Negotiate Like Life Depends on It. Chris Voss.

A Don’t-miss episode with an exclusive interview with FBI hostage negotiator, Chriss Voss. Discussing how to negotiate like life depends on it. Author of “Never Split the Difference” and business negotiation expert, this Chriss Voss interview has exclusive insights on the founding of his leading interview style and negotiation methods.

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Transcript

Negotiate Like Life Depends on It. Chris Voss.

A Don’t-miss episode with an exclusive interview with FBI hostage negotiator, Chriss Voss. Discussing how to negotiate like life depends on it. Author of “Never Split the Difference” and business negotiation expert, this Chriss Voss interview has exclusive insights on the founding of his leading interview style and negotiation methods.

If you liked this, please SUBSCRIBE to our channel. Share this video with others if you enjoyed it.

 Topics: negotiate like life depends on it, negotiating like life depends on it, high risk negotiations, negotiation stories, negotiation skills, life and death negotiations, hostage negotiation in business, Chris Voss Interview, how to negotiate without compromise, negotiating with an enemy, art of negotiation in business, crossing enemy lines in negotiation, negotiating without compromise, how to understand your enemy, meaning of never split the difference, understanding tactical empathy, Chris Voss Negotiation, Chris Voss No oriented Questions, Chris Voss Behind Scenes, Chris Voss, Chris Voss Tactical Empathy, Masterclass in Tactical Empathy, mirroring and labeling, chris voss never split the difference, never split the difference, black swan, never split the difference meaning,

takeaways

• Chris Voss emphasizes the importance of understanding the other side in negotiations.
• Trust is built through predictability and following instructions.
• Empathy is a demonstration of understanding, not agreement or sympathy.
• The Black Swan Method originated from Voss's experiences on a suicide hotline.
• Tactical empathy involves acknowledging the other person's perspective without necessarily agreeing with them.
• Negotiation techniques should be practiced in low-stakes situations before high-stakes negotiations.
• Identifying proof of life in negotiations is crucial to avoid wasting time on unproductive deals.
• High-risk indicators can help determine if a negotiation is worth pursuing.
• The concept of Black Swans refers to hidden information that can change the outcome of negotiations.
• Voss's negotiation strategies are applicable in both personal and professional contexts.

Dino Mauro (00:00.366)
you

Dino Mauro (00:05.166)
All right, welcome everybody to cyber crime junkies. am your host David Morrow and we're honored and joined today by someone we've had a great deal of respect for, Mr. Chris Moss. Chris has served 24 years in the FBI. One of the most decorated FBI agents in history, specializing in hostage negotiation, handled many high profile cases, making international news. And today Chris is an American business jogger knot.

author of the iconic Never Split the Difference, which has been transcribed in over 30 languages in over 35 different countries on the planet. So Wall Street Journal bestseller and the number one Amazon bestselling book for negotiation. He's not only the author of Never Split the Difference, but another book called Empathy and Understanding in Business, which is also outstanding.

Dino Mauro (01:07.79)
Join us as we go behind the scenes of today's most notorious cybercrime. Every time we get online, we enter their world. So we provide true storytelling to raise awareness, interviewing global leaders, making an impact and improving our world, translating cybersecurity into everyday language that's practical and easy to understand. We appreciate you making this an award winning podcast by downloading our episodes on

Apple and Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube channel. This is Cybercrime Junkies and now the show.

Dino Mauro (01:57.848)
Both books hold permanent residence on my bookshelf on my left and have been there since they've been published. He's a professor and has been a professor at Harvard Law, Georgetown University and other institutions of higher learning. He's the founder and CEO of the Black Swan Group and he and his team have a master class, which was excellent. All about the Black Swan Method. Mr. Ross, welcome to the studio.

David, thank you for having me on. a pleasure. Yeah, I can, you know, I'm available anytime to introduce you like that in any meeting that you need. All right. Thank you. You could just let me know. That's great. So, you know, one thing I wanted to ask before we, before we jump into some of the things we wanted to, go over is there's also a documentary coming out called, where can people catch that? What is that still in development?

Now when Nick is working on a distribution deal for that right now, I expect him to have something done by the middle of the year. My guess is it'll be Amazon or Netflix, but that's in Nick's hands. Should be out soon. I'm looking forward to it coming out. Yeah. And that kind of outlines your story, right? Your origin story and how it's all come together. Yeah. It's on several cases that I worked at were

you amazing to be a part of a Chase Manhattan bank robbery and then attracted me and siege and Washington, DC. And then my son's in it and it's pretty good. I'm, I'm very proud of what they put together. That's great. That's awesome. So, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, before we kind of get into a discussion on negotiation in the black swine method. How did you first get involved in law enforcement? I mean, you grew up in

Iowa, believe, right? Small town in Iowa. Yeah. And the FBI over in the... Yeah. And you had a very strong-minded mother, as I understand, as I've seen you discuss as I did growing up in the Midwest. What inspired you to get into law enforcement in the first place? You know, think principally when I was 16, I saw a movie called The Super Cops about two...

