Chris Voss

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dax Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Emmy nominated Monica Pladman.

[3] Hi there.

[4] Hello.

[5] Boy, today we talked to a very interesting person.

[6] I don't think I would have ever crossed past with someone like this in real life unless I were to take people hostage, which I don't plan on doing.

[7] You never say never.

[8] Well, that's true.

[9] There could be a worthy cause of an abduction.

[10] He is a former FBI hostage negotiator.

[11] I want to say the lead former FBI hostage negotiator and the CEO of the Black Swan Group.

[12] And co -author of the book, Never Split the Difference.

[13] Negotiate as if your life depended on it.

[14] He also has a master class.

[15] Chris Voss teaches the art of negotiation, which is phenomenal.

[16] Also, we'd like to tickle your eardrums a little bit.

[17] Ticky, ticky.

[18] You know Bob Murvac, the genius, the resident genius musician Bob Murvac, who does the theme song to this podcast as well as a lot of our live shows.

[19] He really is special.

[20] He strikes again.

[21] Oh, my God.

[22] I think I like it more than our song.

[23] Wow.

[24] What a song.

[25] Wabiwab, give the listeners a little tickle.

[26] Monica don't like, Monica don't like, boy.

[27] It took all my willpower not to sing along to that.

[28] Oh, my gosh.

[29] Congratulations.

[30] Good job.

[31] Oh, it was hard.

[32] We're so excited.

[33] If you want to hear that thing 10 times in a row, which I know I, when he sent it, I think I listened to it, 20 times in a row.

[34] But of course, February 14th, a day for lovers, Valentine's Day, and the debut of Monica and Just Love Boys.

[35] So please now enjoy.

[36] Chris Voss.

[37] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[38] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[39] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[40] Are you a New Yorker?

[41] Not really.

[42] No, I spent 14 years in New York.

[43] And I was on the street.

[44] My partners were cops and I was reeducated.

[45] 86 to 2000 you were there there you go very good what wherever you got before that like where where's home i grew up in iowa oh okay small town in iowa so you you had a long career with the fbi you're a hostage negotiator you've written a book called never split the difference you are a professor sometimes at georgetown also USC that's what made me think you must have spent time here do that uh last class i taught u sc was probably about right after the book came out which was 2016 2016 yeah so before we get into that very exciting whole life we certainly haven't ever talked to a hostage negotiator nor nor do i suspect we'll talk to him anymore i don't think so a very unique guess for us to have so a bit of a unicorn eh bit of a bit of a unicorn but what route do you leave iowa do you decide what you're going to do because i am curious you went to harvard and you have a master's from harvard right but was that post post bureau yeah okay post bureau so what happens pre bureau iowa state university for an Undergrad, Kansas City, Missouri Police Department, K -CMO, PD.

[46] But part of the world I lived in, it's, if you're going to go to a nearby city, it's Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City.

[47] Okay.

[48] And everybody in my part of the world was raving about Kansas City, so I went there.

[49] Uh -huh.

[50] Did it live up to your, the promise?

[51] It's a great town.

[52] It is a great town, right?

[53] I really enjoyed that.

[54] Yeah, it's a good town.

[55] Confusing town, because it's in Missouri.

[56] Yeah.

[57] And Kansas.

[58] Oh, okay.

[59] It's both.

[60] The state border, state border cuts right to it.

[61] So as a matter of fact, one of the districts.

[62] I had was on the border.

[63] This street was literally state line road.

[64] There was a bar right on the corner.

[65] And because it was on a state line, pretty good chance anybody to have me to be drinking there on a given night was going to be wanted.

[66] So they could just cross the street to be in another state.

[67] So it made for an entertaining opportunity.

[68] Yeah, how did they iron out that jurisdiction?

[69] Like, let's say someone was being tailed in Missouri and then they drove into Kansas.

[70] What happens then?

[71] Well, theoretically, if you were following the rules, if you you crossed the state line and got him stopped, then you'd have to hand them off to the locals on the other side.

[72] You're not supposed to drag people across the state line.

[73] As Beaufort T. Justice was trying to do in smoking the bandit, if you recall.

[74] Exactly.

[75] He was way out of his jurisdiction when he was chasing the bandit.

[76] My dad came to Kansas City from India.

[77] Oh, from India.

[78] He arrived in Kansas City.

[79] Do you remember stopping at any point a really nice man named Ashok?

[80] Indian man, mustache At the time Mustache I don't need a guy name Ashok but It might have been him Oh well no I wouldn't have been him Is Ashoka popular name In India Is it like Mike?

[81] It's popular -ish Yeah Okay more of a Tim Could be like Well Christopher's for Someone would come Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Depend upon when you were born Sure So you're working In the police department And then How do you end up Going to New York Well so I quit the PD It's almost like The Beatles line.

[82] I quit the police department, got myself a steady job.

[83] But I joined the FBI.

[84] My father encouraged me to look at federal law enforcement because right after he paid for a college degree, I went out and got a job that didn't require one.

[85] Right.

[86] Yes.

[87] Yes.

[88] Did you study criminal justice in college?

[89] I studied business.

[90] Oh, okay.

[91] It occurred to me that I might change my mind before I got out of school and I wanted to have something to fall back on.

[92] Sure.

[93] And what drew you to law enforcement to begin with?

[94] going to sound stupid.

[95] No, nothing sounds stupid.

[96] So I saw a movie about two New York City cops when I was 16 years old based on two guys that really lived.

[97] It was called the Super Cops.

[98] Okay.

[99] And these guys were really innovative, creative, independent.

[100] Of course, they didn't do anything their bosses told them to do.

[101] Right.

[102] Put a lot of bad guys in jail.

[103] Any community loved them.

[104] So you had a very specific take on what you wanted to do as a police officer.

[105] Yeah, kind of.

[106] I mean, I wanted to be creative.

[107] Uh -huh.

[108] You know, I didn't realize that at the time, but it is in my nature to disregard the things that my supervisors told me to.

[109] Yeah.

[110] Now, me too.

[111] Great, great resistance to authority in general.

[112] I blame it all on a lot of stepdad's who showed up every couple years and had a new game plan.

[113] I was like, hold on a second here.

[114] Why are we doing this?

[115] What do you think yours is rooted in?

[116] Yeah, I don't know, it's a good question.

[117] My father was a really independent guy.

[118] And I'd probably come.

[119] From his example, I didn't realize that at the time because I grew up mostly working for him.

[120] And, of course, he was accomplished tasks, but he never told anybody how to get the job done.

[121] He just, if he pointed to your problems, I'd figure it out and go do it.

[122] What was his business?

[123] He was a middleman for oil companies.

[124] He was what was called an oil jobber.

[125] Uh -huh.

[126] So the guy that was between the major corporation and the gas station or whatever in user was.

[127] Okay.

[128] He was in charge of shell oil at the time.

[129] Oh, uh -huh.

[130] I grew up with that as a symbol of our family.

[131] Yeah.

[132] Well, I grew up in a family that worked for General Motors.

[133] So it's interesting what space that occupies in your mind when it is the source of all things.

[134] Yeah, it reminds you of your child had a little bit, right?

[135] Yeah, well, like, we were forbidden to watch Roger and me, the Michael Moore documentary because it was very critical of General Motors.

[136] And it was like, well, hold on now here.

[137] This is the hand that's feeding everyone.

[138] Let's just tread lightly on this.

[139] Interesting, right?

[140] I later became a liberal in Hollywood and allowed me. myself to watch it and I was like pretty darn good documentary all things aside your inner liberal came out it really did yeah it flourished here it's to be the place oh yeah yeah so how did you make your way into the FBI did you just cold call knock on the door there yeah you kind of and ideally you get a little bit lucky um because I was originally looking at the secret service my father had a buddy was a secret service agent and I met this guy and he said I traveled all over the world with a secret service mm which blew me away because I'd never been anywhere.

[141] I think I'd seen Canada from a distance.

[142] Uh -huh.

[143] So I thought, travel to world.

[144] How cool is that?

[145] And I had no idea one federal law enforcement agency from another.

[146] You know, I had no idea what the differences were.

[147] Right.

[148] So the service wasn't hiring, but the Bureau was.

[149] The Bureau just put on a really big hiring push.

[150] And I went down.

[151] They said, what are you doing here?

[152] I said, what a job?

[153] Filled out the application and relatively quickly got in.

[154] Wow.

[155] There's a physical component, right?

[156] Because we have two really good friends back in Michigan.

[157] One is an agent.

[158] One is about to become an agent.

[159] With the bureau.

[160] Yeah.

[161] So the female is the one who's about to become an agent.

[162] And the physical training she had to do kind of shocked me in a good way.

[163] You know, there's a certain amount of pull -ups required.

[164] There's all these standards that I found, you know, pretty interesting.

[165] Well, they've tough and a bump a little bit over the years too.

[166] Because when I went through and probably up until about mid -90s, you need to be in reasonable shape when you got there, but they could whip you into shape.

[167] Now, the problem is it's harder to fire somebody for being out of shape than it is just never let them in in the first place.

[168] Right, right, right.

[169] Which makes a certain amount of sense.

[170] So they changed the rules after I went through, whereas you got to pass the minimums before you get there.

[171] Right.

[172] And when I went through, they relied upon you to raise yourself up, which most of us did.

[173] But, yeah, you've got to be in pretty decent physical condition.

[174] And what kind of training, do they know where they're going to feed you or what track they're going to put you on?

[175] Are they, is there an evaluation period where they go, oh, this guy might be good at this?

[176] Are they evaluating what kind of natural abilities you might have?

[177] No, not really.

[178] They, um, it was completely generalist when I came out.

[179] Now, I've heard that since they try to point you in a direction of either national security or organized crime, but what really matters is when you get out, there's a lot of cool things you could do, man. The great thing about the Bureau is, Since we investigate every, we still we, investigate every kind of crime, somebody is breaking along what you think is cool.

[180] Like, it doesn't matter what you think is cool.

[181] You could be in the art. You could be into interstate trafficking.

[182] I see the Great Dane.

[183] Could be interstate trafficking in Great Dane's.

[184] Sure.

[185] Somebody's breaking a law.

[186] Yeah.

[187] So you get out there, you start to get a sampling on what's around.

[188] Maybe you run across some guys, gals that you think are cool, that are having a good time.

[189] and if you fall in with them, and then you can have a lot of fun.

[190] You can do some cool, cool stuff.

[191] That is an interesting distinction between that and your local police department, because I don't think anyone's interest is going into strangers' homes to deal with a domestic dispute.

[192] I doubt that's what anyone's kink is.

[193] Yeah, no, but being a cop's a great job.

[194] I mean, I had a ball when I did that.

[195] You know, it was worthy.

[196] It felt like you were doing something that was worthwhile and something enjoyable.

[197] So, you know, you don't imagine going into a house on a domestic dispute as a pursuit, but you find yourself in there also, you know, helping people settle out their lives a lot.

[198] Right.

[199] And so at least for an hour, you made a difference in somebody's life, maybe.

[200] So it can be very satisfying.

[201] That's a good point.

[202] Did you see the movie and to watch?

[203] Really good cop movie, L .A. cop movie.

[204] Jake Jeline Hall and Michael Pena.

[205] Oh, the two guys, they're running from the drug cartel or something, right?

[206] I never saw it.

[207] Anyways, they did a great job of what I assumed to be a great job.

[208] I've only done, like, ride -along so I don't really know.

