Chris Voss: How to Succeed at Hard Conversations | Huberman Lab Podcast

Andrew Huberman: Welcome to the Huberman Lab

podcast

, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford Medical School. My guest today is Chris Voss. Chris Voss spent more than two decades as an agent for the FBI, or Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he was a chief crisis negotiator and a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Chris is also the author of a phenomenal best-selling book titled “Never Split the Difference.” Additionally, he has taught negotiation courses at Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Southern California.

As a world expert in all forms of negotiation, today Chris teaches us how to have difficult

conversations

when we are seeking particular outcomes, or perhaps when we don't know what the optimal outcome might be. He talks about this in the context of business, in the context of relationships, including romantic ones, but also family and work ones. And he talks about how we should think about ourselves in the context of negotiations so that we can all reach the best possible results. In fact, during today's episode, you'll learn how to pay attention to emotions—not just other people's emotions, but your own, too—to determine whether or not you're accurately processing the information you're hearing, and Which is equally important, whether you are heard accurately or not when you are in a discussion of any kind, but especially in heated discussions.

Additionally, we look at the role of physical and mental stamina in the context of difficult

conversations

, negotiations, and decision-making, because in the real-world context, many times those can take place not just within a single conversation, but throughout of the course. of several days, or even several weeks, months or years. Chris also teaches us about deception, that is, how to determine if someone is lying by asking particular types of probing questions, thanks to the breadth and depth of Chris Voss' experience in the negotiation process that he acquired during his more than two decades of service. at the FBI, as well as his generosity in sharing that information.

By the end of today's episode, he will fully understand what the negotiation process is really about and how to best conduct them so that they can best serve you and others. Before we begin, I would like to emphasize that this

podcast

is independent of my teaching and research duties at Stanford. However, it is part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Plunge. Plunge makes what I believe is the most versatile self-cooling cold soak at home for deliberate cold exposure.

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for a $150 discount. ROKA also brings us today's episode. ROKA manufactures the highest quality eyeglasses and sunglasses. I've spent my entire life working on the biology of the visual system, and I can tell you that your visual system has to deal with an enormous number of challenges for you to be able to see clearly in different environments.

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I use readers at night or when driving, and I wear sunglasses during the day if I'm driving in a bright place or outside and there's overwhelming light. I don't wear sunglasses when I see morning sunlight to set my circadian rhythm, and I suggest you do the same. If you want to try ROKA glasses or sunglasses, you can go to ROKA, roka.com and enter the code HUBERMAN to save 20% off your first order again, that's ROKA, roka.com. And enter code HUBERMAN at checkout. And now my conversation with Chris Voss. Chris Voss, welcome. Chris Voss: Andrew. My pleasure, man.

Andrew Huberman: I've been wanting to talk to you on the record for a while. You are exactly what we in science call "N-of-one", when someone has an actual sample size of one. I realize that yes, you are, because you have this incredible skill set from your time in the FBI, but you also have an incredible understanding and knowledge of how to communicate that skill set so that people can get useful information from it. You're also the guy I text or call from time to time when I'm in a bind or when I think I might be in a bind.

And I won't reveal details, but you will tell me if things are good or not. And luckily, the last few times I contacted you, you said, you're fine. So thanks. Chris Voss: Always happy to help, man. Andrew Huberman: Thank you. Well, I have a lot of questions today, but I'd like to start by talking about how negotiations take many forms, but if we could break them down into broad categories, that would be helpful. But before doing that, I want to know what is the mentality that one has when starting a negotiation and whether or not there is some kind of practice.

I realize that you have been in this profession for a long time, so perhaps at some point it became reflective for you. But at some point we are all going to enter into negotiations, business negotiations, relationship negotiations, etc. Is there a process to prepare the mind and body for a negotiation, going from listening more to talking less? Are there tools that you use regularly that might be useful for us to consider as we delve into different categories of negotiations and ways to approach those negotiations? Chris Voss: There may be a couple of different things. Firstly, just trying to figure out what's really going on is the real problem, and then how can I get an approach that will allow me to get the best possible result?

So there is always more than meets the eye and there are some clichés, but the real problem is that there is always a better deal or no deal at all. So first of all, the first thing I want to know is whether or not there is a deal or whether it is a bad deal or not. And then I'll leave very quickly because it will be a complete waste of time. It's not a sin to not get the deal. It is a sin to take too long to not get the deal, or it is a sin to take too long to get a bad deal.

So I want to know. I'm going to try to find out very quickly whether or not there is a murderer on the other side of the table. Is he someone you can trust? Now I'm leaning a little more toward dealing with difficult people, as long as they don't give in. That's why I want to diagnose from the beginning what the possibilities are. Now, if I'm curious, if I'm really interested now, another aspect of the mindset is if I'm in a good mood, if I'm just going to be playful, a couple of really important personal negotiations have won recently.

It was when he was just trying to be playful. I mean, I was in a really good mood and I'm kidding. And a big negotiation is not exciting. It's amazing. We're in talks right now with a possible unscripted TV show. And then I was telling the producers that it wouldn't be the "Real Housewives" that would make this show right. There will be no shouting. It won't be "Bar Rescue," where we'll yell at people. We're not going to be "Hell's Kitchen," where we're yelling at people. It will never be exciting, but it will be amazing. You'll get results where you're suddenly in a place like, what the heck?

How did that happen? The other day I lost a suitcase in an airport and I went into the lost luggage area and I'm in a very good mood because I'm home and I'm happy to be home and I'm going to have a good night and sleep. And although it's late, I'm happy. And I prepare to enter the lost luggage store where these people are abused children. They know you're waiting for them to wave a magic wand and poof, your luggage will be there. So for some reason, and this is what I say when I walk in the door, this young woman says, how can I help you?

Well, first of all, it's obvious how you could help me because I'm in lost luggage. There's only one reason I'm here. So that's kind of a silly question. And I go, I need you to wave a magic wand. And she just laughs and looks at me. She ends up walking me to the carousel. She rides the carousel and goes down a ramp. The luggage comes out and I guarantee you they shouldn't do that. And she sticks her head out, looks around her, walks back out, and I've never seen any of these people leave the office, much less walk back to the carousel.

And she says, she waits here. And she disappears into the bowels of the airport, which looks like a superhighway down there, right? God knows what it looks like under the airport. And soon enough, the carousel starts up again, and my bag. And another bag appears. This other poor idiot is sitting there waiting, and I'm like, I've never seen anyone do this, ever. They usually say, here's a number. We will call you within 24 hours. It could appear at your house. And I look around... there's another young woman there. And I say, please tell him thank you for me.

I have to go. Because she doesn't come out again for about ten minutes. And on the way out, she walks out the door, gives me a high five, and says, "How about waving a magic wand?" And that was the magic phrase. And she would never have told him if she wasn't playful at one point. And I have a couple of others, like when he was just being playful and joking with people almost at my expense. It is shocking. It's amazing what you can get people to do if you hit them the right way. Andrew Huberman: Very interesting.

I wonder what she took advantage of. But it seems like I might have tapped into his feeling that everyone always asks me for some kind of magic wand ability, but finally someone said it directly, and it would be fun to play that role, because normally restricted to his keyboard and his phone. I love that. On the opposite side of that spectrum, if you're ever feeling tense, stressed, jet-lagged, or angry, I can think of negotiations where people try to keep their egos in check. They want to be right. Their breakups, negotiations. There aren't necessarily romantic breakups that could include that, but also professional breakups, the dissolution of a contract or something like that.

Do you ever have to check yourself, like, okay, I guess being calm is better than not being calm for most things? Do you have a process to do that? You seem like a pretty stable guy. I've never seen you. Chris Voss: Overall, I'm pretty stable. Well, the voice of the late night FM DJ who, I'm not sure I coined the phrase, but somewhat famous for calming you down also calms me down. So if I get out of control and the conversation gets heated, I will switch to that voice with the intention of calming you down, because that is the voice of the hostage negotiator.

But he will also calm me down. As if intentionally listening to that voice represses negative emotions, which I'm convinced make me dumber right now, interfering with my ability to process information. Do you have reasons for that? The layman's reasons? No. Scientific and academically rigorous studies that have appeared in a journal. Andrew Huberman: Well, once you're done, I'll tell you something that might surprise you: why there's real neuroscience behind that late-night FM DJ voice having an impact on other people's brains. Chris Voss: Yes, and I will do it because it calms me down. Now if I can make the change.

The difficult part is changing to a positive mindset, if I can do it, but I can only do it with a calm voice. I also believe that emotions are a kind of rock, paper, scissors sequence. I don't think you can go from sadness to euphoria, directly to sadness, to depression, to decay. I think getting angryIt has something that takes you out of sadness. And I think if you're angry, the next thing you need to do is calm down. But if I can get out of the anger and calm down, then I can say something to myself.

The reality is that this is a luxury problem, or I was in a negotiation with a counterparty who I knew was deceiving me, lying to me. And I remember saying to myself: I'm lucky to be in this negotiation. I mean, they wouldn't be trying to push me if we weren't really good, if we didn't have a product that was phenomenal, it wouldn't be the goal at all. So I'm lucky to be in this conversation. So if I can make the following emotional change, then I'm good. The difficult thing is making those changes. Andrew Huberman: I'm going to share with you what I've recently learned about sound and emotion.

I'm researching an episode about music in the brain. Fascinating topic. Believe it or not, a lot is known, and the auditory system has this property where, of course, there are neurons, nerve cells that respond to different frequencies of sound, low frequencies, deeper tones and high frequency squeals and that kind of thing. . Well, that's pretty simple, just like we have neurons that respond to different colors or different angles of light in the room. But what I learned and confirmed with a good friend of mine who is an auditory neuroscientist and neurosurgeon. His name is Eddie Chang, who was previously a guest on this podcast.

Do neurons in the brain respond to low-frequency sounds like his voice, that late-night FM DJ voice? It is not surprising. But the frequency with which these neurons are activated is also low frequency. In other words, when you speak softly, the other person's brain hears it and starts firing at a low-frequency tone. In other words, it adapts to your voice, not just the rhythm, but it's actually like you're playing an emotional piano in the low keys of your mind. Now, when you go up to the high frequencies, the neurons can't follow that high frequency. So there is something special about low frequency sound that really changes the emotional tone of people who hear that low frequency sound.

This is crazy, right? Of course, the content of the words also matters. But either way, there is real neuroscience behind the voice you were gifted with and used for your work. Chris Voss: Well, then the point is also that the other party is not making a decision. It is an involuntary reaction. Andrew Huberman: That's right. This is not something one can override, except perhaps by covering one's ears. Good. If you hear that, your mind moves into a state of low frequency oscillation, which is one of greater calm. That's a real thing. And if you had a high-pitched, squeaky Squirrel voice, you might not have been the negotiator.

Would you do it. Although who knows? Maybe there would be another tactic there. I mean, I think about, I guess it was during one of the Gulf War campaigns. Where weren't they trying to squeeze Saddam and some of his people out of playing Milli Vanilli at high volume for hours on end? Is that tactic really used? Chris Voss: So that was Panama when they were trying to capture Noriega. Andrew Huberman: I'm only a few countries away. Chris Voss: I understood the tidbits I was telling you before and the wacky, fascinating, useless information about terrorism and things like that.

I tried it in Panama and for whatever reason, the military was playing music and sounds. And then also, among the many stupid things that the FBI did in Waco, then late at night, they tried it in the... It was just, that was one of the things that the hostage negotiators objected to. outright, but they were annulled. by command on site. Among the many stupid things that were done in Waco, that one was also done in Waco. It was stupid. It is counterproductive. The hostage negotiators were always against it. Andrew Huberman: For those of you who don't remember Waco.

Waco is Branch Davidians, David Koresh, right? Chris Voss: Yes. There was a Netflix series that came out recently. That's fair. About how it happened. Andrew Huberman: Yes. Sad ending. He eventually set the building on fire, committed suicide, and killed everyone else. Chris Voss: The people inside set fire to the building. Andrew Huberman: Yes. Even many children died, including some children. Chris Voss: There are some FBI agents who still haven't gotten over it. Andrew Huberman: I like to talk about different types of negotiations. I often think that since you're a former negotiator for the FBI, counterterrorism task force, these types of things, we tend to focus on the negative negotiations.

Good. Get the hostages out and we'll talk about that stuff. Breakups, businesses that have gone wrong, people who lie, cheat. What about negotiations that are benevolent? Let's say two people want to reach true mutual benefit around what each considers to be their best interest in, say, friendship. Two friends taking a trip together, on vacation. Who is going to pay what? Who is going to pay in advance? Are people going to pay each other? Or a romantic relationship? Two people are considering merging their finances to some extent or moving in together. What kinds of questions should people ask themselves before those negotiations?

In particular, is it very important for people to know exactly what they want when entering into a negotiation? O. I can remember many times where I went into life circumstances knowing that I wanted a certain set of feelings or results, but without being extremely specific about what I want this salary. I want to live in a west facing house in this particular location. I believe that an exploration of potentials can also take the form of negotiation. So how should people think about approaching benevolent negotiations, where we're not talking about something tragic happening, if it doesn't happen, it might hurt, there might be a little bit of high friction, but let's talk about how to get to a situation in which everyone wins.

Chris Voss: Yeah, well, there's a couple of interesting things there. First of all, the phrase win-win, because win-win is just a great collaboration. I mean, in fact, it should be a win-win, which might just be emotionally a win-win for everyone. Now, phraseology is beneficial to everyone. I know that if someone opens a negotiation with me and says right off the bat, look, I want to make a win-win deal with you, that correlates extremely highly with someone trying to pick my pocket. So if you use that phrase in the first five minutes, I know where you're coming from.

You're trying to get me to let my guard down. You win, I lose. This came up in an Instagram post I posted recently, which basically says: Beware of the person who says everyone wins. Now, I didn't say win-win is bad. I said, beware of the person who says it. Also, you have to be careful. If you have a win-win mentality, then people prepare to be slaughtered by the person who expresses a win-win desire and seeks to pick their pockets. For example, if I feel in my heart that everyone wins, then let's make a win-win deal. If I don't see it, I say, okay, what do you want?

