I Interrogated An FBI Hostage Negotiator For His Best Secrets With Derek Gaunt

I’m Igor Kheifest and this is the list building lifestyle. The podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my bestselling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 Bonus packages includes my best capture page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

00:50

Welcome back to the list building lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets and today I’m chatting with Derek gaunt. Now Derek is somebody has been seeking out to get on the show for some time, because he’s an author of ego authority failure using emotional intelligence like a hostage negotiator to succeed as a leader that’s now in its second edition. And Derek is an accomplished trainer and negotiations coach for the Black Swan group, the same group that produced other trainers such as Chris watts, who also hosted on the show the author of never split the difference. Now, Derek has over 17 years of experience in providing negotiations and leadership training to corporate, government and law enforcement personnel. At 29 year, law enforcement veteran, the majority of their career was spent as a member and leader of hostage negotiations teams. During his time with these teams, he became one of the most respected hostage negotiation leaders in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Derek has conducted leadership training around the world, teaching leaders how to apply hostage negotiations, practices and principles to their world. So they’re welcome to the list building lifestyle.

02:08

Thank you, Igor. It’s a pleasure to be here.

02:11

Trust me, it’s the pleasure is all mine. I’m so excited to talk to you because, and I’ve shared this with you before we started, how I like to go and watch the black swan group YouTube channel. In fact, I believe that for some reason, you guys put out content that I wouldn’t be willing to pay 1000s of dollars for really, and it’s all free. It’s quite amazing when you break down your techniques and the different situations and you having clients share feedback and share their own scripts and, and different language patterns. And it’s quite insane, because the subtleties to which you take human communication is what I believe should be the default experience for all of us. Growing up, I really think we should be teaching this stuff in school, because if we become better communicators, as a species, we will advance together in a more effective way than we than we do now. Plus, we could avoid things like conflicts and war and just create great deals together. Right and I grew up in, in Ukraine, until I was about 12, then my family moved to Israel. And now I live in Canada with my own family, wife and two kids. So I got to experience three completely different societies, as far as negotiation styles, as far as communication styles, as far as what is considered to be appropriate and not appropriate. And what I find most valuable about your communication style is how you have the ability to be very, I want to say solid, or like I don’t want to say forceful, because that’s not the word, but you could be super, again, solid, I guess maybe the word. And then you can switch and you can be super empathetic and your tone of voice would be almost soothing. Sometimes I will just turn on your videos, and try to listen to your voice and the tempo and you can speed it up and you can slow it down. And it’s so incredible. And I was wondering if you can talk about that a little bit. How did you train for that? What have you learned doing that and how did you become so proficient at it?

04:30

You know, it started for me way back when I was I was a new police officer and I had probably been on the streets for a year and a half before I got pulled into a specialized assignment and in that specialized assignment. I was a part of a group that focused on street and street level narcotics violations and in carrying out those enforcement actions, obviously, we would be arresting people. And it wasn’t long after I started interviewing these people that I realized that I had a natural inclination to be able to say specific things in a specific manner to elicit specific information that most of the people that I encountered were not inclined to give me, either because they were so traumatized by the event that they had been involved in, they were worried about being viewed as a cooperator with law enforcement or they were, they were concerned about their own penal interest. In other words, they were concerned about more exposure to the law enforcement environment. So they fit into one of those three categories. So naturally, they weren’t inclined to share information with me. But it wasn’t long. After doing that type of work, that I realized that I had the power to get information from them that they were reluctant to give, in order to move further up the criminal food chain, if you will. And so I spent about four years doing that before I was assigned as a detective in the detective bureau, and that just took my interview and interrogation skills to a whole new level. And so I was always enamored with the psychology behind communication. And so I, I made it a mission in life. To not work hard, I wanted to work smart. And in police work, working hard means exactly what you would imagine it would be, you know, there, there were guys that I worked next to within my agency that would go out on a call. And every time they went out on the call, there was conflict, and they were fighting with someone or they were chasing someone. And they’re calling for help on the radio. And I made it a mission in life not to be part of that clique. You know, why fight a guy into my police car when I can talk a guy into my police car. So that’s, that’s pretty much when it started for me. And since that time, I became a student of the game. So I became a detective in 94. And then I became a hostage negotiator in 1997. And from that point on, I was so intrigued by the ability to communicate to influence that I just became a student of the game. And so I just I learned, I just continued to teach myself, this is not something that people are necessarily born with all of these skills that we talked about are learned behavior. So my point for saying that is that it’s available to anybody, if you would just take the time. That’s, that’s one of the reasons why most people won’t engage in communication to this level, is because it takes energy. And it takes effort. And by and large, most people are lazy.

