Coachinginterview

FBI’S NEGOTIATION SECRETS: WHY 99% DON’T GET WHAT THEY WANT AND HOW TO BE THE 1%" | CHRIS VOSS

with Chris Voss

45:39·17 August 2023

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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.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Mirror the last one to three words your counterpart said, in a calm curious tone. It's the fastest available tool for building rapport and pulling out information without putting them on the defensive.
Replace "perfectionist" with "learner" as your operating identity. "You win or you learn" takes the sting out of defeat and removes the fear that crashes performance under pressure.
Soft-decline in stages — "How am I supposed to do that?", "That doesn't work for me", "I'm afraid I can't do that", then finally "no". You preserve the relationship and force creative solutions.
Accept failure as a possible outcome before walking into a high- stakes situation. Naming the worst case removes its grip on you; avoidance amplifies it.
Relax into stress rather than brace against it. The body mobilises blood flow and heart rate more effectively when relaxed, so the cue is "soft shoulders" before "harder push".

Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss breaks down why most people fail at negotiation and reveals the tactical empathy strategies that separate the top 1% from everyone else. Drawing parallels between high-stakes kidnappings and everyday conversations—whether you're closing a deal, resolving conflict at home, or pushing through an athletic challenge—Chris shows how reframing your mindset and mastering the art of listening can completely change your outcomes.

Key Takeaways

Mirror the last 1-3 words someone says to gently steer conversation and gather information without triggering defensiveness—it's far more effective than asking 'what do you mean by that?'
Define yourself as a learner, not a perfectionist. The moment you stop chasing perfection and embrace continuous learning, you remove the weight of failure and actually perform better under pressure
Say 'no' gradually using four specific phrases—'How am I supposed to do that?', 'That doesn't work for me', 'I'm afraid I can't do that', and finally 'No'—to avoid blindsiding the other person and maintain the relationship long-term
Accept failure as a possible outcome before you enter high-stakes situations. This mental rehearsal doesn't guarantee success, but it dramatically reduces the fear that derails performance
Collaborate rather than compete in negotiation. Long-term trust and mutual wins generate far more wealth and happiness than zero-sum adversarial approaches, even from a purely selfish perspective
Relax into stress rather than brace against it. Your body mobilizes resources more effectively when you stay calm—your circulatory system increases capacity and your heart rate responds optimally

Expert Quotes

"You win or you learn. It takes defeat completely out of it."

"If you're constantly learning the goal is to continue to learn... you never really recover from trauma if you're a learner, but if you're a perfectionist you're constantly recovering from it."

"The way to deal with stress is to relax into it. When you relax, your body mobilizes its resources differently."

"I simply accepted it was a possible outcome and it could happen and instead of being afraid of it, it's a possible outcome."

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

Each tagged with the strength of evidence behind it.

EXPERT
Chris Voss argues that roughly 99 per cent of people fail in negotiations because they default to logic and leverage instead of tactical empathy.
Source: Chris Voss, former lead FBI international kidnapping negotiator, interviewed on the Roadman Cycling podcast
EXPERT
Mirroring — repeating the final one to three words of a counterpart's statement — builds rapport and extracts information without revealing your own position or triggering defensiveness.
Source: Chris Voss, "Never Split The Difference" (2016) and Roadman Cycling podcast interview
EXPERT
Labelling — naming the emotion you observe with phrases like "it seems like..." or "it sounds like..." — validates the counterpart's feelings without agreeing with their position and tends to de-escalate tension.
Source: Chris Voss, interviewed on the Roadman Cycling podcast
EXPERT
Voss reports that deliberately calling up an emotion like anger can pull you out of sadness or depression, and that relaxing into stress lets the body mobilise its circulatory and cardiovascular resources more effectively than tensing up.
Source: Chris Voss, interviewed on the Roadman Cycling podcast
EXPERT
The Black Swan Group's "11 Commandments of Negotiation" includes "thou shalt not ignore latent signs" — Voss treats microtells as diagnostic signals about the barriers and fears on the other side of the table.
Source: Chris Voss, interviewed on the Roadman Cycling podcast

KEY QUOTES

“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”
Chris Voss — Former FBI hostage negotiator

“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”
Chris Voss — Former FBI hostage negotiator

“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”
Chris Voss — Former FBI hostage negotiator