[209] But just the lottery that is opening a door, especially in downtown L .A., who the fuck knows what's on the other side?

[210] And they did a great job of just how chaotic that is when that door opens.

[211] There could be any number of things happening inside there.

[212] And that was the element that I was like, oh, yeah, that's a specific type of person that's up for that challenge.

[213] Yeah, you try a couple times.

[214] your feet wet and either you like it or you don't.

[215] Spin the wheel.

[216] It could be anything.

[217] You could walk in.

[218] People could be having a nice time.

[219] Who knows?

[220] Guns could already be drawn.

[221] There could be a raging four -person fight happening.

[222] It could be a fire in the kitchen, you know.

[223] Yeah.

[224] Just a date with violent destiny on the other side of the door.

[225] Yeah.

[226] Is there mental training for, like, desensitization for those kinds of things?

[227] Or not really?

[228] Not really.

[229] Yeah.

[230] Not so much.

[231] Seems like maybe there should be.

[232] Let's see if you can swim or not, right?

[233] Yeah.

[234] God, I hesitate to even bring it up because I've forgotten the name of it.

[235] But there's a fantastic documentary currently on Netflix.

[236] I just watched about these two officers in Texas who have kind of took it upon themselves to really specialize in de -escalation.

[237] And they end up in a lot of negotiating situations.

[238] And it's kind of a paradigm shift for the police department to really start looking at good tools to de -escalate.

[239] Yeah, because when you first get in there, so you don't waste time they're taught solve the problem and move on.

[240] Now, a high enough percentage of the time, probably 75 % of the time, you come in and start barking orders and get things calmed down at least long enough until you get out.

[241] But you don't really know that it's not doing any good long term.

[242] So actually learning de -escalation and calming people down, if you're lucky enough to run across somebody who's good at it, and then you're astonished at the magic somebody could do it.

[243] So for a short period of time, I remember one of the guys from Vice, I started riding with him.

[244] guy was a magician.

[245] It being nice and talking to people in a completely different way.

[246] Is this early 80s?

[247] This is crack epidemics just starting to hit?

[248] Well, it hadn't hit in Kansas City.

[249] Okay.

[250] It's probably hitting, you know, where a couple of years, the drug waves comes across the U .S. But he worked some magic with what he said, and I can remember just going to like, wow, that was cool.

[251] It's a very hard job.

[252] I don't think it can be done perfectly.

[253] It's just too messy.

[254] One side of the equation is already committed to not giving a fuck about the rules.

[255] So it's an inherently messy endeavor quite often.

[256] And I just was shocked with the kind of precision by which they were really good at that and that they've had a lot of success in it.

[257] And it was a very interesting, unique perspective I got to gain on a few different nights.

[258] Yeah.

[259] And it was eye opening.

[260] It's cool.

[261] It's really good.

[262] Yes.

[263] They're really, really good at it.

[264] Yes.

[265] And the other thing is extra cool, because I'm from the way that you're sounding, also, like stopping somebody and how you treat them with two different things.

[266] Okay.

[267] And the good cops, the really good cops that are good at their job will never verbally escalate.

[268] Uh -huh.

[269] And they might hone in on somebody really fast.

[270] You're going to be shocked that they're right that it is a bad guy.

[271] Mm -hmm.

[272] But when they really get good, they don't raise their voices.

[273] Yeah.

[274] They don't escalate.

[275] They learn tone of voice.

[276] And looking back on, I mean, tone of voice is magic.

[277] I mean, I talk about it a lot.

[278] I mean, one of the reasons we're here is because I did the master class.

[279] Yeah, yeah, which I watched a good deal of, and it's really fascinating.

[280] But, yeah, the tonality is awesome.

[281] And I learned it from those guys.

[282] And good cops, investigators, interrogators, and also great FBI agents that I worked with.

[283] They were soft -spoken guys.

[284] And then would absolutely work magic.

[285] Like, no cop that yelled at people would ever be good at getting in confessions, developing informants, working with the community.

[286] Like, one of the best investigators I ever ran across, If he had somebody want to interview, he'd bring him in, set it down next to his desk, get the guy a cup of coffee, and he'd sit there and start doing his paperwork.

[287] And eventually, you know, the bad guy would say, so what am I looking at?

[288] But no pressure.

[289] Right, right.

[290] You don't really get anywhere.

[291] Yeah.

[292] Pressure on people.

[293] It's a bad idea.

[294] Yeah, I like to hear that because I can only come at it from my own personal point of view, which is I will meet aggression with aggression.

[295] That's just my nature.

[296] Well, it's actually a human nature, too.

[297] Okay, right.

[298] Everybody's got what's called mirror neurons.

[299] Mm -hmm.

[300] And it's an involuntary reaction.

[301] It's the other thing I learned in hostage negotiations.

[302] It's why every hostage negotiator uses the late -night FM DJ voice.

[303] Uh -huh.

[304] I'm actually hitting your mirror neurons, and I'm actually slowing your brain down.

[305] It's a chemical reaction.

[306] Right.

[307] Now, when we first invented hostage negotiation, we didn't know it was chemical reaction.

[308] We just knew it worked.

[309] Yeah.

[310] When you watch a comedy and a guy gets hit in the head with a tree branch and you immediately start laughing, that's mere neurons.

[311] You can experience what the thing you just saw was in your head.

[312] Your body tells you what that feels like.

[313] That's why it produces a reaction.

[314] Right.

[315] Okay.

[316] So you get into the FBI and out of Kansas City, is that where you?

[317] And how do you end up in New York doing, and I want to get the title right because it's cool, the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force?

[318] How do you end up in that job?

[319] Two years in Pittsburgh to start off with, back in those days in the FBI, starting your life over as an FBI agent is a pretty big jump.

[320] And so they want to do two things.

[321] Back then, it was a very smart move.

[322] It ended up being expensive transfer -wise, so they cut it out.

[323] But they're going to remove you from home so that you leave your old identity behind.

[324] They're going to drop you in a city you've never lived before.

[325] So you could start over as an agent.

[326] And ideally it was a middle -sized, small -to -middle -sized operation.

[327] So you could start out in the minor leagues, so to speak.

[328] And then they'd rotate you to one of the top offices, New York being on that list.

[329] And at that time, 90 % of the people were going to New York.

[330] I do my two years in Pittsburgh.

[331] I get sent to New York.

[332] They put me on the task force because I've been a cop.

[333] And they figure I already know cops pretty well, and I should be able to get along with the cops.

[334] And so it started out at the Joint Terrorist Task Force from when I first got to New York.

[335] Again, you started in 1986.

[336] So this is pre -bombing of World Trade Center.

[337] This is pre -world Trade Center.

[338] At that time in 86, what was, like, in the realm of possibility?

[339] What were you guys even thinking could happen or working to prevent from happening?

[340] Because the scale of it got so disproportionately huge in a very quick amount of time.

[341] Yeah, it was pretty crazy.

[342] I mean, the terrorist task force originally was almost all domestic terrorism.

[343] And, you know, name and ethnicity, and they had a terrorist group.

[344] Uh -huh.

[345] Late 70s into the mid -80s, a pretty wild time.

[346] Everybody's a lot of stuff going on all over the place.

[347] Mostly in New York City, not as much in other cities.

[348] For example, the Omega -7, the anti -Castro Cubans, at one period of time, pipe bomb the Cuban mission in New York City once a month for six straight months.

[349] Oh, my gosh.

[350] But they were hitting it with pipe bombs, and it was mostly in New York, and, you know, it was isolated and contained.

[351] To New York News.

[352] So the task force put almost every one of those groups out of business just before I got there.

[353] And it had really settled down.

[354] Can I ask, did you infiltrate them?

[355] Was that the most common?

[356] No, mostly just great investigations of their bombings and their robberies.

[357] And then great follow -on interrogations of people.

[358] You know, these were the guys would get people to voluntarily cooperate.

[359] By being nice.

[360] Right.

[361] By just being decent to people.

[362] So then most of that had pretty much run its course when I got there.

[363] and there was this weird period of time when the domestic groups were winding down and we were just starting to find the Islamic groups who were starting to come to our shores.

[364] And in every revolutionary group, there are people that are just criminals.

[365] They are always true believers who believe in the cause.

[366] One title of a book from back then was Crusaders, criminals, and crazies.

[367] Every revolutionary group from the start of mankind had got true believers, criminals, and people that just misfits.

[368] American Revolution attracted no shortage of criminals.

[369] to it because what better place for a criminal to hang out with than people who are against the government.

[370] Yeah, for sure.

[371] We're about to create chaos.

[372] Every group has got that.

[373] So from about 86 or so to when a trade center got hit in 93, there was some groups, bad guys that realized that they could hide in mosques.

[374] And so then the terrorists came here and they were looking for people that were on the ground operationally, and some of these guys were looking to learn more about the religion as a cover.

[375] So it made for this great collaboration.

[376] But we're investigating them under our old rules, and back then on the terrorism rules, if you hadn't found evidence of a crime every six months, you had to shut the case down.

[377] Okay.

[378] So it was a constant struggle to keep the cases open because of the protection, the First Amendment, the religious protection, and freedom of speech.

[379] So they handcuffed us significantly, which we were fine with.

[380] Okay, these are the rules.

[381] Let's investigate it.

[382] Right.

[383] So we had cases that were open and closed for a while, and literally the FBI, NYPD, terrorist task force was in the process of being shut down when the first trade center bombing occurred in 93.

[384] Oh, no kidding.

[385] All of us work in terrorism had been transferred to gang crimes.

[386] That was a hot thing that Congress wanted us.

[387] to do.

[388] Yeah.

[389] So we took our terrorist cases and they all qualified as gangs and we made them gang cases.

[390] Oh, that's so interesting.

[391] And then the trade center got blasted and we had been looking at all the groups that were involved of that for a number of years.

[392] But our cases were continually being shut down because, for example, a bunch of them got caught with weapons, but the guy that was driving a car had a federal firearms license.

[393] Oh, wow.

[394] And under the Second Amendment, you know, the right to keep him bare arms.

[395] Somebody's got to, I mean, literally a trunk load of weapons.

[396] Uh -huh.

[397] And, but the guy had a federal firearms license.

[398] Ooh, that's got to be rough to watch those people walk away.

[399] Yeah.

[400] Yeah, but, you know, you want to play by the rules.

[401] Right.

[402] Yeah.

[403] So, we play by the rules.

[404] And so, just to remind people, because, A, a lot of people weren't even born then that are listening, but in 93, there was a bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center.

[405] Right.

[406] Which was also Osama bin Laden, right?

[407] He was behind that.

[408] People have looked back at that and said that that was the birth of al -Qaeda.

[409] Right.

[410] That was kind of their coming -out party.

[411] So you've done a fair amount of research, clearly.

[412] The guy that hit the trade center in 93 is the nephew, the guy that organized 9 -11.

[413] Yeah, what was his name?

[414] It's a scary.

[415] Well, 9 -11 is Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and 1993 is Ramsey Yusuf.

[416] Uh -huh.

[417] Give me terrorists for 500.

[418] This is terrorist, Jeffrey.

[419] I'll take.

[420] Egyptian terrorists for 5 '000.

[421] 500.

[422] Who is the nephew and the uncle?

[423] And when that happened, did you guys have a sense that this was the beginning?

[424] Or did you think, oh, this is a crazy one -off?

