hand emotionally, you're engaging in a strategy that's going to guarantee disappointment, your counterpart. So, just be aware of that. Now, in the moment, it might be the next best step. And if you're with a predatory counterpart, next best step might be what you need to gain space. But be aware, it's a not not a long-term solution. It at best is a band-aid. Sometimes you need a band-aid. If the situation calls for it, you might need a band-aid. Do not kid yourself that it's anything more than a band-aid. Stressful emotional abuse things you got to find your way out of. It may be what you need to survive the moment. So, I wouldn't rule it out under those circumstances. It feels like compromise comes when you feel like sometimes you're either at a stalemate where you're like, "Well, there's nothing. You're not budging. I'm not budging. Fine. Let's just meet in the middle." Right? Then how do you get what you want if you're not willing of if you shouldn't compromise and the other person shouldn't compromise? There might be something there that neither one of you know about that's yet to be discovered. You know we refer to that as a black swan. Explain what the black swan is. Well it originally inspired by Nasim Nicholas Talb's book the black swan the impact of the highly improbable. the tiny little things that ended up changing everything because they were hidden because no one actually even realized the black swan existed. Correct. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And and and Talib used them as a great metaphor for discovering the things that'll change everything. So kind of by definition in any negotiation that stuff you know I don't stuff I know you don't. I've never heard anybody argue with that premise. Well, then that means there's stuff there that we don't know that we could discover. What's the collaboration in general terms? The narcissist, you don't know for sure uh what's going to make them happy. You got a pretty good idea. You should be gathering data, but maybe the dynamic has occurred in their life that's opened up their mind to something else that you don't know anything about. You don't know what happened the last 24 hours when they were out of the house. You know, they're running from one shiny object to the next and it's confused in their head and they're coming back trying to feel in control in the house because they feel chaos on the outside. They want control here, chaos out there is bothering them. What was it that happened the last 24 hours that's bothering them? What got under their skin? As long as you're open to the concept that there's stuff there that maybe it's not to be discovered in every interaction, maybe it's not to be discovered every day, but the uh the sea of unending turmoil that life is, there's going to be stuff there to be discovered. And if you're open to it, all you got to do is be open to it. And what does that look like? Asking questions. See, questions make people feel questioned. Oh, now the what and how things are questions and they're also exhausting. There may be moments when they have no tolerance for exhaustion. The crazy thing about the label is it's effectively questioning. It doesn't feel like a question. [Music] I could say to you, "What's on your mind?" and you'd stop and think. And if you had the energy, then you'd answer. If I say to you, it seems like something's on your mind. You don't stop and think. You just tell me what's on your mind. For whatever reason, it comes out easier with less friction. Far simpler. You made the narcissist angry. You don't know why. It's clear I did something that made you angry. They're more than likely to tell you what it is because you're not asking a question. You're more like making it a statement that almost gives them validation. Yes. That's so good.
Okay. In these scenarios, you seem you talk with authority. You speak with your DJ late night voice. I would assume though in the career that you've had that you have been triggered. How do you avoid getting emotional and letting your emotions flood you, whereby you then act out of accordance to who you want to be? If I'm really out of control in a moment, I'll switch to the late night FM DJ voice because I practice doing that and I know it's going to calm me down. So, literally, you're in this conversation, you feel like you're getting triggered, and so immediately go, "Oh, I need to now do the late night DJ voice." Right? Cuz I use it to calm me down. Oh, that's great. Um, and then really the ongoing thing and and something I've just come across recently, there's a book called Chatter. What's the chatter in our head? Everybody's heard you got like 50,000 conversations go through your mind in a given day and the vast majority of it is repetitive. So the hypothesis is can I get behind that and switch it and you can't and it's a lifelong habit of not being in control of it. So for me it's still an ongoing struggle who who does the chatter. Give me some examples. My favorite example which got me started first thinking about it Jaco Willink you know the seal. Yes I do. You know, his guys are like, "Jo, no matter what happens to us, all you ever say is good. We lost all our funding for our weapons." You say, "Good." You know, our training facility burned down. You say, "Good." Like, he's got the habit of his inner chatter is always good because now he's reoriented. He's got problem solving. So, my first thought was when I could remember, if I felt something triggering me, I'd just say to myself, "Good." And I felt an instantaneous change in my brain instantly. That's so good. So, I know chatter works. Now, getting good at it is something I'm still working on. And it's an ongoing process. I'm not always going to keep myself from catching on fire. I need to stop, drop, and roll in the moment. In normal interactions, I learned from everybody. Barbara Corkin, hero of mine. We're both on a in Clubhouse back when Clubhouse was hot. We're both on this Clubhouse thing talking about negotiation. And Barbara says, "Here's a phrase that I've never regretted using." Now I'm dialed in cuz she's a shark. Yeah. Yeah. She's famous and she's been around long enough that she's got a great depth of experience. Barbara Corkin says, 'I've never regretted saying this. I got to know what that is. And then she says, ' Give me a little while to think about it. That's probably her stop, drop, and roll. Somebody's coming at her really hard in a very demanding way. How do you not say yes? How do you not say no? Give me some time to think about it. Well, if they say, "Well, you don't have any time." All right. So, you got some data on who you're dealing with. Uh, literally that was going to be my next question is that when you're dealing with somebody that just doesn't care and I can imagine somebody who's a bad act would be like, "No, you you can't have
"the control in this conversation." Right. Right. And then then All right. So, what's your followup? Do you want me to fail you? That's so good. It's not fair. But, you know, you're not dealing with somebody who's playing fair.