And then I find myself giving away the store. So there are many things behind the win-win phraseology that you need to have a full understanding of. In fact, both parties should feel good about the outcome. And isn't that the definition of win-win? Well, sort of, but it's how they feel about it rather than what they actually got. So, in a benevolent negotiation between friends, where are we going to go to eat? Where are we going on vacation? What route are we going to take? People really want to be heard more than anything else, which operationally seems to be the case.

I don't understand how it's going to make any difference. It makes all the difference in the world. And what's the best way for someone to feel heard? Well, I'm going to start by telling you, describing to you, not telling you, but describing to you what my best guess is from your perspective, because it's really calibrating me to know where your position is. And the only way I can find out what your position really is is I'm going to increase you telling me if I start guessing first, because immediately, immediately, you're going to tell me immediately. I'm right or I'm wrong, you're going to correct me.

Proofreading is a satisfying thing to do. And you will be much more honest with me if you correct me than if I ask you, and you will feel good about correcting me. So I have all these fantastic emotional lubricants for you to correct me. So I'll start by saying: This is what I think you're thinking. That's how I think you're approaching this. This is what I think you expect from this, not what you should be, but what you probably are from your perspective. And that will speed up the conversation exponentially. It's ridiculous how fast things are going to go.

And then it becomes a process of gathering information and building relationships simultaneously rather than separately, which makes this approach faster, even though it seems more indirect. So if we're getting ready, let's say you and I are going to take a car trip to San Francisco from here, and I'm going to say, okay, so I guess you want to take the most direct route. because you hate wasting time. And you'll probably say, No, no, I want to go up the Pacific Coast Highway because in this beautiful stretch of country, I realize it's going to be a waste of time if we go up the Pacific Coast because we have to jump off it at some point. moment.

But I really want to see the scenery, I have... I've guessed what you want and you're going to come back real quick and correct me. And then maybe I'm thinking about the travel time, but I've forgotten how nice it is to ride along the coast. So when you dismiss that, I'll say, oh yeah, it's a beautiful trip and we may not get another chance. Who knows what he will know now that we are talking. I prefer to run the Pacific Coast Highway before going inland and making the trip. And that's how we come to collaborate to get a better result, maybe a better idea than the one you had in mind in the first place.

Andrew Huberman: I love it because what you just described is a hypothesis test. Chris Voss: Yes. Andrew Huberman: It's the way scientists are trained. Many people don't know this, but in science we are taught not to ask questions, but to start with a question like how does the brain develop or something like that? And then you say a hypothesis and you test it, and then you find out if they're right or wrong. And that takes you through a series of decision trees and eventually you arrive at what you hope is a fundamental truth, and hopefully others get there too and you reach a consensus.

That's why I love the idea of ​​testing hypotheses. In fact, when you said to take the most direct route from where we are now in Los Angeles to San Francisco, I like to take the 101, not the 5. The 5 is faster. So I think about it right away, but I like it 101. First of all, there are a couple of really good taco and burger places along the way that I used to stop at with my bulldog. And yet, you also get to see the coast, which makes those extra two hours worth it. And so you are absolutely right that working with the decision tree does not necessarily mean assuming that the hypothesis is correct.

It sounds like you would equally agree that the hypothesis was wrong, because really what you're trying to do is just learn. And in learning, establish this collaboration. I love that. Chris Voss: A couple of things. First of all, when you talk about hypotheses, when my son Brandon was involved in a company, now he is on his own, but he used to always say, he tests the hypothesis. He always used that term. And even now, if we were talking about it and you just said you know some hot dog and hamburger places, I'd be like, "Oh my God, I didn't even know that." Yes, I want to check those places.

This is how you discover new things in a conversation. Andrew Huberman: I love it. And also, I'm sure people are noticing that you shouldn't say the word win-win when approaching any type of negotiation. What do you think it is about those little slogans that indicate a lack of authenticity or trustworthiness? Because you can imagine someone coming to you and saying, hey, Chris, let's do some collaboration for social media, for the podcast, and this will be beneficial for both of us. Now, I know I should never say that to you, but you can imagine someone really means that.

But to you, it sounds like it's a flag they're trying to stop. Chris Voss: It correlates very strongly with people who are definitely trying to slit your throat. And I have made them admit it frankly. Andrew Huberman: Incredible. Chris Voss: I've experienced it. If someone dismisses mutual benefit from the beginning, I'll say: okay, I think I know where this is going, but let me explore it. And they will say: Yes, this great opportunity for you is another sign. And we'll put you in a room with all these billionaires, and there will be all these opportunities for you if you just come in and talk, and we don't have a budget.

Andrew Huberman: Well, I've gotten it before. The world will work in your favor because it will work in my favor. Chris Voss: Right, exactly right. Andrew Huberman: I've been getting those offers a lot. Fascinating. For himOtherwise, what kind of openers do you think establish the best relationship and beneficial discovery of a topic? Chris Voss: Well, what I say correlates a lot with the people I want to do business with. If they discover something that they know is valuable to me and they just do it and offer it, from the beginning, without conditions. They found a way to leave me something that is valuable.

They did not approach me with their hands outstretched. They approached me with some kind of generosity. A friend of mine, Joe Polish, runs this organization called the Genius Network. Joe, he says, life gives to those who give it. Joe did me a lot of favors before I joined, he was trying to help me and sell my book, and he asked me to come and talk, and he emphasized my book on his podcast and in different conversations. And I finally paid the fee to join because he had done so much for me. There's not much Joe can ask of me right now because he's done so much for me that he gets a blanket.

More or less, yes, immediately. What do you want? What do you need? Because he is simply generous. And the generosity approach is universal. I see a lot of really successful people who lead with generosity. So if you get started, if you give me a five-star review of the book on Amazon, no strings attached or anything like that, that's a huge help for someone who wants to establish a long-term collaborative relationship. Andrew Huberman: When I first opened my lab in 2011, I had a technician at the time who had been a technician for many years. And there's this culture in science where people borrow things from labs and don't return them or break them.

They can be small things, like a small instrument or tweezers. But as a student or postdoc, these are the things you covet, like a really nice pair of forceps. It's like something great. If you drop them once, they are no longer useful, by the way. It's like you have to treat them with respect. Surgical instruments should be treated with respect. These are very nice instruments, and people used to come to our lab all the time and ask to borrow things from us, and he would always lend them. And I was like, what are you doing? But every time he went to borrow something, he said, don't borrow anything from anyone else, because then we're going to owe them something.

Now everyone owes us everything. And I said: you're increasing our budget by giving away these instruments. They come back with dented clamps and stuff. And he said, believe me, this is the way to do it. And I don't remember ever, quote-unquote, profiting from any of that. But he was absolutely right when I finally decided to move institutions. We had given away so much and asked for so little, perhaps nothing, that when you leave a place, there can usually be a bit of resentment. And the only thing we managed to do was regret that you were leaving.

If it had been me, I would have been in a kind of exchange of oh, we ask for things, we give things. It's a kind of neighborhood. I grew up in a neighborhood where you would borrow eggs or milk from your neighbor. Do you remember those days? I don't know if people do that anymore, but I think it fits well with what you're describing, that when you just do things for people out of kindness, then, of course, you have a kind of history that you could go back to. That's what they owe you. But there is also something good about doing things out of kindness and not asking so much and expecting people to provide it.

I love that and I love giving good reviews on things I like over the phone. When the airline no longer does this, we book our own flights. But every time I get help on the phone and if it's really helpful, I say, how can I help? And they'll say, oh, it would mean a lot if you sent an email to my company just saying I did a great job or something. And I really enjoy doing that a lot. I love the points you make because they are very practical. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm thrilled that you're sponsoring the podcast.

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For all these reasons, whenever they ask me if you could take just one supplement, what would it be? I answer AG1. If you want to try AG1, visit Drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They will give you 5 travel packs plus an annual supply of vitamin D3 K2. Again, that's Drinkag1.com/huberman. Moving on a bit, let's call them high-friction negotiations or the types of negotiations where there is a chance of a really bad outcome. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: I know you've been asked this before, but some of our listeners will be learning about you for the first time.

Do you remember from the many negotiations that you did while you were in the FBI, any particular negotiations that you felt like, if this didn't work out, it would be really catastrophic? And would you be willing to share that with? Chris Voss: I learned, you know, they try to teach us from the beginning that not everything is going to turn out well. And the second negotiation I had in the Philippines, the first one, a young man named Jeff Schilling, was kidnapped by the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, and he ended up walking away because we stopped the bad guys long enough so that sometimes we can stop him.

You wait for something good to fall from the sky and it will happen. And that ended up happening in that case. And one bad guy ends up calling the negotiator I trained on the phone after he broke up to basically tell him they still had a good relationship. It was crazy. Why does a bad guy call the negotiator that he was responsible for you losing everything and he knows that you did a good job? What exactly happened? So we found ourselves on a case and there had been nothing wrong at the time. The next case, a Burnham-Sobero case from a different faction of the terrorist group, 13 months later ends with two of the three remaining hostages shot to death by friendly fire along the way.

The hostages had been executed. An American had been executed early on, and it was a train wreck, and a lot of people died along the way, and really ridiculous, bad things happened. And that was bad all the time. So I learned a lot from it, we went back and checked everything we did, and we didn't do anything wrong that we thought based on our strategy, we didn't miss anything. And that's why I ended up collaborating with the guys at Harvard, because my reaction was, if we did everything we know how to do and it wasn't enough, that means we're not smart enough, we have to improve. .

And that case taught me a lot about the dynamics that really happen on the other side and the difference between whether people are really on your side or not. The US government was not very collaborative. The Philippine government was not very collaborative. Everyone wanted to get their pound of flesh on the other side. I mean, as bad as you can imagine. In the beginning, when Guillermo Sobero was killed by Abu Sayyaf, it was a national holiday in the Philippines, and the bad guys had a history of killing people on national holidays, and we weren't from the Philippines, and we had no idea. that that day was a national holiday.

And we showed up at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Manila, and it was closed. Now I have a hostage case going on with bad guys threatening to kill the hostages. And we show up at the doors, and the doors are closed, and we're like, what the hell is going on here? Well, it's a national holiday. Nobody works today. First of all, no one told us that. Secondly, I don't think the bad guys really care that it's a national holiday and no one is working. Our negotiator is nowhere to be found. We got a guy there whose previous negotiator we worked with, the Philippine National Police, wasn't too happy that they didn't have him under full control.

So they give us a guy who won't tell us anything until he's told him. So he's having conversations with the bad guys and we actually hear about him secondhand. He didn't show up that day. And of course, that day, the bad guys announced that they were going to kill a hostage and give him as a gift to the country of the Philippines because it is a holiday. And they say, by the way, they like to do this on holidays. And Guillermo Sobero ended up beheaded. Because all the warring factions on our side of the table aren't telling each other what the hell is going on.

So I had assumed at the time that people would tell us the things we needed to know, we didn't need to ask. And after that, I thought, look, there's nothing here that I don't need to know. If it's a holiday, it comes around and you assume I know you have to tell us. So, I really learned a lot about collaboration on our side of the table and also the lack of collaboration on the other side of the table. Just because we're a mess doesn't mean they got their act together and the bad guys didn't get their act together.

And finally the hostages, one of the reasons why someone didn't get out, because internally they had betrayed each other. So I learned a lot about what the really fundamental dynamics of human nature are in teams, and your team hasn't gotten its act together, and neither has the other team. So what can you do as a communicator to compensate for that? I really learned a lot about it in that case. I had cases after the one involving Al Qaeda, when Al Qaeda was killing people on a regular basis. But we saw them coming and did everything we could to keep the train from hitting us.

You see a train coming down the tracks, you know it's coming down the tracks, and you do your best to derail it, and sometimes you can't. Andrew Huberman: I've heard it said that when people take someone captive they want his money, his body, or his life, or some combination of both. Chris Voss: Yeah, it's probably one of those three. Yes, that's so true. Andrew Huberman: And as a negotiator trying to rescue the hostage, is it important to identify from the beginning which of those three or which of those three are looking for, like, how serious are they?

Are they really willing to kill the hostage? Will they accept any amount of money over X amount of dollars, trying to figure out their threshold? Good. Because the person on the other side is betting. Good. They're risking their freedom, they're risking their reputation with whoever cares about his reputation. Is it important to quickly get into the mindset of the person you are negotiating with using the hypothesis generation method? And if so, could you give an example of how that played out in your previous work? Chris Voss: Yes, the indicators are really there. Once you lose illusions about how you think things should develop, the patterns of behavior are usually pretty quick and clear.

And just because you don't like patterns, like Al-Qaeda, we recognize them, and knowing what they are doesn't mean you can change them. And Al-Qaeda in the 2004 period was very clear about killing people on deadline, and we had to recognize that. So it becomes a pattern of behavior, and it's usually specificity in what they say. And all this is human nature. For example, if you're in a business negotiation and they say, we're going to do something horrible here, we're leaving, that's pretty nonspecific. And if they say, look, if we don't get this done by this specific deadline, if we don't get these specific things done by this specific time, that's pretty specific.

It's specificity. You are looking for it. I learned to look for it in kidnapping negotiations. We are working on a case again in the Philippines, and the bad guys say that if we don't get a ransom for the son, a boy who is 17 years old at the time is kidnapped, you tell his father that he is going to lose an egg. . And that's a euphemism for losing a child. And at first, when that threat came from our side of the table, everyone was like, oh my God, they're going to kill him. This is really bad. We have to make sure the family can pay the ransom.

I say no. They didn't say when it was going to happen. They didn't say how it was going to happen. They didn't say who was going to do it. The basic specificity of who, what, when and where. They stayed out here, very free. We never said we were going to do it. We never said when it was going to happen. We never said which child. They're just trying to scare you. They are throwing something vague. I said we have a lot of time to play with this. We have to push this throughout the process until the end.

Now, later in that case, when the family tried to deliver a ransom and God knows who screwed it up, the bad guys got back on the phone and said, if you don't pay us tomorrow, your son dies. And I said, okay, that's specific. And it looks like these guys mean it. So we're going to have to make sure this is fixed tomorrow or it will be the end of this child. And at that time we allowed it to the family, whether we were in a position to allow it or not. We were in a position to offer ideas.

And our thoughts were, they are serious now and we have to do something now, or probably something bad is going to happen. And now that they are so serious, you always have to worry about what we used to call a double dip. They takethe money and they come back and say no, it was a down payment? That was not the rescue. That was just a down payment. You have to make sure that you won't be harmed by letting the family pay, and you have to give them your honest opinion about whether or not they will let the hostage go if you pay now.

