top of page
Writer's pictureJonno White

850 Best Never Split The Difference Quotes By Chris Voss

1. “I was employing what had become one of the FBI’s most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question.”


2. “You don’t directly persuade them to see your ideas. Instead, you ride them to your ideas. As the saying goes, the best way to ride a horse is in the direction in which it is going.”


3. “Answering my calibrated questions demanded deep emotional strengths and tactical psychological insights that the toolbox they’d been given did not contain.”


4. “psychological tool that works most effectively with assertive guys like me: the mirror.”


5. “you should always be aware of which side, at any given moment, feels they have the most to lose if negotiations collapse.”


6. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening.


7. Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.


8. “nudged her supervisor into a zone where he was making the decisions. And then she furthered his feelings of safety and power with a question inviting him to define her next move. The important thing here is that Marti not only accepted the “No”; she searched it out and embraced it. At”


9. “The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.”


10. Sometimes life is like a tailor calibrating questions to know to unearth the motivations behind the table.


11. He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.


12. “When the negotiation is over for one side, it’s over for the other too. In”


13. “Like the softening words and phrases “perhaps,” “maybe,” “I think,” and “it seems,” the calibrated open-ended question takes the aggression out of a confrontational statement or close-ended request that might otherwise anger your counterpart.”


14. “Distilled to its essence, we compromise to be safe. Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals.”


15. More “No”-oriented questions to remove unspoken barriers: “Are you saying I misled you?” “Are you saying I didn’t do as you asked?” “Are you saying I reneged on our agreement?” or “Are you saying I failed you?”


16. The primary language of conversation is the language of the negotiation.


17. “The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.” Every time you mirror someone, they will reword what they’ve said. They will never say it exactly the same way they said it the first time. Ask”


18. “We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar.”


19. “Taking a positive, constructive approach to conflict involves understanding that the bond is fundamental to any resolution. Never create an enemy.”


20. “Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.”


21. “Have you given up on this project? The point is that this one-sentence email encapsulates the best of “No”-oriented questions”


22. “I only half-jokingly refer to mirroring as magic or a Jedi mind trick because it gives you the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.”


23. “Ask someone, “What do you mean by that?” and you’re likely to incite irritation or defensiveness. A mirror, however, will get you the clarity you want while signaling respect and concern for what the other person is saying. “Yes,”


24. “they should be teased out. Labeling is a helpful tactic in de-escalating angry confrontations, because it makes the person acknowledge their feelings rather than continuing to act out.”


25. “Politics aside, empathy is not about being nice or agreeing with the other side. It’s about understanding them. Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them.”


26. “Life is negotiation. The majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple, animalistic urge: I want.”


27. “A few years ago, I stumbled upon the book How to Become a Rainmaker,3 and I like to review it occasionally to refresh my sense of the emotional drivers that fuel decisions. The book does a great job to explain the sales job not as a rational argument, but as an emotional framing job.”


28. “If you believed Kahneman, conducting negotiations based on System 2 concepts without the tools to read, understand, and manipulate the System 1 emotional underpinning was like trying to make an omelet without first knowing how to crack an egg.”


29. You can frame the benefits at any deal when you know your emotional driver in your life.


30. Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.


31. “As I’ve worked with executives and students to develop these skills, I always try to reinforce the message that being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is.”


32. “Even something as harsh as “Why did you do it?” can be calibrated to “What caused you to do it?” which takes away the emotion and makes the question less accusatory.”


33. “A deal is nothing without good implementation. Poor implementation is the cancer that eats your profits.”


34. “No deal is better than a bad deal”


35. “The Downs hijacking case came to epitomize everything not to do in a crisis situation, and inspired the development of today’s theories, training, and techniques for hostage negotiations.”


36. “Next time you want to compromise, remind yourself of those mismatched shoes.”


37. “You can do this directly by saying, in an encouraging tone of voice, “Let’s put price off to the side for a moment and talk about what would make this a good deal.” Or you could go at it more obliquely by asking, “What else would you be able to offer to make that a good price for me?”


38. “don’t treat others the way you want to be treated; treat them the way they need to be treated.”


39. When you are in the middle of the negotiation and start thinking that the guy opposite to you is thinking the same as you and then you start approaching him, then you are wrong because it is not empathy since it is always a projection.


40. “The problem is that conventional questioning and research techniques are designed to confirm known knowns and reduce uncertainty.”


41. How to Gain the Permission to Persuade


42. “I have aced all my essays and writing assignments since using SuperSummary. The guide themes, chapter outlines and character summaries are more detailed than other sites.”


43. “Negotiations will always suffer from limited predictability.”


44. “And then, once I’d anchored their emotions in a minefield of low expectations, I played on their loss aversion.”


45. “Exploit the similarity principle.”


46. “That’s right.”


47. “the adversary is the situation and that the person that you appear to be in conflict with is actually your partner.”


48. Sometimes it is about convincing the people that the solution they want in their life should be their own and they should work on their ideas for a bright and smooth future ahead and this is the best thing that you can do.


49. “Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.”


50. “Then say, “Okay, I apologize. Let’s stop everything and go back to where I started treating you unfairly and we’ll fix it.”


51. “Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict.”


52. Always try to evaluate and clarify the thoughts and feelings in life.


53. “When you originally approved this trip, what did you have in mind?”


54. “humans all suffer from Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world.”


55. “Here, you’ll learn why you should strive for “That’s right” instead of “Yes” at every stage of a negotiation, and how to identify, rearticulate, and emotionally affirm your counterpart’s worldview with Summaries and Paraphrasing”


56. “4.​Labeling:”


57. “I want to emphasize how important it is to maintain a collaborative relationship even when you’re setting boundaries. Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love.”


58. You will learn nothing but you can increase your communication skills in negotiation.


59. “Yes” is a confirmation that only sometimes means that your deal will happen.


60. Babysitting is sometimes relaxing in the evening rather than caring for the child.


61. Never Split the Difference Summary


62. To increase your bond, you should use a mirror and emphasize your courage.


63. “The most important thing to get from an Assertive will be a “that’s right” that may come in the form of a “that’s it exactly” or “you hit it on the head.”


64. How to Create Trust with Tactical Empathy


65. “views the importance of time differently (time = preparation; time = relationship; time = money).”


66. Why Should You Never Split the Difference?


67. “My advice for her was simple: I told her to engage them in a conversation where she summarized the situation and then asked, “How am I supposed to do that?”


68. ​Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price.


69. “Now, it’s clear that the benefits of anchoring emotions are great when it comes to bending your counterpart’s reality. But going first is not necessarily the best thing when it comes to negotiating price.”


70. “Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar.”


71. “If a task isn’t worth being done properly, then it’s not worth doing at all.”


72. “For anger to be effective, it has to be real, the key for it is to be under control because anger also reduces our cognitive ability. And”


73. How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People - Les Giblin


74. “How does this fit into what the objective is?”


75. “The real problem with compromise is that it has come to be known as this great concept, in relationships and politics and everything else. Compromise, we are told quite”


76. Our culture demonizes people in movies and politics, which creates the mentality that if we only got rid of the person then everything would be okay. But this dynamic is toxic to any negotiation.


77. “But if you are an honest, decent person looking for a reasonable outcome, you can ignore the amygdala.”


78. You need to be sure that you are driven by two primal urges when you meet different people in the world and the intensity may differ from person to person.


79. “your most powerful tool in any verbal communication is your voice. You can use your voice to intentionally reach into someone’s brain and flip an emotional switch. Distrusting to trusting. Nervous to calm.”


80. “Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels.”


81. “Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover. Too”


82. “Yes,” as I always say, is nothing without “How?” You’ll also discover the importance of nonverbal communication; how to use “How” questions to gently say “No”,”


83. “accusation audit—“I know you think I don’t care about costs and taking profits from the company”


84. “Start with NO”


85. “keeping your eyes peeled and your ears open, and your mouth shut.”


86. “Why are you there? What do you want? What do they want? Why?”


87. “Getting to Yes,2 a groundbreaking treatise on negotiation that totally changed the way practitioners thought about the field.”


88. “People always make more effort to implement a solution when they think it’s theirs. That is simply human nature.”


89. “Hope is not a strategy”


90. “There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators: the late-night FM DJ voice, the positive/playful voice, and the direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice for now; except”


91. “Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.”


92. “People trust those who are in their in-group. Belonging is a primal instinct.”


93. “When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us.”


94. “The psychotherapist pokes and prods to understand his patient’s problems, and then turns the responses back onto the patient to get him to go deeper and change his behavior. That’s exactly what good negotiators do.”


95. Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door.


96. “like that with the right delivery. There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators: the late-night FM DJ voice, the positive/playful voice, and the direct or assertive voice.”


97. “But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin. We”


98. “Concentrate on the next step because the rope will lead you to the end as long as all the steps are completed.”


99. “It’s just four simple steps: 1.​Use the late-night FM DJ voice. 2.​Start with “I’m sorry . . .” 3.​Mirror. 4.​Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart. 5.​Repeat. One”


100. “If you take a pit bull approach with another pit bull, you generally end up with a messy scene and lots of bruised feelings and resentment. Luckily, there’s another way without all the mess. It’s just four simple steps: 1.”


101. Sometimes people are being disagreeable without disagreeing with a situation in life and it is one of the secrets of negotiation.


102. Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love—not as hatred or violence.


103. When you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.


104. “you can use “what” and “how” to calibrate nearly any question. “Does this look like something you would like?” can become “How does this look to you?” or “What about this works for you?” You can even ask, “What about this doesn’t work for you?”


105. “so they tried to fit the information into what had happened in the past. Into the old templates.”