[425] I only see this once in our lifetime.

[426] I remember watching the news.

[427] And I don't think anyone had this thought of like, we're under attack.

[428] This is the opening volley of what's going to be some huge, which proved to be a longstanding attack.

[429] But at that time, that didn't feel like that to me as a viewer.

[430] I'm just curious what it felt like on the inside.

[431] It didn't to us either.

[432] Ramsey was on a run for a while.

[433] He was on a run for 93.

[434] He was like this crazy one -man terrorism wave.

[435] He had stuff cooked up.

[436] He wanted to blow up 12 airliners simultaneously over the Pacific.

[437] He went to the Philippines, and they were planning that, and they actually did a test run, and they had a small explosion on a plane.

[438] And then they had another small explosion in one of his bomb factories, and he got out of there, a couple of colleagues of mine.

[439] chased Ramsey around the world for years.

[440] Wow.

[441] And we're just one step behind him the entire way.

[442] I mean, chased him literally around the world.

[443] The FBI agent named Frank Pellegrino.

[444] Can I just point out that his name's Pellegrino, which is very popular mineral water, and your last name is Voss, which is very popular.

[445] Oh my gosh, that's true.

[446] There's something that's getting suspicious here.

[447] If one of your friends is named Bill Perrier, I'm going to go, this whole thing.

[448] Janet DeSani.

[449] Well, if he's what bothers to me about Voss Water.

[450] Please tell me. The Rock is doing Voss Water.

[451] You know, I should be, you know, and he didn't ask me for permission.

[452] He's putting everything out there as Voss World.

[453] You have a complaint.

[454] I was in a Voss World before he was in a boss world.

[455] Absolutely.

[456] You just need to put on 160 pounds more of lean muscle mass and I think you've got a case.

[457] So how do you start becoming involved with negotiating with hostages and all this stuff?

[458] You start out, if you want to be a hostage to negotiate in almost any law enforcement agency, you do it.

[459] is an additional duty, but it's an extracurricular activity.

[460] Sure, yeah.

[461] I had been on the SWAT team at a recurring knee injury, and my knee worked on a couple of times.

[462] And so I thought, well, before the knee gets blown out entirely, let me stay in crisis response.

[463] And I literally, to this day, I remember when I first thought about it, I thought, how hard could it be?

[464] I talk all the time.

[465] I go chasing and talking, right?

[466] I could talk to terrorists.

[467] How hard could that be?

[468] Yeah.

[469] And initially tried to get in and was summarily rejected.

[470] Uh -huh.

[471] the woman who was running the team.

[472] She kind of laughed at me because I was unqualified.

[473] Can I also point out one bit of history?

[474] At this point, prior to that, there had been many famous terrorist attacks, the Olympic athletes, there was the white kidnapping of the EDS employees.

[475] Yeah.

[476] Right?

[477] So you had previously, the terrorist M .O. was to kidnap people and then have demands.

[478] That's kind of what we saw in the 80s, right?

[479] That was the playbook.

[480] Whereas now, the people that have grown up post 9 -11.

[481] It's just a burn and destroy method.

[482] Yeah, it evolved past that.

[483] And kidnapping globally is always now evolves into a money business, everywhere where there is kidnapped.

[484] We don't have real kidnapping in the U .S. You don't have it in Canada.

[485] You don't have it in England.

[486] You don't have it in Australia.

[487] You don't have it in any country that has any sort of an actual real combination robust law enforcement and a legitimate prison system.

[488] Uh -huh.

[489] You kind of need both.

[490] Okay.

[491] And you also need the citizens to not tolerate it.

[492] Right, right.

[493] So Brazil, for example, they got very well -armed police.

[494] Nobody stays in jail for any period of time in Brazil for anything.

[495] Oh, really?

[496] Ridiculously underfunded prison system.

[497] But the real issue is they put 70 guys in a cell design for 10, and they put some poor minimum wage schmuck.

[498] there to guard them.

[499] Yeah.

[500] So the minute the door comes open, 70 guys are going to run you over and you're not getting paid anything, so you're not going to get in their way.

[501] This was on 60 minutes last night.

[502] They were talking about Salvador.

[503] And they were showing the prisons where, of course, MS -13, although they started here, they proliferated down there.

[504] And they showed what the prisons looked like just like four years ago.

[505] And it was just like an open -air market.

[506] And of course, the ganglords are running the whole thing.

[507] And even as they've increased their ability to incarcerate, To your point, there's nine, ten guys in these, we were just watching it.

[508] I was like, oh, my God.

[509] Yeah, such a different system you're completely unaware of normally.

[510] Yeah, right?

[511] So the kidnapping exists in a lot of places, and most of the people throw lots of money at the problem, so it becomes a very profitable thing to do.

[512] Al -Qaeda, ISIS, there's still very much in a kidnapping business worldwide for money, just so we don't hear about it because it doesn't happen here.

[513] Right.

[514] And do you think what percentage would you imagine of these happen under the radar where they kidnap someone.

[515] It doesn't get public.

[516] They get the money they want.

[517] The person goes back and it's just no one's ever made aware of it.

[518] A lot.

[519] A lot.

[520] Yeah, a lot.

[521] Okay.

[522] Enough so that Al -Qaeda pretty much funds or operation from kidnapping is in North Africa.

[523] No kidding.

[524] Yeah.

[525] It's very lucrative for them.

[526] Oh, wow.

[527] So when you were being taught the tactics of negotiation, are those fundamentally the ones that are still being taught?

[528] Or is that field evolved rapidly as more and more disciplines are incorporated psychology all these different things and all the stuff still works I mean it's and it's one of the reasons why hostage negotiation works for business and personal life uh -huh we didn't have the term emotional intelligence but it's just quantum speed emotional intelligence and we used to think the stuff worked because they were bad guys and they were kidnappers but it works because they're people and everybody's wired a certain way.

[529] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[530] We've all been there.

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[533] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[534] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

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[539] What's up, guys?

[540] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[541] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[542] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[543] And I don't mean just friends.

[544] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[545] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[546] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcast.

[547] So as you start doing this, you get involved with a couple of really high -profile cases.

[548] One that is in the master class session right at the beginning, which I found to be fascinating, was this journalist Jill Carroll, who was abducted in Iraq.

[549] What year was that?

[550] 2004.

[551] While that case was going down, I was going through Harvard Law School's negotiation course.

[552] And Christian Science Monitor headquarters was in Boston.

[553] from Harvard Law School student by day, hostage negotiator.

[554] Oh, this is a sexy.

[555] That is.

[556] Now, Harvard, they teach negotiation?

[557] Or is it a conventional business negotiation?

[558] Program on negotiation at Harvard is pretty much based out of the law school.

[559] They try for it to be everybody from the business school, the Kennedy School, local universities, tremendous amount of cooperation among the master's level schools up there.

[560] But they try to make the central gravity at the law school.

[561] And they, you know, I had bumped into them, and they were heavy into the empathy, the way we defined it, and also active listening as we defined it.

[562] But we found out, as it turned out, our active listening was more evolved and more defined than theirs, was at the time.

[563] So tell me what active listening is.

[564] Well, it's really just a set of skills.

[565] It's really proactive listening.

[566] I can get you talking by giving you the right kind of prompts at different points in time.

[567] Both non -verbal and verbal, or the whole gamut?

[568] Mostly verbal?

[569] Yeah, because we, principally, most of the stuff we did was over the phone.

[570] Okay.

[571] You know, you can give some non -verbal encouragers, like the world's greatest non -verbal encourager to keep somebody talking.

[572] It's a simple head nod.

[573] Uh -huh, yes.

[574] I've tried to master that on this show, as you would imagine, yeah.

[575] Well, what I used to do is go, uh -huh, yeah.

[576] I wanted you to know I'm listening?

[577] No, but our fucking audio is just me going, uh -huh, yeah, uh -huh, uh -huh.

[578] And I was like, I got another cue to let you know I am dialed in.

[579] So it's become a lot more nonverbal.

[580] But tiny little nonverbal's not.

[581] You don't need to do big stuff, but the head nod is a big one.

[582] Right.

[583] And so how did you end up being the go -to person for the Jill Carroll case?

[584] You got appointed at some point the lead negotiator for the FBI, correct?

[585] Well, for kidnapping.

[586] For kidnapping.

[587] Okay.

[588] Crisis negotiation unit was run.

[589] at the time uh my former boss my boss gary nessner phenomenal negotiator and a visionary guy in his own right and then he at that time he sort of handpacked assembled the people that were into it you know we had a track record we were into it we worked hard and each of us had something that we were into a little bit more i loved the international kidnapping and it overlap with terrorism and i had the most terrorism experience and i have to imagine you'd be hard pressed to find a job that probably has a more rewarding moment than when it works.

[590] Yeah.

[591] I mean, you've literally talked someone out of being killed.

[592] There's not higher stakes.

[593] Yeah, no, it's eminently satisfying.

[594] And even more so in kidnapping, also there's an entire victim family.

[595] All person gets kidnapped, but it changes everybody's lives.

[596] And family members suffer PTSD at the same rate as victims, which a lot of of people didn't realize that makes sense you get grabbed at least everybody in your immediate family if not handled properly are going to be hurting for years yes and can you can you tell me some of the just kind of global rules right in that all we know i would imagine audience myself included we watch movies people get kidnapped in movies there's policies right like the u .s doesn't negotiate with Terror doesn't make concessions.

[597] That's an extremely carefully worded fine line.

[598] So yeah, break that down for us.

[599] What does that actually mean in practice?

[600] Well, we shouldn't be scared to talk to anybody under any circumstances.

[601] And communication process is actually tremendous evidence -gathering process.

[602] Like, we're working kidnapping in Trinidad one time.

[603] We get our hands on a bad guy, but we're not 100 % sure it's him.

[604] But we've taped the calls.

[605] So they sat him down and just played the tapes for him.

[606] And he said, all right you got me so it's the communication process is a tremendous treasure trove of evidence and also influence so why would we want to walk away from that that doesn't that doesn't make sense as long as we don't make concessions as long as whatever we do is designed as an important phrase deny them the benefits of ransom deny them the benefits of ransom because can i do i have it right in just the overall theory is if the u .s government pays 10.

[607] million dollars to get a senator back, let's say.

[608] Then the next day, 80 senators are going to get.

[609] Is that the theory behind it?

[610] Well, you know, pricing.

[611] You're talking pricing issues now.

[612] How easy is it to get the money?

[613] How hard do they have to work for it?

[614] How much do you pull out of them?

[615] Does giving bank tellers bait money encourage bank robberies?

[616] Well, no, because they don't get that much money when they go out, and then the money becomes evidence.

[617] It's an accepted way to deter bank robberies.

[618] Okay.

[619] So you don't give a bank teller a million dollars is bait money.

[620] You give them enough money so that the bad guy thinks, well, I got something.

[621] He doesn't kill the teller.

[622] He leaves the bank.

[623] Ideally, there's a die pack that explodes.

[624] Right.

[625] But even if there isn't, you got the money, you know the serial numbers.

[626] Mm -hmm.

[627] And money is ridiculously easy to trace.

[628] Right.

[629] And ideally, in a kidnapping, they go out and they spend the money.

[630] They spread it out among their buddies.

[631] There was a series of kidnappings along around about 2000 in Ecuador.

[632] The same kidnapping gang was hitting oil platforms in October.