Dino Mauro (04:20.609)
New York cops, you know, based on a true story. These guys were wildly innovative, very creative, independent, and the community that they were in, which was a high crime community, the community loved them and they put a lot of bad guys in jail and they had a great time doing it. And I was really inspired by that movie and that really set me on that track. That's phenomenal. And did you begin the career straight into the FBI to go into hostage negotiation or did you start?

we've, we've had former FBI agents on none as decorated as you, course, but we've had former ones and some of them are high school teachers. Some of them came from linguistics backgrounds. come from all over. Yeah. That's the cool thing about the Bureau from all kinds of backgrounds, everything, school teachers, scientists, know, former cops. so I, you know, I went to, I got a four year degree and went to school at Iowa State University.

at the time, was affectionately known as Moo-You. It was a university that was originally designed to set up for farmers to be able to go to school when they weren't in the fields. they're in the fields and they're Agricultural management, things like that, right? Yeah. And so I got out of college. I went and joined the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. I was there for three years. that was while I was in college, I got the idea, not in college, when I was at the PD.

I got attracted to federal law enforcement and then I ended up applying to the FBI and joined the FBI right about three years after I became a police officer. you started at the KCPD? KCMO, City, Missouri. Great police department. Wow. That is, yeah. that's, that's good. I couldn't find that anywhere. So I was, that was really interesting for me. That's When you were starting out, did you have somebody that kind of took you under your wing?

somebody that served as one of your mentors? Well, there were informal mentors along the way. And what I love about that question is if somebody takes you under their wing, it's because you asked them how to do something and you were asking the right person. There's never taking somebody who wouldn't trade places with, never taking direction from somebody who hasn't been where you're going. So it's a critical issue.

Dino Mauro (06:42.286)
There's trust and competence. Can you trust them and do they know what they're talking about? A lot of people you could trust they don't know what they're talking about They're very well-meaning But they just don't know so how do you get an informal mentor? Go to somebody's doing a good job of what you want to be good at Ask them what to do and then do what they tell you which seems ridiculously obvious But most people don't do it. Most people do we had something in a bureau that called shopping opinions

if there were new agents on a squad and they'd walk around and ask questions, what they were doing was shopping for something that they wanted to do anyway. And as a more seasoned agent, you spot these guys a million miles away. They walk around and ask questions. They're not following anybody's guidance. So your original question on mentors, nobody really took me under the wing in a police department per se.

A couple of sergeants knew I wanted to learn and they were always looking out for me and guiding me because I listened. One in uniform, one police detective I really learned a lot from. A lot of the detectives got kicked out of the Detective Bureau in Kansas City because there was a dispute with the administration. The detective said, you know, this is tantamount to promotion.

because we become detectives and we're never put back in uniform. So effectively we've been promoted and the police and we want to get paid accordingly. And so they didn't realize what they were setting themselves up for. So the administration as bureaucratic administrations will do, well, they said, well, one of your points is you never get put back in uniform. All right, a bunch of you are going back to uniform. And it was bad for them, but then some really experienced.

police officers came back out into the field and I remember one guy in particular just really showed me how to talk to people. And I soaked it up. And he showed me. He didn't tell me. I saw him work miracles just based on his tone of voice. So I started paying attention and he started offering me some guidance in different spots along the way in my life. I asked the right people and I did what they told me to do and then what happens is they tend to look out for it.

Dino Mauro (09:04.462)
If you're asked the right person and you show that you will actually follow instruction, which is also a rare commodity, sounds very common but it's very rare, then they're going to look out for you because they want to see you succeed because you're doing what they told you to do. So informal mentors along the way. then finally, towards the of my career, Gary Nessner was the head of the hostage negotiation unit when I first got there.

And Gary was really a great mentor and I appreciate everything I learned from Gary. That's phenomenal. You know, how did you first decide to go into hostage negotiation? When did you decide that's the specialty within the hostage That was an accident. mean, I always wanted to be on the SWAT team and you know, I'd applied for the SWAT team.

with the police department and was actually set to be transferred when I accepted the job from the Bureau. And then I was on a SWAT team in Pittsburgh, my first office, FBI Pittsburgh, I was on a SWAT team there. then I got transferred to New York as part of a normal rotation. I tried out for the Bureau's hostage rescue team and I ended up re-injuring my knee. I had been in martial arts. I'm kind of a medium size though. There a lot of people in the street, a lot bigger and a lot more capable than me.

So I thought, right, I don't expect to be this big beefy guy. When I'm in college, you know, let me learn some martial arts. I tore ligaments, tore my knee up pretty good in college, had it repaired. Then when I was training for the hostage rescue team, a number of years later, about 10 years later, as a matter of fact, you know, I tore, I re-injured my knee and had it worked on again. I thought, you know, I can't do this that many times.

And we got hostage negotiators, you know, and that's crisis response. I love crisis response because you have to make decisions. I don't like comfortable in action. never have. And so at least I thought, yeah, I'll be a hostage negotiator. How hard could that be? And I was actually rejected. But I took some advice on how to get on the team and I followed. And then I got on the team and it was. were rejected. You took it up. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Dino Mauro (11:28.642)
That's okay. Well, you know, when I got there, when I learned the skill, it was more enjoy. I love SWAT and hostage negotiation was better than SWAT ever was. Yeah. And the, after you got rejected, did you, you didn't just accept that and look to something different. You went back and you said, that's still what I want to do. Figured out what you, what you needed to learn, what you needed to skill up on and then reapply.