106. “But most important are those things we don’t know that we don’t know, pieces of information we’ve never imagined but that would be game changing if uncovered. Maybe our counterpart wants the deal to fail because he’s leaving for a competitor. These unknown unknowns are Black Swans.”


107. “we not only were listening, but that we had also heard him.”


108. “No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo.”


109. “she mirrored in response, remembering not only the DJ voice, but to deliver the mirror in an inquisitive tone. The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.”


110. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing.


111. “Among hundreds of such clients, there’s one single, solitary gentleman who gave the question serious consideration and responded affirmatively. Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think—or are told—they will.”


112. “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”


113. “all negotiation, done well, should be an information-gathering process that vests your counterpart in an outcome that serves you.”


114. “Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.”


115. “By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.”


116. “told her to engage them in a conversation where she summarized the situation and then asked, “How am I supposed to do that?”


117. “abruptly, so my job was to find a way to keep him talking. I switched into my Late-Night FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring”


118. “The implication of any well-designed calibrated question is that you want what the other guy wants but you need his intelligence to overcome the problem”


119. “The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.”


120. “Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.”


121. “It’s almost laughably simple: for the FBI, a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said.”


122. “But as soon as I became “Chris,” everything changed.”


123. “most of the time you’ll have a wealth of information from the other person’s words, tone, and body language. We call that trinity “words, music, and dance.”


124. “the grim complexity of their situation. That’s why I went right at the amygdala and said, “It seems like you don’t want to go back to jail.”


125. “But be careful with the big “I”: You have to be mindful not to use a tone that is aggressive or creates an argument. It’s got to be cool and level.”


126. You should never try to commit to something which you are assuming because assumptions may not be hundred percent correct.


127. “In practice, where our irrational perceptions are our reality, loss and gain are slippery notions, and it often doesn’t matter what leverage actually exists against you; what really matters is the leverage they think you have on them.”


128. There will be a situation when people prefer no rather than yes and it is best sometimes for them.


129. “Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it.”


130. Sometimes people should observe things around them and the best way to deal with negativity is and without even reacting to the situation.


131. “Why are they communicating what they are communicating right now?”


132. “Everything we’ve previously been taught about negotiation is wrong: people are not rational; there is no such thing as ‘fair’; compromise is the worst thing you can do; the real art of negotiation lies in mastering the intricacies of No, not Yes.


133. “Black Swans are leverage multipliers. Remember the three types of leverage: positive (the ability to give someone what they want); negative (the ability to hurt someone); and normative (using your counterpart’s norms to bring them around).”


134. “Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity. “Trust me,” a mirror signals to another’s unconscious, “You and I—we’re alike.”


135. “I always try to reinforce the message that being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is.”


136. “The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen.”


137. “In theory, leverage is the ability to inflict loss and withhold gain. Where does your counterpart want to gain and what do they fear losing?”


138. How to Shape What Is Fair


139. “If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other party thinks like you, you're wrong. That's not empathy; that's projection.”


140. “Still, I wanted to bring this opportunity to you before I took it to someone else,” I said.”


141. “you can’t leave” – “what do you hope to achieve by going?”


142. “Why” is always an accusation, in any language.”


143. “Ask calibrated questions that start with the words 'How' or 'What'. By implicitly asking the other party for help, these questions will give your counterpart an illusion of control and will inspire them to speak at length, revealing important information.


144. “Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible.”


145. “There are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment.”


146. “We’re all irrational, all emotional. Emotion is a necessary element to decision making that we ignore at our own peril. Realizing that hits people hard between the eyes.”


147. “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”


148. There are certain situations in which you won’t demand the idea of the other person and this is one of the beautiful things that you can have.


149. “While going first rarely helps, there is one way to seem to make an offer and bend their reality in the process. That is, by alluding to a range.”


150. “​Kevin Dutton, Split-Second Persuasion: The Ancient Art and New Science of Changing Minds (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).”


151. “Why would you ever do business with me? Why would you ever change from your existing supplier? They’re great!”


152. “Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you.”


153. “The reason for that is something called the “paradox of power”—namely, the harder we push the more likely we are to be met with resistance.”


154. “One can only be an exceptional negotiator, and a great person, by both listening and speaking clearly and empathetically; by treating counterparts—and oneself—with dignity and respect; and most of all by being honest about what one wants and what one can—and cannot—do.”


155. “But when someone displays a passion for what we’ve always wanted and conveys a purposeful plan of how to get there, we allow our perceptions of what’s possible to change. We’re all hungry for a map to joy, and when someone is courageous enough to draw it for us, we naturally follow.”


156. “What else would you be able to offer to make that a good price for me?”


157. “If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other guy thinks like you, you’re wrong,” I say. “That’s not empathy; that’s projection.”


158. Presenting and underlying are the basic terms of emotions.


159. “This really appeals to very aggressive or egotistical counterparts.”


160. “The relationship between an emotionally intelligent negotiator and their counterpart is essentially therapeutic.”


161. “So many books, so little time.” ― Frank Zappa


162. “If you’re dealing with a rookie counterpart, you might be tempted to be the shark and throw out an extreme anchor. Or if you really know the market and you’re dealing with an equally informed pro, you might offer a number just to make the negotiation go faster.”


163. “Get face time with your counterpart”


164. “The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement.”


165. “No” protects people from making—and lets them correct—ineffective decisions;


166. “That’s right“—the two words that can transform any negotiation. “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.


167. Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation.


168. “In a tough negotiation, it’s not enough to show the other party that you can deliver the thing they want. To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.”


169. “Saying “No” gives the speaker the feeling of safety, security, and control. You use a question that prompts a “No” answer, and your counterpart feels that by turning you down he has proved that he’s in the driver’s seat.”


170. “Once you’ve spotted an emotion you want to highlight, the next step is to label it aloud. Labels can be phrased as statements or questions. The only difference is whether you end the sentence with a downward or upward inflection.”


171. “empathy is “the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart, and the vocalization of that recognition.”


172. “For good negotiators, ‘No’ is pure gold.”


173. “body language and tone of voice—not words—are our most powerful assessment tools.”


174. “Would it be a bad idea for me to take you to your favorite steak house and we just have a few laughs, and we don’t talk business?”


175. “thinks he’s in control. And the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control.”


176. Let The Other Guy Go First … Most of The Time


177. “Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing”


178. “Framing Effect, which demonstrates that people respond differently to the same choice depending on how it is framed”


179. “I want to emphasize how important it is to maintain a collaborative relationship even when you’re setting boundaries.”


180. “To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say.”


181. “I’m sorry,” the nephew responded, “but how are we supposed to pay if you’re going to hurt her?”


182. “The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas”


183. ​Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power.”


184. “The Black Swan rule is don’t treat others the way you want to be treated; treat them the way they need to be treated.”


185. “Review everything you hear from your counterpart. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check.”


186. “thinking you’re normal is one of the most damaging assumptions in negotiations”


187. “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight.1 To”


188. “I’d love to help,” she said, “but how am I supposed to do that?”


189. “There’s nothing more irritating than being ignored. Being turned down is bad, but getting no response at all is the pits. It makes you feel invisible, as if you don’t exist. And it’s a waste of your time.”


190. “make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say.”


191. “the only way the process was going to move forward was through direct human interaction”


192. “Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals.”


193. The F-word — 'Fair' — is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.”


194. “People have a need to say, “No.” So don’t just hope to hear it at some point; get them to say it early.”


195. Playing dumb is a valid negotiating technique.


196. “When deliberating on a negotiating strategy or approach, people tend to focus all their energies on what to say or do, but it’s how we are (our general demeanor and delivery) that is both the easiest thing to enact and the most immediately effective mode of influence.”


197. “(A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on something outside dollars and cents, often having more to do with self-esteem, status, and other nonfinancial needs.) We’ll never know now.”


198. “And every time we got the worst possible answer—“You’re right.” He agreed, in theory, but he didn’t own the conclusion.”


199. “liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they, and their rather than I, in order to put some distance between themselves and the lie.”


200. “At first, I thought that sort of automated response signaled a failure of imagination. But then I realized I did the same thing with my teenage son, and that after I’d said “No” to him, I often found that I was open to hearing what he had to say.”


201. “most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question.”


202. “Let what you know—your known knowns—guide you but not blind you.”


203. “No matter what happens, the point here is to sponge up information from your counterpart. Letting your counterpart anchor first will give you a tremendous feel for him. All you need to learn is how to take the first punch.”


204. No deal is better than a bad deal.


205. Silence is the last rule of labeling and you have to be quiet and listen when you are thrown out of the label.


206. “It’s just four simple steps: 1.​Use the late-night FM DJ voice. 2.​Start with “I’m sorry . . .” 3.​Mirror. 4.​Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart.”


207. Chapter 4: Beware “Yes” – Master “No”


208. “Compromise and concession, even to the truth, feels like defeat.”


209. “Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.”


210. “top of my game.”


211. “It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control.”


212. “basically accuse you of being dense or dishonest by saying, “We’ve given you a fair offer.”


213. “Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world.”


214. “The trick to “How” questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No” and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution. A gentle How/No invites collaboration and leaves your counterpart with a feeling of having been treated with respect.”


215. “Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think—or are told—they will.”


216. “Fair”—the most powerful word in any negotiation scenario. To become a great negotiator, you must earn the reputation of being a fair one.


217. “What were needed were simple psychological tactics and strategies that worked in the field to calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs, and persuade the other guy of our empathy.”


218. “driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door.”


219. “Who has control in a conversation, the guy listening or the guy talking? The listener, of course. That’s because the talker is revealing information while the listener, if he’s trained well, is directing the conversation toward his own goals.”


220. “Don't look to verify what you expect. If you do, that's what you'll find. Instead, you must open yourself to the factual reality that is in front of you.”