And our thoughts were: you will pay them tomorrow. Your son is coming out. And he did.Andrew Huberman: It's terrifying to hear about the double dip at a much lower level, that is, at a lower level. Sometimes people are extorted online, such as having their password taken away. There are people everywhere who click "click this link" and they will receive a text message. We have identified that your account has been modified. Verify yourself. Click the link, it will take you somewhere where you will enter your username and password, and boom, you're gone. And then they try to sell it to you again, usually through cryptocurrency, because it's not traceable.

Chris Voss: By the way, those negotiations can be a lot of fun if you let them. Andrew Huberman: Well, I hope our discussion about this now saves some people the trouble of having their accounts hacked. I've known people who have had their accounts hacked, and these are some smart people. But the interesting thing is that I've also observed those situations where someone gets to the point where they say, you know, I'm just going to give them what they want. And I remember in this particular case I said, no, don't give them the money, because then they'll just say they want more.

There is no guarantee that you will get back what you want. And why would they do it? If you think about it, why would they do it? The money is funneled in and they can just pivot and go to the next thing. So how do you gain confidence in whether you are likely to suffer a double dip or not? Chris Voss: Well, first of all, I have to find out if they are in a position to carry out the threat, or if they are in any kind of legitimate position to begin with. For lack of a better term, it is proof of life.

And there are many people who have tried to scam you, but they don't really have the ability to scam you. So you have to find out and make some confirmation. Do they have access to your account? Do they have your data? They have your money. Do they have you in a position or are they just trying to make you believe that they have that position of influence over you? There are a lot of bad guys who are just rolling a dice, asking for dollars, so to speak. And if they don't scam you when they have no influence over you, they will find someone else who will give in.

So there is a bit of authenticity, or are they in a position to do that? And the same rule applies in any negotiation. The other side will give in when he feels he has achieved all he can. Kidnappers. An ambassador and an FBI commander would ask me: when will this end? When the bad guys feel that they have achieved everything they could, not when they did it, but when they felt they did it. So our job is simply to make them feel it sooner. So how

hard

do you make it? Innocently on the other side? Everyone wants to feel like they received a good paycheck for a good day's work.

So, if you let them feel like they are in charge and make them work by innocently asking them how and what questions, which are very difficult and exhausting to answer, then you will get to the point you are heading to. to get a solid result where they don't fall twice and they will be happy it's over because they felt like they got everything they could. It could be your details, it could be your bank account, it could be anything. The other party will be satisfied with the result when they feel that they have worked to achieve it.

And in business negotiations, you're selling your car and you put a price tag on it, and the guy comes up to you and says, I'll give you the full amount right now. What is your reaction? I should have ordered more. Maybe I won't sell my car. In every human interaction, the other party wants to feel like they earned what they got. So the idea of ​​empathy and hostage negotiations is really just to make them feel that before. Andrew Huberman: We'll come back to empathy because it's a very big and important topic. But I've heard it said before that if someone you don't know, but maybe also someone you know, puts a real sense of urgency into needing the money now, or I need you to do something right away, or else, not a threat of violence physical, but that any request to speed something up is a red flag, which is probably a scam.

Very rarely it is necessary to click on the link within 24 hours. Good? I mean, how could that be possible? Good? But that's one way people are exploited: having some request come by phone, or by email, or by text, or maybe even in person. Someone says, you have to do this right now or something bad is going to happen, it will capture people's sense of urgency, make them make a mistake and then they will be left reeling. Because that request for something right now or else, I think, strikes a chord with us. Chris Voss: Wanting to help, being a savior.

Andrew Huberman: Right. So is this a good rule of thumb to keep in mind? Chris Voss: I think that's a great rule of thumb. I mean, a friend of mine, someone got his phone number not long ago, and I was getting text messages from his number. It sounds like, look, man, I have some real problems. Look, I need some money from you now. It was a friend, a friend's number. And I remember when I first saw him, in fact, when I first saw him, he was very busy and I felt bad that I hadn't gotten back to him that day.

And then I didn't hear from him again. So I thought, well, whatever it was, he figured it out. A couple of weeks later, I get the message again: You have a real problem. You have to call me again right now. So I decide that if he really is my friend, I'm going to help him right now. I have to make sure he really is my friend. I told him, hey, man, you didn't mention this at all the last time I saw you in Vegas. Because I had seen him in Las Vegas recently. And he, you know, was busy.

I couldn't mention it. And then I think, okay, so there's no direct confirmation or denial. We had breakfast together in Las Vegas. So I responded, I said, and, man, I gotta tell you something. It was a crazy night and I still owe you money from then on. So that night when we were playing, I still owe you money. I'm happy to help. Now, it wasn't a crazy night. It was breakfast and he didn't owe money. And his next response was: yeah, don't worry about it. You can make it up to me with this. So I said, okay, great.

So now I start making things up. And I said, and when we were with those strippers and that dog and the clown and the pony, I'll never get over it. And now the boy, what are you talking about? And I said, by the way. And then I started saying some things about his wife and his mom, and the guy got insulted, insulted me, and stopped texting me. And then I sent all those text messages to the real guy, including what he had said about his mother, and he texted me back. He has a great sense of humor.

He says, by the way, my mom thinks you're attractive. Andrew Huberman: Oh, man. Chris Voss: But I started everything by just checking the source. If he was my friend, he would have helped him immediately. And I need to throw something at him that confirms that it's him and that I'm there for him. But I'm also going to put a little curveball in there that if he doesn't get it, I know it's a scam, and then I'll have fun with it. Andrew Huberman: It's amazing to know that people will hear this and think, oh, that's never going to happen to me.

But like I said, I knew family and friends who made the mistake, took the bait by clicking the link and are now getting the extortion. In fact, a good friend of mine said that her parents called at some point. Her parents are probably in their 70s now. Someone had called her house and told them that her daughter, this woman, had been kidnapped and that they needed to send money. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: And that if they called the police, they would kill her or harm her in some way. Then they started sending her money and were afraid to contact her.

And you can see what a predicament a loving father would be in. They obviously don't want their son hurt and are obviously willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Turns out it was a total scam, right? Because finally there was communication that made them realize that her daughter was perfectly fine and she didn't even interact with the kidnappers. So those types of scams happen quite frequently. Chris Voss: The same thing happened to a friend too. Andrew Huberman: Yes. So the sense of urgency should have been the first flag. Chris Voss: That's a great point.

Yes absolutely. And look, even if they have your loved one, the secondary question is that if you do what they want, will they let them go? Which is actually a legitimate question, like do bad guys really exist. One of the things we learned in hostage negotiation that applied to business negotiation is that there are legitimate questions that are okay to ask. You are not being disrespectful, you are not rejecting. It's fair to use the F bomb. Fair, legitimate questions to ask under any circumstances, which are basically, if I comply, will it work the way you're articulating it?

Anything that adds communication, that gives you more information to figure out what the end result will be like. Even in kidnappings, how do you know that if you pay they will let them go? That's a legitimate question. Andrew Huberman: There are examples between the hacking of his Instagram account, the hacking of his bank account and, God forbid, the kidnapping of his son, for example. There is a whole practice within the legal profession of investigating to see if someone is going to give up their money to avoid a lawsuit, for example. In fact, a lawyer friend of mine recently described his work very well.

He said, in his words, in the first person, he said, I scare people for money. The key word is to scare people. Chris Voss: And that's being honest. Andrew Huberman: Yeah, he's being very honest. He scares people for money and he's very good at it. And understand how other people scare people for money. And he works on both sides of the plaintiff in defense type situations. But he made me realize that much of the legal profession is wrong. The lawsuit slipped onto the table. It's, okay, this is what the lawsuit would look like. Here are all the statutes that were potentially violated, and then there's an investigation of what someone's finances are and how much they're willing to pay.

And do they have civil liability insurance? Do you have a general policy? All kinds of things that really are, it's not necessarily illegal extortion, but it's a test of whether or not it's worth the effort. Chris Voss: Diagnose the other party's ability to pay. Andrew Huberman: You're right. And that happens very often. I can give a specific example where someone had an incident at a dog park, where his dog allegedly bumped into someone, maybe attacked someone...dog park. There are people standing around and the person moved and apparently hurt his knee. But instead of suing the dog owner, what they usually do is serve a series of documents that say: I was hurt, your dog was responsible for this, and if you don't settle for X amount of dollars, Usually, They will sue us for an exorbitant amount greater than that amount.

And then there's this question that lawyers have to figure out, like, is it bloat? Chris Voss: Right? Andrew Huberman: Are you saying I'm going to sue him for $4 million? Is there any basis for that? And good lawyers will say that's an exaggeration. They're trying to scare you with a big number, but a lot of people see that number and say, Oh my God, what do they want? Did you know? I don't even know if they were hurt. If they were, it would be terrible. I would like that to be resolved. If my dog ​​is responsible, I would want them to take care of it.

But what do they need to make this go away? And that happens millions of times a day all over the country, and a good portion of it probably happens here in California, because that's how the legal system is set up. So this is not someone. He could be someone manipulating the law. He could also be someone who is completely honest about his experience of being hurt by someone else's dog. So under those conditions, I mean, it seems like the same set of rules apply. You want to know how serious they are. Do they have a case, so to speak?

That's the job of lawyers. But when evaluating how serious someone is, you said it's fair. You called it the F word. I like that. I'll never forget that, just ask a fair question: how much money do you think you deserve? Or would that be a good example of a very direct question? Or is it how likely is he to leave if we don't give him the money? Because I can imagine that there are all kinds of reasons why people would be dishonest when answering those questions. Chris Voss: Well, and then how much money do you think you deserve is a very good question.

Not necessarily what the answer is, but how they answer it. You'll get how quickly they respond and whether they stop to think about it or not. How and what questions are usually best to judge the other party's reaction? And the answer is secondary because the question how or what provokes what we would call deep thinking, slow thinking. Daniel Kahneman, behavioral economics, "Thinkingfast and slow." Slow thinking is deep thinking. You ask a how or what question to get the other party to think first and judge their reaction to how they think about it. And do they really think about it or do they fire back at you?

That It gives you a clearer idea of ​​who you're dealing with and where the outcome is going to go. How much money do you think you deserve if they immediately. Okay, so I have a blackmail artist on the other side. they stop to think about it and give you a thoughtful answer, that is a completely different person on the other side. First you are asking a question to diagnose how they respond, the answer is the second And sometimes, if there is a murderer on the other side. , I'm going to start peppering them with questions about how and what, just to tire them out.

That's passive aggression. If I have a vicious bully on the other side, I'm going to fall into passive-aggressive behavior to slow him down and wear him down. hostage negotiation, a guy named Gianni Picco, he was Gianni Domenico Picco, not Johnny like Johnny Rockets, the Italian Gianni. Gianni Domenico took all the Western hostages out of Beirut in the mid-1980s, wrote a book called "The Man Without a Weapon" and negotiated in person, face to face with Hezbollah. The only one who did that took everyone out. And in his book, he wrote, one of the great secrets of negotiation is learning to exhaust the other party.

And when you have a really dangerous opponent on the other side of the table, you don't go head to head. You don't argue, you're not combative. You wear them out, you exhaust them. And if you have someone really combative or ruthless on the other side, start peppering them with questions about how and what, because even thinking about the answer makes them tired, it's passive-aggressive, it's deferential, and it really works. Andrew Huberman: So if the person on the opposite side of a high-friction negotiation is aggressive, the goal is to slow things down, tire them out, and get them to just give in or reveal something.

That is a legal loophole. Chris Voss: Yeah, if I have to make the deal, then I'll wear them out. Andrew Huberman: I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and achieve your health goals. I am a firm believer in having regular blood tests for the simple reason that many of the factors that affect your immediate and long-term health can only be analyzed through a quality blood test. However, with many blood tests out there, you get information about blood lipids, hormones, etc., but you don't know what to do with that information.

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I'm interested in delving a little deeper into this process of wearing them down and the passive-aggressive way of reducing the aggressor's posture. And I want to highlight to people that what we're talking about here is not manipulation to extract something; In fact we are talking about the opposite. We're talking about a bad actor who is aggressive and tries to defang that bad actor. What does that process of wearing them down look or sound like? Could you give us a couple of examples of, let's say I'm the bad actor? We could play this game. I won't be very good at this.

And I say, look, I want X amount of dollars by this date or you're not going to get what you want, they're going to die or disappear. Is that simple? And kind of a barrier approach. What is the approach you take to wear that person down? Chris Voss: Well, they'll be mostly how and what questions. And they will be legitimate questions: how do I know you are going to comply? What does that look like? If I do what you want, how do I know you'll follow through? Andrew Huberman: Let's get them talking about the alternative. Well, then if it were like that.

Well, if you deliver before that date, I will definitely pass them on to you. For example, if they only get short answers where the person, again, takes this kind of rigid stone wall approach. Chris Voss: Yeah, well, there's a phrase we use all the time: vision drives decision. So if you're really going to deliver, if I give in and when I say, how do I know you're going to deliver? I'm not talking about the threat. I'm not trying to get you to clarify the threat. I'm trying to get you to clarify what the implementation is like.

So based on your reaction, I need to know if you plan to move forward. If I comply, you will already have it in your head or you will be open to it. The vision drives the decision. You have thought about it carefully beforehand. What would it be like to let the hostages go if you have no intention of ever freeing them? If I continue, then you won't be able to answer the question and you'll probably throw it back at me very quickly. And now I know, okay, so you have no plans to follow through. If I give in, you won't comply, but you still want the money.

Then I'm going to ask, well, how am I supposed to pay you if you have no plan to comply and if you're willing to have a conversation about what compliance looks like? There was a kidnapping that my unit worked on right before I was in Venezuela, where they weren't entirely sure that the bad guys were going to... the FARC, I think, had the hostage. They agreed on an exchange point to let the hostage go. That was some distance from where they had a pretty good idea they were holding the hostage. So they thought they wouldn't drag the hostage to this river crossing if they wouldn't let them go.