Yeah, well, and effectively the person that rejected me, the woman that rejected me, I said, what can I do? You know, how can I, how can I make myself eligible? And she said, go volunteer on a suicide hotline. And I did. And when I came back to her about four months, four or five months after I'd been on the hotline, she was shocked that I took her advice. You know, this following, taking instruction.

professionally from the right people is it's stupid how rare that actually is. And immediately when she saw that I took initiative and I took instruction, she put me in line to become the next person trained for the hostage negotiation thing. That's phenomenal. Isn't doing that aligned with the Black Swan method in and of itself, right? It's establishing trust. It's demonstrating,

the credibility when somebody gives you instruction and you're right, very few people actually do it. But when you demonstrate that you do it, you're building a level of trust between the two of you. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I love that you're using the word trust there because to really understand trust, take away the word trust and substitute the word predictability in. And so if somebody gives you guidance,

It's predictable that you follow it and trust as a result comes, you know, they're not going to be shocked that you went and did something else. You're going to do what they told you to do and trust follows because trust is predictability. Excellent. What was the experience like before we get into Black Swan piece? You served in a, you volunteered on a suicide hotline. I, my strong minded mother did that for over 20 years.

Dino Mauro (13:49.96)
And I used to hear the stories and see her go through that because it really affected her, but she kept going back. And what was that like for you? Was there any lessons in there in dealing with that that helped you in the negotiation? Well, yeah, the whole foundation of Black Swan Method really started there. And it was understanding what empathy is. Empathy is not agreement or sympathy.

Empathy is a demonstration of understanding. And then it was a master class in emotional intelligence. The big advantage I had there was I volunteered on the suicide hotline to learn a skill. I went there for mercenary reasons. Consequently, good while I was there, the missionary aspect of it was a fringe benefit. It was icing on the cake. Now, the advantage of that, if you go there to help people,

There's a significant number of people that call crisis hotlines and suicide hotlines only to manipulate the volunteer and that burnout is high. all hotlines, their number one problem is volunteer burnout. Now funding is a problem too, know, keeping the doors open, keeping the lights on is the number two problem and it ain't far behind number one. But number one is always volunteer burnout because of the challenging.

nature of the manipulative people that call. Now flip that over, if I'm only there to learn a skill, instead of being burned out by the manipulative callers, the life vampires, I was afraid to buy them. You know, to me it was a learning experience. Like how do you adapt to these people? So the experience for me and basically everything that is the Black Swan Method really started on that crisis hotline way back last century. That's exactly what I wanted to ask you.

is how did these principles, how did you first kind of come to codify these and to see a repeated trend that by doing these techniques, we are connecting with people, increasing communication, gaining, you know, exercising empathy without, you know, it's effective. Like, when did you first realize it? Well, the first thing, the skill set wasn't that clearly defined on the hotline.

Dino Mauro (16:16.846)
But you know, sort of the methodology was. And the thing that astonished me was when you volunteer on a hotline, they say there's a 20 minute time limit on all calls. And as a volunteer, you're going like 20 minutes. I mean, come on. You know, on the movies and TV, this stuff take hours. You you hear about people talking to other people for hours. There's a story about Richard Branson in his early days. He did a lot of volunteering.

And he had a crisis, I believe he had a suicide prevention line when he was just a kid, know, teenager, late teens in England. And he talks about, you know, being on the phone overnight with people, trying to help save their lives. Now he's doing it at the time, sort of making it up as he goes along. Now, if you go someplace where they've been doing it professionally and they've boiled down to skills, they say not only is 20 minutes enough time, but if you do it well, it'll take less time than that.

And you're kind of in a state of disbelief and you start practicing the skills and it does. And, you know, that's the thing about empathy and the application of actually making people feel heard, the acceleration of communication and decision-making is really astonishing. So I think I probably sort of lost track of what you originally asked me. No, that's okay. Because what I'm just curious is the black swan method, there's key terms.

right? There's tactical empathy, the calibrated questions, seeking no accusation audit. I've got some specific questions for you on that. But when did you kind of first begin to see it as a pattern or as a trend that you can say, I'm starting to identify these questions, and it's going to become what ultimately becomes the accusation audit, right?

Did you see that in what was it in something that you were trained on or was it life experience? When did you first see it? Well, yeah, I took I took effectively the methodology and the skill set from the hotline and then when I get trained as the hostage negotiator the bureau had a definitive list of eight skills and with a clear a clear term for each one and

Dino Mauro (18:39.424)
Oddly enough at the time, the eight skills were just listed on one slide and there wasn't a separate block of instruction really fleshing all of them out. So when I got to the crisis negotiation unit, I took it upon myself to write an entire block of instruction just on the eight skills, definitions and examples. You know, I've been working pretty hard at getting better at instructing at that point in time and they put a heavy duty emphasis on instructing the skills.

So I took the list of eight and then just wrote an entire block of instruction on them. So that was a basis. We have nine skills in the Black Swan method. They grew out of the FBI eight. And then as we applied them, we really learned that even on a list, they kind of made them all look the same. Some of them are more advanced and combinations of the others. then in using them,

You know, I blurt out an application and the accusations audit was really born out of using the skills over and over again. The accusations audit is about deactivating negatives in advance. And I remember having a witness in a trial that was really unhappy with me. And before I said a word, I knew the witness was unhappy with me based on the circumstances. And so I blurted out, I basically started calling myself names.