221. “Yes” is the final goal of a negotiation, but don’t aim for it at the start. Asking someone for “Yes” too quickly in a conversation—“Do you like to drink water, Mr. Smith?”—gets his guard up and paints you as an untrustworthy salesman.


222. “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.


223. “How does this affect everybody else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we make sure that we deliver the right material to the right people?”


224. “No” starts conversations and creates safe havens to get to the final “Yes” of commitment. An early “Yes” is often just a cheap, counterfeit dodge. About”


225. “disagree without being disagreeable.”


226. “The clear point here is that people operating with incomplete information appear crazy to those who have different information.”


227. “NO” IS PROTECTION”


228. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”


229. “How does this affect everybody else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we make sure that we deliver the right material to the right people? How do we ensure the managers of those we’re training are fully on board?”


230. Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger. The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is.


231. Never Split the Difference PDF Summary


232. Chapter 8: Guarantee Execution


233. “It sounds like …”


234. “Unbelief is the friction that keeps persuasion in check,”


235. “But let me cut the list even further: it’s best to start with “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.” Nothing else. “Who,” “when,” and “where” will often just get your counterpart to share a fact without thinking. And “why” can backfire.”


236. Chapter 7: Create the Illusion of Control


237. “We spotted their feelings, turned them into words, and then very calmly and respectfully repeated their emotions back to them.”


238. I will be having constructive behavior unless I get everything clear in my mind and take it positively.


239. “we may use logic to reason ourselves toward a decision, the actual decision making is governed by emotion.”


240. “Use the late-night FM DJ voice. Start with “I’m sorry …” Mirror. Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart. Repeat.”


241. “use nearly every tactic in the active listening arsenal: 1.​Effective Pauses: Silence is powerful”


242. “Negotiation serves two distinct, vital life functions—information gathering and behavior influencing—and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side.”


243. “Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.”


244. “Negotiation is the heart of collaboration. It is what makes conflict potentially meaningful and productive for all parties. It can change your life,”


245. “Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. That’s the only hard part about it; the technique takes a little practice. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’ll become a conversational Swiss Army knife valuable in just about every professional and social setting.”


246. “The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation.”


247. “a label’s power is that it invites the other person to reveal himself.”


248. ​“That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.”


249. Chapter 5: Trigger The Two Words That Immediately Transform Any Negotiation


250. Anchor Their Emotions


251. How to Spot the Liars and Ensure Follow-Through from Everyone Else


252. “Have you given up on finalizing this deal this year?”


253. There are some people who are always across the table and they are never a problem for negotiation.


254. “I’ll try” means I plan to fail.


255. (You can ignore the so-called negotiating experts who say apologies are always signs of weakness.)


256. “Yes” is often a meaningless answer that hides deeper objections (and “Maybe” is even worse). Pushing hard for “Yes” doesn’t get a negotiator any closer to a win; it just angers the other side.


257. “Jim Camp, in his excellent book, Start with NO,1 counsels the reader to give their adversary (his word for counterpart) permission to say “No” from the outset of a negotiation.”


258. “Anger and other strong emotions can on rare occasions be effective. But only as calculated acts, never a personal attack.”


259. “No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti-“ Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning.


260. “You should engage the process with a mindset of discovery. Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible”


261. “here are two tips for reading religion correctly: ■​Review everything you hear. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check.”


262. “I didn’t know beans about negotiating, so I went for the direct approach.”


263. “Students often ask me whether Black Swans are specific kinds of information or any kind that helps. I always answer that they are anything that you don’t know that changes things.”


264. “Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don't compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides.”


265. “When you’re dealing with Assertive types, it’s best to focus on what they have to say, because once they are convinced you understand them, then and only then will they listen for your point of view.”


266. “That’s why, if a corrections officer approaches an inmate expecting him to resist, he often will. But if he approaches exuding calm, the inmate will be much more likely to be peaceful. It”


267. “She felt trapped. My advice for her was simple: I told her to engage them in a conversation where she summarized the situation and then asked, “How am I supposed to do that?”


268. Chapter 10: Find The Black Swan


269. “But people in crisis only accounted for about 40 percent of the calls we got. The majority of the calls came from frequent callers. These are highly dysfunctional people, energy vampires whom no one else would listen to anymore.”


270. “5.​Paraphrase:”


271. “Emotions and emotional intelligence would have to be central to effective negotiation, not things to be overcome.”


272. “The less important he makes himself, the more important he probably is (and vice versa).”


273. “un «sí» no es nada sin un «cómo».”


274. The mirroring instinct and your counterpart will be inevitably elaborate and it will be repeated back by the people.


275. “hope is not a strategy.”


276. It is proved that the people usually listen more to themselves than any others and sometimes people act like they are listening to you but they will listen mostly to them.


277. “And people are comfortable saying “No” here because it feels like self-protection. And once you’ve gotten them to say “No,” people are much more open to moving forward toward new options and ideas.”


278. “Notice we said “It sounds like . . .” and not “I’m hearing that . . .” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up. When you say “I,” it says you’re more interested in yourself than the other person,”


279. You could sometimes talk about psychological judo.


280. “That’s why your most powerful tool in any verbal communication is your voice.”


281. “We’ve seen how each of these groups views the importance of time differently (time = preparation; time = relationship; time = money). They also have completely different interpretations of silence.”


282. “A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on something outside dollars and cents, often having more to do with self-esteem, status, and other non-financial needs.”


283. “I’ve found the phrase “Look, I’m an asshole” to be an amazingly effective way to make problems go away.”


284. How to Get Your Price


285. “The most powerful word in negotiations is ‘Fair.’”


286. “Unbelief is the friction that keeps persuasion in check,” Dutton says. “Without it, there’d be no limits.” Giving your counterpart the illusion of control by asking calibrated questions—by asking for help—is one of the most powerful tools for suspending unbelief.”


287. Sometimes we don’t put ourselves in the shoes rather we spot our feelings and turn them into words.


288. “Playing dumb is a valid negotiating technique, and”


289. “for the FBI, a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. Of the entirety of the FBI’s hostage negotiation skill set, mirroring is the closest one gets to a Jedi mind trick. Simple, and yet uncannily effective.”


290. “you get what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly.”


291. “But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want.”


292. “We tend to limit our field of vision to our issues and problems, and forget that the other side has its own unique issues based on its own unique worldview.”


293. “Read nonverbal clues and always voice your observations with your counterpart.”


294. Films are usually based on real. life situations and hence we don’t need to learn from them since it is already made from our experiences and it is better if we learn from our own experience.


295. “You can get your counterpart into a mood of generosity by staking an extreme anchor and then, after their inevitable first rejection, offering them a wholly unrelated surprise gift.”


296. “Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger. The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is.”


297. If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. Thats not empathy, that"s a projection."


298. “It’s just four simple steps: 1.​Use the late-night FM DJ voice. 2.​Start with “I’m sorry . . .” 3.​Mirror. 4.​Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart. 5.​Repeat.”


299. “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation”


300. “Here’s how I use it: Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.” It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an”


301. “We now knew more about our adversary than he thought we knew, which put us at a momentary advantage.”


302. “unconsciously accept the limits you place on the discussion. You’ll learn how to navigate deadlines to create urgency; employ the idea of fairness to nudge your counterpart; and anchor their emotions so that not accepting your offer feels like a loss.”


303. “Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making.”


304. “V konečném důsledku bývají osoby bojkotující dohodu důležitější než osoby uzavírající dohodu.”


305. “Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built.”


306. “It sounds like . . .” and not “I’m hearing that . . .” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up.


307. “Questions, always questions.”


308. “Ka-ching! Notice”


309. “Here are the four steps for setting your goal: ■​Set an optimistic but reasonable goal and define it clearly. ■​Write it down. ■​Discuss your goal with a colleague (this makes it harder to wimp out). ■​Carry the written goal into the negotiation.”


310. “Work to understand the other side’s “religion.”


311. The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.


312. “Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation.”


313. “tell my students that empathy is “the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart, and the vocalization of that recognition.”


314. “We are emotional, irrational beasts who are emotional and irrational in predictable, pattern-filled ways.”


315. “If you shove your negative leverage down your counterpart’s throat, it might be perceived as you taking away their autonomy. People will often sooner die than give up their autonomy.”


316. “We are emotional, irrational beasts who are emotional and irrational in predictable pattern filled ways.”


317. “everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control.”


318. “How am I supposed to do that?” (for example, “How can we raise that much?”). Your tone of voice is critical as this phrase can be delivered as either an accusation or a request for assistance. So pay attention to your voice.”


319. “The model proposes five stages—active listening, empathy, rapport, influence, and behavioral change—that take any negotiator from listening to influencing behavior.”


320. “As you’ll soon learn, the sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually “That’s right.”


321. “How does this affect the rest of your team? How on board are the people not on this call? What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?”


322. Popular opinions are also a part of the controversy.


323. “1.​ Set your target price (your goal).


324. “The basic issue here is that when people feel that they are not in control, they adopt what psychologists call a hostage mentality. That is, in moments of conflict they react to their lack of power by either becoming extremely defensive or lashing out.”


325. “It looks like …”


326. Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better.


327. “Never create an enemy.”


328. “Take the same person, change one or two variables, and $100 can be a glorious victory or a vicious insult. Recognizing this phenomenon lets you bend reality from insult to victory.”


329. By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.


330. “Every negotiation, every conversation, every moment of life, is a series of small conflicts that, managed well, can rise to creative beauty. Embrace them.”


331. “The chance for loss incites more risk than the possibility of an equal gain.”


332. “All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared.”


333. The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen.


334. “people respond favorably to requests made in a reasonable tone of voice and followed with a “because” reason.”