It's simply too much effort. And then it was one of the few times that there was going to be, theoretically, a simultaneous exchange, but they would have to send the money across the river before they released the hostage. So if we accept this, okay, then they won't drag this guy to this river crossing if they don't plan on letting him go. And if it's a long way to drag him and they got the money from him, do you want to drag them back? Even if they are ambivalent, once they get there, if they have made every effort to get to the meeting place and the hostage is there, we have now increased the chances significantly.

They're going to go ahead and comply because it's a pain in the ass to have to do it again. This is all a matter of human nature, investment in human nature. How do you get them to engage in actions, behaviors, and then verbal commitments that really mean something to them? When I worked on kidnappings, the last thing we always asked the family for the bad guys to say at the end, not first, but at the end, was that we would actually get a verbal promise to let them go again at the end. because we've been talking to them long enough.

At this point, we have a pretty good idea of ​​what they sound like when they lie and what they sound like when they tell the truth. If someone tells the truth, he tends to tell the truth in the same way every time. If they tell the truth, you talk to someone long enough and you get a clue as to: do they ever tell the truth? And if they do, what does it sound like? People lie in 20 ways. They tell the truth in a way. So we've been training in negotiations with kidnappers long enough to know how they talk when they tell the truth.

So when they ask you at the end if we pay, do you promise to let them go? It's not that they responded, but how they responded, and that will be the ultimate seal of the deal. How do you continually stack the odds in your favor for implementation? Andrew Huberman: Do you have a body sensor, like somatic, for lying? The reason I ask is that years ago I had the experience of meeting someone and they turned out to be an overall good person. But I felt from the beginning that something was wrong. I couldn't relax with them.

I just couldn't relax with them. And I couldn't tell you why, but it was like I couldn't even identify his neuroanatomy. You could say it was the vagus nerve or something, but I teach neuroanatomy and I can't point to a pathway in the body. There was something about my autonomic response that started to increase when I was around them, like, something's wrong, something's wrong, something else. And I kid you not, five years later, five years later, I discovered a series of lies that, all together, actually made no sense in the total context of things. But I remember thinking at the time, oh my God, my system knew this.

And despite all my knowledge of neuroscience, to this day I can't tell you what was in my biology, but it had something to do with my bodily response. It wasn't just a thought like that doesn't add up, or I feel like I'm going in circles. It was a physical sensation. Are you familiar with that experience? Chris Voss: Yes. Well, it's kind of what you and your colleagues are still discovering: the science behind the gut. And what we're really teaching my company now is we're teaching people to learn the difference between their gut and their amygdala, for lack of a better term, their fear centers, and know which is which.

And listen to your instinct. Your instinct is ridiculously accurate. Now, where does that information come from? I was listening to one of your podcasts recently. We were talking about olfactory cues, right? The smells are similar. I never thought about that. Of course. What was the term for the molecules you are postponing? Andrew Huberman: Pheromones. Chris Voss: Pheromones are going to be eliminated, of course. And that's why some of the great researchers I met would say, "I can smell it." I can smell it. So what feeds your gut and what are the senses that science hasn't discovered yet?

You can't make me believe, I will never believe, that the life force stops at the surface of our skin, that there is energy and that we can capture it. I mean, our gut is fed by all these different inputs that we're aware of or aren't aware of yet. The tone of voice does not match his words. The tilt of the head. You have a supercomputer in your brain. Your instinct is amazing if you listen to it instead of your fear centers. And as soon as you start listening to your instincts, you can't explain it at the time, but you have a bad feeling.

And later, you saw it all come together, where your brain was picking up on these signals, your brain probably, when you're in their presence, there has to be a smell. Someone emits when they intentionally deceive. You didn't know it was a smell and maybe you couldn't have consciously smelled it, but you're still picking up on it. Long answer to I'm a big believer in the gut. I think there is science we know and yet to discover that tells us that instinct is ridiculously accurate if we listen to it instead of our fear centers. Andrew Huberman: I completely agree that there are energetic exchanges that neuroscience cannot yet explain.

I mean, the field of neuroscience is starting to explore some of these things. There are basically three main journals, the most competitive to publish: Science, Nature and Cell. And I only mention that because there were a series of articles written in Science magazine about magnetoreception in humans. The idea that humans can detect magnetic fields sounds crazy, right? Turtles can detect magnetic fields. They migrate across them, really long distances, but the idea is that humans can't do that. And yet, there are some well-controlled studies in which people have to guess the orientation of a magnetic field, and they do it better than chance.

Not everyone can do it, but some can do it better than chance in a way that cannot be predicted by anything other than some inherent form of magnetoreception in their nervous system. So there are capabilities of the nervous system that are starting to reveal themselves, for which we don't have much evidence, but there is enough evidence to suggest that these things are really happening. The other example, which you may find interesting, is a little more, a little less esoteric. But a couple of years ago a beautiful article was published in one of the Cell Press magazines that showed that when people listen to the same story, the distance between their heartbeats tends to be very similar.

Now, that doesn't mean that their exact heart rates are similar, but if you look at the distance between their heartbeats, they all follow the same rhythm, the same song. And get this, they're in completely separate rooms. The experiments are performed on completely separate days. And yet, if you were to align just the distance between the heartbeats, they would line up as a set of columns. Chris Voss: Wow. Andrew Huberman: For dozens of people hearing the same story. Clearly there is a passage of energy from the things we hear and see entering our nervous system at a level that is below our conscious detection.

This is the last thing I will say about this. We have a series on mental health, not on mental illness, but on mental health, I think forbeing among the best psychiatrists in the world, Dr. Paul Conti, and he said, you know, we all think that the forebrain is the supercomputer. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: He said no, the subconscious is the supercomputer. That's where the real knowledge processing happens. That's the iceberg below the surface where all the real heavy lifting took place. And that people who learn to access the subconscious can learn to use that information in very meaningful ways.

And I think that's what you're describing. Chris Voss: He's been with you before, right? Andrew Huberman: You have to talk about trauma in particular. And he was also on Lex Fridman's podcast. The series we're doing with him isn't about trauma per se. It's really about the subconscious and the self. I think you will find this series really interesting and it has a series of very practical questions that you can ask yourself about your subconscious and the type of work that the psychiatry process does. We're excited to release that series because I don't know of anything like it that's been released to the public.

But I was pleasantly surprised to hear him say: We've all heard that the forebrain is the supercomputer. It's what drove our evolution. He says, no, it's the subconscious. That is where our true wisdom lies. And the forebrain is just the implementing device. Chris Voss: How can we convince ourselves that we are in charge. Good? Andrew Huberman: Yeah. I mean, I can't think of a time when my gut told me A, and it turned out to be B. Most of the time, though, I've suppressed my gut response. I override it, thinking, I think I made the mistake that you train your negotiators to avoid, and I thought, well, this is making me anxious and the anxiety must be like me, this must be my fault, or me.

I can't calm down in this situation, I don't sleep well, etc. And therefore this must represent some deficiency on my part. And God knows, as your shirt indicates, I am a very flawed person. I have many defects. I always say that I have 3,000 things that bother me and at least the same number of flaws to equal those things that bother me, a one-to-one ratio, at least. But the thing is, I think our bodies really know this. They know. Chris Voss: Yes, I agree. Andrew Huberman: So when you're negotiating and you hear someone's voice on the phone, there are a lot of signals.

When you are face to face, there are additional cues. There's his face. And then, of course, if the negotiations are done via text messages through a computer or phone. It is a very diminished environment for information. So maybe we could talk about each of them, because we live in those landscapes. If we are face to face and we negotiate, you are listening, of course, to what I want, what I insist on. You are working on that process from your side. What are you paying attention to visually? Chris Voss: What's more, are things aligned? There are simple facts, the words, the way it is said and the way people look and how they weigh themselves and how they develop.

There is a very unscientific ratio of 7% words, 38% expression and 55% body language. People want to argue about this all the time, whether it's true or not. As a general rule, we discard it. But I tell people that the most important question is: do you stand in line? So I'm not going to look for when you raise your eyebrow or when you look to the left. I'm really going to try to get an intuition about whether I think these things are aligned or not, whether they're aligned or not. And then I'm going to be very careful about the meaning I assign to that.

Affective signals, changes in tone of voice, changes in movement. And that's one of the reasons we don't teach how to read people's body language, because it's completely contextual to you and the moment. So if I convince myself that raising an eyebrow means this, it's out of context. I was once in a negotiation where I threw a figure at someone, and I saw them look to the side, look back, and accept my offer. And I made the mistake of not telling them the appropriate thing for me would have been to say at that moment, it seems like something crossed your mind, because the only completely true observation, if you looked to the side and looked back, something crossed your mind. .

Now, I read it at the time saying they had more money, and later I found out that was wrong. They were pushed to the limit. The hesitant look didn't mean they were holding things back, but I misread it and didn't bother checking the affective cue I saw. So what am I babbling about? What I'm babbling about is whether we're in a negotiation and whether or not I'm listening to your tone of voice or observing your body language or your words. If I see you change, I need to pay attention that there was a change in your affected behavior, but I need to figure out what's behind it rather than making an assumption about what it means.

So, yeah, I'm going to observe, I'm going to have my intuition and I'm going to say, it sounds like there's some hesitation, or it sounds like something just crossed your mind, or even if I can. If I don't attribute it to a specific affective movement, I could say that there seems to be something in the way here. That's me listening to my instincts. I'll make an observation about whatever it might be, just to get back on the ground a bit and double-check. Because the other thing about negotiating in person is that you're going to physically give me more information than I can actually process.

And if you say something thought-provoking, I'll stop and think about it. And as I stop and think about what you just said, I miss all your signs. So all the skills that we teach, the labels, the mirrors, the open-ended questions, that feel like we're going back and plowing the soil again, we're doing it. Because I didn't collect all the information the first time, there's simply more than I can get. So I need to go over it a couple of times with you, to get it right, without you feeling interrogated, so that you really feel heard and can go over it again.

So it becomes what appears to be an inefficient process, but in reality it's me just verifying my information. So if we're face to face, I'll ask you to repeat, but I won't say, could you please repeat that? I'm going to get you to repeat without asking you to repeat. Andrew Huberman: Is the same true in online or text communications? Chris Voss: The same is true. The problem with the Internet and texting is that people try to lump everything into one communication. The best analogy I can think of is that if you were playing chess via text, would you put seven moves in your text?

No, you would just make a move. So just try to get a point across in a text. Don't explain, don't throw a bunch of stuff in text messages or emails. They are almost always too long and will be cold. So do what you can to smooth it out. A documentary has been made about my company called "Tactical Empathy." Nick Nanton won 22, 23 Emmy Awards. The filmmaker, DNA films. It was finished last year. He hasn't come out yet. For various reasons, we have not published it. So we screened it in Las Vegas last year. I see it. I love it.

I'm not a good judge of a movie about me. I'm going to love it no matter what. It's about me. But that night I tell Nick, "Oh, man, I love it." This is great. Two days later I find out. I realize there is a big problem. I already told him it's fine. I'll text him and then call him and we have to fix it now. It's a text message from Sunday. I sent him a two-line text message. Is now a bad time to talk? I have something you don't want to hear. Two lines. Now. What were my other options?

I could have called him. Nick and I have a great relationship. I called him. If he is in a position to pick up the phone. It doesn't matter what he's doing. He's going to answer the phone. He was in the middle of a Zoom call. If he had called, he would have answered during the Zoom call and both conversations would have been bad. He immediately answers me: I'm in the middle of a Zoom call. I'll call you in half an hour. He already knows that he's not going to like what he's going to hear. I'm preparing you for bad news.

Call him on the phone and say, "Look, I know what I said." We have a problem. We have to get Derek in front of the camera. Derek is a guy on my team. I'm surprised I didn't make it part of the documentary. This will be incomplete without Derek. We have to film Derek. We can't show this to anyone else until we film it and are a part of it right away. You are in problem solving mode. He says, okay, I have to get Derek a team or get Derek on a team. I need to know when we can do it.

We have another screening of the films scheduled in Los Angeles in less than a month. He says I have to put Derek in front of the camera and edit it. And it will take three weeks of editing. I said, I'll give you access to Derek's camera. He goes, ready. Or Derek's calendar. He says, done. It's done. We went through this entire conversation in less than ten minutes. Now think about normal negotiation. Hi Nick, how are you? What is happening now? You are in a good mood? Hey, how are the kids doing? All this talk wasting our time?

If he had set that up too, he could have legitimately said, Are you crazy? We've been working on this for a year. You didn't mention this in a year. Not only that, you already told me two days ago at the presentation in Las Vegas that you loved it. And now, a year and a half into this project, you're raising all these new problems. That would have been the normal negotiation. But because we have a highly collaborative relationship, I... two-line text, we're done in ten minutes. Now, since Nick is a very generous guy, when I finish and say, by the way, do you understand how much this is going to cost me?

It's three weeks of editing. It's three hours of filming and three weeks of editing. I'm going, yes. He goes, but I'm happy to do it. He calls him again the next day. He has a favor to ask of me. You understood it. No matter what it is. Because we had gone through what would have been a very complicated negotiation that started with a text, and I sent him a two-line text on a Sunday, and we worked it out quickly. Andrew Huberman: So if I understand you correctly, setting the context in a very direct and concise way, right.

He goes into this in problem solving mode with you. While if you take a tour of all the things that are going well in life. Chris Voss: Yes. Andrew Huberman: We'll keep this PG. The mud sandwich approach. They teach you that when you have a lab, most scientists don't have the skills to run a business, right? You have a lab, all you've done is experiments, and suddenly you're in charge of the people who manage the budgets and all that. Most scientists, 99% of scientists, are not fully qualified to do the job they do at the level of running a laboratory.

When they start, you learn it on the job and eventually you end up having to let someone go. So the typical thing they teach you in these online trainings is that you tell someone something good, then you give them the bad news, and then you tell them something good on the way out. Good? That's kind of a mud sandwich, so to speak. This is not that. What you're talking about is saying, hey, this is the problem. You're not going to like the problem, or there is a problem, you're not going to like it. So they come in with the context of solving a problem rather than giving you a tour of all the things that are going right, and then the problem really contrasts with that.