08:05

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true, especially when it comes to thinking that’s why most people tend to judge rather than think, I think that was a quote by someone who said that. And you’re right. You know, what I find most difficult is when I’m at the end of my day, and I’m a bit exhausted, mentally, because I work sitting down, I’m not I’m never exhausted physically. But I’m exhausted mentally, sometimes feeling like my brain was squeezed for all the juice. And then I’ve got two kids, and you know, all the havoc that comes with that, and you have to take him somewhere and go somewhere, you’ve got these errands to run. And so at some point, it’s like my willpower for empathy disappears. You know, it’s like, it’s, it’s done my battery, and my empathy battery is depleted. And so what I find myself as I, as I become a bit more mean, a bit more reactive, right, I’m not I’m not as tactical, is, I guess, the word that, you know, the Black Swan group would use. I’m not as tactical about my communication. And these are the moments when I’m most regretted. Like, I wish I had a way to be tactical about my empathy all the time.

09:20

It’s hard, man. It’s hard. And it’s hard because you’re a human being. And so you sit down and do your work most of the day, but you’re talking all of the time, and that depletes a lot of energy. The idea here is not to think about tactical empathy or empathetic listening as a 24 hour a day, seven day a week endeavor because it’s impossible, because to your point, you just when you are listening at the deepest level, you are expending much more energy than if you are listening at the Edit intermittent level, you know, where you’re listening to me intermittently, where you’re listening to me just long enough to get the general idea of what I’m saying. And then you start focusing on your own internal monologue. That’s easy to do empathetic listening, listening for motivation, listening for the person’s perspective, their worldview and how they fit in it. It’s an it’s a heavy lift, man. And so the challenge for people who are new to this is understanding when it’s important, when do you need to flip that switch. And after a full day’s work, it’s very difficult to do. And so one of the one of the things that you can try is, you know, you’ve heard of the technique of labeling from the Black Swan group, well, you can actually self-label before you engage your kids before you engage your spouse in the evening in self labeling, identifying that you’re moody, identifying, identifying for yourself that you’re tired, and actually saying those words in your mind, I’m tired right now. I’m moody right now. And that will dissipate the negative emotions and dynamics that are bouncing around in your amygdala, because that’s what’s fired up at that point, when you start to get moody, and you start to become short with those who are who are closest to you. It’s because you’ve given everything to everybody else. And now they’re asking for attention in time, and your amygdala is fired up because of that. And when your amygdala is fired up, what’s supposed to be going on in the prefrontal cortex does not occur. And so to help mitigate that, amygdala flare up, just self-label, and that will put you back on the right track to looking for the motivation behind the statement or the behavior that you’re dealing with, with your loved ones at the end of the day.

12:01

Yeah, that’s, that’s a great point. Self-labeling is, is I’d say, as an advanced way to use this technique, I don’t use it as much in myself, I should be and I will be the one the two people, I use labeling on the most, I think at this point in my life for my kids, where, you know, they’ll start talking about something and I’ll try to either figure out how they feel and try to feed it back to them or, you know, ask the last word or three words, like my daughter will be telling me about this thing that happened, that would be asking the question back, she’s like, Yeah, and then she keeps talking and talking and talking. So I find labeling, most useful as a parent. Because what I think happens is it helps my kids identify how they feel. Yes, and as a result, they come down faster.

12:49

Yes. And more importantly, you’re lending them an ear, and you’re, you’re showing interest. And we are as human beings, I don’t care if their children or their 90 years old, as human beings, we all have this almost unquenchable thirst to have somebody else, understand what our perspective is. And when you start to use those skills, for example, with your kids, you’re changing chemicals in their brain in the moment. And that’s why they get excited about it. That’s why they feel good about it, they don’t know that it’s occurring. But as soon as you mirror the last one to three words that your daughter said, if her face lights up, and she boom, she gives you more information. Why? Because you’ve made her feel you’ve made her feel good in the moment, and all of us have that all of us have that drive. And to your earlier point, when you’re talking about when we were talking about how communication skills should be taught at a younger age, and it would help us to avoid all of this conflict. Truer words could never have been spoken. This is why we are in the mess that we’re in globally, is because we just don’t appreciate the power of communication, positively and negatively. And as soon as we would, the sooner that we would just sit down and have a dialogue with someone that we disagree with, the better off us all would be. Because even the people that we disagree with WANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD want to be heard. And these skills are born out of the world of hostage negotiation. And I can tell you right now, every person that I dealt with, on the other end of that phone who was a hostage taker, or who was threatening to commit suicide. We started off at opposite ends of the continuum. We started off as for lack of a better term adversarial. And yet and still in the US Our success rate at influencing surrenders close to 94%. And it’s not because we’re smart. Are it’s because we have a keen appreciation of the human nature response, which dictates negative emotions and negative dynamics drive decision making drive behaviors, full stop. You know, it’s more complicated than that.