335. “Whether we like to recognize it or not, a universal rule of human nature, across all cultures, is that when somebody gives you something, they expect something in return. And they won’t give anything else until you pay them back.”


336. “Let’s pause for a minute here, because there’s one vitally important thing you have to remember when you enter a negotiation armed with your list of calibrated questions. That is, all of this is great, but there’s a rub: without self-control and emotional regulation, it doesn’t work.”


337. “I knew I needed to call and assuage him to straighten out the situation, or I risked being expelled. Top guys like to feel on top. They don’t want to be disrespected. All the more so when the office they run isn’t a sexy assignment.”


338. “I switched into my Late-Night FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring.”


339. “chicken out, throw in the towel, run.”


340. Chapter 9: Bargain Hard


341. “Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts.”


342. “No matter how much research our team has done prior to the interaction, we always ask ourselves, “Why are they communicating what they are communicating right now?”


343. “Ask: “What does it take to be successful here?”


344. “Don't commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use negotiation to test them rigorously”


345. Truly effective negotiators are conscious of the verbal, paraverbal (how it’s said), and nonverbal communications that pervade negotiations and group dynamics.


346. “The implication of any well-designed calibrated question is that you want what the other guy wants but you need his intelligence to overcome the problem.”


347. “Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open.”


348. Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game. If you’re not ready, you’ll flee to your maximum without a fight.


349. “In one of the most cited research papers in psychology,1 George A. Miller persuasively put forth the idea that we can process only about seven pieces of information in our conscious mind at any given moment. In other words, we are easily overwhelmed.”


350. “In these difficult times, we understand our fans have been hit hard and we are here to work with you,” and asked the ticket holders to call back to talk through their “unique situation.”


351. “You just have to have an idea of where you want the conversation to go when you’re devising your questions.”


352. “Former FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss has few equals when it comes to high stakes negotiations. Whether for your business or your personal life, his techniques work.” —Joe Navarro, FBI Special Agent (Ret.) and author of the international bestseller, What Every BODY is Saying.


353. ​Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.”


354. “[I]t is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable.”


355. Our brains don’t just process and understand the actions and words of others but their feelings and intentions too, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions.


356. “was that the emotional brain—that animalistic, unreliable, and irrational beast—could be overcome through a more rational, joint problem-solving mindset.”


357. “Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts. One”


358. “2.​Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as “Yes,” “OK,” “Uh-huh,” or “I see,”


359. “For a mirror to be effective, you’ve got to let it sit there and do its work. It needs a bit of”


360. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.


361. “To-Do List Formula”: 67+ Inspiring Quotes


362. “Platí to pro jakékoliv vyjednávání: čím více se konkretizují hrozby, tím více se blížíme nějakým reálným následkům spojeným s určitým termínem.”


363. “If a potential business partner is ignoring you, contact them with a clear and concise “No”-oriented question that suggests that you are ready to walk away. “Have you given up on this project?” works wonders.”


364. “So start out with an accusation audit acknowledging all of their fears.”


365. “our one-dimensional mindset.”


366. “When you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.”


367. “And they discovered that people who paid the most attention—good listeners—could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it.”


368. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.


369. “stumbled upon the book How to Become a Rainmaker,”


370. “Analysts hate surprises.”


371. “Remember, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better. Once you’ve got flexibility in the forefront of your mind you come into a negotiation with a winning mindset.”


372. Sometimes we have the fear that the different things are drawn similarly and there is confusion to select any one of them.


373. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals.


374. “You should engage the process with a mindset of discovery. Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible.”


375. Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.


376. “information flow going as Tahl soaked it up. In the first progress conference call with my amazing publisher, Hollis Heimbouch, Hollis asked about Brandon’s role and Tahl said having”


377. “Blunt assertion is actually counterproductive most of the time.”


378. “For anger to be effective, it has to be real, the key for it is to be under control because anger also reduces our cognitive ability.”


379. “No communication is always a bad sign.”


380. “The negotiator played the role of bully, conciliator, enforcer, savior, confessor, instigator, and peacemaker—and that’s just a few of the parts.”


381. What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate.


382. “If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That’s not empathy, that’s a projection.”


383. How to Become the Smartest Person … in Any Room


384. “But when they are asked to label the emotion, the activity moves to the areas that govern rational thinking. In other words, labeling an emotion—applying rational words to a fear—disrupts its raw intensity.”


385. One-Sentence Summary


386. “Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control.”


387. “Please don’t allow yourself to fall victim to “strategic umbrage.” Threats delivered without anger but with “poise”—that is, confidence and self-control—are great tools. Saying, “I’m sorry that just doesn’t work for me,” with poise, works.”


388. “The crowd's murmuring rose to a roar, and for the first time in a week the agony of worry for my son was drowned out as his father strode out onto the sand.


389. Without a deep understanding of human psychology, without the acceptance that we are all crazy, irrational, impulsive, emotionally driven animals, all the raw intelligence and mathematical logic in the world is little help.


390. “Once you’re clear on what your bottom line is, you have to be willing to walk away.”


391. “As a negotiator you should always be aware of which side, at any given moment, feels they have the most to lose if negotiations collapse.”


392. “List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can.”


393. “Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylight—“It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail”—makes them seem less frightening.”


394. “Cuando la gente tiene un estado de ánimo positivo piensa con más rapidez, y es más probable que se avenga a colaborar en la resolución de un problema (en vez de luchar y resistirse).”


395. “How does this affect the rest of your team?” or “How on board are the people not on this call?” or simply “What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?”


396. “Most people approach a negotiation so preoccupied by the arguments that support their position that they are unable to listen attentively.”


397. “Even with all the best techniques and strategy, you need to regulate your emotions if you want to have any hope of coming out on top.”


398. Negotiation is a process of discovery and not the act of the battle.


399. Establish a Range


400. “Follow up by summarizing what they have said to get a “That’s right.”


401. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk - Adele Faber


402. “Why are they communicating what they are communicating right now?” Remember, negotiation is more like walking on a tightrope than competing against an opponent. Focusing so much on the end objective will only distract you from the next step, and that can cause you to fall off the rope.”


403. ​The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement.


404. Sometimes your attitude should be very easy and they should be encouraging sometimes.


405. “Sentences like “It seems like you strongly value the fact that you’ve always paid on time” or “It seems like you don’t care what position you are leaving me in” can really open up the negotiation process.”


406. “What were needed were simple psychological tactics and strategies that worked in the field to calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs, and persuade the other guy of our empathy. We needed something easy to teach, easy to learn, and easy to execute.”


407. “in many cultures negotiators spend large amounts of time building rapport before they even think of offers.”


408. “You are upset because you take great pride in this restraint.”


409. “The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open.”


410. “As a negotiator you should always be aware of which side, at any given moment, feels they have the most to lose if negotiations collapse”


411. “As we’ve seen, when you recognize that your counterpart is not irrational, but simply ill-informed, constrained, or obeying interests that you do not yet know, your field of movement greatly expands.”


412. Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players behind the table."


413. “And no communication is always a bad sign.”


414. “Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. ■”


415. “Effective negotiation is applied people smarts, a psychological edge in every domain of life: how to size someone up, how to influence their sizing up of you, and how to use that knowledge to get what you want.”


416. “noticing whose cracks and how others respond verbally and nonverbally can reveal a gold mine.”


417. “Of course, the open-ended “How” question is one of them—maybe the most important one—but there are many more.”


418. A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of I," "me," and "my," the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere."


419. “Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings.”


420. “Negotiation as you’ll learn it here is nothing more than communication with results.”


421. “It seems like _________ is valuable to you. It seems like you don’t like _________. It seems like you value __________. It seems like _________ makes it easier. It seems like you’re reluctant to _________.”


422. “WHEN YOU DO TALK NUMBERS, USE ODD ONES”


423. A long pause and then one more “No”-oriented question: “Do you want to be known as someone who doesn’t fulfill agreements?” From my long experience in negotiation, scripts like this have a 90 percent success rate. That is, if the negotiator stays calm and rational. And that’s a big if.


424. “In my negotiating course, I tell my students that empathy is “the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart, and the vocalization of that recognition.”


425. “6.​Summarize:”


426. “Why would your company ever change from your long-standing vendor and choose our company?” is another. As always, tone of voice, respectful and deferential, is critical. Otherwise, treat “why” like a burner on a hot stove—don’t touch it.”


427. “To get leverage, you have to persuade your counterpart that they have something real to lose if the deal falls through. At a taxonomic level, there are three kinds: Positive, Negative, and Normative.”


428. “El objetivo es identificar lo que nuestros interlocutores necesitan en realidad (en términos económicos, emocionales o del tipo que sea) y hacerles sentir lo bastante seguros para que hablen largamente de lo que quieren.”


429. “Claudia! That’s not for snacking, you bitch.” Livvie spanked the other girl on the ass and both of them giggled.


430. “No” helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions; and


431. Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.


432. Sometimes you should apologize and then go back and start everything new.


433. “Emotion is a necessary element to decision making that we ignore at our own peril. Realizing that hits people hard between the eyes.”


434. “This manipulation usually takes the form of something like, “We just want what’s fair.”


435. “Negotiation as you’ll learn it here is nothing more than communication with results. Getting what you want out of life is all about getting what you want from and with other people.”


436. “Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.”


437. “No” is pure gold. That negative provides a great opportunity for you and the other party to clarify what you really want by eliminating what you don’t want.”


438. “Silence to them is an opportunity to think. They’re not mad at you and they’re not trying to give you a chance to talk more. If you feel they don’t see things the way you do, give them a chance to think first.”