Warren Buffett, another hero of mine. He slowly distances himself from toxic people. Gently, kindly, but inevitably continues to put distance between himself and them. Other people are more abrupt. Another one of my heroes, Oprah Winfrey. I've had some really word forword conversations relayed to me that Oprah has had where she's taken people to the woodshed in a kind and loving way and reminded them that no matter what choice they made, she would always love them. But made it clear that there was one choice to continue with her. M no matter which choice you make, I will love you. I will be on your side. And so I very definitely believe that you can love people and terminate the relationship.
Okay. So as you start to navigate your own uh emotional sobriety is what I call it. So once you've established your own Yeah. Um, once you've established your own emotional sobriety, when you're in a conversation, let's say, so you're working on yourself, you're telling yourself that that's good, that's good, and that other person though just keeps escalating and you can feel that they're just ratcheting up. How do you navigate calming someone or do you in order to get to a resolve in a conversation?
Yeah. What's their objective? And again, that this here's here's are you inauthentic in order to save your own skin. And if it's survival, then that's acceptable to me. I mean, what do they want to feel? They want to feel power. They want to feel domination. Look, and so you're a way of, look, you're in charge. There's no one like you. You win. You're in charge. What do what do you want from me? How how can I how can I please you? They want to feel in charge. you're in a desperate act for survival, then you're allowed to survive. You got to get your chatter up in the non-confrontational moments. And then that chatter is going to carry you through those moments and help you make the decisions that you need to make.
Wow. I love the idea of practicing your own chatter because that's multiple times you've used it. And so realizing that in these dynamics, if you have control of the own chatter in your mind, that will impact how you then respond, which will impact the outcome. Oh, that's so strong. Chris, this has been so good. This has been so good. It's been amazing. Oh my god. Honestly, thank you so much. Um, you're doing great content. If someone wants to follow you, where can they continue to go down the rabbit hole of Chris Boss?
We have within Black Swan something we're calling the Black Swan negotiation community where people are getting together and they're reinforcing each other a lot more. Go to the website black swaneltd.com to find that. And we have an annual conference for women. A where the instructors are women. Sandy Hine, who I mentioned earlier is the lead instructor. She won't even let me go. Oh, really? Like the first time we set that up, I'm like, "S can I at least come and welcome everybody." She's like, "No, she didn't compromise." She didn't. She's like, "This is this is by us. We're going to And so it's designed for women to thoroughly enjoy." And we've got another coach we just brought on. You know, these badass female hostage negotiators. Yeah, buddy. Are getting everybody together. And the women's conference is amazing. You can find that on the website, too. Amazing. We'll make sure that we put the links in the show notes.
Guys, guys, today has been such a freaking pleasure. It has been chock full of just information that we can take and we can literally use in our own lives. So whether you're trying to negotiate with unfortunately somebody bad in your life, whether that's a partner or a boss or a family member, you literally have so many tactics and tools now in your belt that you can use at any point. So guys, please go follow him. If you're not following me, smash that subscribe button down there. And until next time, be the hero of your own life. Peace.
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