[633] And just as I was coming into the unit, they hit another oil platform right on schedule and took five Americans hostage.

[634] And the negotiation was on, and the K &R companies were going to pay on the insurance.

[635] But the bad guys asked for a lot of money, and a negotiations broke.

[636] down and he killed an American on deadline on deadline because they had five Americans and they had unfortunately it sounds callous but the reality situation is if they got more than one hostage they got hostages to make an example of they have cards to play they get the cards to play so they made a controlled delivery of money they all they did was keep track of the serial numbers and and they paid the money they got the rest of the hostages out and then for the first time ever they rounded up 80 members of the gang.

[637] Now, it only took about five to hit the platform.

[638] So if you go grab the guys that actually do the kidnapping, you're going to get between five and ten people.

[639] But when they paid the money and it spread through their infrastructure through an organization, and they trace some money, they go back and they round up 80 people, and then the gang never hits another platform.

[640] It's kind of like when the drones, changed from blowing up the guy setting the improvised explosive device and rather waiting to find out where he returned to.

[641] Where'd he go?

[642] Yeah.

[643] So interesting.

[644] So sometimes the government will pay some money or give something.

[645] Is that that can happen?

[646] Here's a really fine line.

[647] It's never government money.

[648] Oh, okay.

[649] They will allow a company to pay.

[650] They will allow a family to pay.

[651] They'll allow an insurance company to pay.

[652] You want to keep the money low just like bait money in bank but you want to mark the money so you allow the money to go down range it's not going to be government money okay but you allow the money you to pay because it's it's actually ridiculously good evidence where do they buy their weapons from you know who do they who do they pay for their cars for their houses these people are all engaged in illegal behavior because they're in a business of selling weapons to bad people yeah so let's let's round everybody up okay so now back to jill carroll because monica this is really going to blow your mind so this journalist jill Carol gets kidnapped in Iraq and she's being held by al -Qaeda that has it?

[653] Al -Qaeda's got her as far as we know.

[654] Okay.

[655] And they do the video, the video you've seen, right?

[656] And you know what comes next, as Chris points it out.

[657] You see that video and then the next one is a beheading video.

[658] So that's the situation that was put on your desk, I guess.

[659] Right.

[660] And walk Monica through your approach to that because it's really interesting.

[661] Well, the most dangerous negotiation is the one you don't know you're in.

[662] So you've got to recognize how the bad guys see it.

[663] Any negotiation.

[664] You've got to understand how the other side sees it.

[665] They start in the media.

[666] That means they think the media's good publicity.

[667] If there's good publicity, then by definition there's bad publicity.

[668] They've chosen the communication form to be the media.

[669] Okay, we'll play there.

[670] What are they looking to do?

[671] what rules have they set out to start with.

[672] So they immediately do a video that makes it look like they'll be justified in killing her.

[673] They do a video where they supposedly have pronounced judgment on you.

[674] An executioner is not guilty of murder.

[675] An executioner simply carries out the verdict of a higher power.

[676] And as you pointed out in your master class thing, in a way, it is a testament to their legitimacy as a state that they have found someone guilty of a thing.

[677] Now they're executing punishment, as any nation state would do.

[678] Exactly.

[679] It gives them legitimacy.

[680] Yeah.

[681] So we see the video initially, and we do a threat assessment on the video.

[682] It's a very high threat level.

[683] It looks really bad.

[684] But we break it down a little bit.

[685] Among the things they did that give us an opportunity to change the game a little bit is they picture her with her hair uncovered.

[686] Now, if she's under their control, then it's their fault that she's being disrespectful.

[687] it's their fault that her hair is uncovered they could have easily made her put anything on exactly right so among the things we take issue with through the media and through you know quote surrogates in the media they disrespected her they allowed her to be photographed with her uncovered then the other thing that we do is looking at the culture from their point of view who can make a statement in the media and tell the indisputable truth and that seems obvious but everybody wants to put, spin.

[688] Very few people tell the indisputable truth.

[689] So we want to go with her father.

[690] We're coaching different members of her family, but we've got to accept the fact that her father's going to have the most important voice.

[691] In that world.

[692] Culturally, because that's where the honor stems from the father.

[693] Yeah, sure.

[694] Her father is very coachable.

[695] All we can do is offer coaching.

[696] It either makes sense to you or it doesn't.

[697] We can ask you to do it a certain way.

[698] It's your choice whether or not you do it.

[699] I never had a problem with anybody in the media.

[700] because we would let people know up front and we would go to an outlet in the media and we'd say, here's the deal, you've got an exclusive interview.

[701] You don't get to ask a single question.

[702] Joe Carroll's father wants to make a statement.

[703] If you want that video, and you don't have to take it.

[704] Right.

[705] But here are the ground rules.

[706] Never had anybody double -crossed me on the ground rules up front.

[707] Here are the ground rules.

[708] You feed what he says intact into the Middle Eastern media, into your outlets, send the video out there intact.

[709] Ideally, at the time, Al Jazeera's picking the stuff up, it's their choice whether or not they pick it up.

[710] Everything's voluntary.

[711] We coached Joel Carroll's father, and the indisputable truth is he couldn't say that she was innocent.

[712] But what's indisputably true was that she wasn't their enemy.

[713] So don't get on the camera and say, my daughter's innocent.

[714] They're going to expect that.

[715] He got on camera and said, my daughter's not your enemy.

[716] Nobody could argue with that.

[717] Right.

[718] He pointed out several other things that were indisputably true.

[719] Well, specifically, she's a journalist.

[720] And if what you want is exposure to your cause, what she is doing is she's in Iraq, reporting the truth back to the West.

[721] So if you have a truthful statement and you are on solid footing, that's the message that's going to get back.

[722] Right?

[723] Exactly.

[724] And that's what she was doing.

[725] And it was indisputably true.

[726] So we don't realize at the time, we don't find out until afterwards.

[727] But they see her father on camera.

[728] and she tells us later on that her captors came to her and said your father's an honorable man at this point of time we don't know it but it's game over they can't hurt her if they've said that about her father they respect him we respect your father we have to respect you but the very next video she's in the executioners are not in the video and her hair's covered isn't that unbelievable that they controlled that scenario 9 ,000 miles away.

[729] So they did do another video.

[730] They did another video.

[731] Okay.

[732] They did a total of three.

[733] Oh.

[734] But clearly.

[735] They're listening.

[736] We go from a high thread video.

[737] Yeah.

[738] To really a video.

[739] And she said that they coached her to cry.

[740] She's crying on camera.

[741] People in her family are saying it doesn't look real to me. Interesting.

[742] But the threat is no longer there.

[743] Now we got bad guys that are saying like, all right, so we don't know what to do now.

[744] Yeah, they don't know what to do, which is also dangerous, right?

[745] It's a dangerous scenario that they're direction.

[746] in a way.

[747] There's opportunity there and there's also the guy with the worst idea might win that day.

[748] It's still very fluid.

[749] Yes, yes.

[750] So, you know, we got to stay on top of, but we know our messaging is getting through.

[751] And again, the messaging is getting through surrogates that are choosing whether or not they want to repeat it.

[752] And we would say, here's what we think.

[753] Say what you want.

[754] And in those kind of cases, what happened a lot, people would go, don't tell me what to say.

[755] Really?

[756] And then they'd say what we told them, what we said they should say.

[757] Right.

[758] But they just wanted to feel like they were free to say it.

[759] Yeah.

[760] So the messaging keeps up and Christian Science Monitor.

[761] They took full accountability for her.

[762] They were willing to do whatever they could do without breaking any laws to help.

[763] They were wonderful.

[764] She worked for a number of media outlets, Christian Science Monitor, was the only one that stood up to stand for her.

[765] So they took our guidance.

[766] And then they did a third video.

[767] not only was her hair covered again she wasn't crying but they actually they did a better job letting her wrap her hair because the first time they had the head scarf on her it looked like it was hastily put together and the last time she was completely put together she was calm she looked like she was being well taken for and we saw the last one although she still wasn't out you know the threat level was almost completely going and then lo and behold poof she appears on the streets in Baghdad almost in the exact same place that they grabbed her Wow.

[768] And would you, I mean...

[769] That's amazing.

[770] Yes.

[771] And when you, I think when you think of the movie version is like you picture Chris on a plane and he's got an earpiece next door.

[772] But the whole clandestiness of how the message got out and stuff is just really interesting.

[773] Yeah, it was it was we had everybody worked together really well on that case.

[774] Yeah.

[775] People that we needed to have listened to us.

[776] Listen to us.

[777] It's so fascinating.

[778] So I was curious about this, Steve Santanini.

[779] Santani in Gaza's trip I don't know that story I just read that that was one of your other successful Of course you don't Because we did a good job Now one thing that you Mentioned it briefly But a part of the skill set Which I really admire And it's something that I As a hobby challenge myself to do Is you can't make a straw man argument For your adversary You can't go Oh these dumb asses over there Have kidnapped this girl they're stupid and there's no logic behind this.

[780] Like, you have to fully parachute into their mindset.

[781] And you have to really make space in your brain to think like them to understand what their objectives are, right?

[782] You have to really have a capacity, which many people say is the sign of intelligence, is holding conflicting viewpoints in your head simultaneously.

[783] And I think that's just a great skill for any human being to be nurturing.

[784] I agree with you a thousand percent.

[785] Oh, it's actually a little bit easier.

[786] It's you really not getting in your way.

[787] Okay.

[788] It's just being genuinely open -minded and realizing that everybody's kind of driven by the same issues.

[789] It really doesn't matter.

[790] You know, there are identity issues, their autonomy issues.

[791] Do you have a decent vision of the future for your life?

[792] Is the world the way you see it now?

[793] Is it going to provide a better place for your kids?

[794] You know, what's the future look like to you?

[795] Yeah.

[796] Now, you could have a very distorted vision.

[797] But it's really focused on those three things.

[798] what's your identity what's your autonomy what's the future look like but i would imagine the thing i always push up against is like the easiest thing is just to label label people evil that's just a cure all now you know that explains everything but that doesn't explain a fucking thing right you have to start by giving enough respect to your adversary to go like they are rational within their worldview what is that worldview how do i understand how yeah somehow to them this is rational and it's it's incumbent on me to figure out what that thought process is or I can't begin to predict what they want.

[799] Yeah.

[800] Right?

[801] If I don't, if I don't treat them as somebody that's semi -rational that has an objective, how can I give them what they want?

[802] And it's also not being afraid to articulate what their point of view is.

[803] Right.

[804] I don't know what your beliefs are if you can't say, okay, here's what you believe.

[805] Right.

[806] And a lot of people just simply refuse to do that.

[807] The first row of trade center case you were talking about.

[808] The trial was in a civilian court.

[809] We trialed Islamic terrorists, a guy with legitimate Islamic religious credentials.

[810] And we had Muslims testifying voluntarily against other Muslims.

[811] Voluntarily, it didn't have to.

[812] World didn't come to an end.

[813] Manhattan didn't melt.

[814] Every Muslim we put on the standard testified voluntarily, we would start with pretty much the same approach.

[815] I would sit down with them and I'd say, you believe that there's been a succession of United States governments for the last 200 years that have been anti -Islamic.

[816] And they would just, they would blank.

[817] They're not expecting you to understand what their issue is, right?

[818] They'd say, yeah, that's it exactly.

[819] Now, I never said it was true.

[820] Right.

[821] I never said I agreed.