439. “As you try to insert the tools of tactical empathy into your daily life, I encourage you to think of them as extensions of natural human interactions and not artificial conversational tics.”


440. Sometimes when you have a chance, then you should try as much as possible to fulfill your goal and grab everything that is necessary for you.


441. “No” creates safety, security, and the feeling of control”


442. “Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise.”


443. “The other side might not be able to do something because of legal advice, or because of promises already made, or even to avoid setting a precedent.”


444. “No” question you’ll use is some version of “How am I supposed to do that?” (for example, “How can we raise that much?”). Your tone of voice is critical as this phrase can be delivered as either an accusation or a request for assistance. So pay attention to your voice.


445. When individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings.


446. “Getting a good deal may push us toward making a risky bet, but saving our reputation from destruction is a much stronger motivation.”


447. “The language of negotiation is primarily a language of conversation and rapport: a way of quickly establishing relationships and getting people to talk and think together.”


448. “It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy.”


449. “I didn’t respect your time by coming in late, I’m so sorry”. “I should’ve sent that email earlier, I know how busy you are”. It’s all about Empathy.


450. The genius of this system is that it incorporates the psychological tactics we’ve discussed – reciprocity, extreme anchors, loss aversion, and so on – without you needing to think about them.”


451. “Giving your counterpart the illusion of control by asking calibrated questions—by asking for help—is one of the most powerful tools for suspending unbelief.”


452. “Many of us wear fears upon fears, like layers against the cold, so getting to safety takes time.”


453. “SECTION IV: CALIBRATED QUESTIONS Prepare three to five calibrated questions to reveal value to you and your counterpart and identify and overcome potential deal killers.”


454. “What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? What’s the core issue here? How does that affect things? What’s the biggest challenge you face? How does this fit into what the objective is?”


455. “kidnappers are just businessmen trying to get the best price.”


456. You must be strong and emphatic when you are setting your boundaries and you should observe yourself before setting boundaries.


457. “in fact, instead of doing any thinking at all in the early goings about what you’re going to say—make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. In that mode of true active listening—”


458. That’s right is better than "yes." Strive for it. Reaching "that’s right" in a negotiation creates breakthroughs."


459. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say No" to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal."


460. “I’ll let you in on a secret. There are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment.”


461. “don’t start with “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” Instead ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?”


462. “You fall to your highest level of preparation,”


463. “A successful hostage negotiator has to get everything he asks for, without giving anything back of substance, and do so in a way that leaves the adversaries feeling as if they have a great relationship. His work is emotional intelligence on steroids.”


464. “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.” Nothing else.”


465. Never Split the Difference Contents


466. “For a mirror to be effective, you’ve got to let it sit there and do its work. It needs a bit of silence. I stepped all over my mirror.”


467. “a spoon is a great tool for stirring soup but it’s not a recipe.”


468. “Getting to Yes,”


469. “Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as 'Yes', 'OK', 'Uh-huh', or 'I see'.”


470. “You provoke a “No” with this one-sentence email. Have you given up on this project?”


471. “We want what’s fair” – This is an implicit accusation.


472. “That’s why some negotiation experts say that many people who think they have “win-win” goals really have a “wimp-win” mentality. The “wimp-win” negotiator focuses on his or her bottom line, and that’s where they end up.”


473. “Compromise and concession, even to the truth, feels like defeat. And “No,” well, “No” feels like salvation, like an oasis. You’re tempted to use “No” when it’s blatantly untrue, just to hear”


474. “Never forget that a loss stings at least twice as much as an equivalent gain.”


475. “The road is not always cleared so easily, so don’t be demoralized if this process seems to go slowly. The Harlem high-rise negotiation took six hours. Many of us wear fears upon fears, like layers against the cold, so getting to safety takes time.”


476. “Every negotiation should start with “No”


477. “The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually: That’s right.”


478. “What I am saying is that while our decisions may be largely irrational, that doesn’t mean there aren’t consistent patterns, principles, and rules behind how we act. And once you know those mental patterns, you start to see ways to influence them.”


479. “In a real bargaining session, kick-ass negotiators don’t use ZOPA. Experienced negotiators often lead with a ridiculous offer, an extreme anchor. And if you’re not prepared to handle it, you’ll lose your moorings and immediately go to your maximum. It’s human nature.”


480. When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like, say, $ 37,893 rather than $ 38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight.


481. “Good negotiators, going in, know they have to be ready for possible surprises; great negotiators aim to use their skills to reveal the surprises they are certain exist.”


482. ​“No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti-“Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning.”


483. “wealth of information from the other person’s words, tone, and body language. We call that trinity “words, music, and dance.”


484. Appendix: Prepare a Negotiation One Sheet


485. “Being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation – having the right mindset is.”


486. “the sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually “That’s right.”


487. “it’s by implying that disagreeing with you is unfair.”


488. “When you inflect in an upward way, you invite a response. Why? Because you’ve brought in a measure of uncertainty. You’ve made a statement sound like a question.”


489. ​Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent).


490. “Empathy is a powerful mood enhancer.”


491. The best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts.


492. Sometimes we don’t know what our negative qualities are and then it is very difficult for us to achieve something in this situation.


493. “You can be very direct and to the point as long as you create safety by a tone of voice that says I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s figure things out.”


494. “Daryl may not have known it, but his “yes” was as counterfeit as they came.”


495. “being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is.”


496. To fake, a conviction repeatedly is really hard and it is near impossible to do it.


497. “Use the late-night FM DJ voice. 2.​Start with “I’m sorry . . .” 3.​Mirror. 4.​Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart. 5.​Repeat.”


498. “It sounds like…”


499. “When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your”


500. Sometimes you need to ask them questions that can open paths to your goals and don’t beat them with logic or brute force.


501. “Un buen negociador está preparado, desde el inicio, para cualquier posible sorpresa; un negociador excelente intenta usar sus habilidades para revelar las sorpresas que sabe que le aguardan.”


502. “But when someone displays a passion for what we’ve always wanted and conveys a purposeful plan of how to get there, we allow our perceptions of what’s possible to change.”


503. “This mentality baffled Kahneman, who from years in psychology knew that, in his words, “[I]t is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable.”


504. “being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is. HOW”


505. “but because they made sure the kidnappers—our counterparts—were all on the same page.”


506. “We’ve given you a fair offer” – Accuse you of not knowing what fair is


507. “Are you listening to me?”


508. “Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don't rise to the occasion; you fall to the highest level of preparation.”


509. “What is the biggest challenge you face?”


510. “The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue.”


511. “Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.” It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an honest dealer.”


512. “People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.”


513. “For those people who view negotiation as a battle of arguments, it’s the voices in their own head that are overwhelming them.”


514. “Remember, a hostage negotiator plays a unique role: he has to win.”


515. “You say, “Fine. I’m leaving,” and you begin to walk away. I’m going to guess that well over half the time they yell, “No, wait!” and run to catch up. No one likes to be abandoned.”


516. “I feel ___ when you ___ because ___,” and that demands a time-out from the other person. But be careful with the big “I”: You have to”


517. “Avoid questions that can be answered with “Yes” or tiny pieces of information. These require little thought and inspire the human need for reciprocity; you will be expected to give something back.”


518. “It was a paramedic approach: patch them up and send them on their way.”


519. The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue.


520. “This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do. Once”


521. “until you know what you’re dealing with, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”


522. Set your target price (your goal).


523. You can have many strategies but you can depend upon hope and consider hope as the strategy.


524. “No” can often mean:


525. Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar.


526. Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control.


527. “[Empathy] is not about being nice or agreeing with the other side. It's about understanding them. Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them.


528. “No” moves everyone’s efforts forward.


529. “You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it’s whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God.”


530. “It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there.”


531. “This book blew my mind. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.” —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE


532. “They talk about the ZOPA—or Zone of Possible Agreement—which is where the seller’s and buyer’s zones cross. Say Tony wants to sell his car and won’t take less than $5,000 and Samantha wants to buy but won’t pay more than $6,000. The ZOPA runs from $5,000 to $6,000.”


533. “No” slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into;


534. “Why?” makes people defensive.”


535. “It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted.”


536. “Most of the time, you should be using the positive/playful voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person.”


537. “It seems like …”


538. “Sleeping in the same bed and dreaming different dreams” is an old Chinese expression that describes the intimacy of partnership (whether in marriage or in business) without the communication necessary to sustain it.”


539. “promise you that they will feel awkward and artificial at first, but keep at it. Learning to walk felt awfully strange, too.”


540. “But it has very specific rules about form and delivery.”


541. “SECTION II: SUMMARY Summarize and write out in just a couple of sentences the known facts that have led up to the negotiation.”


542. “Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence.”


543. “They are simply complying with needs and desires that you don’t yet understand, what the world looks like to them based on their own set of rules.”


544. “How am I supposed to do that?”


545. “Quiero decir: ¿alguna vez has intentado construir una situación beneficiosa para ambas partes donde «todos ganan» con un tipo que se cree el mesías?”


546. “Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate.”


547. “People will often sooner die than give up their autonomy. They’ll at least act irrationally and shut off the negotiation.”


548. “Use backup listeners whose only job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss.”


549. One of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover.


550. “No” is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it.”


551. “No” provides a great opportunity for you and the other party to clarify what you really want by eliminating what you don’t want.


552. “Instead, take a different tack and use your own name. That’s how I get the Chris discount.”


553. “There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker.”


554. “I’ll try,” you should get a sinking feeling in your stomach. Because this really means, “I plan to fail.”


555. Pivot to Non-Monetary Terms


556. “Robert Estabrook once said, “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”


557. “This happens because there are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Commitment, Confirmation, and Counterfeit.”