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT3 SECTIONS

Welcome and the power of mirroring

In your book you write about the words mirroring yes it's very very interesting can you explain to our audience what that means what that means yeah what it means to mirror someone in a negotiation that's exactly what I just did with you well pleased understand and demonstrate that understanding given that you've lived true and continuing a functional life is there lessons in that wait a minute right you know there'd be a lot of people that argue that point I'll give you another human nature secret Insider's tip is this the same thing how do you get a read on your opponent you're the most coachable person I ever came across you came up with bringing stuff like how did you how did you do that hey everybody welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is Anthony I'm a former lawyer turn cyclist turned podcast host based in Ireland my goal with this channel is to introduce you to the people and the ideas to help you optimize your health your happiness and your longevity today I have an absolutely huge guest former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss some might wonder what do high pressure Stakes of Hostage negotiation have in common with cycling with our daily quest to be a better version of ourselves as we'll discover the lessons the Chris brings from his world shed light on the nuanced negotiations we undergo every day be that in personal Dynamics professional Endeavors or indeed our athletic Pursuits in today's discussion we'll explore beyond the surface uncovering perspectives to help us understand not only the subtleties of negotiation with others but also the strategies for facing and embracing the very challenges that life presents us before we start I have a small little favor to ask at the moment around 90 of you guys watching this channel haven't subscribed yet if you're getting value from these videos please think about subscribing as the bigger channel gets the bigger the guests are gonna get okay that's enough for me bubbling let's get into the show Chris welcome to the roadmap podcast I am happy to be here thanks for having me on I'm excited Chris athletes often talk about this idea of being in the zone or a flow State different athletes have uh different names for finding their Rhythm during a race I'm curious in high stakes negotiations how do you find your Zone like do you have a routine to elicit a state change to get you into that zone um not necessarily routine I mean I believe emotions are sort of a rock paper scissors approach and depending upon the emotion you're trying to get yourself out of at the moment um there is sort of the the highest performance The Zone if you will um flow is highly positive but there's not always a direct route to the highly positive state so if I'm if I can get if I find myself in a playful mood and it doesn't have to be a high stakes negotiation it could be any negotiation you know I need I need to ideally sense Intuit the Brilliance of the moment the thing that I got to say that's exactly right there if I'm in a bad mood I found personally and this is why I think a lot of people mistake anger is a way uh to to give them high performance anger is a way of waking up a negative emotion might be a way of pulling you out of uh depression sadness I learned a number of years ago that if I was very sad about something uh 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 anger angry I could feel the sadness being soaked up and taken place taken away immediately so it was uh the question is where where am I starting from again uh what I believe to be the rock rock paper scissors approach to uh elevating your emotions you know Michael Jordan on a consistent basis when he was playing basketball people constantly say you know don't make them angry don't get them mad and because he would be in the doldrums in a particular game not paying attention maybe his mind is elsewhere and if you piss him off suddenly it shocks him into the moment and people assume that Michael Jordan always played best angry well if you look at his the videos of him playing when he was doing his most amazing things you know with the tongue sticking out and wagging all over the place and being highly creative he was in a highly positive frame of mind I mean you can see the joy of Performing going on at that point in time one game I think he hit six threes in a row and he just kind of looked over the side and sort of shook the Shrugged his shoulders with a smile on his face so your your highest performance State the the state of flow is highly positive now how you get there sort of depends upon where you're starting from at the moment for me it's typically um I don't always get myself out of uh elevated from the bad spot by anger like if I'm frustrated if I can go to gratitude you know I'm lucky to be here in the first place the only reason I'm dealing with this problem that's sucking the life out of me at the moment is because my life happens to be very successful so generally speaking I'll go to positive first but sometimes I need anger to get me out of a sadness I think anger is the best cure for sadness it's not the best cure it's not the best high performance state but it's it's better than being being sad or depressed technically how do you make that transition is that visualization is that breathing exercises uh well for out of sadness yeah they're just and I've used as one particular person that I used to think of um that would instantly make me angry I love to be able to stay um and and I use that guy so many times and I've gotten myself out of it so many times thinking about him doesn't hardly make me angry at all anymore but um then uh for general maintenance for mental health maintenance uh it's gratitude first thing in the morning um I ran a gratitude exercise this morning I try to I try to change it a little bit uh each day or or discover something new today what I wrote down on a journal that I keep is discovered today because any adult over the age of 25 really struggles to stay in the moment the more past we have the more we either reflect reflect on our past or compare it to our future and if we're doing either we are not in the