And it disarmed them. And we're like, wow, you can get out in front of this negativity. It inoculates it, right? Like the practical effect is that it basically inoculates the bad feeling that they had about you. then you follow it with pause, with dynamic silence, as you guys have coined it. And it's very powerful. It's very effective.

Yeah, it's ridiculously effective. It's the most effective strategy. really is. So that's what I wanted to ask you is people can learn and read about what these techniques are, right? Tactical empathy, the calibrated questions, etc. What is the best way? When I first read them, I was like, this is a great theory, great theoretical framework. And then I saw

Dino Mauro (20:59.95)
Several of your I took your masterclass your team's masterclass and in the importance of Practicing it really sunk in so I started to practice it small stakes personal life and then Started using it at work and then in personal life It works. Yeah, and I don't even care why I

Part of me, the geek in me is like, I want to understand the neuroscience why. And so I've studied that part too, but really I don't even care. Most people, it doesn't matter why it works. It works. And it's really effective because it's not a manipulative technique. It's a genuine way of improving communications. And what is your advice for people that first want to try and practice it? Yeah, that's perfect. And you really outlined

the exact path. You you're not going to trot something out in the middle of a big negotiation. know, like, you know, I do a lot of, we coach residential real estate agents. happen to be in Los Angeles right now next week. We're doing a conference for residential real estate agents. I'm doing it with this guy, Steve Schull. He works with our team and Steve was a, played in the NFL. He actually played in the Super Bowl and you're not going to change your offense.

for the Super Bowl the day of the game. You you gotta practice. You you're practicing when it's not an actual game. So how do you do that in real life? The two best places to start trying these skills are small sticks interactions, everyday interactions. Or if you wanna try it professionally, try it in one of two places. Try it with people with deals you're never gonna get. Because you got nothing to lose.

You know, whatever you do for a living, you're dealing with somebody you know you're not going to come to an agreement with. Let trying to get the agreement go and try out the skills and see what happens. You got nothing to lose because you weren't going to get it anyway. Or conversely, if you want to try it in a deal, try it with a customer or client or counterpart that you know you're going to get the deal and you got nothing to lose.

Dino Mauro (23:18.85)
You can't, you can't hurt either one of those situations. You can't hurt the interaction. And so then experiment with it and see what happens. That's how you develop your feel for it and your confidence that it could create great things. Absolutely. mean, and it's used all of those tech techniques can be used in various stages of a sales cycle, whatever you're selling or a negotiation. You talk often about

We negotiate multiple times a day, whether we realize it or not, don't we? Yeah. Every time we try to get... You have some advice, don't you, about when are the best times to negotiate certain types of negotiations? Well, yeah, that's interesting point. What's your insight on that? Is there... Should you begin difficult negotiations in the morning or what? Yeah. know, mid-morning is really something that we're starting to refer to as green light time, you know?

The green light for the SWAT team is when it's okay to pull the trigger, when the conditions are optimal for action. And in very broad general terms, 10-ish, 10 is about that optimum time. Maybe a little bit earlier, but there's a lot of physiological reasons behind it. Your biorhythms, whether or you got a good night's sleep, how challenging the day has been, whether or not you're burned out on decision fatigue.

In very broad terms, both you and your counterpart are going to be at about your collaborative peak mid-morning. And you're less likely to be in a bad mood. You're 31 % smarter in a positive frame of mind. You need you to be smarter. You need them to be smarter. So mid-morning is about optimal time. You mentioned decision fatigue. What is that?

Every one of us can only make so many decisions in a given day. And it's sort of like, how many pushups can you do in a day? You can affect it somewhat, but you really got to limit on how many decisions you can make. It's famously, I think it's why Steve Jobs only wore blue jeans and a black turtleneck. Cause he knew that a decision would be worth

Dino Mauro (25:46.134)
millions of dollars and he's not going to blow $20 million on what shirt they wear. You he looked at everything as a decision. every, you know, you've only got so much gas in a tank and so does your counterparts. So you want to do what you can to enhance your ability to make decisions and take your recharge moments through the course of the day. But you can only make so many decisions in a given day. that is exactly why.

It makes a lot of sense why engaging with more important decisions earlier on in the day makes more sense. Otherwise you're asking somebody after they're burnt out toward the end of the day to make a big decision. Yeah. I can, know, and makes perfect sense. I remember once seeing some of the, you know, there's a lot of bad advice for salespeople out there. And I remember reading like, you know, call a CEO after five o'clock.

because his secretary's probably gone and he's probably gonna answer the phone. So you get him on the phone. And I'm like, yeah, but the guy's burnt out. You might get him on the phone, but you're not gonna get him to commit to anything he's gonna follow through on. Or she, forgive me. No, that's exactly right. So our podcast is Cyber Crime Junkies. We're in the cybersecurity space, right? We do a lot of cybersecurity services.

but it's it's cybersecurity is as big of a phrase as business. There's so many different aspects to it and it's really about brands and brand protection, brand growth, things like that. There's a lot of negotiations involved in the cybersecurity space, whether it's internal business cases within organizations so that they can get things done or whether it's between vendors or it's extortion.

conversations with cyber criminals. And you talk about tactical empathy. I want to ask you, you always explain about how the other person when you're negotiating the other don't look at the other person as a as an adversary, look at the context as an adversary. But my question to you is, what if you are negotiating with somebody that has no sympathy and

Dino Mauro (28:08.724)
is truly an adversary. Like how do you, how do you still build rapport that way? Like, do you have any, I mean, you've done that through during hostage negotiations. Do you do that through accusation audits? Does it just depend on the specific context? That's what I was curious about. Yeah, well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to take a collaborative approach to you, with you, no matter who you are.