15:16

It’s really interesting that you mentioned that because, as I mentioned, I grew up in Ukraine. And you talked about communication. So in Ukraine, even police officers, they don’t really act like you describe, there’s no such thing as communication in Ukraine, or Russia or Eastern Europe, police officers will hit you first, before they’ll talk to you. And any interrogation would result in you having broken bones, and it’s not going to be a communications, there’s not going to be good cop, bad cop, there’s not going to be any sort of event psychology happening there. You know, right now, for example, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, are parts of Ukraine and Russia, because it’s a lot more complicated than just generalized Ukraine. You know, I can completely understand that, because having grown up there, it was never about communication. In fact, people who spoke or who tried to resolve conflict with words would usually be considered annoying, and got hit in the face much faster than if they were to show strength by being violent, because then the other violent party would think twice, before starting a fight with them. Right. So in other words, it would, it would, it was frowned upon to be a geek, if you will, because you would get punched all the time, every day, absolutely everywhere. And so I was growing up, I was never big I was I was never fast. I mean, I’m a Jewish kid growing up in Ukraine. So I was smart. But you know, I was never physically gifted. And so even though my only advantage would have been my, my language skills, I still couldn’t use them. Because the moment you start talking, the other guy gets annoyed, and he just starts swinging, you know. And that gets transferred into the adult communication as well, where almost any conflict is usually resolved in a fight.

17:24

So the response to you wanting to engage in dialogue becomes violence. You will hear me talk, you probably have heard me talk ad nauseam about staying curious in the conversation. Now, physical violence is really it’s really hard to stay curious. But when we step back and look at it as, as a non-participant or noncombatant, you got to ask yourself the question, Where Where’s that coming from? Does it line up logically that I want to talk to this person and their first inclination, when I start talking is annoyance and then striking me, that doesn’t make a lot of sense? And so when one’s behavior does not line up with the realities of the environment, it’s always coming from an emotional place. And so this person who is lashing out in striking, a person who wants to engage them in dialogue is being emotional, they will not, they will not characterize it as that they were, they would characterize it as I don’t need to waste time I need to get stuff done. And both. And this is the way that I’ve gotten information or cooperation in the past. So this is what I’m going to do going forward. And so curiosity is what’s missing in most of our conversations. Because we’re so focused on where we want to end up, we’re so focused on what our agenda is what our goal and objective is. And we’re married to it to the point where we’re not listening to the other side, because in all, in most cases, they are talking about something that’s diametrically opposed to what I’m talking about, or what I need or what I want. And so but back to your point, as far as cultures are concerned, I hear I hear statements like yours often. And it’s usually borne out of the fact that we’ve got nobody that’s willing to take the first step and to try. It’s not by accident that hostage negotiators all over the globe are trained in the same skill set. So hostage negotiators in Tokyo in Melbourne, in Mumbai and Tel Aviv, in Frankfurt, London, Johannesburg, the you US, North America or South America, they’re all trained in the same skills skill set, doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter where you come from, because it’s not based on any of that. It’s based on the human nature response. And once you get your head around this idea that negative emotions and negative dynamics drive decision making and drive behavior, your communication, your ability to influence is increased, you are at a distinct advantage over those you’re engaging with, because they now become predictable. Right? Right.

20:37

Now, you’re absolutely right. The way I remember Ukraine back when I was growing up, I remember not even being able to communicate with my parents either. Like the moment I would try to get it was basically labeled as getting smart with the parents, because you’re just supposed to listen and shut up. It would result in the exact same thing you would get, you know, smacked or something. But you’re right. If, if I had the tools, you know, if I was a seven year old, and I could label and I remember one time I actually did that accidentally, my mom caught me smoking. But she didn’t catch me with a cigarette. She just saw that I had like, a hole in my clothes. You know, like from a cigarette? Yeah. And I started trying to live my way out of it. And she wouldn’t buy it. And then I started, you know, kind of weeping. And she’s like, what’s the matter? Were you crying? You know? And I was like, because you don’t believe me? You know, you don’t believe me? And I said a couple of times, like no matter what I say, you don’t believe me? And you know what happened? I got off the hook. So I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe me still, but I wasn’t punished that day. He just told me okay, go just go. It seems like stating the obvious, maybe injected some dopamine or whatever, into the brain chemistry or whatever. And she calmed down. And she’s like, Okay, well, whatever. And off you go.

