1: Thomas Jefferson’s heart was set on politics.
The problem? He was “born quiet, contemplative, and reserved—purportedly with a speech impediment,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. “Compared to the great orators of his time—Patrick Henry, John Wesley, Edmund Burke—he was a terrible public speaker.”
Thomas had two options: he could fight this reality. Or, he could accept … continue reading
1: Imagine it’s Thanksgiving. Sitting in the living room is a grandfather who’s grumbling.
“He is cranky but the underlying emotion is a sad sense of loneliness from his family never seeing him,” Chris Voss writes in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.
He’s grumpy because he feels like he never sees the family. And he feels lonely. So he’s expressing his feelings … continue reading
1: It’s hot. A sweltering hot summer’s day.
Three fugitives are trapped in an apartment on the twenty-seventh floor of an apartment building in Harlem. Chris Voss, the head of the New York City FBI Crisis Negotiation Team, stands in the hallway on the other side of the door.
Yesterday, we looked at the importance of understanding the other person’s emotions in any negotiation.
And while the fugitives were … continue reading
1: The date was April 1, 1993. Lou Gerstner had just been named CEO of IBM. For decades, IBM had been one of the world’s most admired corporations.
Now, it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Lou had started his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s largest and most respected consultancies. Soon after taking his new role, he asked his friends at … continue reading
1: New York City. September 30, 1993. It was a brisk autumn morning. The time was 8:30 AM.
“Two masked bank robbers trigger an alarm as they storm into the Chase Manhattan Bank at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street in Brooklyn,” Chris Voss writes in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.
Three bank employees are inside: two female tellers and a male security guard. “The robbers crack … continue reading
That is an understandable question, writes FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.
The answer? Everything.
Because “life is negotiation,” he writes. “The majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple, animalistic urge: I want.
“I want to free the hostages,” may be relevant only … continue reading
1: The FBI had been put on notice. The U.S. deputy attorney general wanted answers on why the FBI’s hostage negotiation techniques were not working.
“After the fatally disastrous sieges of Randy Weaver’s Ruby Ridge farm in Idaho in 1992 and David Koresh‘s Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993,” writes Chris Voss in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, it … continue reading
1: It was the first day of Harvard Law School’s Winter Negotiation course.
It was “the Olympic trials for negotiating,” Chris Voss writes in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. “The best and brightest compete to get into this class, and it is filled with brilliant Harvard students getting law and business degrees and hotshot students from other top Boston universities like MIT … continue reading
1: “We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies,” Chris Voss writes in Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.
Chris was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator.
He paused and tried to catch his breath.
“I was intimidated,” he recalls. “I’d been in these types of situations before. Tons of them. Money for lives. But not like this. … continue reading
1: Theodore Roosevelt spent almost every day of his childhood fighting severe asthma.
“Despite his privileged birth, his life hung in a precarious balance—the attacks were an almost nightly near-death experience,” writes Ryan Holiday in The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. “Tall, gangly, and frail, the slightest exertion would upset the entire balance and leave him bedridden for weeks.”
When he was twelve, … continue reading