Like you could be a Russian extortionist, you could be an al-Qaeda terrorist, you could be a trap bank robber. You've got wiring in you that's there simply because you're human. And your emotional circuitry contains a real desire to be understood, a desire to be heard. Even sociopaths want to be heard. Even sociopaths change their emotional approach to you.

when they feel hurt and everybody wants their autonomy preserved, people love to feel in control. You know, lot of my negotiation approach is based on an idea of the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is given the other side, the illusion of control. Like if you're highly adversarial, you're highly control oriented. So I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna give you the illusion of control. You'll drop your guard. You'll feel good about the interaction.

You'll chill out. All these subtle little nuances, regardless of how adversarial you are, ultimately put me in the driver's seat. And I want to do it in an invisible way, not a grandstanding way, not an in-your-face kind of way, not a celebratory kind of way. You know, I use the term astonishing lot. You're going to be astonished because you never know when it happens. You're just not going to see it.

There's a phrase that we're even toying with a little bit called tactical empathy espionage. What's espionage? Invisible stuff. You don't know what happened and it happened. And that's really the approach and you're going to be vulnerable to it no matter who you are because you're wired as a human. Even if you're a sociopath, you still have the same limbic system, the same components in your emotional makeup, the amygdala, the hippocampus, you know, all the crazy phrases that that

Dino Mauro (30:38.024)
The neural anatomy people have thought up. You got them in you whether you like it or not. Maybe your compassion's been deactivated. Maybe your guilt's been deactivated. But you still get angry. You still want to feel in control. You still want to be hurt. And you'll still feel fight or flight, right? If you experience a migdala hijack, you'll still feel that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Excellent.

So there things that are going to happen in your brain no matter who you are. And so tactical empathy is a really effective tool then because it doesn't mean sympathy, right? It doesn't mean agreement, but it means acknowledging the other side and reaching understanding. Acknowledging their perspective. And you know, that's exactly right. The real power in this is when you understand that there's a difference between empathy and agreement.

And there's a difference between empathy and compassion and empathy and sympathy. Today's day and age, those words are synonyms, but in actuality they're not. I can be completely empathic with you having utterly no sympathy for you at all if I understand the difference. So for the listeners, the viewers that may not have read your book yet, but

There's going to be links in the show notes and everybody that listens to the podcast, hope will. Tactical empathy. How do you define it? Take empathy, completely understanding the other side, not agreeing, not liking or disliking, simply understanding. And then you got to demonstrate the understanding. You have to articulate what it is that you think you understand. It's an action as much as a perception.

Steven Kotler wrote repeating it through. Yeah, like repeating back to them either through summary or through comments like it seems like you're feeling this way or it seems like we're in this scenario, whatever that might be. Right. Yeah, there you go. That's that's that's exactly right. And I was going to say, Steven Kotler, an author who's I read all this stuff he wrote in one book, empathy is about the transmission of information. Compassion is the reaction to that transmission.

Dino Mauro (33:01.678)
So empathy is a transformation information. Now we put in the word tactical for a couple of reasons. One, to take this sympathy, remove it from the sympathy vernacular and to make it more usable. And then also with tactical, even since a book has been written, the advances in neuroscience are incredible. We're tactically adapting based on things that we've learned collectively as humans about neuroscience, which is a hard science. Psychology is a soft science.

Neuroscience is hard. It's electrical wiring in the brain. It's chemicals that have an impact on a brain that are released internally. Oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine. They do things to us. Sciences has shown that to us. And so you want to do things tactically that have an impact on the way the brain is functioning and the way the neurons are firing within one another. And then neuroscience is

It's still discovering stuff. You know, they're, they're not completely sure about a lot of stuff, but it's much harder science and psychology. Since you wrote, never spoke the difference since it's been out and you've talked about it. You've been asked a million questions about it. how has the black Swan method evolved? You've you're you just, yeah. You, you, mentioned recently, now you guys are, are looking at the

at the term of art of tactical empathy espionage. Explain that to me, please. Well, it's really helping people understand to start with that the impact is going to be invisible. You know, it's going to be it's not going to be like when you went to slot machine in Vegas and bells are going off and everything is ringing and lights are flashing and it's a huge celebration. The empathy breakthroughs.

are going to happen because suddenly you're in a different point in the conversation that made no sense two days earlier. One of the guys on my team, Don Feeselman, is still a retired Vegas Metro PD and still doing private detective work and actually just got back on the Cole K Squad as a part-time investigator. He's telling a story where he's hunting down a woman to serve a subpoena on a white collar.