558. “I’m sorry, two copies?” she mirrored in response, remembering not only the DJ voice, but to deliver the mirror in an inquisitive tone. The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.”


559. “GET A SEAT—AND AN UPGRADE—ON A SOLD-OUT FLIGHT”


560. “Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door.”


561. “to say “No” from the outset of a negotiation. He calls it “the right to veto.” He observes that people will fight to the death to preserve their right to say “No,” so give them that right and the negotiating environment becomes more constructive and collaborative almost immediately.”


562. “but saving our reputation from destruction is a much stronger motivation.”


563. ​When calculating the final amount, use precise, non-round numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight.


564. “To successfully gain a hostage’s safe release, a negotiator had to penetrate the hostage-taker’s motives, state of mind, intelligence, and emotional strengths and weaknesses. The negotiator played the role of bully, conciliator, enforcer, savior, confessor, instigator, and”


565. “So let’s undress “No.” It’s a reaffirmation of autonomy.”


566. “I’ve got a surprise for you—think Oprah Winfrey.”


567. “pay close attention to your counterpart during interruptions, odd exchanges, or anything that interrupts the flow. When someone breaks ranks, people’s façades crack just a little. Simply”


568. “It seems like…”


569. “All we’re going to say is, ‘Hey, how do we know José is okay? How are we supposed to pay until we know José is okay?’ Again and again,” I told them.”


570. “If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That's not empathy, that's a projection.”


571. “What about this doesn’t work for you?” “What would you need to make it work?” “It seems like there’s something here that bothers you.”


572. “If you were able to take an armed kidnapper who’d been surrounded by police and hook him up to a cardiac monitor, you’d find that every calibrated question and apology would lower his heart rate just a little bit. And that’s how you get to a dynamic where solutions can be found.”


573. “That is, “Yes” is nothing without “How.” Asking “How,” knowing “How,” and defining “How” are all part of the effective negotiator’s arsenal. He would be unarmed without them.”


574. It is a valid negotiating technique and that is called remaining dumb.


575. Never Split the Difference FAQs


576. “Finding the Black Swans—those powerful unknown unknowns—is intrinsically difficult, however, for the simple reason that we don’t know the questions to ask. Because we don’t know what the treasure is, we don’t know where to dig.”


577. ...no matter how we dress up our negotiations in mathematical theories, we are always an animal, always acting and reacting first and foremost from our deeply held but mostly invisible and inchoate fears, needs, perceptions, and desires. --Chris Voss


578. Influence - Robert B. Cialdini


579. “liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns”


580. How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie (FREE Summary)


581. “SECTION I: THE GOAL Think through best/worst-case scenarios but only write down a specific goal that represents the best case.”


582. “one of the greatest-of-all-time calibrated questions: “How am I supposed to do that?”


583. List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root.


584. “Whatever the specifics of the situation, these people are not acting irrationally. They are simply complying with needs and desires that you don’t yet understand, what the world looks like to them based on their own set of rules. Your job is to bring these Black Swans to light.”


585. “If you can’t control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence the emotions of another party?”


586. “Tehdy jsem ještě nebyl dost zkušený, abych si u něj všiml nadměrného používání zájmen my/oni, nikoliv já. Čím bezvýznamnějším se někdo navenek činí, tím důležitější pravděpodobně je (a naopak).”


587. “Finding and acting on Black Swans mandates a shift in your mindset.”


588. “Whether you call it “buy-in” or “engagement” or something else, good negotiators know that their job isn’t to put on a great performance but to gently guide their counterpart to discover their goal as his own.”


589. “So don’t settle and—here’s a simple rule—never split the difference. Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict.”


590. “Yes” is nothing without “How.” Asking “How,” knowing “How,” and defining “How” are all part of the effective negotiator’s arsenal. He would be unarmed without them.


591. “The language of negotiation is primarily a language of conversation and rapport: a way of quickly establishing relationships and getting people to talk and think together. Which is why when you think of the greatest negotiators of all time, I’ve got a surprise for you—think Oprah Winfrey.”


592. “Wants are easy to talk about, representing the aspiration of getting our way, and sustaining any illusion of control we have as we begin to negotiate; needs imply survival, the very minimum required to make us act, and so make us vulnerable.”


593. A calibrated question in reply to any offer other than full payment, in order to get him to offer a solution: “How am I supposed to accept that?”


594. “Anyone who made any offer other than $1 made an emotional choice” I say. “And for you accepters who turned down $1, since when is getting $0 better than getting $1? Did the rules of finance suddenly change?”


595. “What is the biggest challenge you face?” is one of those questions. It just gets the other side to teach you something about themselves, which is critical to any negotiation because all negotiation is an information-gathering process.”


596. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the psychological judo that I’ve made my stock in trade: the calibrated questions, the mirrors, the tools for knocking my counterpart off his game and getting him to bid against himself.”


597. “one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover.”


598. “I should note that leverage isn’t the same thing as power. Donald Trump has tons of power, but if he’s stranded in a desert and the owner of the only store for miles has the water he wants, the vendor has the leverage.”


599. “It seems like you feel like we don’t pay any attention to you and you only see us once a year, so why should you make time for us?” Notice how that acknowledges the situation and labels his sadness?”


600. “The key to getting people to see things your way is not to confront them on their ideas ('You can’t leave') but to acknowledge their ideas openly ('I understand why you’re pissed off') and then guide them toward solving the problem ('What do you hope to accomplish by leaving?').”


601. “labeling an emotion—applying rational words to a fear—disrupts its raw intensity.”


602. “empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world.”


603. ​Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying 'No' to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.


604. “Prospect Theory explains why we take unwarranted risks in the face of uncertain losses.”


605. “Like a contractor building a house, this book is constructed from the ground up: first comes the big slabs of foundation, then the necessary load-bearing walls, the elegant but impermeable roof, and the lovely interior decorations.”


606. “But no matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words: It seems like . . . It sounds like . . . It looks like . .”


607. “What makes them work is that they are subject to interpretation by your counterpart instead of being rigidly defined. They allow you to introduce ideas and requests without sounding overbearing or pushy.”


608. “If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other guy thinks like you, you're wrong. That's not empathy, that's projection.”


609. “Yes” and “Maybe” are often worthless. But “No” always alters the conversation.”


610. “I feel ___ when you ___ because ___,” and that demands a time-out from the other person.”


611. How to Generate Momentum and Make It Safe to Reveal the Real Stakes


612. Read More: 5 Books Like Never Split the Difference


613. “Life is negotiation. The”


614. Sometimes you have the key with yourself and that is to relax and smile during negotiation but people often tend to argue more.


615. “But then I realized I did the same thing with my teenage son, and that after I’d said “No” to him, I often found that I was open to hearing what he had to say. That’s because having protected myself, I could relax and more easily consider the possibilities.”


616. Boundaries - Henry Cloud


617. “A trap into which many fall is to take what other people say literally. I started to see that while people played the game of conversation, it was in the game beneath the game, where few played, that all the leverage lived.”


618. “A few years ago, I stumbled upon the book How to Become a Rainmaker,3 and I like to review it occasionally to refresh my sense of the emotional drivers that fuel decisions. The book does a great job to explain the”


619. On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your end


620. “Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love—not as hatred or violence.”


621. “voice. It’s generally an unconscious behavior—we are rarely aware of it when it’s happening—but it’s a sign that people are bonding, in sync, and establishing the kind of rapport that leads to trust.”


622. “Feeling, they discovered, is a form of thinking.”


623. Best Never Split the Difference Quotes


624. “It looks like…”


625. A statement that leaves only the answer of “That’s right” to form a dynamic of agreement: “It seems that you feel my bill is not justified.”


626. “Calibrated questions have the power to educate your counterpart on what the problem is rather than causing conflict by telling them what the problem is.”


627. “What are we up against here? What is the biggest challenge you face? How does making a deal with us affect things? What happens if you do nothing? What does doing nothing cost you? How does making this deal resonate with what your company prides itself on?”


628. “Even changing a single word when you present options—like using “not lose” instead of “keep”—can unconsciously influence the conscious choices your counterpart makes.”


629. “SuperSummary guides are very thorough, accurate, and easy to understand and navigate. The information is chapter specific and so it's easy to target certain things.”


630. “So it’s useful—crucial, even—to know how to engage in that conflict to get what you want without inflicting damage.”


631. “Hrát si na hluchého je legitimní vyjednávací technika a „Nerozumím“ je legitimní odpověď.”


632. “Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out the window.”


633. Identify your counterpart’s negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst, you’ll know the correct way to approach them.


634. Chapter 2: Be a Mirror


635. “They were the economist Amos Tversky and the psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Together, the two launched the field of behavioral economics—and Kahneman won a Nobel Prize—by showing that man is a very irrational beast. Feeling, they discovered, is a form of thinking.”


636. “They are reserved problem solvers, and information aggregators, and are hypersensitive to reciprocity. They will give you a piece, but if they don’t get a piece in return within a certain period of time, they lose trust and will disengage”


637. “As long as she stayed cool, they would hear it as a problem to be solved.”


638. Even changing a single word when you present options—like using not lose" instead of "keep"—can unconsciously influence the conscious choices your counterpart makes."


639. ...you can use what and how to calibrate nearly any question. 'Does this look like something you would like' can become 'how does this look to you?' Or 'what about this works for you?' You can even ask 'what about this doesn't work for you?'


640. “humans all suffer from Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world. Kahneman and Tversky discovered more than 150 of them.”


641. “How am I supposed to . . . ? How do we know . . . ? How can we . . . ? There is great power in treating jerks with deference. It gives you the ability to be extremely assertive—to say “No”—in a hidden fashion.”