[822] And I pointedly didn't, never said I disagreed.

[823] Yeah.

[824] I said, here's what you believe.

[825] And it's astonishing how far you can get in any conversation with anybody.

[826] If you start out by saying, here's what you believe.

[827] Oh, anyone who's found themselves in a relationship, that is a skill set that is imperative.

[828] People mostly, or at least I believe, want to be heard, right?

[829] It's felt seen.

[830] Seen and heard.

[831] You're absolutely on the money with that.

[832] It's such an act of good faith to say, I see you, I hear what you're saying.

[833] Yeah.

[834] It doesn't require you to say, I agree.

[835] Right.

[836] I think that's where people get hung up.

[837] They think by being able to state the other person's point of view that they're somehow condoning it or, you know what I'm saying.

[838] But that's not the case.

[839] No. And that's that fine line.

[840] And it seems so hard for some people to get over.

[841] Yes.

[842] But even as someone who's been married or with someone for 12 years, like, it's not going to happen on its own.

[843] I have to actually stop and go, before I launch into my case, what is her point of view?

[844] I have to be able to state it before I start.

[845] And it's work.

[846] But it has to be done if we hope to coexist, right?

[847] Exactly.

[848] Okay.

[849] So your masterclass, it's broken down.

[850] It's basically, if I could sum up your point of view, which I like, is.

[851] that, and this is, by the way, similar to my father who was a car salesman, he sat me down one day and he said, I don't care what job you pursue.

[852] You will be a salesman.

[853] That is the bottom line.

[854] No one has a job.

[855] They're not a salesman.

[856] You're a chemist.

[857] You've got to present this idea to somebody.

[858] And in that presenting of that idea, you're asking them to buy into this thing you've just discovered.

[859] Whatever it is, you'll have to be a salesman.

[860] Wow.

[861] That was his worldview.

[862] And there's some validity to us.

[863] Yeah.

[864] And so your worldview, is, or the point at least of your masterclass is, you might not think you're in negotiations.

[865] It might pass you by that you're daily in negotiations.

[866] I think you say in the introduction, three times a day you're in a negotiation, which is probably a low number too.

[867] For me, I have a four -year -old and a six -year -old.

[868] It's like by like a thousand.

[869] I'm negotiating from the second my eyes open.

[870] Right.

[871] Because there's a fight.

[872] That's why I've been woken up.

[873] Two people are fighting in the house.

[874] So I'm acutely aware, how much negotiation happens in my life.

[875] But you do a great job of explaining.

[876] All right, so anytime the words I want is it in your head or coming across somebody's lips, you're in a negotiation.

[877] And the commodity that's involved in every negotiation is time.

[878] Most people think that the only time you're in a negotiation is somebody wants dollars.

[879] Right.

[880] But it's always time because, I mean, you trade dollars for time.

[881] It's always time.

[882] So I want or I need.

[883] One of my favorite stories, gentlemen started this phenomenon website called Secrets.

[884] Send me your secrets anonymously.

[885] Oh, that's a great idea.

[886] I'm going to tell the world whatever you're struggling with, somebody else is struggling with it also it's going to help them to know they're not alone.

[887] So he's telling me he gets a brand new still in a rapper, Starbucks coffee cup with a note that says, I give decaf to people who are mean to me. That's funny.

[888] Are you in any good?

[889] The Association of Starbucks.

[890] Yeah.

[891] Well, there's time and implementation of all.

[892] Well, we have a friend who works at a restaurant, and when someone's a complete asshole and they order decaf at the end of the night.

[893] As he's pouring the caffeinated coffee, he says, sweet dreams.

[894] I hadn't thought about the opposite.

[895] Yeah, getting you all the other way.

[896] But, yeah, unless you're living on a mountain by yourself, a solitary life, you're going to have to negotiate kind of regularly to move through life, right?

[897] I want directions.

[898] I want an upgrade.

[899] I need this.

[900] I want that, whatever it is.

[901] And one of the reasons why I say that number three or four is probably low, I mean, a book I read recently stated that through the course of a day, there are at least 400 attempts to persuade us.

[902] And all the different advertisements and advertisement constantly.

[903] We're constantly.

[904] We're constantly.

[905] being bombarded with some form of persuasion.

[906] So if you're reaction in any way, shape, or form to an attempt of persuasion, you're in a negotiation.

[907] And that's not even when you're trying to persuade.

[908] These are just coming at us.

[909] Yeah.

[910] So, yeah, the number of negotiations were in every day is probably...

[911] Well, one distinction you make, and I would love to hear you talk more about it, was conventionally you think, oh, the adversary in a negotiation is the other party involved, when, in fact, the adversary is the negotiation.

[912] The adversary is a situation.

[913] Yeah, I think that depersonalizes it in a way that's helpful.

[914] Well, and that was the point.

[915] I always refer to a counterpart, not your adversary.

[916] If you think of the other person as your adversary, then you're kicking into conflict too much.

[917] And you got your backup, and then they're going to get their backup, and it's going to eliminate options.

[918] Yeah, and then it has to fall into the protocol of winner loser.

[919] Right.

[920] It does.

[921] Exactly.

[922] Yeah.

[923] And in point of fact, if we're negotiating, we're both faced with different aspects of the same problem.

[924] So in order to do the best we can possibly do, it's about collaboration.

[925] And also, see, hostage negotiators about getting somebody to collaborate who doesn't intend to.

[926] Right.

[927] Right.

[928] Yeah.

[929] Probably explicitly set out to not cooperate.

[930] They've got their backup, whatever it is.

[931] And I love the fact that we really go into this, again, in the master class episodes and segments, because, we're talking about using tone of voice to decrease the conflict, just all sorts of different approaches, even the mental attitude that you have inside.

[932] If I think of you as an adversary, it's going to come out my voice, my voice is going to be bad.

[933] But if I think, okay, look, we've got to collaborate.

[934] That's tiny little changes in my tone is going to have an impact on you.

[935] It's actually going to go straight back to, you were talking about the gang crimes guys and their intuition.

[936] Intuition is simply recognition.

[937] And so when I change my approach to you, your intuition is going to be, if I'm thinking you're an adversary, your intuition's going to pick that up.

[938] Right.

[939] And it's going to set you off.

[940] But if I'm thinking, look, we got to collaborate.

[941] If that's overwhelming in my mind, your intuition is going to pick that up.

[942] And it's going to change how you respond because if I don't feel like I'm attacking you, then you're not going to feel attacked or you feel less attacked at least so i think you might like this one of my very best friends in the world is a older hollywood entertainment lawyer and he's just one of the best to ever live and i one time was driving with him in wyoming and i said what is your unique talent like what is it that has made you so good at this job and he said well i don't know if i'm unique in it but i can tell you my main goal right out of the gates is i need as much information as possible right because I need to find out what the other party wants emotionally.

[943] Right.

[944] Because it's not what you'd think.

[945] It's not logical.

[946] Like, let's say you're negotiating with a studio.

[947] You might think it's about they're not crossing this $20 million threshold, right?

[948] But it might not be that.

[949] It might be they want a sequel.

[950] Like, there's so many elements you could focus on.

[951] And the real skill is isolating.

[952] What is the emotional attachment someone has in this?

[953] This guy's good.

[954] That's exactly it.

[955] And then there are certain emotional attachments that are predictable.

[956] A little bit like what I said before, autonomy, identity, what's their future look like?

[957] Tell me that you're going to lose yourself, your autonomy, is that what you're saying?

[958] Yeah, or if you feel forced into anything.

[959] Uh -huh.

[960] We knew this in a hostage negotiation.

[961] I started to learn it more in all negotiations.

[962] A guy named Jim Camp wrote a book in 2002 called Start With No. And he wasn't trying to get people to say no, but Jim pointed out that the freer you are to make a decision, he used to call it the right to veto.

[963] As long as I tell you, it's okay to say no. You can say no to me at any time.

[964] I preserved your autonomy.

[965] You're not going to feel backed into a corner.

[966] If I come at you with this yes nonsense, trying to get you say yes, this whole yes momentum bilge is every time I get you to say yes, it's a micro -agreement and it ties you down.

[967] That's to take your autonomy away.

[968] You're going to feel that every step of the way.

[969] Right.

[970] So I'm never going to approach anybody like that because I'm, you know, infringing on your autonomy.

[971] Camp says in his book, people will die over their autonomy.

[972] Oh, I will, motherfucker.

[973] Let's do it.

[974] Yeah, yeah.

[975] But that was what hostage negotiation is based on to begin with.

[976] And that's what I knew that there was an immediate application because he was a guy in a completely different arena that was ridiculously successful applying that idea in business.

[977] You know, I accidentally have discovered that I would have never been able to articulate what you just said, but I've accidentally discovered that with my kids if I start by going, look, you're going to get to do whatever you want at the end of this you want to pick this you can do it you want to pick this that's fine but here's the reason i really hope you pick blank i start with going like look you're yes it's going to be up to you and just the difference how those conversations go when i like immediately empower them with that it's like the defenses kind of go down and then they can hear and see a lot of people would misunderstand your data sample they're reacting like that because they're human beings.

[978] Not because you're a parent and they're kids.

[979] This is human being on human being reaction.

[980] And you're actually, the cool approach about that too is you're teaching them to think, which is what a parent's job.

[981] Ideally, you know, we're taking a shot of trying to get our kids to think.

[982] But in that thinking process and preserving their autonomy, you're actually more likely to get your way.

[983] Yeah.

[984] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[985] And I wanted to ask just kind of like an ethical thing.

[986] Because the title of your book, which is Never Split the Difference, I could imagine where the takeaway, or just the knee jerk might be like, you would think it would be like a winner's take -all approach.

[987] But now talking to you and stuff and learning about what you believe, I have to imagine that you do think compromise on some levels ultimately a good aim or no. No. Oh, here we go.

[988] Here we go.

[989] We're up to the races.

[990] That's that's a, that's, that's, that's, it's a, that's a, it's a heretic.

[991] I mean, is it, is it not, should people be trying to get what they want all the time?

[992] Is that, is that the, well, evolved approach?

[993] You should be open to the best idea.

[994] See, the crazy thing about never split the difference is, if I'm going to live by those rules, I have to be willing to accept you might be completely right.

[995] Break that down better for me. Not better.

[996] So not meet halfway, relinquish the whole thing over to you, right?

[997] You might be completely right.

[998] I got to, I got to be open to what you have to say.

[999] I got to know where you're coming from.

[1000] Your attorney friend before was talking about gathering information.

[1001] I got to gather some information from you.

[1002] It's not likely.

[1003] It's actually a certainty that you know something about this that I don't know.

[1004] It's an absolute certainty.

[1005] We call them black swans.

[1006] What are the tiny little pieces of information that will change everything?

[1007] You have something that I don't know.

[1008] And if I find out what it is, I may completely change my perspective.

[1009] I've got to be open to that.

[1010] Okay.

[1011] Okay, that's good.

[1012] You will rise to the greater truth.

[1013] Yeah, what's the best deal?

[1014] I cannot have the market cornered on the truth or the facts.

[1015] I mean, this is a thing that a lot of people will argue over, to use a military term, it's an asymmetric world, which means you can't possibly have all the information.

[1016] None of us ever can.

[1017] You're going to have stuff that I don't know.

[1018] I'm going to have stuff you don't know.

[1019] What would really bake your brain is what's in the overlap.