22:03

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s an age of I don’t you said you were seven at the time. Yeah,

22:10

Yeah. So at the age of seven, you had this internal drive to state, the obvious, obviously, you were motivated to save your own skin. So that probably improved your performance quite a bit. But to your point. We are constantly I’ve never really thought about it before. Today, we are constantly pointing out the obvious. With our counterparts, that’s what most of the Black Swan skills are all about is uncovering and highlighting the obvious and being fearless about it, you know, when you when you know that you’re going to go into your boss’s office to basically demand a pay increase. The obvious from their perspective is they’re going to think that this is a bad time to have this discussion, they’re going to think that you’re being greedy, they’re going to think that they’re going to think that your work effort doesn’t line up with your requested increase, they’re going to think that this is just another problem on a long list of problems that they have to deal with. Now they have to deal with you, I know those four things automatically are going to be in my boss’s head, when I go into the room to ask him for a pay increase. So the first thing I’m going to do is throw those out in front of the conversation before I even get to my ask, I’m going to say those things. And immediately I take permission and authority away from them for using those against me, when I ultimately asked them for my pay increase. Immediately, I have articulated negative emotions and dynamics that they have not articulated yet. So I’m saying something that they’re thinking. And I look like a mind reader. And again, it starts to change the chemicals in the brain, putting them in a more positive states it the more of the negatives that you can mitigate with this preemptive label or this accusations audit, the more you put them in a positive state. There’s research out there that says the brain works up to 31% better when it’s in a positive state. So every time that I sit down with a counterpart, that’s one of my first goals is to try to put them in an as positive state as possible, because I want them to be clear of mind. When I ultimately make my ask, and failure to point out the obvious as you describe. It puts you at a distinct disadvantage. Adage, you do that at your own peril. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy. It’s probably one of the most counterintuitive aspects of the Black Swan method. When you start to articulate things that haven’t been spoken yet.

25:15

Yeah, I if I’m correct, I think it’s called the, the accusation audit. Yes. Yeah, this is a really powerful technique. I use it, especially quite a bit in emails, when I email with people, and when I do not have the, the advantage, I guess, of being able to use my tone of being able to use my voice and the tempo and the volume, etc. I’ll use an accusation audit, and I’ll lean in on it really, really hard. Like, I’ll try to almost exaggerate. Yeah, situation, you know what I mean? So, this, this is extremely powerful. Like, I remember I used it last month that was in London, and an email came in, it contained an issue that I was supposed to deal with. And the other party has well shown in the past to be very impatient and kind of causing trouble. So I saw the email. And they basically started off with writing three sentences, where I’m almost beating myself up with a stick, and telling him how he’s gonna think I’m such a douchebag, and how I’m irresponsible and inattentive. And whatever. And, you know, I kind of tried to look at the situation from his perspective and the in the most judgmental way. And the response I got was, it’s like, that’s all right. Let’s talk in a week, even though his initial email, it seemed like this issue was so urgent, it had to be treated today.

26:50

Yeah. And so what you did there that I like is you were fearless with it. That’s what gets in most people’s way. Because they don’t want to, they’re afraid that? Well, if I say he’s probably thinking that I’m inattentive, and he’s not thinking that, then I’m going to plant that seed in his head, and nothing could be further from the truth, you cannot plant a negative emotion that doesn’t already exist. And, and remember what I said earlier, all of us, even this guy in London, have a drive to have somebody else understand what my circumstances are. And the accusation is audit is a clear way of your view, demonstrating an attempt to do that. And because you made the attempt, you satisfied that. And that’s why his response was, it’s okay. We’ll talk about it in a week. So what it was posed to you as a crisis in the first email now becomes marginal, because you took the time to demonstrate for him, I know how this has impacted you. And that’s what people want. Just do that. Listening. And making a deliberate attempt to recognize their circumstance. And then articulate that circumstance is enough. It’s the cheapest and most effective concession that you can make one person to another. That’s what just blows my mind about, you know, the, all of this stuff globally that we’re going through. Because the answer is right there. Just shut your mouth. And listen. No, absolutely. Right.