moment and you can't be at your highest performance State unless you're in the moment so default wiring of human uh human beings is to be highly negative gratitude as a regular basis is good mental hygiene to keep you from that place in the first place we kind of have a North star on the podcast and it's this Mantra of uh health happiness and Longevity and a big part of this is Vitality you get a you know longevity Vitality which one you're going for they're all in there I just had a nicer ring to it but I think what Eder a big part of it is it's Stress Management it's not bringing home work witches so without I mean having like an adequate Solo System to be able to compartmentalize stressful work situations and I haven't had that the experience of working in these high stress situations but I know one of your early careers was working on a suicide hotline right unfortunately I suppose how did that come about well I uh you know I I I was very enamored with myself and I went to the head of the hostage negotiation team in New York and presented myself as a gift to her and was immediately rejected uh she was she was suitably unimpressed with me did a quick check on my resume I had no resume to become a hostage negotiator I you know I was I was very young at the time uh theoretically I still consider myself very young um but uh she went through the laundry list and rejected me and uh on being unwilling to I don't believe that there's a problem you can't solve you know figure it out so how do I solve this she said volunteer on a suicide hotline I'm like ah all right you know take advice from somebody in a position to give you advice uh if somebody would either trade places with or has been where you want to go and then actually follow that advice so she told me to go volunteer on her Suicide Hotline and I went there my chief Advantage for volunteering there was I didn't go there to help the fact that I was helping people was icing on the cake a secondary benefit but I went there to learn a skill I went there to learn I love to learn like I can't get enough of learning and so then I soaked it up you know each mistake I made was a it was a learning experience all right so that's how you that's how you don't do it right and through the course of time what I found out just recently I became very convinced that the process that I learned was the best process not perfect but the best consequently after I got off the hotline the first hostage taking I was involved in which was a really rare unicorn event a bank robbery with hostages which is really rare I mean it exceedingly rare in the United States this year one of them won't happen in the entire country uh we're so conditioned with Hollywood movies to think of the day having like I'm thinking of Pacino's first possibly Pacino's best movie Dog Day Afternoon right like you just think these are all these happen every day in the US yeah yeah yeah yeah and and the point of fact the bad guys know the police are coming they get out of there before you show up uh so um but I relaxed into the process I was uh and I remember very specifically I don't know I didn't call it that then but the the way to deal with stress is to relax into it and how do I know I I heard a neuroscientist laid it out for me exactly like that recently uh Andrew huberman and I simultaneously found you know these days I'm doing every Health hack out there I got a coal Plunge in a backyard my girlfriend Wendy Starlin gave me one for my birthday and I found the difference that if when I'm getting ready into the cold plunge if I feel like I gotta brace myself for it it takes me longer to adapt and I'd been telling myself relax into it relax into it if you can tell yourself to relax into stress your body mobilizes its resources differently your heart rate increases your 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 so were you able to use that sort of strategy to compartmentalize it like I'm taking on a practical sense that if you're in a relationship or you have kids I'm not sure your personal situation was the time but a particularly stressful day and work on the suicide hotline that must be hard to unplug from and come home and have you know Netflix and chill with the misses yeah yeah that's a great question because I'm not sure if it's compartmentalization I think maybe psychologists counselors psychiatrists probably called it that in their early days because to me compartment mentalization is so so like put in a closet or cabinet and it's still there and I'm not sure that when we effectively deal with it it's still there if we deactivate it if we process it if we reinterpret it you know I saw a bumper sticker a number of years ago that said what's the difference between adventure and ordeal attitude you know stress is either if you believe it debilitates you it does if you believe it enhances your performance it does so neither one of those are compartmentalization so I'm not sure that it's compartmentalization I think it's a a more effective way of dealing with it which deactivates it diffuses it makes it go away it's not in the cabinet it's not in a closet way to jump back out at you so given that you've lived through the experience of dealing with us you know Trauma from working on that hotline and continuing a functional life is there lessons in that wait a minute you know there'd be a lot of people that argue that point we'll hypothetically say you're a functional is there a lesson from that that you could pass on to an athlete who's looking to you know I don't use the word compartmentalize again but the athletes look at the compartmentalize that bad performance and say okay this bad performance doesn't Define me and I can go on and build the rest of my life because I wear multiple hats I'm not just an athlete I'm not just the person who responds on a hotline I'm also a foreigner I'm also a husband I'm also you know a volunteer somewhere else yeah yeah that's a great question the ongoing struggle of how we get better and um all right so I think how can I put this um how do you how do you define yourself you know I'll I'll quote the great Irish philosopher Colin McGregor who said I win or I learn well um or I let me see yeah I win or I learn all right so then it takes