And then it's like, what I love about what you're describing is that it's direct and honest. You won't do the garden tour before taking them to the septic tank. Chris Voss: It's what I would call the difference between being blunt and blunt. A Frank tells you the truth. They just tell it in a way that sounds soft. Andrew Huberman: Let's talk about breakups, business breakups, romantic breakups. Chris Voss: Right. You're breaking up with me? Andrew Huberman: No, but thanks for the hypothesis testing. No, in fact, I'm enjoying this conversation as much as ever. I am learning a lot from you and, if anything, I would like to expand and deepen our relationship.

Chris, there. You gained a lot of knowledge from me. Platonic and professional, but expansive. What is the process to end a relationship? And again, this could be a romantic relationship, it could be a business relationship, it could be an employer, it could be an employee, it could be individuals. You could tell it to an entire group or tell it to an entire group by telling it to an individual. The reason I raised this as a particular example is that I assume both sides don't want the same thing. One side wants to continue, the other wants it to end.

Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: I'll avoid using the word win-win, or the words win-win, excuse me and just ask, is there a way to have that conversation in any of the contexts that I just mentioned, like you? Did you describe it so beautifully, so directly? When it's direct, it's honest, but it lands softly, because what we're talking about here is feelings of rejection, and no one likes to feel rejected. I don't know anyone who likes being fired, even from jobs they don't like, people's egos suffer. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: So is there maybe a more specific way to ask?

TheThe question is: is there any way to encourage the person receiving the bad news to put their ego aside and see that if both parties don't want it, it's best for everyone involved? Chris Voss: I almost want to say no. But first, what are the caveats? Most of the time when people struggle with this, they're not trying to save the other side, they're trying to save themselves. So who are you really trying to save by putting it off, watering it down, trying to act like it's something it's not? I don't know anyone who's ever been fired who didn't have a feeling it was going to happen.

The person who was preparing to see them off opens up by saying: how are you? They know what the other person is like, and a person preparing to be fired has the instinct to know that things are going wrong. As you said, the gut is very powerful, so you want to lower your arm as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can. I was involved in a church-affiliated nonprofit several years ago, and we are struggling with whether or not to let the executive director go. I go to the minister of the church, Norman Vincent Peale's protégé, a guy named Arthur Caliandro, one of the best human beings I have ever met in my life.

Phenomenal boy. And I'm struggling with. I thought that firing and letting this woman go was going to be bad, and I thought Arthur was going to advise me on a way out. And he looked at me and he... There he is. There is no gentle way to cut off someone's head. And I thought, yes, the human thing here is, how can it be concluded as quickly as possible? Because there is no humane way to cut off someone's head. There is no humane way to end the relationship. Now, what are the caveats? Perhaps there is a first warning.

If you're going to fire someone, never fire anyone on a Friday. Fire them on a Monday. Fire them on a Monday. They had a work week to get ahead. You fire them on a Friday, they have a weekend to feel miserable and horrible, and there's nothing they can do about it. Caught off guard or not, they can bounce back on a Monday. They can start looking for a new job. Does not matter who you are. Fire them on a Friday. They can't start looking for a new job on a Saturday. It's two days of misery. So, yes, if you're going to fire someone, fire them on a Monday, not a Friday.

If you have bad news to give someone, let them know it's coming. People are ridiculously resistant to pain. If they warn you and then you lower the boom. You're not going to like what I have to say. It's going to be heartbreaking. You're going to hate me. Don't hesitate more than 3 seconds. They raised their guard. Let them have the bad news. That's the human way to cut off someone's head. Do not be late. Don't make them think that. How are the kids? How are you? I care about you. You're a great human being. None of the things from the beginning.

Warn them that bad news is coming and hit them with the bad news. Remove the band-aid. Pain is not. If you try to rip off the band-aid. Slowly. That's unbearable. You're trying to save yourself. So if you have to end a relationship, regardless of what it is, the quicker you do it, the less painful it will be and the quicker people can move on. Stop trying to save yourself. Realize how human beings handle pain. If anything, human beings are incredibly resilient if they are first given the opportunity to prepare. Andrew Huberman: I agree. Thanks for that.

There's a concept that a lot of people haven't heard of, and I'm confident I can say it because I hadn't heard of it until recently, despite spending a lot of time reading literature on dopamine and motivation. And it's a psychology term that's being used a little more now. And it is the exhaustion of the ego. Yes, it's an interesting concept and one I've wanted to tell you about for a while, but I saved it for our discussion today. It turns out that ego depletion is a lot like decision fatigue. We've all heard about Steve Jobs. He wore a black turtleneck every day because he didn't have to make that decision, so he had more energy to make other decisions.

I've been accused of doing the same thing for my black long sleeve shirts, but there's another reason for that that some people may know. But anyway, it doesn't matter right now, but ego depletion is a little different than decision fatigue or decision budgeting. The idea of ​​ego depletion is quite simple. The dopamine molecule does many things in the brain. But one of the things it really does is it forces us into goal-directed behavior that is associated with our sense of self. I want to achieve this. I want to get to that. And the whole notion of ego depletion involves the idea, and this has been a data-backed observation, that when people have to fight to be right or defend their position over a period of time, eventually that depletes.

And it appears to be, at least in part, mediated by dopamine, because defending one's position requires work. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: Earlier, you talked about running someone over, wearing them down. And I'm wondering, as I just laid this concept out for you, coldly here, whether or not that reminds you of some example in your work where you felt like, okay, this person might really hold on, but if I keep pushing, they would eventually bow down. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: And it's different from the kind of fatigue that comes from a conversation that starts at 3 in the afternoon and ends at 2:30 in the morning.

We have all been there. I've been in those conversations. They are generally not very nice. And at 3 in the morning, the whole world is falling apart. I've learned over the years, you cut it off at 9:30 and try to change. Good. One of the worst pieces of advice I've ever heard is that you should never go to sleep angry. It's like, no, really sleep, wake up, and then come back to the problem if the situation allows. That's my belief, anyway. Yes. Trying to stay up all night trying to figure something out is simply counterbiology. Then ego depletion.

I get the feeling that a lot of what you did in your profession was reduce their dopamine to the point that they operate from a different place where they're not defending the ego, they're actually thinking more practically about the whole situation. . Does it have any kind of texture of meaning to you? Chris Voss: Yeah, no, I would agree and make the distinction. First of all, in hostage negotiation there are two types of hostage taking. If there is a lawsuit and there will be contents and non-contents, which is just a literal definition, contents are the bad guys in a bank, like at the Chase Bank in Brooklyn a long time ago, when you had them surrounded, they can't escape. and without containment it is a kidnapping.

You don't know where they are. Uncontainable and unknown location. We're going to try to get our way in a contained situation, probably by depleting the ego, exhausting them, getting to the point where they're just going to give in because they're tired, because they're going to come. Outside, we're going to put handcuffs on them, which means that if the ego gets recharged, they're going to come back and think about the deal. So wearing someone down in a business negotiation is basically unstoppable because even if an agreement is reached, there is a whole implementation phase. Did you get the deal because you wore them down?

Because they get tired, because they simply gave in. At some point, they will recharge and reload while you are on deployment. Then either they will not follow the terms of the agreement or, at the slightest opportunity, they will deviate. I think ego depletion is a real thing and is a bad way to get a business deal that lasts. Andrew Huberman: Because they rest and then come back as different people. Chris Voss: Yes, they will recharge, their ego will recharge. And if you got the deal based on the depletion of his ego, that battery will be recharged.

Whether it's a business deal or a personal negotiation, you have a disagreement with your partner and you follow that bad advice. Don't go to bed angry. And then you stay up until three in the morning and you think you've come to a resolution. Everyone sleeps well the next day. They feel completely different about what they said the night before. Andrew Huberman: Yeah, you may have heard of that once or twice. Chris Voss: I saw it in a movie, right? Andrew Huberman: Yeah, I saw it in a movie. A friend explained this situation to me before. You mentioned approaching a conversation in a playful way.

Chris Voss: Right? Andrew Huberman: Okay, this could even be life or death, but let's play this like a game, because you can see more opportunities. We now know that when we are relaxed, we see the big picture. When we are tense, everything narrows. Tunnel vision. Tunnel vision, tunnel thinking, tunnel everything. We lose access to the full toolset. So you obviously take good care of yourself. You're fit, you're fit, you always seem calm. I'm sure you have your moments like anyone else. But what are some of the things that good negotiators do all the time? So that when the doorbell rings and you have to answer you are ready?

And the reason I ask this is because we've been talking about negotiations in a kind of vacuum, as if they're happening, and then how do you handle one? But like any athlete, like any teacher, like any parent, like any child, everyone must be prepared for real-life circumstances. And we don't always get the warning. We didn't get the memo that this will happen in two weeks. And sometimes conversations about courtroom drama or the big day mean we get the warning. But most of the time, it's a phone call or a text message, and it comes and boom, it just hits us.

And suddenly we're in negotiations and we didn't have time to prepare, right? So maybe we could talk about preparation, and then we could talk about... Again, maybe this sounds trivial to you, but I'd like to know if you have any calming practices, what that's like what you've seen others do? People use it to be able to reach the moment when they can show the best of themselves. Chris Voss: Yeah, well, preparation, practicing small bets to get high bet results. Every once in a while I find myself in the middle of a negotiation that I wasn't expecting if I've been throwing things regularly throughout the day.

Verbal observations, what we call labels, because the label seems like something has crossed your mind. There is a label in the middle of a negotiation, when I see you hesitate or look to the side, how do I prepare for that? I'm on my way here for this interview. I'm both talking to my Lyft driver the entire way, making him talk. Also be careful not to completely empty the gas tank so that I get tired when I get here. I talk to Lyft drivers regularly. The interactions, TSA guys at the airport, I'll throw a tag at you.

It seems like a

hard

day. Difficult day. You seem to be in a good mood, and whether it's good or bad, I'm going in. I'm trying to stay relaxed. I'm trying to keep my mental muscles agile, and this becomes a habit on a regular basis. Every once in a while I throw something out. Now I'm talking about Lyft drivers. If I'm in a bad mood... I hopped on a Lyft a couple of weeks ago on the way home. The Lyft driver is not useful. I mean, I'm leaving the airport. I'm struggling with my suitcases. Without lifting a finger;

It doesn't open the back. I had to open the back of the vehicle myself. I have to carry the suitcases, everything. I walk in and he's just seething with unhappiness. Now, I know if I say, what do you like about what you do for a living? It immediately triggered what Tony Robbins would call a state change. And I'm upset with this guy. And our pheromones are combative, but I think I just don't need this. And then I say, what do you like about driving for Lyft? This guy proceeds to unload on me, on all of his personal struggles, that I feel like a complete idiot for being mad at him, for everything that's going on.

And I'm just trying to get out of a bad mood and avoid sending him a really negative vibe the whole way so he doesn't drive 45 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour lane and force me into a longer, more expensive trip because I'm very annoying as a customer. But I have a habit of practicing with small risks to get high risk results. And who can I practice with? Lyft drivers on a regular basis. The guy behind the hotel desk, the TSA guy. I'm going through TSA. The supermarket clerk, the Starbucks employee. The only way to do my best in my negotiations is to simply try to keep my negotiating muscles agile by interacting with people throughout the day and then, ideally, leaving them better than I found them.

Trying not to leave negative karma in my wake. Trying to leave as much positive karma as possible in my wake. Andrew Huberman: I love it. And I'm all too familiar with the feeling of needing to conserve my voice for podcasts or my energy for things. And yet, I think I'm someone who is genuinely curious about what people's experiences are. So I like the question, how is your day going? It's quite open. I guess if someone was really upset, that would be maybe the worst question they could ask, based on what you ended up with.to describe.

Chris Voss: Well, and I'll also make a good point, because I've manipulated them with, what do you like?... because you see them change in the moment to immediately change to this concept of love. , which is more than just like: What do you like about driving for Lyft? What do you like most about driving for Lyft? I can cause a status change in you instantly no matter what kind of mood you are in, because this guy was in a very bad mood. In addition, downloading from there is usually very fast. I'm going to get a very good idea of ​​who you are really quickly.

I spoke to the CEO of a company a couple of months ago and, for lack of a better term, they are delivering clean water to the world. And I say, that's a cool mission. I like this as an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur who wants to make a dent in the universe. I love that. Like I was trying to make a difference in the world. So I say, what do you like about what you do for a living? He immediately answers: I love leading teams. I love leading teams and I love giving shareholders a great return on their investment.

For me it is very important to offer shareholders a great return. And then, yes, we deliver water. And then he said a fourth thing and I thought: This guy could be making toilet paper. He doesn't care at all about the company's mission. He's a great CEO, probably because you want a CEO to lead teams. He wants a CEO who delivers, a corporate CEO who generates a return on investment for shareholders. But that's why he's a great corporate CEO and not a great corporate CEO. So when he gave me that shock real quick, he was blatantly honest, like, I think he's a great guy?

Yes. Are our core values ​​aligned? My mission is more important to me than your mission or that your mission is to make money. Now I like making money, but it's not number one, it's number two. But that question, instead of how are you today? What do you love about yourself? Immediately put them in a better place. Plus, you get some ridiculously honest answers that tell you who they are very quickly. Andrew Huberman: What is the best way to approach our response to someone asking to be heard? Maybe they have complaints, maybe about us, maybe about someone else.

People who are letting off steam. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: People seem to vary on the spectrum of propensity to vent. Some people just vent all the time. This happened, that happened, and they want to complain. The way it is sometimes described is that they love to take inventories of other people. They love to take inventories of other people's mistakes. They did this, they did that. It's often much easier than making our own inventories of what we could focus on and do better. That is a universal truth in my opinion. But people reach out to other people they trust and want to vent, presumably to get over whatever is bothering them.

But too often, it seems to simply amplify feelings of frustration. What do you do when someone you care about and who cares about you comes to vent? Is it just that you let them vent? Or do you try to let them negotiate a little with themselves in a way that might help them more than if you just let them vent? Chris Voss: I'm really wary of letting people vent because a lot of times it seems to be a spiral that just gets out of control. So why is anyone venting? They don't feel heard. They feel ignored.

They feel like they have been wasting their time talking. They are frustrated. That's the feedback I'm going to give you about what I assume is causing you to vent. In just one observation, it seems like this is driving you crazy because no one is listening to you. It sounds like you've been struggling with this for a long time. It sounds like this is very frustrating for you. What is the emotion? The particular negative emotion, frustration, refers to someone being denied a goal in the future. Anger refers to someone's discomfort over something that happened in the past.