28:59

The other thing that I find myself wanting to train more is the so you mentioned this word concession. I find that is a very difficult thing to teach people to do. It is very difficult to teach people to concede without feeling like their ego is being murdered. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don’t recall if this was you, maybe it was Chris. But you one of you spoke about the, the need to correct how there’s a powerful need that people have to be right. Yeah. And so if you state something like a label if you label them incorrectly, and sometimes I know you can do it on purpose to incorrectly label them, right? They’ll be in a rush to correct you and feel good as a result.

29:57

And in that correction is going to be more honest and valuable information, they start to give you information that they have no business giving you. Because the feeling that they get on the correction outweighs any exposure that they’re fearful of, by sharing further information with you. And so to your point, when you are labeling the label structure, it looks like it seems like it sounds like you look using you sound okay? When you label and they come back and they tell you no, it’s not that it’s this. The label was you wondering, their response is now you know, and you’re never worse off going from wondering if this is the case to now knowing that this is or is not the case. And so we tell people, you know, be fearless with this, and don’t worry about getting it wrong. Number one, you’re not with the label, you’re not making anything up out of whole cloth. You’re taking data that they gave you, you repackage it, and you’re giving it back to them. So it’s not, it’s not your judgment, it’s not your assumption, you’re saying this is what you provided me. So if I were to say to you, you know, I go, it seems like I frustrated you because I didn’t deliver in the manner that you thought I was going to deliver. And he goes and you go, I’m not frustrated. I’m angry. I’m angry, because you’re now putting a lot more pressure on me to get this done. And I’ve got people who are scrutinizing my work, and you are the cause of it. Okay, I thought it was just frustration clearly, based on that response. It’s much worse than I thought it was. But I made the attempt, which was enough, the attempt is enough, if you get it wrong, they’re going to correct you, you’re going to get further information. And it’s likely going to contain information that they shouldn’t give you because let’s face it, people can’t wait to tell you how stupid you are. They can’t wait to tell you how you got it wrong. Because in the relationship in that moment, they get a chance to explain. And the importance of that is now they’re in a position anytime you’re explaining you do so because the other side doesn’t know something. So automatically, you’re in a position of superiority over them. And people love to have that. And so that’s part of the motivation that drives them to give you further information. And it clarifies the data that they presented to you in which generated the label in the first place.

32:55

Now, it’s really incredible what this does, I was just having a call before this one with a person with whom I was doing a project. And we had appointed a project where they sent me material, I gave him feedback and my feedback created friction to a point where that person wanted to quit the project, basically. And immediately, the first thing I’ve done is I say, Okay, let’s get on a zoom call. And let’s talk I don’t want to keep it communication over email, because I felt there would be more room for expression over zoom. And what I discovered, when we got on Zoom, you know, he wasn’t necessarily talkative. And I didn’t know what else to do to get the conversation started. So I started with a label. I said, Well, it seems like this happened. And it made me I said this, and it made you feel like that. And I just shut up. And then he went on to divulge a lot of information that wasn’t included in the original email he sent me that showed a completely different reason why he wanted to quit the project. So to your point, you’re absolutely right, like people do. They love to correct you. They love to tell you how stupid you are. And by doing so they also give you a lot more accurate information. So you can continue the dialogue.

