THE SHORT ANSWER
Chris Voss, former fbi lead negotiator, author of never split the difference, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Voss lands on coaching. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
WHO IS CHRIS VOSS?
Chris Voss is the former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, the modern textbook on high-stakes negotiation. His work on tactical empathy, mirroring, and labelling has reshaped how everyone from sales professionals to senior executives approaches difficult conversations. For Roadman listeners, his frameworks transfer directly to the negotiations cyclists face day-to-day — with sponsors, with employers about training time, with family about race weekends, and with their own internal voice when training gets hard.
VOSS ON COACHING
Voss’s key positions on coaching.
- Tactical empathy: understanding the other person's perspective without agreeing with it is the foundation of every good negotiation.
- Mirroring and labelling open the other person's emotional state — they are simple, repeatable, and effective.
- 'No' is the start of a negotiation, not the end — it is the moment you find out what the other person actually cares about.
- Black swans — unknown unknowns — are usually the difference between a good outcome and a great one.
- High-stakes negotiation principles work in low-stakes contexts too — every conversation about training time is a negotiation.
IN VOSS’S OWN WORDS
Verbatim from Chris Voss’s appearances on the podcast.
“I found personally and this is why I think a lot of people mistake anger is a way to give them high performance anger is a way of waking up a negative emotion might be a way of pulling you out of depression sadness I learned a number of years ago that if I was very sad about something unhappy depressed loss of my mother whatever it might be if I were to think of somebody that really annoyed me that I mean just really made me angry I could feel the sadness being soaked up and taken away immediately”
“if you can get yourself to relax into stress your body mobilizes its resources differently your heart rate increases your circulatory systems increases its capacity to pump blood to your extremities when you relax so consequently if you can get yourself to relax into stress your body mobilizes resources more effectively”
“the microtels are helping you diagnose the barriers on the other side the fears exactly what their fears are and one of the things in our most recent thinking now in a Black Swan group we've come up with the 11 Commandments of negotiation and I think number four is Thou shalt not ignore latent signs which is effectively microtels”
HEAR IT ON THE PODCAST
Episodes where Chris Voss covers coaching and related ground.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Chris Voss say about coaching?
Chris Voss, former fbi lead negotiator, author of never split the difference, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Voss lands on coaching. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
What is Voss's main point on coaching?
Tactical empathy: understanding the other person's perspective without agreeing with it is the foundation of every good negotiation.
Which Roadman Cycling Podcast episodes cover Chris Voss on coaching?
Voss discusses coaching in this episode: "FBI’s Negotiation Secrets: Why 99% Don’t Get What They Want and How to Be the 1%" | Chris Voss".
EXPLORE THE TOPIC
Cycling Coaching— The Complete Guide →OTHER EXPERTS ON COACHING