[1020] You know, a long time ago, Donald Rumsfeld was famous for saying the unknown unknowns.

[1021] But what's the overlap in the facts that each of us have that the other doesn't have?

[1022] It's impossible to say what that is.

[1023] And if I'm willing to accept that if we collaborate, we can together come up with a better idea, that's what never split the difference is.

[1024] Compromise is usually shorthand for, I'm tired of this.

[1025] I don't want to do the work.

[1026] Let's just cut it in half.

[1027] Let's put the baby and move on.

[1028] Right.

[1029] Well, it's just not a good idea.

[1030] Okay.

[1031] Now, in the episodes, you go through a bunch of different things.

[1032] It's kind of broken down, if I'm right, tactical empathy, mirroring, labeling, mastering, delivery, body language and speech patterns, the value of no, bending reality, and mock negotiations.

[1033] These are all episodes within it, right?

[1034] There's a lot of cool stuff in there, isn't there?

[1035] Yeah, so we've touched on several of these.

[1036] I want to know about the value of no, and I want to know about bending reality.

[1037] All right, so the value of no, it's so stupid that this works.

[1038] But everybody says no because it makes him feel safe.

[1039] It's not actually, they're not actually listening to what they are and thinking through the implications.

[1040] I mean, saying no makes you feel safe and protect.

[1041] What happens after you feel safe and protected, you open up because you feel safe and protected.

[1042] So let's get people to say no. That's so counterintuitive to all the business stuff you hear.

[1043] It's like you're trying to get people on a pattern of saying yes.

[1044] Like make them say yes eight times and they have to say yes the ninth time and all that.

[1045] That's nonsense.

[1046] That's nonsense.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] But all right, so something as simple as I check into my hotel today.

[1049] I get in there at 9 a .m. I'm into town early today.

[1050] Yeah, and they're not going to let you get your room until 2.

[1051] Or a lot of hotels have realized we can charge you an early check -in fee.

[1052] Uh -huh.

[1053] You know, I walk up to the young lady at the desk and I say, I'm going to make a day incredibly difficult.

[1054] That she doesn't know, but in a hotel, God knows what they face.

[1055] Have I got a body in my suitcase?

[1056] Yeah, exactly.

[1057] You know, am I going to do a drug deal in the, you know, free base Coke up there?

[1058] Or is there a human sacrifice in the room later on?

[1059] You know, what are we going to do?

[1060] But I say in sort of a playful mood, and she kind of goes, right, what do you got?

[1061] Bring it on?

[1062] And I say, is it a ridiculous idea for me to get in my room early with no early check -in fee?

[1063] And is it ridiculous for me to ask what kind of upgrades you got?

[1064] I'm getting her to say no. No, it's not ridiculous, no. Oh.

[1065] No early check -in.

[1066] Get the upgrade.

[1067] She's delighted with the interaction.

[1068] because, first of all, I scared her.

[1069] She was able to help me. Her expectations got real low.

[1070] I did a little thing called emotional anchoring with her to start with.

[1071] Okay.

[1072] And then I left her feeling like she did something for me where she really helped me out.

[1073] So I'm going to walk away and she's going to feel great about it.

[1074] And it's going to carry over to her next interaction.

[1075] Uh -huh.

[1076] Now.

[1077] So it's literally just the word no. It's not even like she said no to you.

[1078] as in like, I'm stopping.

[1079] Overall, right, right.

[1080] It's just the sound coming out of Vermont.

[1081] How stupid is that?

[1082] That's crazy.

[1083] That is so stupid.

[1084] But you feel safe and protected when you say no. And then let's say you can't do it.

[1085] But if I say, would this work for you and there are problems, I'm going to want you to say, yeah, it would work for me, but here are the problems.

[1086] But yes, since yes, there's always a trap, you're not going to do that.

[1087] But if I say, is this a stupid idea?

[1088] Are you against this?

[1089] Do you disagree?

[1090] If there's still problems, now you'll say, no, I don't.

[1091] disagree but here are the problems because you feel like since you said no you can provide me with more information with no attached commitment right that makes sense well i didn't go through this yes nonsense with these micro agreements where you feel trapped right because you're kind of you're you're in power now yeah in theory i've empowered you yeah yeah absolutely right i mean and even you know my ex -girlfriend i'd come home and i'd say you know do you want me to do door day you know you want me to do door day I'm kind of in the mood for Cheesecake Factory.

[1092] Can I order a Cheesecake Factory?

[1093] Well, I don't know.

[1094] What do they have?

[1095] Let's talk about this.

[1096] And I went from that going, are you against me ordering a cheesecake factory?

[1097] And she goes, no, go ahead and order.

[1098] Uh -huh.

[1099] Whoa.

[1100] Now, the only thing that I would potentially push back on is simply, do you have children?

[1101] Fully grown.

[1102] Fully grown.

[1103] Okay, and more than one?

[1104] Just one.

[1105] Okay, just one.

[1106] He's so big.

[1107] He seems like more than one, but.

[1108] Okay.

[1109] So then you wouldn't have experienced this phenomena, but I'm sure you're aware of it.

[1110] You're very smart person.

[1111] But we had one child and we were like, we should write a book.

[1112] We are phenomenal parents.

[1113] This child does every single thing we ask her to do.

[1114] And we just thought we were geniuses.

[1115] And then we had a second child.

[1116] And this child doesn't do anything you ask her to do.

[1117] In fact, relishes and not doing whatever you ask her to do.

[1118] And so there are two completely.

[1119] different approaches to both these kids.

[1120] So one blanket statement, weirdly, the no thing works amazingly with the difficult child.

[1121] Interesting.

[1122] I have to start everything that way.

[1123] You're in charge.

[1124] You're the boss.

[1125] Not I want you to do this.

[1126] I don't want you to do the thing I really want you to do.

[1127] Because she just has to go 180 from you.

[1128] It is, she was just born that way.

[1129] With any of these approaches, it can get a little, I think, a little blankety in that it would work for everyone.

[1130] in my own experience with my two kids, I know I have to have nearly opposite approaches to get what I want out of this situation.

[1131] So isn't it possible that for some people that know thing is...

[1132] Isn't it possible?

[1133] That's a yes -oriented question.

[1134] It's possible that a case of Jack Daniels will fall out of a passing airplane and land on top of your new house out of it.

[1135] Let's hope.

[1136] Let's hope.

[1137] Is it possible?

[1138] Okay, let me just be more direct.

[1139] Is it too simple to say that that, that, that, that, Either the no approach or the yes approach is the best approach for all people when I myself witness such staggering differences in how people want to be talked to.

[1140] All right.

[1141] So first of all, best chance of success.

[1142] And this is something I learned from a phrase I learned from my boss, Gary Nessner.

[1143] You know, what's our best chance of success?

[1144] Nothing is guaranteed.

[1145] You know, everything has some flaws.

[1146] You start with what's your highest percentage chance of success based on different drivers of human nature.

[1147] but also adjusting the person in front of you and treat them how they need to be treated, not how you want to be treated, but how they need to be treated.

[1148] Like, have a game plan and also be flexible and ready to pivot.

[1149] Pay attention to how it's landing with the other side.

[1150] Right.

[1151] Like, I'm not going to say possible ever again in front of you.

[1152] I learned that from you just now.

[1153] I know that's a trigger word for you.

[1154] So I'm going to redirect.

[1155] I don't think of a very similar word that's not possible.

[1156] That went by me. Okay, so that's the value.

[1157] No, I really like that.

[1158] And now what is bending reality?

[1159] Our emotional reaction to loss, and this is not me, this is Danny Connman, Nobel Prize in Behavioral Economics, 2002, Prospect Theory.

[1160] Connman and Tversky cooked it up.

[1161] Amos Tversky died by the time the Nobel Prize was handed out.

[1162] Danny Connman has made no bones about the fact that Amos would have got it to, but he had died.

[1163] Okay.

[1164] Law stings twice as much as an equivalent gain.

[1165] Say that one more time.

[1166] A loss stings twice as much as an equivalent gain.

[1167] That makes sense.

[1168] Monica and I have listened to like five different podcasts about this where they do these experiments where people can either lose money or win money.

[1169] Right.

[1170] It's simply in the phrasing, the exact same odds.

[1171] Yep.

[1172] But if you present it first as a loss, you can predict the decision.

[1173] And if you present it as a win.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] High percentage.

[1176] But everything in life is like that.

[1177] Like junior varsity player salesperson will say, you know, implement this system.

[1178] Your return on investment will be 20%.

[1179] You get 20 % better every day.

[1180] A varsity player will say, do not use our product.

[1181] and lose 20 % every day.

[1182] While you sleep, you're going to lose 20%.

[1183] That's the same thing.

[1184] Once a gain, one's a loss.

[1185] We don't lay up at night with insomnia over gains.

[1186] We sleep like a baby.

[1187] Everybody stays up at night.

[1188] You lose sleep, your stress, your anxiety.

[1189] Anything that keeps you up is over a loss of some sort.

[1190] It eats at you.

[1191] It keeps you from sleeping.

[1192] You think about it in the shower.

[1193] hour.

[1194] You think about it when you're driving.

[1195] What's the loss that's under your skin?

[1196] That if you do nothing, you lose.

[1197] And that's the difference between the A players and the not the eight players, because the eight players know that the loss is going to get under your skin.

[1198] You're not going to be able to shake it until you do something about it.

[1199] Do nothing and lose.

[1200] We are more likely to make a decision to avoid a loss.

[1201] That's our first move.

[1202] Well, how many guys enter marriage counseling to perpetuate their marriage versus save their marriage.

[1203] One's a loss, one's a game.

[1204] Yeah, yeah, interesting.

[1205] I never met anyone that was like, oh, you know what, we decided we'd love to perpetuate this thing another 20 years, so we started marriage counseling.

[1206] Yeah, I wanna keep this up.

[1207] Yes, it doesn't work that way.

[1208] Yeah, the word loss, yeah.

[1209] But as soon as you're looking at losing the person, all of a sudden you're open to all kinds of things.

[1210] Right, right.

[1211] Well, you know what, it makes me immediately think about great chapter and blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

[1212] Have you read that book?

[1213] And it talks about what's going on biochemically.

[1214] So we have evolved, right, to get a dopamine reward if we eat a in -season ripe berry.

[1215] It's a very pleasurable experience and we get a little chemical to reward us because we've just nourished ourselves and that's good for our longevity.

[1216] If we eat a poisonous berry, we will get a dump of cortisol and other negative, right, chemicals.

[1217] And those are 10 times as strong as dopamine as a chemical it's 10 times stronger and he said that carries into your life so if you tell your wife 10 times that you love her and she gets that dopamine bump and you call her a fucking bitch one time there's a reason that that takes at least 20 more I love you's because you're a fucking bitch gives a cortisol dump and just the chemicals you can't compete with the chemicals you can you can't think your way out of it right right right right right exactly And that loss is that.

[1218] It bends reality.

[1219] It does bend reality.

[1220] Ooh, that's delicious.

[1221] Monica, you know, Monica just was in her reality, Ben?

[1222] Sure, yeah.

[1223] I don't know where I am.

[1224] But Monica was just involved in a very high -stress negotiation buying her first home, 11 bidders.

[1225] Congratulations.

[1226] Thank you.

[1227] Well, do you know she won you?

[1228] We wouldn't be talking about this.

[1229] I probably wouldn't be smiling if, yeah.