34:20

Yeah, yeah. And the fact that you Alright, so first of all, let me let’s talk about this, this this email. I’m not a fan of going back and forth with a counterpart over email. I hear it all the time where people will tell me well, that’s the only way that I’m able to communicate with this person. And that’s probably true 10% of the time. We have gotten so comfortable with the relative protection that email provides that that it is become a favor As far as communication is concerned, the problem with email to your point you recognize this is that you lose too much data. In email correspondence, you just do. And so if I were coaching you, I would say, stop the back and forth over email, use your email to drive them to a voice to voice call, at minimum, I would prefer face to face. But if all I can get his voice to voice, that’s fine. But it’s got to be a more personal interaction and email doesn’t provide for that. So I’m glad you recognize that and you said, you know what, let’s jump on the Zoom call. Now, you knew before you sent that email that he wasn’t going to like it. You knew you’re going to share news with him that he wasn’t going to embrace. And so that always has to be preceded with accusations, audits, always, always, always the three times that? Well, first of all, there’s no bad time in a conversation to use an accusations audit. But the but the mandated points of the conversation are at the beginning. Anytime you’re going to make an ask, or anytime you’re going to share news with them that they’re not going to want to hear, for example, your daughter, you know, when it’s time to go to bed, you know, she’s not going to want to go to bed when it’s time to go to bed. And so, before you lay down the law, that its bedtime, set it up with an accusations audit, you’re going to go into your boss’s office to ask her that increase, he’s not going to want to hear that set it up with an accusations on it. Even if it’s something as small as I’m going out, I’ve got this idea, I go and I want to move the water cooler from one side of the office to the other, I know that you’re gonna have a problem with that, because now you have to walk 15 more feet just to get your water. Because right now the water cooler is behind you. So before I pick that water cooler up and move it, I’m going to address you with accusations of it. You know, this is probably the worst news that you’re going to hear this week, you’re going to look at me and you’re gonna roll your eyes and going and go to yourself, what’s the point, you’re probably going to want to stab me in the eye with a pen, because now you’re going to have to walk across the office to get this water. And this goes back to your earlier point, you know, exaggerating measure it yeah. Because I want them to go to the far end of the fear spectrum. Because when I set it up in that way, they always think the worse. If I were to say to you, I go, you’re going to want to when this conversation is over, you’re going to want to tie a short rope around my neck and push me out of a window. Immediately used think to yourself, what could this guy possibly say to me, that would make me want to put a short rope around his neck and push him out of the window. And you start conjuring up all of these awful, awful things. So that when I ultimately get to my point, I get to my ask I get to my goal and objective you’re like, oh, that’s nothing. I thought it was much worse than that. And it’s done. It’s done deliberately, you know it in forgive me if this is if this sounds redundant for you, because I know we’ve talked about it on the YouTube channel. And that is, you know, checking in to hotels, when we travel, right? You know, I get into the hotel, or I get into the destination city at let’s say for the sake of this discussion at noon. Most places are not going to allow me to check in at noon. Because the rooms are not ready. Or if they are ready, they want to tack on an early check in fee. So my choices are check my bags at the counter and then walk around the city for two hours until my room was ready or pay the fee and get the room. And so when I walk in there, I make a situationally insightful intelligent guess about what’s going on. In the hotel lobby. I know the person working behind the counter is not making a lot of money. I know the person behind the counter may not be in love with their job. I know that they get inundated with requests from needy travelers over and over and again and they’re exhausted by it. And so my situation tight and insightful intelligent guests is they’re probably overwhelmed. So I’m going to walk up to that counter. The first words out of my mouth are I’m about to make your day that much more difficult. And I don’t say another word I just sit there and I can see the colors start to dry. I mean from their face, they’re, they’re bracing themselves for it, they don’t know what I’m going to say next. They don’t know, you know, if I drove my car into the swimming pool, they don’t know, if I’ve got, you know, 20 pounds of cocaine in my luggage, they don’t know, if I just committed a goat sacrifice in the parking lot, they don’t know what I’m going to say. And then I follow it on after some dynamic silence I follow it on with, you’re probably going to think I’m another needy traveler, who expects you to bend over backwards for everything I asked for. And then again, silence. Now they won’t even make eye contact with me. Now they’re just staring down at their computer screen. And they’re just there, they’re bracing for that just now they’re just bait their body language is telling me Come on, just bring it just tell me what it is. And then I make my ass. How bad of a position would I put you in? If I checked in early. Now, going back to what you said earlier, the exaggeration. They’re thinking all of the worst things possible. So that when I ultimately asked to check in early, they’re like, that’s all you need, I’m happy to do it for you. And boom, I get I get checked in early. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s powerful in everyday life, and it’s powerful in your business world. And it’s just a great way to demonstrate to the other side that this conversation isn’t all about me, I’m also concerned about you, which is what’s missing in most in most interpersonal communications.

41:37

Um, I want to, I want to ask you something that I don’t think it was discussed on the YouTube channel yet. But hopefully, maybe after this interview, you know, the portion of it will go into YouTube channel. So what we do here, and in the list building lifestyle community, we build email lists, and we email. And usually an email will go out from a software to like a lot of people like 1000 10,000 100,000 people, and they will get the same email. Now usually, it’s promoting something, it’s either selling an idea, it may be a product, a book, it could be anything or seminar. And my question to you, how would you change the process of empathy, labeling, accusation audits, if you were to change it, in this in this setup, and because so far, we’ve talked about only one on one communication, where we can at least guesstimate what the other person feels like? Well, what if we’re mailing out to a group of people, and just to preface it, this group has some common interest. It could be that they’re all Republicans, or they’re all into running Facebook ads, or they’re all in the real estate space. So we know there’s at least some commonality there. But we can’t talk to each and every one of them directly and personally.