The negative type of emotion starts to focus you on where they are... Is it forward thinking or backward thinking? And frustration and anger can be two very different versions of the same negative emotion, but they focus on different points. on time. So I'm going to try intuitively, if I don't know from what you've told me, I'm going to start making educated guesses to make an observation about what drives you. If you need to vent, you've been talking and people have been ignoring you, or you've been taking action and people have been ignoring you, you need to vent because your communication or your actions have been ignored.

There are some clues here, and the sooner you get to the heart of what's bothering you, the sooner you can let it go. So I'm going to encourage you to vent without trying to correct yourself, without giving you advice, without getting frustrated, without listening to you, without trying to verbally acknowledge what some of the motivators are, which will defuse a lot of the anger. faster. For starters, it's also the basis for a crisis hotline. People are venting, so how can you most effectively vent someone so that instead of ranting for an hour, the rant introduces toxins into her system where she becomes poisoned?

I believe negative emotions put toxins in our system. How do I turn that off as quickly as possible so that you don't get hurt as much and you feel heard, you feel relieved, you feel listened to? If it's me, if it's a close friend who's venting to you, you're invested in a situation to some degree, and I might even say, boy, it sounds like you're probably frustrated because I haven't listened to you. so far, and I'm going to start making some emotionally informed guesses about what I think is driving you, and I'm going to put it in the form of a label, which is just an observation.

It looks, it sounds, it seems, then if I'm wrong and you say, that's not it at all, I can say, well, that's what it looks like. It just seems that way. It puts you in a position to let someone know that you see them and are doing everything you can to understand them. I'm not in favor of venting. If he rants personally, I always feel worse. So I want to deactivate that negativity so I can recover emotionally. Andrew Huberman: Very useful knowledge you just shared with us. Do you meditate? Chris Voss: Little bits. I mean, I'm trying to make my day more effective.

I have a gratitude exercise that I do almost every morning. Other ways to become effective, in fact, I am considering the practice of deep rest without sleep because I like to take advantage of my time. I am spiritual, which is why I talk to the Almighty regularly. Andrew Huberman: Do you pray? Chris Voss: Yeah, yeah. Andrew Huberman: Morning and evening when necessary? Chris Voss: Both. Yes, both. I mean, I think whether or not you believe in a god or the universe or whatever, I think spirituality is an important component of health. Whatever your spirituality is, you need to recognize it and you will be better off if you engage in some type of spiritual practice.

It doesn't have to be any of the three major religions, but spirituality is a component of who we are. So yes, I practice it regularly. Andrew Huberman: So, feeling of higher power or to better define higher power. It could be, as you said, aligned with mainstream religion or simply aligned with the idea that there are things outside of us that are important to pay attention to, that we can all do better by acknowledging or serving, or both. , something like that. Chris Voss: Sort of like that. And then leave it as open as possible, because I think we have a spiritual nature, period.

Andrew Huberman: I agree. What about your physical training? I must say that you are in excellent shape. I imagine that was in accordance with the FBI. I mean, I saw "The Silence of the Lambs", at the beginning, she's running with other agents. Yes. Target shooting, running, lifting weights and doing sit-ups. And I think it was a movie from the 1980s, so it's a little dated now, they're probably doing other things now too, but nothing works like the basics. So, was the FBI the first time you got serious about fitness or, before that, were you an athlete and into fitness?

And what are you doing these days to maintain your, frankly, impressive figure? Chris Voss: Well, thanks for the praise. Sports, athletics and fitness have always been a part of my life. I liked sports, but I wasn't particularly good at them. Football, basketball. I'm a guy from the last century. Long before conditioning evolved like it is now, with interval training and the rest of that stuff, which is phenomenal. Weightlifting was introduced in my high school. My senior year I lifted weights. Some continued through college. Little time in martial arts. I broke my knee in college in martial arts.

But yes, fitness has always been a part of my life, both for the joy of fitness and for spiritual regeneration, whether I knew what it was or not. These days, I'm looking for every trick out there. I know you don't like the term hacking. Well, we like mechanisms. Scientists like mechanisms. Andrew Huberman: Yes. Hack sort of implies that we're using one thing to accomplish something different. I like mechanisms, but at the end of the day, if people want to call something a hack because it gives them the result they want, or it's more attractive to apply the tool.

That's what matters to me. Tools kept in a box do nothing. People are using them. So I'm fine with the term. Chris Voss: Yes. So what today: cold bath, sauna. Mainly, I'm struggling with issues in a couple of joints that I know science will eventually help me regenerate. In the meantime, good food. The basic pillars, the diet, it is not a perfect diet, but in general, in general, my diet is quite good. And then the little things. The spiritual keeps me physically fit. Taking a cold dip is a psychological and physical challenge. Andrew Huberman: And the state shapeshifter, that's for sure.

You don't need science to know that 30 seconds or a minute in that cold water will change your chemistry for a long time and for the better, I think. Once you get out, people forget. They say: I hate the cold. The point is not how you feel while you're at it. You may be proud of how you navigated that part, but the question is how you feel afterwards. Chris Voss: The old saying: why do you hit your hand with a hammer? Because it feels so good when you stop. Andrew Huberman: I like that. Spoken like someone who worked in New York City for a long time.

Out here, we'd probably say something, it's like crystals and lava lamps or something, although there aren't many lava lamps anymore. I think the idea that California is all hippie-dippy is no longer true. I think he has been invaded by a different spirit. In any case, thanks for sharing it, because I think we can't separate the physical from the psychological, right? I mean, we've been talking about the mental state and fatigue of the people you're negotiating with many times during this conversation. But then, of course, there's the way you show up for work. I mean, if you're exhausted for three days and you've been fighting with your spouse, and it's still in the back of your mind, and you're hungry, tired, sick, not connected to your higher power, with all those things, there's no way you can be as effective in any job.

So it's great to know, and not surprising, that you have foundational practices that you implement. Chris Voss: Yeah, that's an interesting point. Almost everyone I knew who was really good at whatever they did for a living probably took pretty good care of themselves. Andrew Huberman: Yes, I agree. I think the language around self-care is very distorted. I'm going to editorialize for a second here, but I'm going to editorialize according to what you just said. I think self-care sounds like navel-gazing, where people think it's all about yourself, but it's really about taking care of yourself so you can show up better for others.

More energy, more ability, more staying power to have those heartfelt conversations with the people we care about and who move our lives forward. So in my mind it's really about filling the gas tank, as opposed to the kind of self-centered, narcissistic stance that a lot of people take on the matter. And I understand why they do it. People scroll through Instagram and see people taking selfies with every muscle and all that, and listen, I'm not disparaging what people want to do, but at the end of the day, self-care is about being more prepared to do it. better for the world if you are mission-oriented.

Chris Voss: Okay. Completely agree. Andrew Huberman: Do you think there's been a change in the FBI in the last 30 or 40 years? Around that? I have this image in my mind of agents sitting in cars for 20 hours, eating hoagie sandwiches and looking through binoculars and running to the ground with this kind of bulldog persistence to solve the puzzle. In other words, I imagine there were some negotiations thatThey were very long and exhausting. Do you remember any of the longest negotiations you had and how you sleep at night in the middle of a hostage crisis? Chris Voss: So the longest one that I was directly involved in almost day to day, an hour to hour one, lasted about three days.

Washington, D.C., 2003. The Second Iraq War began. A guy named Dwight Watson drove the tractor into downtown D.C. and claimed that he had four bombs. And he left four bombs scattered around the city. Andrew Huberman: Had he really done that or was he lying? Chris Voss: He was lying. He had done neither and it started on St. Patrick's Day. Andrew Huberman: What you said was that in the Philippines it's like a national holiday. Chris Voss: Yeah, vacation, sure. Interesting for many reasons. Now I had to go home and go to sleep one night, and when we were in the middle of it, then it was just.

I don't remember having trouble sleeping because I felt like I did a good job and handed over to another hostage negotiator in the office, who was effectively the team leader, Vince Dalfonzo. And Vince was brilliant. So. And on the team he was with, everyone was in good hands. As a matter of fact, Vince almost kicked me out of the scene because he didn't want to go. And he kept saying, go home, get some sleep, go home, get some sleep. And finally, the fifth time he told me, I went home. So I felt like he was leaving things in very good hands.

And when we worked on kidnappings, we expected them to last long periods of time. And you simply have to do it. If you have faith in a process and feel like you're doing the best you can, then I think you might be able to sleep at night. I guess to answer that question, you have to be careful, whether you're working on a case, a siege, or anything else in the Bureau, that you don't go broke. And there were a few cases I worked on in the '90s where we knocked each other out. We worked hard with anyone we saw, but occasionally we also took time off.

I worked with guys who realized that sometimes you have to go out and have a beer, relax and let off some steam. So I think everyone I ever worked with was cautious enough to recharge their batteries. And then, depending on the nature of the challenge ahead, it was a siege in the parish of St. Martin and it lasted six days. I don't think those guys slept much, but the nature of those sieges, that particular type of siege, anyway, it only lasts five or six days. You just have to gut it. Andrew Huberman: Were there ever cases where you just tried to keep the person on the line so he could attack?

Chris Voss: I've never had to do that personally. You had to be prepared to do this from the beginning of any siege, to be able to orchestrate some kind of assault. I was very lucky at the beginning of my training. There's a famous sort of siege, if you know the history of hostage negotiation, in London called Prince's Gate Siege, where the legendary British hostage negotiator David Veness had the bad guys on the phone while the SAS were hiding in the building. And I remember we were saying, look, there may come a time when you have to keep someone on the phone when SWAT arrives.

That goes with the territory. So let's hope it's a possibility from the beginning. And it was a great siege. The bad guy, Salim, the photos of him after he was shot, the phone is within his reach. David kept him on the phone. I've heard the tapes. The explosions continued. And Salim says, I have to go. I have to go. There are suspicious noises. And David Veness, in his classic British accent, said: Salim, there are no suspicious noises. Now let's talk again about how many people take the bus to the airport. Andrew Huberman: Bam. Chris Voss: They came in and I met up with David several years later.

I had a presidential intern from the White House with me in the Office. We're drinking in a bar with David Veness. I have a lot of stories about me drinking at a bar with someone. And the inmate walked around everyone and touched David on the shoulder. And he says, Chris says you kept the terrorist on the phone until the moment SAS came through the door. And David says yes, and he would have kept him on the phone even longer if the SAS hadn't arrived so soon. So why am I telling that story? If you're going to get into that line of business, you have to accept all the things that come with it and realize that it wasn't you who made the decision, but someone else.

You have to implement the strategy. Andrew Huberman: Do you remember a case in Sacramento where I think it was a youth gang that took over like it was an electronics store? Chris Voss: Siege of the Good Guys. Andrew Huberman: Yeah, I remember this when I was a kid. There are two things that stick out of my head when I was a kid. One was... Chris Voss: Good Guys was the name of the electronics store. Andrew Huberman: Right. Good Guys was the electronics store. And the bad guys, so to speak, went in there and took them hostage.

And I must have been a child. This must have been late. This was in the late 80's or something like that. I remember that case. Chris Voss: It was around 1990. It was '89 or '90. I knew one of the negotiators who was there. Andrew Huberman: He was 15 years old, so I was born in '75. And as I remember, they ended up opening fire on a group of hostages who were lying on the ground. Alright? Chris Voss: They knew they were preparing to execute the hostages because they put bags over their heads. And that whenever bad guys do something to dehumanize a hostage, it's easier to shoot someone with a bag over the head than not, because you can't see their face.

And so the bad guys had started that process and knew they needed to attack. Andrew Huberman: God forbid anyone be taken hostage. I realize the circumstances differ, but you just mentioned that they put bags over their heads. There is this notion of sheep that people will describe post hoc later. Something about how someone walks into a building, tells people to put ankle ties on or go to a back room, which no one resists. And that, in retrospect, if someone had caused a commotion, he might have caused enough of a commotion to run away or be let go.

And yet, of course, there is a very logical part of everyone's brain, I hope, that thinks, listen, this person is a bully. There's a gun in my face. Do not be an idiot. Right, because we've also heard about the case in New York City that I read about in the newspaper. So, presumably it's true, where someone was robbed at gunpoint and one of the women in the group who was robbed said, What are you going to do, shoot us? And the person shot them. So that happens too. I don't know if there's a fair and safe answer to give people about this, but if someone tells you to do something and it's all happening in real time, I mean, you have to ask, do they want my money? , my body, my life, or some combination of the three, in real time and under presumably significant pressure.

But for hostages, if they disobey or cause a commotion, does that lengthen or shorten their life? I guess it depends a lot on the context, right? Chris Voss: The only thing I can do, without knowing the context, is that anything you can do to humanize yourself and comply with what the bad guys want increases your chances of survival. So let's say you were ordered to a back room. You could look at the kidnapper and say: I'll do whatever you say. I'm Chris. Leave your name on them so you go from being a faceless person to someone with a name, which increases your chances of survival.

Humanization, anything you can do to comply, simultaneously become a more human being because it's the opposite of what I was talking about before. If you are easier to kill, if you have been dehumanized, you are harder to kill. If they have humanized you, it is more difficult for them to hurt you. Maybe they're not going to kill you, they're just going to hurt you. They are less likely to hurt you if they know your name. How to get them as a hostage negotiator? If they talk about a hostage, I'll say, do you mean Sheila? Do you mean Rex?

I'll find a way to include the person's name in the conversation. So as soon as you can humanize yourself, just by letting them know your name, you increase the chances of survival, you increase the chances of being treated better and complying. I'll do whatever you say, Chris is going to start moving the odds in your favor. Andrew Huberman: You know what you just described extends to science. I have spoken before about my stance on animal research and why I choose not to do it anymore. I think it has its place in making important discoveries that can't be made in humans, but that eventually extend to...

Chris Voss: But you don't want to do it. Andrew Huberman: I don't want to do it personally, I don't want to do it and I don't want to work with primates, either large carnivores or small carnivores. But what I was going to point out is that when you work with primates, you are strongly discouraged, or almost forbidden, from giving them names. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: They give them numbers. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: So, it all coincides with what you were talking about, because the moment something has a name, it goes from being a research animal to a kind of pet, and that makes it a relationship.

Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: It's very interesting how a name transforms something. It elevates something to a relationship, no matter how insignificant. It has gone up a level and enters our empathy circuit. Chris Voss: Yes. Andrew Huberman: Maybe that's the right transition to talk about empathy. This is a topic you are spending a lot of time on. You mentioned the documentary "Tactical Empathy", by the way, when will it be released or do we have any common sense? Chris Voss: I guess we'll get through all the hoops and probably be out early next year. I'm currently working with William Morris Endeavor on a couple of different projects.

They have been hugely supportive of us and we have asked them for guidance on the best time to release the documentary, and I am very happy with the people I deal with there. And indeed, stroke, the universe was looking out for me. They are fun circumstances and I really enjoy the people I work with there. Probably the first part of next year. Andrew Huberman: Fantastic. What is your opinion on empathy? I think of empathy in the pop culture sense where someone feels pain and we feel their pain, but of course empathy extends much further. Chris Voss: Yeah.

And that was Rob Malenka. Yes. Andrew Huberman: My colleague at Stanford. Chris Voss: Yes. I was very fascinated by the conversation you had with him recently. And he said that many people use empathy in many different ways, more or less for their own meanings. So my take on empathy, tactical empathy, is also to keep throwing out names, because people give me ideas and I want to figure them out. I'm very close to Steven Kotler's perspective on this, and Steven would say that empathy has to do with the transmission of information. Compassion is the reaction to transmission.

Andrew Huberman: I like that. And by the way, I'm a fan of Steven's work. I think he's pretty sneaky. And boy, he is a hard worker. He writes like a beast. I think he gets up around four in the morning. He also has like 50 chihuahuas or something like that. Chris Voss: Well, he's lost. Andrew Huberman: Yeah, well, one room can fit more Chihuahuas than any other. I got you, Steven. Chris Voss: And that was when he was in the FBI. We started collaborating with Harvard because Harvard's definition was empathy, not liking the other side. She was simply demonstrating an understanding of his perspective.

Book by Bob Mnookin, chapter "Beyond Profits", the tension between empathy and assertiveness. He says that empathy is not agreeing, disagreeing, or even not liking the other side, which sort of falls into what Steven talked about. It is about the transmission of information. Now, empathy is a very compassionate thing, but it doesn't necessarily equate to compassion itself. If I make you feel heard by telling you what your perspective is on something, you will feel cared for, you will feel understood. You'll like him very well. I don't necessarily have to feel sorry for you. I know it is a precursor to compassion.

So I would separate it from sympathy, clearly. And I would even separate it from compassion, although I know it is a very compassionate thing. It's about... tactical empathy is about me verbally and actively showing you that I understand where you're coming from. The tactic based on the experience of hostage negotiators, supported by neuroscience, is that people react largely negatively. So for me the smartest move, instead of trying to reinforce the positive, is to first defuse the negative by simply calling it out. Call the elephant that is in a room. Don't deny the elephant. Don't ignore the elephant.

Call the elephant in the room. It probably sounds like I'm greedy. If I wait for that, you'll think I'm overreaching. I'm not going to say that I don't want you to think I'm greedy. I'm going to say it probably seems greedy. So, simply, well educated, emotional intelligence influence, gut instinct, influence on what the other side thinks and feels. If I can define it that way, thenbecomes an unlimited skill. If it requires me to have compassion for you when I don't have it, then that limits my ability to use empathy, and I'm not interested in that ability being limited, I want it to be an unlimited ability.

So if you define it strictly in terms of information transmission, then it is not sympathy, compassion, liking, or agreement. It has a very powerful effect. At least it feels like compassion towards the other side. It reacts with the emotional circuits, the neurochemicals that everyone has, to some degree, if they're alive, even if they're on the spectrum, they have some of that inside them. And from what I've read even about mental illness in my training in the last century, I saw that people who were paranoid schizophrenics were more of a wiring problem than a chemical problem for a layman's description.

And much of what I've read says that empathy is effective even with paranoid schizophrenics. For people, no matter how messed up the circuits are in their head, on some level it helps them feel understood. So empathy is simply about making someone feel understood. For example, when I worked on terrorism, many Muslim Arabs testified in an open civil court against a legitimate Muslim cleric, who was also a criminal and who also committed crimes. And I would sit down with him and tell him from the beginning, because I know where they're coming from. Do you think there has been a succession of American governments over the last 200 years that have been anti-Islamic.

And they looked at me and said, yes. I never said it was true. I never said I agreed. I never said I didn't agree. When I simply expressed to them what their perspective on the interaction was, they were very surprised. It was empathy. We were so good at that empathy. Often in that period of time, they would say, are you a Muslim? And I would say, no, I respect a religion, if you need to know, I'm a Christian, but I respect your religion, and I have no problem telling you where you come from. That's empathy by my definition.

And then it becomes an unlimited ability. I don't have to feel it. I don't necessarily have to want to do anything about it. Goldman says there is cognitive empathy, I simply recognize where your emotions come from. There is emotional empathy, I feel your emotions, and there is empathic concern, I want to do something with your anguish. My version of tactical empathy probably puts them into play in sequence on a kind of continuum, but none of them are precursors. It's just me showing you that I understand where you're coming from and that has a phenomenally favorable impact on the interaction.

Andrew Huberman: Tell me about mirroring as a tool. Chris Voss: Yes. Duplication is one of the simplest, easiest and most effective skills. Requires the least amount of brain power. It is simply repeating one to three words of what someone just said, it can be one. Generally, it should never be more than five. Hostage negotiators learn it by repeating the last three words someone just said. It doesn't have to be the last word or three. And the reflection is not the mirror of body language. It's not about imitating anyone physically, or their tone of voice, or their affection, or anything about them.

It's just repeating one to three words. We found that it accesses whatever part of the brain you need to energize to do so. It is a different part of the brain than the one labeled. People are usually very good at labeling. I tag, almost everyone on my team tags a lot. It seems like this is bothering you. It sounds like you're not really sure where this is going. And the mirror, I have to consciously strive to reflect it. And what is a mirror for? Is it in place of what did you mean by that? Or could you continue?

Or I don't understand it. Could you repeat that again? I will listen to the things I don't understand or need you to talk more about. And instead of saying, could you say something more about that? I will simply reflect the words. Now for some reason it connects the thoughts in your head. The way it lands is, I heard what you said, the words. I understood the words because I repeated them and I still don't understand them. So I need a deeper explanation without using the same words you just used. Because if you say, I think isopraxicism is useless, and I might say, what do you mean by that?

And that's it, isopraxicism is useless. You repeat the same words, only louder. You think saying it louder will make it penetrate my skull. That does not work. I need you to explain to me, to go deeper, to expand using different words. And for some reason, we find ourselves as hostage negotiators and I find in business that if I mirror you, you will expand and connect. So I use it in that context. I could use it to make you hear yourself out loud. For example, if what you just said doesn't make sense, I will repeat it word for word, one to three words, and inflect upwards.

I'll say that doesn't make sense. Use my tone. Make it land with my tone so you can hear yourself out loud. Someone else pointed out to me the other day that if you're talking to someone and they're thinking and their voice goes off because they've lost their train of thought, if you reflect it there, it helps them understand their line of thought backwards and expand. . Therefore, it is a ridiculously effective communication tool for making people reach out and feel heard. Its simplicity puts some people off. There are some people who say, yeah, it sounds stupid. I don't see what good that will do.

I always find that if someone really wants to know about doubling, my description is that they are both high IQ and high IQ. And why does that work? A kid with a high IQ will want to know something that's really simple. It requires no effort and that is what a mirror does. It is really effective and requires almost no effort on your part. Andrew Huberman: Interesting. I must say that neuroscience has a sad dearth of knowledge about how brains interact. This is starting to change. But most of what we know about how the brain works comes from putting people in functional magnetic resonance imaging machines, so-called MRIs, exposing them to movies or games they have to play, etc., and then observing activation. of brain state.

There are some labs that are starting to look at how people interact in real time with both people in separate MRI machines and hopefully we'll be able to look at some of this. And I'm sure someone listening to this will use this knowledge to perform the experiment. If not, I'll introduce you to some highly qualified people at Stanford who could do this, because it would be fun to see what's happening. But I have a feeling that what's happening is that there's a real fusion of cognition when you hear your own words, that you now have two brains processing the same information, and that has to lead to new places.

So I don't have any idea what exactly is happening, but something is certainly happening there, right? It's proven by the real-world results you're getting. We don't need experiments to tell us that, but it would be interesting to see and learn a little about what is happening. If there is a fusion, for example, of a coactivation of emotional centers, a coactivation of... There is something about hearing our own voice that is very different from hearing other people's voices. Most people cringe when they hear their own voice on a recording, right? Most, not all. Some people are in love with their own voice.

We know these people, but we know that our auditory system overrides hearing our own voice. Did you know that? As we speak now, is our auditory system suppressing our own voice? We don't really hear each other talk in the same way that when you talk, I hear you talk. So it is an active neurochemical inhibition of the response. And it's also surprising, because as we grow, our voice changes, puberty and so on, and also other ways where the vocal cords change thickness, etc., and our voice changes. But we always differentiate ourselves from the other in terms of voice and cancel out our real auditory perception of our own.

Chris Voss: That's fascinating. Andrew Huberman: And breathing and heartbeat. We actively shut down our response to self within the brain. Chris Voss: That's fascinating. Andrew Huberman: So maybe listening to some of what we just said will allow us to really hear what we just said. Chris Voss: Yeah, well, that's true. And that's why sometimes all someone needs is a sounding board so someone else can listen. They can listen to themselves and have it repeated, and then they say, wait a minute. Did I just say that? Yes interesting. Andrew Huberman: Interesting. Chris Voss: Helpful. Andrew Huberman: Indeed.

Proactive listening. Tell us about proactive listening. We are all told that we must be better listeners. The other day someone said that we have two ears and one mouth. As if that's supposed to remind us. Most people have two ears and one mouth. But I understand the point. They said, "Hey, there's value in listening." And most of the time, we transmit by default, but without reception, or we transmit mainly, less reception. Good. Hence the call for nasal breathing. It is useful in many circumstances because it keeps our mouths shut. What is proactive listening? How do we do it?

What is it for? Chris Voss: I'm really trying to get people out of the notion of active listening, simply because active listening has been used so much that people have lost track of it, and most of it is poorly taught and interactive or proactive. And so, as hostage negotiators, we learned, first of all, to label the emotion that was presented. And we just assumed that. And the emotion that was always presented was anger in some form, anger, discomfort. In some rare cases, the boy was under control, but almost always they were negative emotions. So we assumed that it was defined by what it was limited to.

What drove the hostage takers was negativity. Now if you allow me, because I feel like an imposter talking to you about neuroscience. Andrew Huberman: Your neuroscience insights are spot on, Voss. I must say that you have asked me many times about neuroscience topics and you have never been wrong. It's clear that you've done your homework too. Chris Voss: We're still trying to learn about it, but the common terminology, the survival brain, is largely negative. Generally speaking, I would say 75% negative. Your reactions are going to be negative. So, number one, I think it's primarily supported by the neuroscience experiments that efMRI has alluded to.

And so, in the hostage negotiation, we were taught to basically label the emotion that was presented. And then I've seen experimentation or reports of experiments. I think the first time I read about this was in a book called "The Ascending Spiral," and I think that book is a good 10 years old, which means neuroscience is evolving, but mostly the experiment I remember reading about . and I read elsewhere that if people were experiencing a negative emotion, in my paraphrase of the experiment, they were shown an image that induced a negative emotion in their head. And then he asked people to just say what the emotion was, and when they self-labeled it, the emotion went down.

Now, the degree of decrease varies, but the percentage of time it decreases just by calling it is almost all the time. So if we are largely 75% negative and we can defuse the negativity by calling it out, well, let's be proactive. If you are a human being and we are involved in a negotiation, there will be some very predictable negativity that will be there, and I need to be proactive in calling it out. Anticipating that negativity will be there based on a circumstance is very predictable. And before that you were referring to your instinct when you wanted to say, look, I don't want you to think I'm being greedy.

Your instinct tells you that it is very predictable. You're going to look greedy. So let me be proactive and say that it's probably going to sound like I'm being greedy, and that's marking what is eminently predictable in the interaction, and just being proactive to defuse the negative emotions that are taking place or what our experience has found. And I haven't seen any science that has had a chance to back this up. It is inoculated, I can create a barrier. If I mention a negative that isn't there, it doesn't plant it, but actually inoculates you. And I have done it in practice.

A couple of years ago they gave me a conference. Anyone asks a question, I try to find the value in the question, no matter how bad the question is. This poor guy asked me a question and I can't find a single component in his question that shows he was listening or paying attention. There was nothing about it that I could congratulate him on. And then I said, this is going to sound harsh, because I know that the answer I'm preparing to give him is going to make the group look like I think he's stupid. I can't think of a way to respond to this without effectively saying, like, what are you thinking?

That has nothing to do with what we're talking about. So I say, this is going to sound harsh. and I answerthe question. And he just says, okay. And I start answering someone else's question. And he says that wasn't hard. Now, if he hadn't said this is going to sound harsh and answered the question, I guarantee you my answer would have embarrassed him. And shame is one of the worst negative emotions you can inflict on someone, and he would hate me to this day for embarrassing him. So I have a moment coming up that's predictably negative, and I can let that train run over me, or I can announce it in advance and get a reaction where the guy says, "That wasn't so bad." And that's what being proactive with emotions is all about.

Andrew Huberman: I love it. And I'm remembering a case during graduate school where my graduate advisor, who sadly passed away, but he was a phenomenal scientist, I mean, so pure, he insisted on getting the answers, he was able to emotionally detach himself from the answers. She was simply a ninja. She used to come to the lab when we were working on a paper, she would sit there and say: you're going to hate me for what I'm about to ask you to do. And I was like, oh, no, I'm going to have to redo the whole analysis or some monumental thing.

And then she was like, you have to change the font in figure 2. Oh my god. What do you mean I want to hate you? It was launched, but I wanted nothing more than to make her happy with my work because I respected the standard that she held so dear. She could have asked me to stand on my head and do the experiments 50 times. She probably would have done it if she thought it would improve the project. And as a consequence, she would have been happy because she was the standard for me and, in many ways, she still is.