[1230] He is quick.

[1231] He could read me. He's quick.

[1232] But yeah, it ended up in like a probate court live auction with other people.

[1233] You want to talk about a fucking stressful.

[1234] It was very stressful.

[1235] And I think she could have really benefited from some of these.

[1236] I guess.

[1237] But we were only, we were, it was just money.

[1238] So we couldn't, I couldn't like convince.

[1239] Although we did have a strategy.

[1240] We had a strategy.

[1241] It was a strategy.

[1242] It was a strategy.

[1243] It was a strategy.

[1244] I got a tragedy here.

[1245] There was emotional.

[1246] Well, we were very emotional because the house is right there.

[1247] So we're now neighbors and it's so exciting.

[1248] Perfect scenario.

[1249] Makes for good commute.

[1250] Exactly.

[1251] So we were hyper emotional going in when we felt like nobody else is this emotionally invested.

[1252] And so I went in with Kristen.

[1253] She came with me. and she's a very famous person and it was so intimidating from the get -go just to even have her present there I mean she wasn't big It was a real disruptor Let's just say that Yeah, take take every advantage you could get it I know and she's like making all these jokes As if there's just no way No pressure She's in a lively mood But it was stressful indeed I think you would have enjoyed watching the entire scenario from beginning to end Yeah, no kidding.

[1254] Well, emotionally intelligent to be making jokes.

[1255] Exactly.

[1256] To lighten the mood.

[1257] And it lightens the mood, but then everyone is getting more and more intimidated by the second.

[1258] This person is making jokes.

[1259] I'm not in the space to be making jokes because I'm nervous.

[1260] Like, that's what they're thinking.

[1261] This person cares so little in a way that means, oh, she's just so confident.

[1262] She's going to get it.

[1263] They don't even know.

[1264] She's not even the one bidding.

[1265] Right.

[1266] She's just there with me. She's just moral support.

[1267] But the fact that she's there, people were...

[1268] She was your nice swat team.

[1269] She was a swat team, but in a completely different emotional vibe.

[1270] Exactly, exactly.

[1271] Very good.

[1272] You know, again, we already talked about it, but you're in all these different negotiations.

[1273] But how can people apply these to teenagers, children?

[1274] These stuff work on human beings.

[1275] So as much as they don't seem like it, teenagers are still human banks.

[1276] principally driven by negative emotions.

[1277] You know, we talk a lot in a class about how to deactivate the negative emotions.

[1278] And as stupid as it sounds, a two millimeter shift to deactivate a negative emotion goes from denying someone the right to have that emotion to simply recognizing it.

[1279] There was a neuroscience experiment that showed that the only way to diffuse negatives was simply call them out, the elephant in the room.

[1280] You don't get rid of the elephant in the room by denying that it's there.

[1281] And it's relatively ineffective to pretend it's not there.

[1282] But if you just say, look, there's an elephant in the room, and this is what it is, then people are far less intimidated.

[1283] So give me a practical example of a teenager having that negative emotion.

[1284] What would be an example of that?

[1285] And what would you say?

[1286] And now let's preempt it.

[1287] Let's be proactive.

[1288] Let's get out in front of it.

[1289] If you deny a teenager something, what are they going to say?

[1290] I hate you.

[1291] I hate you.

[1292] That's not fair.

[1293] My life is over.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] Uh -huh.

[1296] So you say, look.

[1297] When I say this, you're going to hate me. You're going to feel like it's not fair, and you're going to feel like your life is going to be over.

[1298] Oh, there we go.

[1299] Uh -huh.

[1300] Call out the elephant in the room in advance.

[1301] Because nobody imagines the teenager saying, well, I didn't think my life was going to be over, but now that you mentioned it, I do.

[1302] Right, right.

[1303] You're not planting a seed.

[1304] Yeah.

[1305] You're not planning it.

[1306] You're getting out in front of it because at that point of time, it's actually kind of fun to watch somebody try to articulate their reasoning.

[1307] you just said.

[1308] Right.

[1309] And they kind of go like, yeah.

[1310] I do find I start a lot of sentence with this is not fair.

[1311] Really?

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] Which is so often true.

[1314] The Monica and I have this.

[1315] There'll be moments where we have a great friendship.

[1316] And then we also have an employee and employer relationship.

[1317] And these are two separate things.

[1318] Right.

[1319] And quite often when that line gets blurry, it's like I want to recognize, oh, we've skewed into the zone where this is not fair.

[1320] The power dynamics, equal.

[1321] Now we're having a business conversation.

[1322] And that blows.

[1323] I would hate to just be friends with somebody.

[1324] And then like a light switch, now I'm in this other paradigm where you're a boss and I'm an employee.

[1325] And it's tricky.

[1326] We have those kind of conversations a lot.

[1327] Yeah.

[1328] We do.

[1329] We do have these.

[1330] And it requires a lot of good navigation.

[1331] We got to be on it.

[1332] Navigation, exactly.

[1333] Yeah, no, it's good navigation.

[1334] Yeah.

[1335] Yeah.

[1336] If we just hope it's going to work out.

[1337] It's not going to work out.

[1338] So much communication you know the other part about saying something like this is not this is not fair yeah you're already showing the other person that you're concerned enough about them as people that you want to make sure it lands and that's a huge difference that's the difference between somebody who's blunt and somebody's a straight shooter nobody likes anybody who's blunt everybody likes a straight shooter what's the difference to straight shooters careful how it lands oh interesting yeah it also just goes back to you feel seen when somebody is saying, I know this is unfair.

[1339] Because then you're like, yeah, it is unfair.

[1340] At least they recognize where I'm coming from or how I feel or whatever.

[1341] But just want to be seen and hurt.

[1342] Yeah.

[1343] Well, it boils down to that.

[1344] It's so funny, there are so many little things in life where the delineation between the two is razor sharp.

[1345] And yet the outcome is so different.

[1346] The one I always say in relationships is learn how to be vulnerable.

[1347] but recognize where the line between vulnerable and needy is.

[1348] No one's fucking attracted to needy.

[1349] But everyone's attracted to vulnerability.

[1350] And that is a razor thin border between those two things.

[1351] I'm going to claim I made that up.

[1352] Okay, good, good, good, good, good.

[1353] I steal everything from AA and I'm just passing it on.

[1354] So if you want to take some of it.

[1355] It's really good because it's very true.

[1356] But I also fear that that statement makes people feel like they shouldn't have needs.

[1357] No, but needs are good.

[1358] Neediness is I need you to regulate my emotions.

[1359] Right.

[1360] I'm dependent on you to control how I feel.

[1361] No one wants that responsibility.

[1362] I want to love you, support you, but handle your shit.

[1363] And part of you handling your shit is I'm scared.

[1364] I'm afraid.

[1365] Those are all good.

[1366] I can help you come to that.

[1367] But if you're letting me know, hey, my balance is required that you do something.

[1368] That's too much of responsibility for one human to have for enough.

[1369] doesn't help anybody to be a crutch right right but boy it's hard for us especially when you're you love someone you're scared you're emotional to be able to delineate that as very it's a huge challenge for all of us yeah yeah i agree completely yeah well chris i got to say i um watch the master class it's really good i also just want to add i just got to acknowledge this conflict of interest because they're also a sponsor but genuinely with that said they're very well produced like the fact that we go to the actual coverage of Jill Carroll and we get to see the reality.

[1370] If you were just explaining that story, it's going to have some weight, but to see the human being that is surrounded by these four guys, the stakes of that get real immediate.

[1371] It's just very, very well produced.

[1372] They do a great, great job.

[1373] Sponsorship aside.

[1374] I was blown away with how well they did it.

[1375] Right.

[1376] I was absolutely blown away.

[1377] It's first, first class.

[1378] It's an honor.

[1379] It really is.

[1380] Yeah.

[1381] Phenomenal thing to be a part of.

[1382] Well, Chris, thanks so much for coming in.

[1383] It was such a pleasure.

[1384] and I wish you tons of luck with this.

[1385] I hope everyone watches it.

[1386] Yeah, thanks for having me in.

[1387] This was fun.

[1388] Thank you.

[1389] All right.

[1390] See you soon.

[1391] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1392] Christopher Voss?

[1393] Vistifer Cross.

[1394] Koss.

[1395] There's no R. Yeah, but I guess Chris, he'd be pulling the C .R. Oh, okay.

[1396] Carry the C. Add the R. Yeah, that's right.

[1397] So, hello, Minuture Mousie.

[1398] Hi.

[1399] You're in a lovely brown ensemble.

[1400] You've got three different shades of brown.

[1401] One is an oatmeal like your shoe.

[1402] One is a, what do we call this?

[1403] It's kind of a clay brown.

[1404] Clay brown.

[1405] That sounds like a person.

[1406] It does.

[1407] Clay brown, we love his work on insects.

[1408] No. I feel like he's.

[1409] Take two.

[1410] Well, because clay brown.

[1411] Brown does not sound like someone who got interested in insects.

[1412] It sounds like he got interested in football.

[1413] Oh, okay.

[1414] To me. Oh, sure.

[1415] Well, the Browns, the Cleveland Browns is a football team.

[1416] Okay.

[1417] So maybe that's why it feels.

[1418] Maybe.

[1419] What is that?

[1420] The Browns.

[1421] I think it's racist.

[1422] Oh, my God.

[1423] It probably is because.

[1424] Although, brown people is a nice thing to say.

[1425] So it's like, it's working now.

[1426] The Cleveland Brown people?

[1427] In about nine.

[1428] In about nine years, it will not be cool.

[1429] What do you really think it means?

[1430] I have no idea.

[1431] Oh, let's ask.

[1432] Hey, Google, what does the Cleveland Brown's team mean?

[1433] No. Bad question.

[1434] On the website, mental floss .com, they say, there's some debate about whether Cleveland's professional football franchise was named after its first coach and general manager, Paul Brown, or after boxer Joe Lewis, who was nicknamed the Brown Bomber.

[1435] Oh.

[1436] The owner Mickey McBride conducted a fan contest in 1945 and the most popular submission was Browns.

[1437] Okay.

[1438] So there's some options here.

[1439] I like the Joe Lewis one because he's the pride of Detroit.

[1440] You know, when you go downtown to Harp Plaza, there's a big fist.

[1441] A famous fist, they always, anytime they show something shot in Detroit, they're going to include that fist.

[1442] That's Joe Lewis's fist.

[1443] Every city has one of those.

[1444] You know, I would say ours is the Santa Monica Ferris wheel.

[1445] Yeah, they got to show that.

[1446] They always show the pier Well, the Hollywood sign, the Santa Monica Pier.

[1447] Okay, so we have a lot of them here.

[1448] But in movies.

[1449] Embarrassment of Rich.

[1450] The Capitol Records building.

[1451] In movies, I feel like they're always showing the pier.

[1452] Yeah, they do.

[1453] They like to.

[1454] It's a big Ferris wheel.

[1455] In Atlanta, what is it?

[1456] Maybe the Coke Museum or the...

[1457] The Coke Museum.

[1458] It's a huge deal.

[1459] It's a huge, huge, huge deal there.

[1460] Or the aquarium.

[1461] They have a beautiful aquarium.

[1462] They do.

[1463] Well, we love Atlanta.

[1464] It's no just to Atlanta.

[1465] I'm just trying to think of what thing makes you go.

[1466] Boom, that's Atlanta.