43:04

Well, I mean, there’s going to be a point in time where you where you will have that conversation, obviously, right? Because this is this is a blanket email going out to 1000 people and I don’t know what your rate of return is on it. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s say you get 100 people that respond and say, Yes, I want this thing. At some point, you’re going to have that that interpersonal communication with them. And okay, let

43:29

Me give you more concrete than an example. Let’s say we’re sending out an email to 1000 people who have purchased your book, and the email read something like in in July, I’m hosting a three day live event on negotiation, negotiations training. Would you like more details? And they can answer with a yes.

43:57

Alright, so first of all, it’s clear that you’re driving for a yes. In that email. Yeah. And I would caution you about pushing people for a yes. Okay. Let’s talk about that. We are yes. Addicted. And we are yes. Battered. I know when you are trying to get me to say yes. And immediately. I become defensive. Because yes, it’s always commitment. Yes. It’s always obligation. You are encroaching on my autonomy when you were pushing me for a yes. There’s ideas out there. About Yes. Momentum. Yes. Of all propositions. Mere agreement.

44:42

Get to a yes.

44:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the problem with that, as I mentioned, is that it well, the thought process behind that and then I’ll tell you the problem. The thought process behind that is that if I get you to say yes to a bunch of little things through the course of art interaction. When I get to my ultimate ask the big yes, you’re more inclined to give it. Some people even call these things. Yes. Tied owns. There are sales training companies out there that use this as a method to train salespeople. And I look at that, and I say you guys actually call these things. Yes, tie downs where you’re trying to tie your counterpart down, and you think they like that. You think they feel good about that being tied down. And so just be careful about driving for a yes, it’s been talked about as the one of the most seductive length or words in any language, because we love to hear it. We love to hear it, but we hate to give it up. And so, in your email example, I would start off that email that you sent with a no oriented question, have you given up on improving your ability to influence other people? And then a no oriented question, would you be against attending the seminar in July for these types of people boom, and then send it off? So to know oriented questions, I’m driving for no and not a yes. You know, is, and is always protection and safety. So if you think are two sides of one coin, on one side, no, is safety and protection on the other side is yes. Commitment and obligation. And people do not like to be committed or obligated to something that they haven’t volunteered for. And so if I was going to improve that email, that’s how I would do it.

46:56

Okay, note it. Now, would you be against me putting you on the spot with a slightly different example?

47:04

No, not at all. See, love that nor any question?

47:07

Yes, I thought he would appreciate it. So a different example, let’s say same list of people, you’re still marketing the seminar. But now your job is to not get them to reply to you, but rather to click on the link that has all the seminar information and a link to sign up. Basically, you don’t have the ability, in this case, to close all these deals personally. And you need to fill like 1000 seats or something, you may blessing this big list. So would you change the email structure in this case, when the idea is to get them to click on a link that tells them more about the seminar where they can sign up?

47:48

The only change that I would make, what would be the note oriented question would stay the same. Have you given up on improving your negotiation skills?

48:02

And then I would just put, if not, would you be against clicking the link below to register?

48:09

Right? Okay, I can appreciate that. I love it. The other technique that I tend to use in my emails, I do make an attempt to try to echo how I know my target market may be feeling. It’s something that I noticed you guys do a lot over a Black Swan, especially with people who have like a boss. So they have to go and ask the boss for a raise or something like that, as well as the people you’re helping in the real estate market. Because I know you work with lots of like brokers and agents who need to close deals and stuff. So you do that quite a bit where you can you clearly show us that you understand exactly what they’re going through.

48:57

And so, again, this, this kind of goes back to what we talked about, you know, about 30 minutes ago, and when you in even in an email environment, when you can articulate what’s going on with the other side. Before they have. So when you’re articulating something that they haven’t said yet, there’s no clear way to demonstrate that you are viewing this from their perspective. And so I encourage people, always ask yourself, if you were them, what would you be thinking about you? What would you be thinking about this conversation? What would you be thinking about this email? What would you be thinking about this interaction? What would you be thinking about the circumstances? And when I say thinking, I’m talking about what are those? What are those negative slanderous things that they could be thinking about? You and I would sprinkle those throughout the email. And I would start with one or two, at the beginning of the email just to demonstrate for them that this is not your, your, your everyday average sales pitch, so to speak, this is me, understanding your motivations, your worldview, and your frame of reference. And, again, you’re facilitating that need that all of us have dissipating negative emotions, you’re making them clear of mind. And the big thing is, this is your first attempt at tactical empathy. And one of the one of the best characteristics of tactical empathy is that it encourages reciprocity, people are subconsciously obligated to return that, quote, feel good. Aspect back to you. And so one of the examples I like to use when you’re walking into a structure, real estate establishment or a real retail establishment, and let’s say you and I, we just parked our cars in the carpark and we’ve gotten out, and now we’re walking towards this shopping center. And you and I were strangers, we arrive at that outer door at the same time, I reached out, I grabbed that handle on that hold the door open for you. And I say Please go ahead, and you say thank you. And then you get to that inner set of doors, what are you going to do 95% of the time, I’m going to try and open it for you now, because I have obligated you. Because I did it first. And now you feel a burden almost to return that favor to me. And it wasn’t an obligation that you weren’t expecting. So it is like a burden, you want to get rid of it as fast as possible. So you’ve reached that integral before I do. And bam, you grab it and hold it open for me, and you allow me to walk through. That’s just a very small example of the impressive reciprocal nature of tactical empathy.