642. “Conflict between two parties is inevitable in all relationships. So it’s useful—crucial, even—to know how to engage in that conflict to get what you want without inflicting damage.”


643. “Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible—or never thought of at all.”


644. “But there is one basic truth about a successful bargaining style: To be good, you have to learn to be yourself at the bargaining table. To be great you have to add to your strengths, not replace them.”


645. “When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your own mental agility.”


646. “reflejo, llamado también isopraxis, consiste básicamente en imitar. Es otra forma de neurocomportamiento que mostramos los humanos (y otros animales) que hace que nos copiemos unos a otros con intención de hacernos sentir cómodos.”


647. “In other words, labeling an emotion—applying rational words to a fear—disrupts its raw intensity.”


648. “labels almost always begin with roughly the same words: It seems like . . . It sounds like . . . It looks like . . .”


649. “SLOW. IT. DOWN.”


650. “I mean, have you ever tried to devise a mutually beneficial win-win solution with a guy who thinks he’s the messiah? It”


651. “As we’ve seen, when you recognize that your counterpart is not irrational, but simply ill-informed, constrained, or obeying interests that you do not yet know, your field of movement greatly expands. And that allows you to negotiate much more effectively.”


652. “There is a big difference between making your counterpart feel that they can say “No” and actually getting them to say it. Sometimes, if you’re talking to somebody who is just not listening, the only way you can crack their cranium is to antagonize them into “No.”


653. “The use of pronouns by a counterpart can also help give you a feel for their actual importance in the decision and implementation chains on the other side of the table. The more in love they are with “I,” “me,” and “my” the less important they are.”


654. “They discovered that people who paid the most attention — good listeners — could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it.”


655. “NO” STARTS THE NEGOTIATION My”


656. “Now, think about how my client’s question worked: without accusing them of anything, it pushed the big company to understand her problem and offer the solution she wanted.”


657. “Negotiation is the heart of collaboration. It is what makes conflict potentially meaningful and productive for all parties. It can change your life, as it has changed mine.”


658. “It was an iterative process, not an intellectual one, as we refined the tools we used day after day. And it was urgent. Our tools had to work, because if they didn’t someone died.”


659. “Using your counterpart’s religion is extremely effective in large part because it has authority over them. The other guy’s “religion” is what the market, the experts, God, or society—whatever matters to him—has determined to be fair and just. And people defer to that authority. In”


660. “The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. This is one of the most basic tactics for avoiding emotional escalations.”


661. “Better yesterday than today,” he said and walked away.”


662. “As negotiators we use empathy because it works. Empathy is why the three fugitives came out after six hours of my late-night DJ voice. It’s what helped me succeed at what Sun Tzu called “the supreme art of war”: to subdue the enemy without fighting.”


663. “Yes” is nothing without “How.”


664. “If the hostages’ deaths were going to mean something, we would have to find a new way to negotiate, communicate, listen, and speak, both with our enemies and with our friends. Not for communication’s sake, though. No. We had to do it to win.”


665. Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.


666. “that?”) or deflect the anchor with questions like “What are we trying to accomplish”


667. “Access to this hidden space very often comes through understanding the other side’s worldview, their reason for being, their religion.”


668. “You bake with the flour you have.”


669. Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides.”


670. “The goal is to identify what your counterparts actually need (monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe enough to talk and talk and talk some more about what they want.”


671. “You’ll discover how to slow things down and make your counterpart feel safe enough to reveal themselves; to discern between wants (aspirations) and needs (the bare minimum for a deal); and to laser-focus on what the other party has to say.”


672. “If you are an Assertive, be particularly conscious of your tone. You will not intend to be overly harsh but you will often come off that way.”


673. When you are going for a deal, you try for a good deal but sometimes you have a bad deal and then you try to make no deal but something bad is better than nothing so you should accept the bad deal rather than no deals.


674. “setting boundaries. Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love—not as hatred or violence.”


675. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?


676. “They were able to think from another person’s point of view while they were talking with that person and quickly assess what was driving them.”


677. “Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation. Unfortunately,”


678. Empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world.


679. Approaching deadlines entice people to rush the negotiating process and do impulsive things that are against their best interests.”


680. “the Black Swan symbolizes the uselessness of predictions based on previous experience. Black Swans are events or pieces of knowledge that sit outside our regular expectations and therefore cannot be predicted.”


681. “THAT’S RIGHT” IS GREAT, BUT IF “YOU’RE RIGHT,” NOTHING CHANGES”


682. “Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts.”


683. “Humanize yourself. Use your name to introduce yourself. Say it in a fun, friendly way. Let them enjoy the interaction, too. And get your own special price.”


684. “Sleeping in the same bed and dreaming different dreams” is an old Chinese expression”


685. Chapter 3: Don’t Feel Their Pain, Label It


686. Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent).


687. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas.


688. “Roger Fisher and William Ury—cofounders of the project—came out with Getting to Yes,”


689. “Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery.”


690. “Now, think about how my client’s question worked: without accusing them of anything, it pushed the big company to understand her problem and offer the solution she wanted. That in a nutshell is the whole point of open-ended questions that are calibrated for a specific effect.”


691. “Tactical Empathy. This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person.”


692. “Great negotiators seek “No” because they know that’s often when the real negotiation begins.”


693. “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”


694. “Our techniques were the products of experiential learning; they were developed by agents in the field, negotiating through crisis and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed. It was an iterative process, not an intellectual one, as we refined the tools we used day after day.”


695. “Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. That’s the only hard part about it;”


696. “The researchers could predict how well people were communicating by observing how much their brains were aligned. And they discovered that people who paid the most attention—good listeners—could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it. If”


697. “focus all their energies on what to say or do, but it’s how we are (our general demeanor and delivery) that is both the easiest thing to enact and the most immediately effective mode of influence.”


698. “What could they give that would almost get us to do it for free?”


699. “What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. BEND”


700. The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic you’re trying to drill into at the moment.


701. “That is, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words while 38 percent comes from the tone of voice and 55 percent from the speaker’s body language and face.”


702. Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price.


703. “Get face time with your counterpart. Ten minutes of face time often reveals more than days of research. Pay special attention to your counterpart’s verbal and nonverbal communication at unguarded moments—at the beginning and the end of the session or when someone says something out of line.”


704. “No” is not failure. Used strategically it’s an answer that opens the path forward.”


705. How to Quickly Establish Rapport


706. “Let me let you in on a secret: people never even notice.”


707. “am I supposed to do that?” I influenced his System 1 emotional mind into accepting that his offer wasn’t good enough; his System 2 then rationalized the situation so that it made sense to give me a better offer.”


708. “Another simple rule is, when you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.”


709. “The implication of any well-designed calibrated question is that you want what the other guy wants but you need his intelligence to overcome the problem. This really appeals to very aggressive or egotistical counterparts.”


710. “There are three voice tones available to negotiators: 1.​The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness.”


711. “it’s best to start with “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.” Nothing else.”


712. “ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?” Either you get “Yes, it is a bad time” followed by a good time or a request to go away, or you get “No, it’s not” and total focus.”


713. “the most famous negotiating book in the world, Getting to Yes, have ultimately discovered, you more than likely haven’t gotten there yet if what you’re hearing is the word “yes.” As you’ll soon learn, the sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually “That’s right.”


714. “SECTION V: NONCASH OFFERS Prepare a list of noncash items possessed by your counterpart that would be valuable.”


715. “Kahneman later codified his research in the 2011 bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow.”


716. “questions. I instructed him to keep peppering the violent”


717. “You: “So we’re agreed?” Them: “Yes . . .” You: “I heard you say, ‘Yes,’ but it seemed like there was hesitation in your voice.” Them: “Oh, it’s nothing really.” You: “No, this is important, let’s make sure we get this right.”


718. “When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your highest level of preparation. One”


719. “My name is Chris. What’s the Chris discount?”


720. A “No”-oriented email question to reinitiate contact: “Have you given up on settling this amicably?”


721. “As we’ve seen, when you recognize that your counterpart is not irrational, but simply ill-informed, constrained, or obeying interests that you do not yet know, your field of movement greatly expands. And”


722. “people operating with incomplete information appear crazy to those who have different information.”


723. If none of this gets an offer of full payment, a label that flatters his sense of control and power: “It seems like you are the type of person who prides himself on the way he does business—rightfully so—and has a knack for not only expanding the pie but making the ship run more efficiently.”


724. “But let me cut the list even further: it’s best to start with “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.”


725. “cualquier oído extra puede recoger información extra.”


726. “To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.”


727. “Remember: “Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How?”


728. “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.”


729. “Can he say to a bank robber, “Okay, you’ve taken four hostages. Let’s split the difference—give me two, and we’ll call it a day?”


730. When You Do Talk Numbers, Use Odd Ones


731. “Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation.”


732. “I switched into my Late-Night, FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring.”


733. “Good negotiators welcome—even invite—a solid “No” to start, as a sign that the other party is engaged and thinking.”


734. “How am I supposed to accept that?”) or deflect the anchor with questions like “What are we trying to accomplish here?” Responses like these are great ways to refocus your counterpart when you feel you’re being pulled into the compromise trap.”


735. You should always disarm the counterpart by a calibrated question.


736. “Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.”


737. The resolution, creativity, and the truth are brought out to open by conflicts.


738. Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.


739. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard.


740. “Kevin Dutton says in his book Split-Second Persuasion.”


741. Chapter 1: The New Rules


742. “if you can get at what people are really buying—then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution.”


743. How to Create Breakthroughs by Revealing the Unknown Unknowns


744. “Politics aside, empathy is not about being nice or agreeing with the other side. It’s about understanding them. Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them. As”


745. “don’t get wrapped up in the other side’s position (what they’re asking for) but instead focus on their interests (why they’re asking for it) so that you can find what they really want;”


746. “Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea.”