defeat completely out of it how do you characterize yourself uh if you characterize yourself as as a learner um you're you're going to do better and then I'll draw another analogy because I'm watching the um the TV show uh quarterbacks uh I can't remember what streaming service it's on um it's about NFL quarterbacks and three quarterbacks that it's looking at is um the guy from the Kansas City Chiefs a guy from the Minnesota Vikings and a guy is currently with the Falcons and I'll think of these guys names but um the uh the youngest of three is a guy from Kirk Cousins is the guy with the Minnesota Vikings and uh again forgive me but the mental attitude of the three uh the Chiefs guy who's won a couple of Super Bowls gosh I can see his face I can't think of his name you can tell he's constantly learning which then means it's separate from having a goal if you're constantly learning the goal is to continue to learn now cousins with the Vikings who I've always been a fan of and thought was underrated he calls himself a perfectionist uh so first of all that's a that's a recipe for uh unhappiness if you consider yourself to be a perfectionist because Perfection is never achieved and if it is you didn't learn anything from it and so it's a recipe where he's almost constantly unhappy now the chief's guy um as as ridiculously happy all the time I mean he's having a ball I mean he's having the best time and he's constantly learning now uh when the when the Vikings uh Kirk Cousins they give them a new offensive coordinator his first NFL game with the new offensive coordinator they have a near perfect game and he looks back on and he says you know that was almost too easy it just went really well with a hidden message there is he didn't learn anything now the very next game when things started going sideways on him he was flummoxed he was caught off guard he hadn't learned from a previous experience uh the Kansas City Chiefs guy like since he's learning all the time he could put in a near perfect game his if his goal was a great game then he has a great game he doesn't learn anything but he defines himself as a learner a delighted learner at all times so even if he if even if he completed every pass even if he called every every play perfectly he he still would have been fascinated and curious about the process so I think in in the performance of a human being when you're dealing with yourself professionally and how do you take it back to your family and how do you how do you deal with the trauma or your original question I think it really matters as to how you characterize yourself are you a learner well you never really recovering from trauma if you're a learner but if you're a perfectionist you're constantly recovering from it we talk about nutrition constantly on this podcast fueling pre-session mid-session and post session it's vital for performance and it's vital for Recovery as I age I'm definitely becoming more aware of what I'm putting into my body have you ever read the ingredients on the back of a traditional sports gel I literally can't even pronounce so many ingredients on that list there's so many additives and so many chemicals I've been on a search to remedy this and I was so happy to find villaforte and we're now teaming up with them on this podcast 100 natural gluten-free Velo Forte products they've never upset my stomach while out riding my teeth and goat are both tanking me sincerely for this Velo Forte they're kind of like making your own energy bars in jails at home but without none of the mess and none of the effort they taste amazing and I struggle not to eat them with a pot of tea in the evenings there's good healthy bars protein shakes and performance enhancing chews and girls all created to help you feel better of a special offer for listeners of the podcast here on YouTube if you head on over to veloforte.com and you use the code roadman25 you're going to get 25 of your first order the details of this are just in the description below this video and I think you can wear different hats and you can transition I know coming from law I had this attention to detail perfectionism and now stepping into this new and it still feels weird for me saying a career as a podcaster it's more okay into an art and art is never finished art is only a balance because yes I could have spent a year researching for this podcast with you at some point I just have to abandon the pursuit and say enough is good enough I have to press publish I have to move on to the next one that's what art is yeah it's it's a great comparison are you an artist are you a scientist or a mathematician or whatever the the flip side of it is as an artist yeah then you're into the process and um even if you didn't do well you're probably learn and grow from it so yeah it's a really interesting comparison something interesting actually that you touched on there and I'd love to know so I I mentioned law school when I came true law school I I'm not sure what it's like in the US but over here it's excruciatingly painful so I came from a middle class and a family and I played some poker during law school to pay back my law school loans and one of the things playing poker as opposed to being worse off so well but yeah but I had a really tight system where I was just trying to earn like 15 an hour and I'd only play when nightclubs were thrown out so I'd be playing against drunk people and I'd play totally sober so anything I could to stack that Advantage because I wasn't a super player but you do learn to read opponents and that's very similar in sport we're always reading opponents you're looking for a micro tale you know you're looking behind the glasses how fatigued is this person you're analyzing pedal Strokes you're looking at the way they take a drink from their bottle in a negotiation is this the same thing how do you get a read on your opponent well yeah you are looking for the microtein but then what you do with them is really the difference because um the microtels are helping you diagnose uh the barriers on the other side the fears exactly what their fears are you can't ignore um one of the things in in our 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 the difference with a great negotiation is I'm going to