52:21

Now, that’s incredible. I really love to be picking your brain. And I wish we had more time and we’re coming on time. So I want to use this opportunity to first off, tell people about your book. And guys, if you’re listening to this, if you’re fascinated with the techniques we’re discussing, if you want to become a better negotiator, better communicator, better person with your Yeah, but a person, whether with your family and friends, your children, the boss at work, if you don’t have a boss, with yourself, maybe with your clients, with potential business partners, joint venture partners, then you should check out ego authority failure, using emotional intelligence like a hostage negotiator to succeed as a leader by their gaunt. Now, I would also throw this in and recommend you check out never split the difference. If you haven’t, I would also seriously encourage you to go to the Black Swan Group website, which is located at blackswanltd.com and sign up to the free newsletter as well as check out all the different trainings they have going on there. And subscribe to the Black Swan group YouTube channel, where you know, these guys put out so much cool content, like every now and again, I would even just be dropping my daughter off somewhere and I’ll be on you know, on the way back, I would be listening just to like a seven minute YouTube video that just reinforces some sort of concept like labeling, or accusation audit, or being able to, to change the tone of voice or being able to communicate with a different personality type, because you guys talk about the three personality types. Also, if you kind of don’t understand most of the things we’ve talked about here, then you should definitely check out never split the difference because all the different techniques that we talked about as such as labeling and all the different types of questions you should or shouldn’t ask, et cetera. It’s all in the book. And it’s quite, quite fascinating just how much better you become and how quickly to like this is the one thing that I think really made never split the difference. Kind of take the world by storm so quickly because you take this really complicated subject of communication and you simplify it and you make it applicable. Right. So this is what I think Black Swan did. For me it made these complex concepts applicable in my day to day life. In my day to day business activities,

55:04

Yeah, and I appreciate the plugs there. But to your point, communication is complicated. But the actual skills used are simple. Why? Because they were devised, are they were they were adopted by cops, and simplified for cops. And cops want things that are easy to recall, are practical and effective, regardless of what it is whether you’re talking about a vehicle a gun, or communication skills, is it practical? Is it effective? Is it easily ready for recall? And so we’ve kept it simple by design. And really, we’re really adamant about just getting out of your own way, and focusing on what’s coming out of the mouth of the counterpart. Are you good enough to uncover the latent dynamics based on the totality of the situation? And every difficult conversation doesn’t matter if it’s with your daughter, with your boss with a counterpart, every difficult conversation, there’s a presenting dynamic or motion, and there’s a latent dynamic or motion. The presenting dynamic or motion is exactly the words coming out of their mouth. But the latent dynamic or motion is you asking yourself, what did them not say, with the words that they used. And when you can uncover that, that’s where the gold is found.

56:45

Seriously, just guys, just go get the books, ego authority, failure, and never split the difference. Check out the black swan group on YouTube and the Black Swan Group website at Black Swan Ltd. Trust me, you will thank me later. It is one of those life changing resources. I think it’s one of the top 10 things that I keep going back to over and over again, you know, sometimes when you sometimes you want a new thing to read, for example, but sometimes you just go and we read something that’s really awesome, and just hone in on the concepts. And it’s one of those things that’s so critical and is applicable in quite literally every area of your life. Starting with your work and going into your personal life and even, you know, self-talk is you’ll be actually able to achieve what many people said over the years like be your own best friend, be your own best friend. Well, it starts with communication and you know, if you’re if you’ve got a lot of self-critical self-talk going on, just being able to label yourself is going to be tremendous for you. So there, I can begin saying just how grateful I am for this hour we spent together. It has been an absolute pleasure. And that’s about it from the listening lifestyle for now. Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my bestselling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic booklets go to www.igorsbook.com. Now to claim your free package.