747. “Yes,” as I always say, is nothing without “How?”


748. “When our counterpart displays attitudes, beliefs, ideas—even modes of dress—that are similar to our own, we tend to like and trust them more.”


749. “How can you separate people from the problem when their emotions are the problem?”


750. “Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. Instead, you must open yourself up to the factual reality that is in front of you.”


751. “Loss Aversion, which shows how people are statistically more likely to act to avert a loss than to achieve an equal gain.”


752. When you can question the assumptions, then you can be a great negotiator.


753. “the key to getting people to see things your way is not to confront them on their ideas (“You can’t leave”) but to acknowledge their ideas openly (“I understand why you’re pissed off”) and then guide them toward solving the problem (“What do you hope to accomplish by leaving?”).”


754. “What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? What’s the core issue here? How does that affect things? What’s the biggest challenge you face?”


755. “Your offer is very generous, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work for me” is an elegant second way to say “No.”


756. “What’s the biggest challenge you faced? What are we up against here? What do you see as being the most difficult thing to get around?”


757. “When the pressure is on, you don't rise to the occasion - you fall to your highest level of preparation.”


758. “way. As I’ve worked with executives and students to develop these skills, I always try to reinforce the message that being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation—having the right mindset is.”


759. “Does this look like something you would like?” can become “How does this look to you?” or “What about this works for you?” You can even ask, “What about this doesn’t work for you?” and you’ll probably trigger quite a bit of useful information from your counterpart.”


760. When you have flexibility, the forefront of your mind comes into the negotiation and you come in with a winning moment.


761. “Using the first-person singular pronoun is another great way to set a boundary without escalating into confrontation.”


762. “the way to get there is by getting the other party to disagree, to draw their own boundaries, to define their desires as a function of what they do”


763. “Once I’d anchored their emotions in a minefield of low expectations, I played on their loss aversion.”


764. “What about this is important to you? How can I help to make this better for us? How would you like me to proceed? What is it that brought us into this situation? How can we solve this problem? What’s the objective? / What are we trying to accomplish here? How am I supposed to do that?”


765. “In this world, you get what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly. So”


766. What Is the Black Swan In Never Split the Difference?


767. “Bite your tongue. When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions.”


768. “Come on,” I said. “There has to be something I can do.”


769. “Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover.”


770. “Let’s put price off to the side for a moment and talk about what would make this a good deal.”


771. “Instead ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?” Either you get “Yes, it is a bad time” followed by a good time or a request to go away, or you get “No, it’s not” and total focus.”


772. “I’m just asking questions,” I said. “It’s a passive-aggressive approach. I just ask the same three or four open-ended questions over and over and over and over. They get worn out answering and give me everything I want.”


773. “If you take a pit bull approach with another pit bull, you generally end up with a messy scene and lots of bruised feelings and resentment.”


774. “If this book accomplishes only one thing, I hope it gets you over that fear of conflict and encourages you to navigate it with empathy”


775. The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking.


776. “Asking for help in this manner, after you’ve already been engaged in a dialogue, is an incredibly powerful negotiating technique for transforming encounters from confrontational showdowns into joint problem-solving sessions. And calibrated questions are the best tool.”


777. “It was a stupid question, on my part. A mistake. For a mirror to be effective, you’ve got to let it sit there and do its work. It needs a bit of silence.”


778. “I’m sorry but I’m afraid I just can’t do that.”


779. “the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control.”


780. “How will we know we’re on track?” and “How will we address things if we find we’re off track?” When they answer, you summarize their answers until you get a “That’s right.” Then you’ll know they’ve bought in.”


781. “only half-jokingly refer to mirroring as magic or a Jedi mind trick because it gives you the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.”


782. “Don’t try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation.”


783. “As an old Washington Post editor named Robert Estabrook once said, “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”


784. “You’re going to have to embrace regular, thoughtful conflict as the basis of effective negotiation—and of life.”


785. “Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible – or never thought of at all.”


786. “The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is.”


787. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.


788. “Calibrated Questions, the queries that begin with “How?” or “What?” By eliminating “Yes” and “No” answers they force your counterpart to apply their mental energy to solving your problems.”


789. “Understanding the “other” is a precondition to be able to speak persuasively and develop options that resonate for them.”


790. “Truly effective negotiators are conscious of the verbal, paraverbal (how it’s said), and nonverbal communications that pervade negotiations and group dynamics.”


791. “when it comes to negotiating, the Golden Rule is wrong.”


792. Labeling and mirroring the essence of his answers if they are not acceptable so he has to consider them again: “It seems like you feel my work was subpar.” Or “. . . my work was subpar?”


793. “But allow me to let you in on a secret: Life is negotiation. The majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple, animalistic urge: I want.”


794. “That they might help you extract what you want is a bonus; human connection is the first goal.”


795. “How am I supposed to do that?” I asked deferentially. “I’m sure,” he said, then paused as if he wasn’t sure what he’d meant to say. “I’m sure we can figure something out with financing the $36,000.”


796. “In court, defense lawyers do this properly by mentioning everything their client is accused of, and all the weaknesses of their case, in the opening statement. They call this technique “taking the sting out.”


797. “Ve skutečnosti jsou lhůty často stanoveny zcela náhodně, téměř vždy s nimi lze hýbat a málokdy mají důsledky, které si myslíme (nebo které nám někdo řekl).”


798. “ I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me any time if you feel I’m being unfair.”


799. “It seems that you are really passionate about this gift and want to find the right project reflecting the opportunities and life-changing experiences the Girl Scouts gave you.”


800. “Regardless of what language the word “why” is translated into, it’s accusatory. There are very rare moments when this is to your advantage.”


801. “The first step to labeling is detecting the other person’s emotional state.”


802. “It seems like __________ is important. It seems you feel like my company is in a unique position to __________. It seems like you are worried that __________.”


803. “A prozradím vám ještě další zajímavý poznatek. Ve skutečnosti existují tři typy „ano“: falešné, souhlasné a závazné.”


804. “Smile, and you’re already an improvement. “Hi, Wendy, I’m Ryan. It seems like they were pretty upset.”


805. “The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. A smile, even while talking on the phone, has an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on.”


806. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold.


807. Calibrated questions about the problem to get him to reveal his thinking: “How does this bill violate our agreement?”


808. “A trap into which many fall is to take what other people say literally.”


809. “neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.”


810. How to Calibrate Questions to Transform Conflict into Collaboration


811. “The F-word—“Fair”—is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.”


812. “When someone tells you “No,” you need to rethink the word in one of its alternative—and much more real—meanings: ■​I am not yet ready to agree; ■​You are making me feel uncomfortable; ■​I do not understand; ■​I don’t think I can afford it;”


813. “But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.”


814. “Negotiation is the heart of collaboration. It is what makes conflict potentially meaningful and productive for all parties.”


815. “Negotiations with religious fanatics who have delusions of grandeur generally do not go well.”


816. “I used my late-night FM DJ voice. I didn’t give orders in my DJ voice, or ask what the fugitives wanted. Instead, I imagined myself in their place. “It”


817. “Before you convince them to see what you’re trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, “That’s right.”


818. Chapter 6: Bend Their Reality


819. “No” is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it.


820. “In other words: listen, listen again, and listen some more.”


821. “That’s right!”


822. “No” protects and benefits all parties in an exchange.”


823. “And the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control.”


824. “kick-ass negotiators don’t use ZOPA. Experienced negotiators often lead with a ridiculous offer, an extreme anchor. And if you’re not prepared to handle it, you’ll lose your moorings and immediately go to your maximum”


825. “No” can be a powerful instrument in a negotiation when it uncovers unknown points of the contention.CLICK TO TWEET


826. “Paraphrase: Benjie should repeat what Sabaya is saying back to him in Benjie’s own words. This, we told him, would powerfully show him you really do understand and aren’t merely parroting his concerns.”


827. “So claim your prerogative to ask for what you think is right.”


828. “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.”


829. “What does it take to be successful here?”


830. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity.


831. “That’s why negotiation is often called “the art of letting someone else have your way.”


832. “the faster we can interrupt the amygdala’s reaction to real or imaginary threats, the faster we can clear the road of obstacles, and the quicker we can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.”


833. “Never be so sure of what you want, you wouldn't except something better”


834. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.


835. “We employed our tactical empathy by recognizing and then verbalizing the predictable emotions of the situation.”


836. “If you feel you can’t say “No” then you’ve taken yourself hostage.”


837. “Instead of naming a price, allude to an incredibly high number that someone else might charge. Once when a hospital chain wanted me to name a price first, I said, “Well, if you go to Harvard Business School, they’re going to charge you $2,500 a day per student.”


838. Never Split the Difference Review


839. “Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard and we risk undermining the rapport and trust we’ve built.”


840. “After all, kidnappers are just businessmen trying to get the best price.”


841. Surprise with a Gift


842. “The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking.”


843. People will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain. Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.”


844. When you are verbally assaulted, you should try to stay calm and cool and do not try to attack suddenly or at that moment and it is considered as a simple rule.


845. “Getting to this level of emotional intelligence demands opening up your senses, talking less, and listening more.”


846. “One of the most valuable lessons my mother ever taught me. She said: don't just treat people special on their birthday, treat them special every day as if it's their birthday.”


847. “No” allows the real issues to be brought forth;


848. “how deeply listening to understand your counterpart’s worldview can reveal a Black Swan that transforms a negotiation dynamic.”


849. “Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on non-round numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.”


850. “reasonable attempt at negotiations must be made prior to a tactical”

23 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


Recent posts

bottom of page