use the microtels to figure out how we can collaborate it's as if we were playing poker and we want to pool our cards so that we come up with the best hand possible now that's a frightening and scary thing to do but that's exactly what great collaboration is about pooling our resources so we get the maximum possible return out of the deal we both feel very good about the fact that we collaborated and ideally we're in a long-term relationship of trust and that those that's the real biggest difference because people want to know is trust is our our negotiations playing poker or our negotiations playing chess well actually it's neither unless you're playing poker so you can put your cards together so the two of you can have the best hand on the table but the similarity why a lot of people I think get confused and wanted to be poker is you are looking for microtels you're trying to figure out what the other side is hiding and you're trying to get him to willingly collaborate with you as opposed to figure out what they're hiding so you can beat them you use the word collaborate five times there I think that's so telling that you're trying to move the negotiation be this in negotiation and work a family negotiation anything you're trying to move it away from something that has a binary outcome like one winner and one loser and something where we can both win in this yeah yeah because I'm I know as as a selfish self-centered mercenary I'm gonna make the most money if you and I collaborate over the long term we can trust each other we look out for each other you want to go fast go alone you want to go far go as a team I will be as if if I'm nothing but a mercenary I will be far more wealthy if you and I team up and work together with a high degree of trust now simultaneously as a human being will both be happier you know the missionary in me loves that because we'll both be happier and we'll live longer we'll be able to enjoy more more of the money that we make together so I'm I'm definitely after collaboration even if I'm completely self-centered if I'm agnostic totally all I want is to build my bank account as much as I possibly can to quote one of our high level performing coaching clients I made more money being collaborative than I ever made being customer in your book you write about the words mirroring yes it's very very interesting can you explain to our audience what that means what that means yeah what it means to mirror someone in a negotiation all right so forgive me I'm sure you noticed immediately that's exactly what I just did with you well pleased I used silence then because when you mirror it's it's repeating one to three words that the person just said the uh the Black Swan method mirror the Tactical empathy mirror even a hostage negotiators mayor is not to um imitate your body language or your tone of voice you know a lot um what people previously called marrying if you if you take your health to the side you put your hand to the chin your chin then I'll do that too and somehow we'll be in sync and it'll be this mystical hypnosis between the two of us and so I can lead you into a deal by reflecting your body language isopraxism I think is the multi-syllable academic term for it the hostage negotiators mayor the Black Swan mirror is just repeating one to three ish words one word ever really more than five usually the last three few words but I can move it around and I can then I can pick out different words at different points in time to mirror it's a great way to gently steer the conversation and and it's um an A plus substitute for the the C plus question of what do you mean by that now what do you mean by that it's not a bad question uh that's but I would maybe maybe what do you mean by that is a B minus question what do you mean but it kind of escalates I find I was playing around with this after I read it with my girlfriend where we constantly have this she wants me to bring the bins down and I don't we live in an apartment the bins have to be carried down to the outside uh garbage and it's like she's like will you bring the bins down I'm like what do you mean by that because we've recycling bins we've regular waste and when I say what do I mean by that it's adversarial straight away so the bins like the bloody bins you know well what I mean yeah they repeated only louder right yeah exactly exact same words and so you you actually may be that may be a legitimate question but but the and as as you point out often uh that question is an escalation are you when you mirror it for whatever reason there's something different that clicks in somebody's head and they'll expand on it or at a bare minimum they won't escalate when I married you a few moments ago you hesitated so my use of dynamic silence you know I got to sit there comfortably in the silence and I gotta let you come out of it comfortably and then I'll I'll diagnose um how to move forward based based on your response and you were a little reluctant to come out of it but you didn't come out escalated and so it's a great way to get more information without causing the other side to feel challenged or misunderstood or what do you mean by that people usually repeat the exact same words the same way and the mirror lets somebody know all right so I got your words got the words and I and I proved it because I repeated them and I'm listening and I'm actually curious and I would really like you to go on and I I need you to add to it and it's a it's a gentle respectful request to add to what you just said and then you let the person uh you sit there and wait um and sitting in Dynamic silence for two out of three people is just horribly excruciating until you learn how effective it could be and when you learn how effective silence could be I mean you're using it all the time I had a friend who was a landscape Gardener and he was telling me about the power of Silence so he said he would do summer jobs and he'd go to these wealthy houses and he'd go into the backyard and they say oh can you price the job and he'd come back and he'd say you know an extortionate figure for the job like this is gonna be it's a hundred and fifty thousand dollar job um so they'd say okay well do you have a price in mind for the job and he'd say 150 000.