Dino Mauro (35:25.518)
fraud for a million dollars. And he gets hired to do this because nobody else can track her down. Donna's really good. And he finds a location that he thinks she frequents. And he's talking to a woman through one of those ring doorbells, which means even though he's talking to the doorbell, there's no guarantee she's inside. She could be anywhere. And she's not admitting that it's her. And he's going to lay a subpoena on her that's a million dollar

million dollar negativity. And so he just starts using empathy. And he's talking to this person through the ring doorbell and talking about how her perspective is, this is what it looks like to her. All this looks like a bad idea. It looks like she's being pursued. How does she perceive? Now he thinks he's talking to her, but he's not 100 % sure. But in Don's terms, he's making it all about her. Just how she sees this.

how she looks at it, how hard it is for her. And two days later, he's sitting in a coffee shop, calmly having a conversation with the fugitive and calmly handing her the subpoena and she's accepting it. And he's astonished at how he got from two days earlier, he's talking to some female in a ring doorbell, not knowing where she is. It is not in her interest to admit that she's the fugitive, nor is it in her interest to meet with him.

Two days go by based on the conversation he had with her, making it all about her, demonstrating empathy, and they're calmly talking in a coffee shop. Now where did that transformation happen? It was invisible. It's astonishing, but there was some sort of empathy espionage going on from the ring doorbell to the coffee shop. There was no celebratory ringing of lights and flashing.

and calling attention. But then it happened. And that's what it's really about. It's, it's, it's direct. Like he wasn't playing. Yeah. And he wasn't playing like hard cop, like I'm coming after you, this and that. This was more relating to her context and building trust. It, it pulled her walls down. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It really does. It's amazing. That's phenomenal.

Dino Mauro (37:49.698)
You know, you talk about black swans, your organization is called the Black Swan Method. Can you share with us how you define black swans? Is it unknown, unknown? Is that the best way of saying it? Well, yeah, kind of. mean, although that's a little bit of a cliche, what does it mean? All right. So first of all, you're always holding stuff back in every negotiation. There's stuff you're unwilling to share because you think it makes you vulnerable, because you think it gives the other side all the leverage.

Well, if it has that much of an impact on a negotiation, then it's important. And it could change everything. Now, the other people are doing that too. They're holding back stuff. So what don't you know? You know, if you, we live in an imperfect world. Our military guys would say an asymmetric world. You don't know, you don't have all the information. It's one of the things I just started writing a piece.

about the yesable proposition. You my academic brothers and sisters still hang on to this idea that they say, create a yesable proposition where you can lay a proposition on the table where no further negotiation is necessary. The other side's going to see it and go, this is perfect. Where do I sign? Let's get this underway. And it sounds very attractive. Does that fall under the belief of the

Yeah, does that fall under the belief that if they get the yes at first that that somehow warms you up to saying yes to something that matters later? It's it's it's it's there's a similarity to that. Yeah. But the yesable proposition. Well, if it's an imperfect world, you can't create a yesable proposition where no further negotiation is necessary. Number one, a point of fact. Because there's stuff that they are hiding from you that you don't know.

And on top of that, you're denying the other side the opportunity to participate. You're taking away their autonomy. The feeling of participating, the feeling of collaboration is essential for people being vested in the outcome. If you threw something in front of me, even if it was perfect, if I had nothing to do with putting it together, then at the sign of the slightest problem,

Dino Mauro (40:14.368)
I got no problem throwing it in the trash because I'm not invested in that outcome in any way. I did not collaborate on it. I was not consulted about it. I did not have the opportunity to say yes or no to anything. You just laid it on me. I am not invested in any way, shape or form. And even if it was perfect, I'm going to walk away from it first chance because I don't care. It was your idea. It wasn't mine. Right. Well, and that's where you get to...

you talk about how the accusation audit and tactical empathy, it evolves to creating trust. And then from there, there's collaboration. And then that's where the agreement ultimately comes. And that can't happen in that scenario. Exactly. Yeah. There's no collaboration. You've talked about, there's three types of black swans, right? There's

concealed motivations, I think, and undisclosed needs. Can you walk us through the three types? Yeah, know, well, I effectively, yeah. What's undisclosed, what's concealed, probably very much the same. But the really interesting thing is what's in the overlap? That's where the magic really is, the innocuous stuff. Like, know, if you know it's important,

you conceal it, you hold it back, that know, that's just all this nonsense about reading their tales. But what about the stuff that they're holding on to? They just don't know it's important. Because you're holding stuff back. So there's an overlap. And so that's why reading body language tells will do you no good. Because if I have no idea this is going to have an impact, I'm not going to conceal it. I'm not going to have any tells. react to it. Yeah, I'm just, you know, I don't know. You know, I didn't know that Thursday was an important day for you.

You know, how would I, how am I supposed to know that? I don't know what you're holding back. So the real critical issue in the black swans is what's in the overlap of the hidden information. That's where you come up with stuff that's like, wow, we're both better off here. You know, a couple of years ago, young ladies trying to get funding for a film in Hollywood. She's telling me about it and she's after 300 grand and

Dino Mauro (42:34.814)
through the course of mirroring and labeling in a conversation, she finds out that the woman investor that she's talking to owns a castle in France. And she's like, I got another film that this would be a perfect setting for. This changes everything. Now, how does the investor know that their castle in France is going to have anything to do with a movie that's being shot in Hollywood? You just don't know that. And that changes everything as soon as, wow.