But I wonder if she read your book because she used to foreshadow these requests with something like: You're going to hate me. And then she would ask me for something. I say, oh, I hate you. That's nothing. But now I wonder if she would have surprised me if she had said, "Hey, by the way, figure 2 needs to be redone." I might have gotten a little angry about that. So maybe she read your book. Chris, these are great tools, reflection and proactive listening. And thanks for sharing them. Chris Voss: Absolutely. Andrew Huberman: Did she ever employ family members of kidnappers, friends of kidnappers, as a means of accessing a different aspect of her psyche?

Because I think we all, as human beings, are very context-driven. So I can imagine that the person who kidnaps someone or who tries to steal someone's resources is at a particular level of person. And I think there are people in the world who are just evil. But I also know, because I've read about this and I trust the sources, that there are people who have done horrendous things, who love their dog and really love their dog and wouldn't harm any animal. But I'm not trying to give these people a pass. But I can imagine that those other facets for someone represent really good entry points to allow them to see the kind of incongruity in their behavior.

Or is it the case that when it comes to high-stress situations where you have to attack, you disarm the aggressor, and you simply focus on the person as the bad actor, without considering the other contexts of their lives? Chris Voss: Okay, so let's make a distinction between hostage takers in a contained situation and kidnappers not contained and in an unknown location. You're probably asking about someone in a contained situation, bad guys in a bank, Dwight Watson on his tractor in Washington, D.C. So, very counterintuitively, if you are in a contained situation, there is a saying that the system you are employing is perfectly designed to give you the result you have.

So bad guy Dwight Watson is on his tractor in D.C. The family is part of the system that got him there. The harsh reality of this is that now, in that siege that went on long enough and was so high profile, some of his relatives showed up. Now we could try to use them and we tried. I am walking from one place to another, from the negotiation operation cell component on the way to the command post. The hostage negotiator stops me, a couple of people with them, it's Watson's family, and they see that I'm in a hurry and I'm not interested in being stopped.

And they had to say something to me to stop me and get my attention, and they said, look, our brother's heart hurts. He's just suffering. Things have gone wrong for our entire family and he is just hurting his heart. Don't kill him for that. And I looked at the negotiator and said, record that and we'll play it back to you. Because if we can record that exactly how they said it, he'll land. But if you get them on the phone, they'll try to reason with them and tell you things that didn't help you, which isn't very well-intentioned, but it's going to be contradictory and will probably make things worse.

So you have to understand that family can be extremely important if you can get them to say exactly the right thing. And it's probably going to need to be very orchestrated because you already know how he's going to land. And unfortunately, if you engage them in direct conversation, you'll probably renew an old wound. Family members have hurt each other in ways they have no idea even happened. And that's why one family member, my son to this day, remembers when I told him that Santa Claus wasn't real. And I do not have. I have no memory of that conversation.

I'm sorry I ruined it for you. Good? Andrew Huberman: Wait, we got it. Oh my God. Chris Voss: But family members have been hurt over the years and have no idea what comes up in these live conversations. And you don't even know what wounds you caused. And so, in a contained situation, a family member can be of great help, but it is a surgical injection that you have to be very careful with. Otherwise, it can go the other way because the wounds and people don't even know they are there. Andrew Huberman: Gosh, that's a psychologically astute way to look at it, because I'm a big fan of the so-called family systems model of psychology.

I mean, you cannot observe the psychology of any human being, positive, that is, adaptive or maladaptive psychology, and not observe the family system in which it evolved. Which is not to say that some perfectly healthy families don't occasionally have problems with a child having a mental illness. That happen. But I'm told that 99.9% of the time, you can identify a family system, an organization or lineage, a genetic link, etc. that makes things start to make sense when someone is really struggling. Good. And as you pointed out, unfortunately, many times that involves pains from the past. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that because I think, in my opinion, the movie version, they bring in the mother and she says, Billy, don't do it.

Like you said, that might be the moment Billy really lets his mom know. Childhood was shit for Billy. Good. And that's not what you want. Chris Voss: Yes. Andrew Huberman: My goodness, what a complex job. What a complex job, with a lot at stake and with great consequences. What did you do to relieve some of the heaviness? I'm not just talking about getting a good night's sleep or having a beer with your coworkers afterwards, although I realize those things serve important functions for people. Do you think we can get rid of the hard things in our heads and hearts in a way that allows us to be functional?

Because people in your line of work, and I think anyone in the world, live long enough, they are going to experience loss. Chris Voss: Yeah. They're going to kick you in the gut. Yes. Andrew Huberman: And you'll see people you care about get kicked in the gut. There is also a lot of beauty in life, but that is reality. Do you have tools and processes that you use to get rid of baggage so that you can lean into your relationships and your relationship with yourself with a restored sense of optimism? Chris Voss: Yes. I think most of the people I've always worked with have reinforced each other comedically, emotionally and as friends.

Being able to laugh with each other, take things easy with each other, make people laugh and achieve genuine understanding without anyone trying to tell them what they did wrong. I've been lucky enough to find myself in those groups most of the time or we just evolved. That's how we were. We were emotionally and psychologically attracted to each other because of that. It's probably that, for the most part. I mean, I've been trying to analyze some of these emotions recently. I'm not particularly proud of anything I've done, but I always felt it was a privilege. You should be proud of your achievements.

I don't know if it's pride, but there's another satisfaction I get from it. And so, thinking about what motivates me as well, now that I run a company and I have people, also entrepreneurs who are trying to do the best for their employees, what do we encourage each other so that, whatever we do, the Do people feel good about that? And I try to learn a lot of that from what I learned as an FBI agent and a hostage negotiator and from the people I was with. And we joked around a lot and played pranks on each other.

Kind humor. Avoid people who are running over you, but be able to take some good-natured ribbing from time to time. And I think humor, in one form or another, combined with hard work and appreciation for what you're doing, has probably been the biggest part of mental health along the way. Occasional bourbon. Andrew Huberman: I love it. We did a whole episode about alcohol, so people will hear me say, I love it and think, oh wait, here. I'm supporting... Listen, the data says while. You're not an alcoholic, as long as you're of legal age, two drinks a week or less is probably safe.

Make good, high-quality drinks if you're going to drink them, consume them in the right context, or don't consume them at all. But that's why I said I love it. I support your love of bourbon. I'm not a bourbon drinker, but tell me a little more about what you're up to lately. You mentioned a moment ago that you're leading teams that are doing a lot, so now you're in charge of a lot of people, helping people, helping people, providing a lot of services in the world through a lot of different channels. First of all, I want to say that your book Never Split the Difference.

One of my favorite books. Chris Voss: Thank you. Andrew Huberman: I don't say that lightly. I don't endorse books very often, but the books that I endorse, I love, love, love. I also have to say that it's a toss-up between his book "Never Split the Difference" and "The Body Keeps the Score" for best titles of any book. Those are amazing titles. Incredible titles. Chris Voss: Tahl Raz, our co-writer, came up with a title. Andrew Huberman: Yes, it is a phenomenal title, and "The Body Keeps the Score" because the title contains a lot of things and also the book exceeds expectations.

A truly amazing book. People should listen to it and read it if they haven't already. But now you're doing so much more than just writing. Although I also want to know your other book projects. But before I list the number of things you're doing, tell me about Fireside first, because it seems like a really interesting endeavor that, frankly, I hadn't heard of before. What is Fireside? Chris Voss: new social media platform. It is essentially an interactive podcast. It is a subscription service founded by Falon Fatemi and Mark Cuban. Falon and I have been friends for several years.

She was Google's youngest employee. She is an enterprising, dynamic, intelligent and hard-working person. And in a way she grew out of the inadequacy of some of the social media apps that try to combine the best ideas of a few different things. And Falon suggested it to me and I thought I would participate because she is a visionary. And what it turned out to be is effectively a weekly interactive group training. And you get the app on your iPhone or Android, whatever platform your phone is on, and then you log in, we do an hour once a week and you get group coaching and then you can ask questions and it has a video component. .

So if you want to ask a question, we'll take you on stage, we'll quote you. And I can see you and talk directly to you. And you will be able to see me and talk directly to me. Or I interviewed Mark Cuban a couple of weeks ago and people came up and asked Mark or me questions. And what it has turned out to be is kind of the next level of how to improve negotiations. Having read the book and probably taken the masterclass, where do you go next? One of the people who came on the podcast the other day, the Fireside episode, said, well, I still don't have enough money to go to your in-person training events because they're expensive and that's where I am.

I'm going to improve in the meantime and work in that direction. And so the monthly coaching, if you were to sign up for our group coaching on a regular basis, monthly, it would probably easily cost you what we give you 25 to 30 thousand a month, and this is a thousand a year. So, at scale, it's an opportunity to interact directly with me and my team members once a week and receive group training. And it's just fun. We are having fun and there are people who really care about interacting well with people. Guy appears in the firstepisode I did and he said, in addition to you helping me make a lot more money, you helped me save my marriage.

And he just needed to know how to talk more genuinely and honestly to her wife in a way that made her feel heard, and he didn't really have a good way to do that beforehand. And I thought, that's a lot. I don't know how to respond to that other than being grateful that people can say things like that to us. So Fireside is great. We are still experimenting with it. It is an interactive, group coaching podcast. It's fun. Andrew Huberman: Great. I mean, I would say change lives there. I mean, saving a marriage is no small feat.

And I think the ability to communicate directly with people also, I imagine, gives them the opportunity to implement the tools that you provide in real time. It's one thing to listen to something and try it, but then you can get real-time feedback. Are you directly in these Fireside chats or are you a member of your team? Chris Voss: No, we do one every week and I do one once a month. And the other thing too. I can explain something one way, and if for some reason it doesn't fit your context, you can't understand it. That's what we found about its interactive nature.

Someone comes and asks a question in context, and then I answer it, and then they say, oh, okay, okay, that helped. So you can hear from people like you who struggle with this just as you do, but I haven't put it into your context yet. And that's the other great thing about questions and answers. A live question and answer session. Andrew Huberman: We had a guest here who told me that there is surprising data that supports the fact that people follow the medical and health advice of doctors who they can relate to so much more than following the medical and health advice of doctors who they consider that they are not like them.

And many times this can include the doctor or healthcare provider being someone they would aspire to be like. But many times it is simply a common relationship. They both like baseball, or they both like cooking or gardening, and that establishes a bridge where the patient is willing to do all of these things that he would normally resist. Chris Voss: Right. Andrew Huberman: And there's really good data to support this. And that really stuck with me because it says that it's not just about the information or the path of delivery of the information, that the context and the relationship is even in like, oh, by the way, I'm not a major sport. fan of most things, but oh, you're a Bills fan or something, like me too.

That can be the difference between someone doing all the things to lower their blood pressure, changing their diet every day, all those things, and not making any changes. Chris Voss: Sympathy is magic. Yes, it is a kind of magical component that changes everything. Andrew Huberman: Well, Fireside seems like a great opportunity for people to not only ask questions, but also build a good relationship with you and your team members. So I'm going to check it out. God knows I need help improving my communications in certain areas of life. Believe me, I get the memos. In fact, what other writing projects are you involved in, if any?

Chris Voss: We've been playing around with this companion playbook for tactical empathy, and getting it right is important. It's kind of a companion book to "Never Split the Difference." It's probably at least a year and a half away. In the meantime, we do a lot of online training. We get a newsletter that we publish weekly so people get our latest cutting edge app. Thoughts as much as possible. We're publishing information that we charge a lot for and we're publishing a lot of information for free, you know? I'm throwing out ideas on Instagram, but we're constantly trying to post information so people can collaborate better.

So specific. We just finished a book for residential real estate agents. A friend of mine, Steve Scholl, published it last November. That's kind of niche, but it's mostly the Black Swan method for real estate agents because every conversation they engage in is a difficult and emotional conversation. Selling a home is one of the most stressful times in anyone's life, whether buying or selling, so we just posted it. In the meantime, we are spreading the gospel as much as possible. Andrew Huberman: We'll certainly point out different places where people can find it and different places to learn more.

I mean, numerous times throughout today's conversation, you mentioned the words "sounds like" as an opener, and I have to say, I have this kind of crazy idea in the back of my mind. I believe that simple, field-tested tools are immensely powerful, not only for resolving negotiations, but also for changing the way people interact with each other and themselves. And if I have a wish for the world from our conversation, how wonderful it would be if children learned early on to talk to each other from that perspective, because I think that would naturally orient them toward listening, or at least. at least offer a hypothesis of what they heard and how poorly they might be hearing, and then elicit a defensive posture response that informs them of the accuracy or lack of accuracy.

And so on. I feel like it sounds like a question, it sounds like you feel blank or like you think you are blank. It seems to me to be one of the most powerful tools in the universe. And I certainly wish that all adults would implement it, but that children would learn it too. Chris Voss: Yeah, that's a great idea. How do we teach them at a younger age that listening is actually an effective thing? In reality, it is also a way of thinking about things. So yes, I agree. I mean, wave the magic wand, right?

Andrew Huberman: Exactly. Well, Chris, I want to thank you very much for your time. I mean, you've joined us on this journey through so many different facets of your work, past and present, and you've also given us a glimpse into the portal to your future work, which I'm eagerly awaiting. I also want to thank you for everything you do. You have always seemed to me to be someone who brings knowledge and you can't value that. You are constantly bringing knowledge to the world through Instagram, your book, Fireside and courses, etc., drawn from your experience in very intense circumstances.

But really with a view to people making the most of that in their daily lives, which hopefully doesn't involve hostage negotiations unless they're hostage negotiators. So I just want to thank you so much for what you do and for being such a phenomenal communicator. And also thanks for bringing in that late night FM DJ voice. Chris Voss: Yeah, I've wanted to be sitting here with you, being interviewed on your podcast since I first discovered it. Andrew Huberman: Thank you. Chris Voss: It's been several years and it's a privilege to be here. And I love what they're doing to bring practical, usable tools to the world so people can navigate more effectively.

Andrew Huberman: Thank you. Back to you. Back again. Chris Voss: Very good, thank you. Andrew Huberman: Thank you for joining me for today's conversation with Chris Voss. I hope you found it as interesting and practical as I did. To find links to Chris's website and his excellent book "Never Split the Difference," as well as his social media, see the links in the show notes titles. If you are learning or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a great way, at no cost, to support us. Also, subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple.

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