Silence, mirroring, and the bank robber

And then he would just say totally quiet and they'd come back and go 150 000 is very expensive but he wouldn't say anything and he would stay quiet for sometimes minutes as they went on this Journey on their own they go well yeah that's a lot of money I'm not sure my wife's gonna go for that well but but it is high quality material you're using my neighbor did give Raven reviews about how good you are and they're okay okay 100 150 000 of this yeah it's it's so powerful like that it's really amazing how many people are afraid to do it just horrified by it and everybody's got two or three uh examples but I think in until you've actually done it and experienced yourself is is what really needs uh the breaks the barrier you got to feel success for yourself no matter how many times you see it around you um you just have to experience it yourself can you think of a real world negotiate an example where you use that mirror and in the field well um uh the the first bank robbery I was in I had I had the skill of mirroring sort of as a reflexive action uh based on practice you know what uh Denzel Washington his character in the movie Man on Fire said there's only trained and untrained and so I had been training and I had been mirroring and in in the bank robbery I was moving towards a point in time was getting ready to confront the bank robber over his identity he'd been hiding it from us for a very long time wouldn't even give us his first name and The Negotiator was on a phone ahead of me just said okay I'm gonna call you Billy just to give you a name and by the time they put me on the phone we 99 sure identified him based on voice ID and some of the circumstances and I was told to confront him with his name I wanted to back into a gently so the way we got it is we found this van and we identified as you know the registration went to his house found the neighborhood that knew him and brought the neighbor to the house and listened to him and the guy says yeah that's that's Chris Watts so I'm gonna back into it by asking him about the van which he doesn't know that we found and I started talking about the van and I see you know we got a van idea out here and and we've identified the drivers of all the vehicles except this one and he I think he says something to be effective uh will you chase my driver and I I don't know what the hell he's talking about it's not responsive to to what I've said at all and I'm just really confused in a moment so I go we Chase your driver away said yeah when he saw the police he cut and run and I mirrored him a couple times and this highly controlled person who was just very manipulative in control at all times not flummoxed the mirrors suddenly he's blurting on information telling us about his getaway driver that we had no idea had ever been at the scene and his spontaneous emissions in the in this negotiation are what actually caused the getaway driver to plead guilty to the charges because we had the bad guy on tape giving him up so I mirrored at the point in time just because I was confused and I didn't know what else to say but there must come a point in negotiation I'm sure you're doing everything you can in most circumstances to avoid uh adversarial relationship but there must come a point where you need to dig your heels in and say no how can you say no productively will you let it out a little at a time they're called a friend of mine uh he used to be a general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers Ned colletti we're sitting around talking about this because we'd been teaching previously in my company and we still do but we've added to it a lot that the first way to say no is to say how am I supposed to do that just look straight at the other side and go how am I supposed to do that and then we got four very specific ways to tighten it down a little at a time each time till finally if the other side doesn't get the idea you just go now and you don't say it accusatory you don't slam your hands on the table and walk out you know you're not dramatic which is very effective short-term very toxic long term and I believe in long term because it makes me more money so I'll start out with how am I supposed to do that to begin to Telegraph that this is a problem for me and then I'll say you know you've been very generous that just doesn't work for me if you still don't get the idea I'm going to say I'm sorry I'm afraid I can't do that and if you're still pushing me that's when I just don't know and at that point in time I'm prepared to walk out the door but each time I let no out I warned you I warned you I warned you what I did was I don't want to Blindside you with no I don't want you to get caught off guard I want you to know it's coming because the last impression is a lasting impression and if I hit you with a no boom right off the bat my last impression is very negative you feel off caught off guard you feel angry if I gently let it out a little at a time when I finally say it inside you go like well you warned me and you're far less angry and you're far more likely to come back and be collaborative later these the golf these hostage negotiation situations they are they're they're so highly charged and highly pressurized they remind me of when I talk to athletes on the podcast and they've been building up for a four-year Olympic cycle and you know maybe a four-year Olympic cycle doesn't even do justice to the preparation that goes into events like this it's maybe a lifetime building up two to four year Olympic cycle and then it all boils down to one day and it's similar on this I know it's not all boiling down to one day but as you highlighted they are quite infrequent how do you manage that weight of expectation when you get in there and by weight of expectation let me