We got a two-pitcher deal instead of a one-pitcher deal here. You got a setting, you got a castle in France. When you shoot this whole thing in, save half a million dollars on the next production, game-changers stuff. the investors are how am I supposed to know that that castle mattered? Right. Well, and the only way to do that is by calibrated questions, Like open-ended questions, discovery questions, collaboration, right?

taking them away from away from that amygdala hijack so that they feel comfortable and you can build trust. Yeah, exactly. And your conversation in any one of the skills, any one of the nine skills hits the brain a little bit different way. And so that's why, you know, we often look at them as if you're mixing cocktails at a party. You know, friend of mine used to say, like, you know, the beginning of a party, you're hosting at your house, you're probably going to put a little more vodka in the drink.

But later on, you know, once people have gotten going, you're not going to put as much vodka in the drink. You know, you're going to, you're going to mix as the conversation evolves. Yeah, absolutely. So how else has the Black Swan method evolved since, since it was first, since the book was first published? Yeah. Well, got to tell you, tactical empathy and the SB. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're discovering something new every few months. The concept of proof of life.

was a brand new concept that we just didn't really talk about at all in the book that I didn't even think was important. And a point of fact, there's some really solid evidence that every bit of 20 % of the negotiations that you engage in will never come to fruition for a variety of reasons. The other side is looking for free consulting.

Dino Mauro (44:51.822)
They're looking to kick the tires. They're looking to preserve the status quo. so proof of life is, is there a deal and is the deal with you? Are you competing bid? Are they pumping you for methodology so that they can get their preferred provider to provide? So proof of life has become, since the book came out, it's every bit as important as accusations are. Because it's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal.

And how do you sniff that out? recognize earlier, right? Yeah, that's exactly I'm so glad you said that. Isn't it a sin to not recognize it earlier if you could? Like if you could have by asking the right questions, recognize it early on rather than spend six months of time and resources and meetings to not get the deal, then then then that's where the sin lies. Exactly. Yeah. And you can recognize it early. I mean, there's

We learned in a hostage negotiation, there's some guys that are never gonna come out. And if they got hostages, means that the only way to resolve this is gonna be through tactical action, because they're gonna kill hostages. And my old boss, Gary Nessner, came up with a block of instruction called high-risk indicators. What are the nine high-risk indicators that the guy ain't never coming out? And so we just took that idea, what are the high-risk indicators that they're not gonna make a deal with you? And...

what's the methodology where you can tease it out in the first half hour of the conversation and we teach that. It's very important. It saves people a lot of money. That's phenomenal. How do people identify proof of life? Is it through open-ended questions, seeking knows, accusation audits? Is it through all of the methodologies or is there a specific way of identifying? The first specific thing really is to ask them

The only time you ever asked a why question, why do you want to do business with us? And most people are horrified at asking that question because they think it's going to push the other side away. But their answer is going to give you a real clear picture. And if they push it back on you, you're the fool in the game. They say, well, that's up to you to show me. You're the fool in the game. You're being free consulting, competing bid, protecting the status quo. They're not giving you the deal. Absolutely.

Dino Mauro (47:17.322)
And then after that, like if they're overly focused on any one aspect of your offering, it could be price. If they're really, really focused on one thing, your competing bid, and they ain't coming with you, what they do is they want a better, they're driving down the price or they're driving up the services on somebody else. And they're getting real clear in their head what their ask is going to be.

of the company, the provider that they're really gonna do business with. So you're looking for what instead of one thing that they're interested in about your offer, you're looking for questions about various things. Yeah. Right. If they have an interest in what does it look like after implementation? What does it look like two years down the road? Right. Asking questions like that and if they're interested in.

Or if they have an answer. Like, you know, what's our relationship going to look like two years after we start to implement? If they go dead silent, then since they never had any plans of being involved with you two years from now, that question is going to stump them. That's outstanding. What are some of the other high risk indicators? Those are the main ones. You know, they having a conversation with you? What's your gut telling you? Are they gathering information?

Or they talking about how to move forward? And go with your gut, because your gut's really, really good if you go with your gut. You've to be careful of, you you're driven by hopes and fears, your amygdala and your hopes. And hope can be as much a problem as fear. So I'm hoping this is going to work out. You're not listening to your gut. You listen to your gut. Are they they gathering information? Are they talking, actually asking questions that's going to lead you forward in doing business?

And you know what? Ask him straight out. it's often and what we call an asking label is really effective. And the asking label would be. Seems like you're still shopping around. Like that, like it's OK. That's a label, right? You know, it's an inquiry. And it's said in a tone of voice that says it's OK.

Dino Mauro (49:43.256)
And if you go, seems like you're still shopping around, downward inflection on around. Like I understand, you know, it's cool. I get it. You can get one or two responses. They're going to be like, yeah, yeah, we are. Or no, no, no, no, no. If they're not shopping around, you're to get a real strong correction at that point in time, because correcting makes people feel safe. People love to correct. So that's it. And then I kind of feel cornered. You talk about that a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. I really like the idea of dealing with somebody and, and, making a wrong statement almost, and then having them correct you because it helps them feel in control. And it really, it, it illustrates a lot about where they're at, doesn't it? It illustrates a lot about where they're at and they actually bond with you when they correct you. Cause they see correcting as helping.