just clarify that before you answer it I mean both the weight of expectation from orders for you to deliver a favorable outcome but also the weight of expectation on yourself which is arguably a heavier weight of expectation a lot of time yeah training it's you know it's training my training on suicide heart language preparation for being in real hostage negotiations when I didn't have time to train on the suicide hotline uh we were in simulations all the time we were role playing uh reading uh visualizing um I a long time ago I remember hearing somebody talk of watching a high school football player running up and down the sideline where nobody was on the sideline but he was uh practicing dodging blocks and I heard one of the fathers say oh that's visualization he's envisioning his performance and so your practice your training you're preparing you're visualizing you're visualizing yourself doing it wrong doing it correctly and you're visualizing the outcomes um you're embracing the fact that you could fail entirely a similar metaphor I remember reading a long time ago that summarized how did summarize deal so well with that they thought it was a possibility I simply accepted it was one possible outcome and it could happen and instead of being afraid of it it's a possible outcome and I'm coaching a negotiation and kidnapping this uh gentleman gets kidnapped in the Philippines at didn't know it at the time he was kidnapped by a serial killer serial kidnapper alone kidnapper I mean this is a unicorn event and I know I used that phrase before but at that point in time I'd never heard of a lone kidnapper ever in any case and I had enough knowledge and still due to this day but at the end I was really at the top of my game I knew as much about kidnapping as any other five people in the entire world and if I'd never heard of a lone kidnapper and it probably didn't happen maybe it did but I would have heard of it now we don't know this guy at the time most coachable member of the family is a brother brother was was great and he took to our coaching so well that spontaneously in the moment he created his own phrases that he used in a negotiation and I remember hearing him saying to myself I wish I thought of that you know that was genius and afterwards We rescued his brother uh his brother came out um not seriously injured he'd been beat up a little bit he'd been bruised no permanent damage but I'm asking you know Aaron the guy that I'm coaching like dude like you were you were in it you're the most coachable person I ever came across you came up with bringing stuff like how did you how did you do that and he said well I don't know if this had anything to do with it but when we started out I realized it was possible that my brother was going to get killed and it just might be Beyond My Control entirely and so for whatever reason I guess that made me more coachable and I studied that and then I finally came across uh somebody else had written about performance and fear and they made the comparison to Samurai and they said summer I just accepted that death was a possible outcome and simple acceptance of it helped him deal with it and I think for any athlete getting ready for that moment walk through how you'd cope with failure and say all right that's an outcome however I've imagined it is probably a flawed imagination but if I imagine the worst and I see myself moving on and dealing with it then the chances that I will successfully are there and the important fact it increases my chances of never seeing failure if I'm not afraid of it if I've just accepted it's a possible outcome how much pre-game planning is there in this how much mapping of well if I ask this question here's the potential responses if he answers this way here's the potential responses I'm thinking like prisoners dilemma if he does this then we do this a lot but it depends you have to not confine yourself to one possible response uh the Brits Scotland Yard uh London Metropolitan Police came up with something called Bunches of fives now the London met guys uh are out internationally regularly I used to bump into them in embassies all over the world so much so that you know it's kind of The Usual Suspects I was kidnapping Baghdad I'm gonna show up guys uh guys from the Brits are going to show the Canadians are going to show it's the same guys that I saw at the last case so Brits were really good at kidnappings and they came up with a method called Bunches of fives what you have to do is maintain your flexibility if you think there's only going to be one response to your question and you map it out if their response doesn't map what you thought you fall apart but if you thought of no lesson three and and Brits called it Bunches of fives then you maintain your flexibility and consequently you you thought of five possibilities there's a really good chance one of them is going to be exactly right but even if it's not you prepared yourself for multiple outcomes and you maintain your flexibility so the key to thinking ahead is don't think of just one possibility and then also don't think any farther ahead than three steps because the chess board's gonna reset after three steps anyway and all of your thinking is wasted time when you're sitting there now with the benefit of hindsight and reflected back on your career is there a moment similar to an athlete might have in a post-race reflection where you felt you could have played the game a little bit differently yeah there is that moment and to save yourself and and to really to be fair and and to the universe because even in that moment it's a world of imperfect information like if I'd have changed my behavior that doesn't guarantee the outcome would have changed there's just too many variables out there my father had a favorite phrase hindsight is 20 20.

The intangible legacy of a negotiator

And that's a delusion hindsight is not 20 20. you could go back and could have changed that behavior and come up with a different failure not necessarily success and that is in fact the the nature of the universe they're just too many moving Parts out there too many variables two too many things to be able to take the arrogance of looking back and say to yourself all right if I had to change this one thing I'd have been successful if you to change the one thing the outcome would have been different but there's no guarantee that it would have been successful a lot of times in life we drift down parts we drift down courses of action and I think that's true for you know maybe at a high 90 percent of decisions that people undertake but there is harder inflection points in one's life and that interaction with a negotiator is invariably going to be one of these harder inflection points what do you believe the legacy of a negotiator is does it transcend beyond that immediate situation that's a great question um it's you know it's hard to say I mean uh for great hostage negotiator the the legacy is extremely intangible because the positive things that you did will Ripple in such a subtle way that you may never know and chances are you will never know you know how many positive things happen that you know the butterfly effect the the Black Swan the black swans that were triggered in a positive way if you did a good job you're never really going to kind of know and so the the satisfaction has got to be very intrinsic in into having done the job and and done as well as you possibly can and I think this it's the same thing in a business negotiation I mean it's really hard to track real success and the Ripple effects of real success failure is usually much easier to track and people want to take blame and that's a little bit self-centered and um you know it could be more debilitating but uh you know the legacy of being positive is very hard and then the real issue is whether or not did you learn from it um in a case in the Philippines of Burnham some Barrel case two out of three Americans didn't make it out alive and a bunch of most of the Filipinos probably a third of them got killed because they're uh two-thirds of them got out because their families were free to Ransom them out they were operating under a different set of rules but the Americans that got killed in that especially towards the end mark Burnham was was killed by Friendly Fire and his wife Gracia lived but she was she was shot and wounded I initially took that as a tremendous failure and then I thought all right so if we apply the positively the lessons that we've learned from this it's going to end up saving lives that's really hard to do and there's very small consolation for the Burnham family and we use those lessons to save lives on Down the Line so how do you process it I guess as a question Chris I've absolutely loved this Josh before you run off to your next high stakes negotiation wherever that be if people got a lot of value from this conversation where's the best place to follow up with you one of the best ways to subscribe to our newsletter uh you go to the website black swannltd.com ltd.com the newsletter The Edge is is a useful thing to subscribe to and it's at no cost Chris it's been a blast on everybody on the link of Chris's book below go get that as well absolutely Top Class rate Chris thank you very much for joining me pleasure is mine I hope you enjoyed this conversation if you did here's another one up here that I know you're going to love please don't forget to subscribe to the channel and share it into your Club WhatsApp group

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is tactical empathy in negotiation?+

Tactical empathy is the deliberate effort to understand and articulate your counterpart's feelings and perspective before making any request or offer. Chris Voss argues it is more effective than logic or leverage because it lowers defensiveness and makes the other party feel genuinely heard, which in turn makes them far more likely to cooperate.

How does Chris Voss mirroring technique work?+

Mirroring involves repeating the last one to three words of whatever your counterpart has just said, delivered in a calm, curious tone. Voss describes it as the fastest available tool for building rapport and drawing out more information, because it signals attention without challenging the other person or revealing your own position.

Why do most people fail at negotiation according to Chris Voss?+

Voss says roughly 99 per cent of people default to presenting logical arguments and relying on leverage, which triggers resistance rather than cooperation. The missing ingredient is emotional intelligence, specifically the ability to identify and acknowledge the other party's emotional state before attempting to influence their decision.

What is labelling in Chris Voss negotiation and how do you use it?+

Labelling is the practice of naming the emotion you observe in your counterpart with a phrase such as "It seems like..." or "It sounds like..." rather than asking a direct question. Voss teaches it as a way to validate feelings without agreeing with the other person's position, which de-escalates tension and encourages them to elaborate on their true concerns.

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Welcome and the power of mirroring

Silence, mirroring, and the bank robber

The intangible legacy of a negotiator

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Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

CLAIMS FROM THIS EPISODE

KEY QUOTES

Welcome and the power of mirroring

Silence, mirroring, and the bank robber

The intangible legacy of a negotiator

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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2.Silence, mirroring, and the bank robber

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3.The intangible legacy of a negotiator

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Welcome and the power of mirroring

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The intangible legacy of a negotiator

Welcome and the power of mirroring

Silence, mirroring, and the bank robber

The intangible legacy of a negotiator