And that's an automatic step away from the adversarial process into the collaborative process. Yeah, absolutely. When there's cost structure and price, I've always wanted to ask you this, if you don't mind, let's say you're discussing there's some deal and your cost structure, let's just say is like $14,000 a month, right? And you know, you can go down below that to a certain point. Let's say you can go down.

three, four grand or something a month. But if you're doing this and there's a negotiation on the price, when you have the agreement, and you guys are close to that, you talk about in the book this formula for kind of negotiating down. Can you walk me through that? Some of it is like you give the biggest amount upfront and then you just go small increments after it then you hold firm.

logic behind that? How is that effective? Because it is effective. You've used it and it's very effective. I'm curious how that is and I'd like to hear more about that from you. Well, if you're bargaining and sometimes it's appropriate, it should be the last moment.

Dino Mauro (52:01.666)
But if you're bargaining, you've got to go in decreasing incremental change. Like every change in your position, it's got to be roughly half the distance of the last one. The other side feels that they're working hard and they feel the brakes slowly being put on. And they feel that they're ringing every last dime out of you. Now, can't go with two changes in a row. can't.

bargaining against yourself ever.

because then you're losing the decreasing incremental effect. But you cut down by half each time, roughly. You got a target location, price that you're going to. And by the time you get there, you got to make them feel like they worked really hard from it and they ran every last dime out of you. Because the other side is satisfied when they feel they've gotten the best deal they can. And your job is to make them feel that way. It's an emotional...

approach. Human beings are emotion. So make them feel like they worked really hard to get there. That's phenomenal. And how about when you're when people are addressing, let's say it's not even in business, perhaps it's personal life, and somebody is irrational, somebody is aggressive, the accusation audit is really helpful. What other techniques can be used?

calm the person down without without agreeing like let's say they're saying things that are not accurate right but they're but they're hostile and you want to still build agreement between the two of you. out what's driving whether you like it or not. Like the more hostile somebody is more pressure they feel they're in. You know hostility is either genuine or it's a manipulation so you got to know which one it is and.

Dino Mauro (53:58.158)
A great way to figure it out, to diagnose it is the labeling. I mean, it sounds like this is really important to you. It sounds like you feel backed into a corner. It sounds like you're under a lot of pressure. It sounds like you really want me to hear you. If it's genuine, that'll deactivate their aggression. If it's manipulative, they'll shrug it off because they didn't actually feel the aggression. They're trying to manipulate you with it. So it won't have the neural impact on it.

on them which will tell you what you're dealing with.

Excellent. Yeah. and we're in those scenarios. We're seeing, we're seeking a that's right. We're not seeking your right. Right? Yeah. That's that's a critical decision. The distinction. Cause your right is what people say to you to try to get you to shut up. Not when they agree. It's when they just don't want to talk. Yeah. When they, when they give us a, yeah, when they give us a, you're right. That just means shut up basically. Right. But, when it's, but when it's, that's right. That means.

You've acknowledged the elephant in the room. You've inoculated it essentially. Exactly. That's right. All right, David. That's phenomenal. That's great. I'm coming up on a hard stop, my friend. Yep. Yeah. And I want to thank you so much, Mr. Ross. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Yeah. If I could... a fantastic conversation. I'd love to throw in a shameless commercial. Very self-centered, shameless commercial. please. As it...

No, please, as we wind down, I want to ask you what's on the horizon. What do you guys have coming up? Well, you know, the best way we've got a lot of stuff, a lot of cool stuff that's always coming up in-person trainings. We're going to be in Philadelphia before long for some what we call very specialized training. So the best way to keep up on everything that we got coming up, we've got a complimentary

Dino Mauro (55:50.796)
newsletter we put out called The Edge. It comes out on Tuesday mornings wherever you are in the world about 730 into your inbox whatever your time zone is. It's complimentary but better than that it's concise, concise actionable advice that you could put into play that day. And also it's the gateway to everything that we have. Our website is blackswanltd.com.

When you go to the website, you're going to see an opportunity right away, either at the top of the page or on the right hand side to subscribe to The Edge. The Edge is a gateway to the gold mine. You subscribe to The Edge, you're to get actionable, usable advice, digestible one article, not a bunch of articles. You can get through it quickly and then you can see what's on the horizon and different ways that we can help you improve your negotiation outcomes. Yeah. And I'm, I'm already a subscriber and there will be links.

to the website and to the newsletter in the show notes as well. Thank you. Very thank you for what you've done for our country, but also thank you. We wish you guys the absolute best. Your masterclass was phenomenal. The books are phenomenal. We appreciate the time that you spent with us today. It was my pleasure. Thank you very much, David. Thank you so much,

Dino Mauro (57:15.95)
Well that wraps this up. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our episode. The next one is coming right up. We appreciate you making this an award-winning podcast and downloading on Apple and Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube channel. This is Cybercrime Junkies and we thank you for watching.