[1467] Coke Museum.

[1468] Well, okay.

[1469] Stone Mountain.

[1470] Poor Stone Mountain, because now you kind of, I do at least.

[1471] When I hear Stone Mountain, I go right to the history of the Ku Klux Klan, restaging a, I don't know where you, come out.

[1472] What do debut?

[1473] What do debut, what do you have?

[1474] What do debuts have?

[1475] An arrival party or a debut?

[1476] You know where they get presented to society.

[1477] Their training's done.

[1478] They know how to eat without getting food all over their person.

[1479] Yeah, it's like some sort of ball that they have.

[1480] Hey, Google, what party does a debutante have?

[1481] According to Wikipedia, a debutante ball is a formal ball that includes presenting debutants during the season, meaning usually during the spring or summer.

[1482] I said ball.

[1483] Mm -hmm.

[1484] Sounds like I was right.

[1485] You're right.

[1486] Did you know any debutants?

[1487] No, I don't even understand it.

[1488] It sounds like...

[1489] It's a southern thing.

[1490] Yeah, it sounds royal.

[1491] You know how I feel about royalty and monarchies.

[1492] Yeah.

[1493] I'm against them.

[1494] I know.

[1495] I know.

[1496] Although I really want to interview Prince Harry.

[1497] He's the one who defected, right?

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] I don't know if he'd say defected.

[1500] That sounds extreme.

[1501] It's pretty extreme.

[1502] The guy moved to Canada and he's a prince.

[1503] They're taking, yeah.

[1504] It's the first time it's ever happened.

[1505] Yeah, it is.

[1506] So it's pretty extreme.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] You know?

[1509] I mean, I think people want it to be so extreme.

[1510] And in my opinion, I just am like, okay, yeah, it's different.

[1511] It's definitely different.

[1512] There was a neat framing of it on The Daily.

[1513] Did you listen to that episode?

[1514] But it talked about why, like, kind of conservative England is so offended by it.

[1515] And it's that, you know, just this thing represents this history and this tradition.

[1516] And it needs to be revered in a way to justify its continued existence.

[1517] So to have someone just quit it.

[1518] is they see it as just threatening to the entire thing, the whole concept.

[1519] Yeah.

[1520] Anyways, I think it's really cool that he did that in ways.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] Because what confidence it must take to be the first to do that.

[1523] I'm sure it's, and it would appear at least, at least from what the Daily said, that it was a largely in defense of his wife and child that he didn't want that scrutiny and publicity and all that.

[1524] And I think that's cool.

[1525] I think it's cool, too.

[1526] Yeah, that he would choose his life over a title.

[1527] Yeah.

[1528] I think that's neat.

[1529] Me too.

[1530] Prince Harry, we will fly to Canada to talk to you.

[1531] Let us know when and where to be.

[1532] We will be there.

[1533] RSVP, yes.

[1534] Yeah, it would be really fun to meet him at a Tim Horton's donuts.

[1535] Oh, sure.

[1536] Tim Horton's coffee.

[1537] Do they also sell donuts there?

[1538] They're primarily a donut shop in the same way that people like Dunkin' Donuts coffee, but it's, you know, it's a donut shop.

[1539] They have some delicious donuts at Tim Hortons.

[1540] And there's actually now some Tim Hortons in Detroit, but it's the most.

[1541] emblematic franchise of Canada, I think.

[1542] It is.

[1543] We'll meet him, and it's so civilian of him.

[1544] Like, he'll really be sending a message that he did an interview at Tim Hortons.

[1545] Wow, I love it.

[1546] Also, maybe Tim Hortons would pay for our airfare.

[1547] Tim?

[1548] Are you listening?

[1549] Mr. Horton?

[1550] Mr. Horton here's a who?

[1551] Yeah, let's meet up.

[1552] Chris, Chris Foss.

[1553] We have not had a hostage nigga.

[1554] We haven't had anyone like Chris on.

[1555] We haven't anyone from law enforcement in.

[1556] This is our first law enforcement.

[1557] guest.

[1558] Yeah.

[1559] Isn't it interesting the lens by which they have to approach their work?

[1560] It differs from how us civilians can approach life.

[1561] Yeah.

[1562] Well, we haven't been tasked with solving crimes or preventing crimes.

[1563] So we have the freedom to just cruise through life and take every situation at face value or maybe explore it further.

[1564] But they're really looking through the lens of like, who's a criminal and how do I stop them?

[1565] And it's just, is a completely different mindset.

[1566] Oh, yeah.

[1567] It is.

[1568] So he was talking about Kansas City.

[1569] Oh, it's just had a big Super Bowl win.

[1570] A Super Bowl victory.

[1571] So Chris is probably happy.

[1572] Yeah.

[1573] Although he's such a New York for now.

[1574] Congrats, Chris.

[1575] You would not start talking to Chris and be like, I think this guy's from Kansas City.

[1576] You would not.

[1577] No. No, you would not.

[1578] But I was saying that my dad lived there.

[1579] In Kansas City.

[1580] Yeah.

[1581] And then he said he knew in a choke.

[1582] And then.

[1583] And then you were wondering if it was a popular name.

[1584] Oh, yes.

[1585] So then I asked my mom.

[1586] Okay.

[1587] And she said, yeah, it's probably equivalent to Mark.

[1588] Oh, to Mark.

[1589] Yeah.

[1590] Well, I wonder what she thinks is number one.

[1591] Like, does she think that was number six?

[1592] I know.

[1593] I know.

[1594] What's the most popular name?

[1595] Mike?

[1596] I mean, Dave.

[1597] Chris is very popular.

[1598] Very ubiquitous.

[1599] Very popular.

[1600] Yeah.

[1601] I wonder that too because, like, to me, Mark is a specific pull.

[1602] It is.

[1603] And I want to say it's like number 10 for males.

[1604] But still very popular.

[1605] popular.

[1606] You know a mark.

[1607] Well, let's find out.

[1608] Hey, Google, what are the three most popular mail names in the United States?

[1609] I found 10 on the website parade .com.

[1610] Here are the first five.

[1611] Liam, Noah, William, James, and Oliver, want me to tell you more?

[1612] No, thank you.

[1613] Because I don't, because I don't agree with you.

[1614] That must be current.

[1615] They're current.

[1616] Those are babies.

[1617] Yeah, that must be like 2019 or something.

[1618] Oh, Liam.

[1619] Wow.

[1620] Very.

[1621] Very.

[1622] British.

[1623] If you ask your mom this question in 30 years, she'll likely say Noah.

[1624] It's, yeah, exactly.

[1625] Shoke's kind of like Noah.

[1626] Okay, and then you said that you watched a documentary on Netflix.

[1627] Oh, can I say something really quick?

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] Because we now learn the name of the documentary I was talking about.

[1630] The thud.

[1631] Oh, right.

[1632] Yes.

[1633] The psychological experiment about the DSM and the thud.

[1634] Yeah, and people going to psychiatric words and saying that they're just hearing the sound thud and then everything else they have to tell the truth about.

[1635] Yeah, and you found it.

[1636] I found it.

[1637] So it's called, and by the way, I found it with the help of some armcherry.

[1638] So thank you guys on Instagram who reminded me. It's called the Rosenhan experiment.

[1639] And the video that you can watch is called Rosenhand Being Sane in Insane Places.

[1640] Okay.

[1641] Pretty fascinating.

[1642] But anyways, I just wanted to update people on that.

[1643] Yeah.

[1644] Yeah, you found it.

[1645] I wasn't pulling that out of my ass.

[1646] Nope, you were right.

[1647] Yeah.

[1648] Okay, and then you watched a Netflix doc, two officers, about two officers in Texas.

[1649] Do you remember the name of it?

[1650] Because there's a couple that came up when I typed that in.

[1651] The Force.

[1652] No. The 7 -5 cop watchers.

[1653] None of those sound familiar.

[1654] Fuck.

[1655] But none of those sound right.

[1656] They didn't sound right.

[1657] They didn't sound right.

[1658] Although, I'll have to earmark it, and I'll figure it.

[1659] I'll figure it out.

[1660] I'll report back on which exact doc it was, yeah.

[1661] Okay, great.

[1662] He said that there's this website called secrets where people post their secrets anonymously, but it's called post secret.

[1663] And it was a big deal.

[1664] Did it start with people sending postcards in it was a book?

[1665] Yeah, and they made it into a book.

[1666] But yeah, people would send things like the Starbucks cup or like random things like that.

[1667] And then he made it into a book.

[1668] But I remember it was so popular when I was, I think, in college.

[1669] I remember thumbing through the book at like maybe a Barnes and Noble.

[1670] Sure.

[1671] Or what was the other one?

[1672] Borders?

[1673] Borders.

[1674] I was more of a Borders guy.

[1675] Really?

[1676] Yes.

[1677] Okay.

[1678] That's surprising.

[1679] Do you think that's a lower brow?

[1680] No. It's actually not surprising because I can see you being like, oh, Barnes and Nobles and the establishment.

[1681] Well, yeah, nobles in the word.

[1682] It's too royal.

[1683] Nobility.

[1684] But borders.

[1685] That's like, you know, you're crossing the border.

[1686] Yeah.

[1687] Down into Mexico on the run from Johnny Law from Chris.

[1688] For sure.

[1689] Yeah.

[1690] And borders was just enormous.

[1691] I remember there's one in town place in Novi and it had to be 300 ,000 square feet of books.

[1692] I just loved it.

[1693] Oh, I'm Barnes & Noble girl.

[1694] Mm -hmm.

[1695] Yeah, I love it.

[1696] Love it.

[1697] Love it.

[1698] I really do love it.

[1699] I love a bookstore.

[1700] Yeah.

[1701] They're on the decline, unfortunately.

[1702] You know, I was thinking about this when we were watching the Super Bowl.

[1703] It used to be when you watched the Super Bowl in the 80s and 90s.

[1704] Well, it changed in the 90s.

[1705] Let's say the 80s.

[1706] Every commercial was for a product that you could purchase.

[1707] And as our economy has evolved into one that's more of a service economy, a lot of people work in service as opposed to built, you know, manufacturing and selling products.

[1708] The commercials now are half of them are services.

[1709] And I was just aware of it last night.

[1710] It was like, there's so many services being.

[1711] advertised.

[1712] Yeah, that's true.

[1713] He brings up, when he talks about bending reality, he brings up Danny Conneman.

[1714] And Danny Conneman came up in Sam Harris's episode.

[1715] That's right.

[1716] So he's just like.

[1717] About how people evaluate their happiness, right?

[1718] Whether it's like immediate or remembered.

[1719] That was, yeah, that was Sam's.

[1720] And then this was about how we feel stings more than victories, basically.

[1721] Oh.

[1722] Should we have Danny Connamet on?

[1723] I think that's what the world is telling us.

[1724] Let's reach out to Danny Connamet.

[1725] Let's do it.

[1726] Take me a couple days to figure out how to spell his last name.

[1727] It's very hard to spell.

[1728] Okay.

[1729] Is there an A -U -G -H in there?

[1730] No. Oh.

[1731] I mean, I think I might have spelled it wrong here, so I actually don't know.

[1732] Okay.

[1733] I hate when there's an A -U -G -H in a name.

[1734] Okay.

[1735] Well, that's not their fault.

[1736] No, it's not their fault.

[1737] I just don't like it's seen it.

[1738] It's not too complicated.

[1739] Okay, so you said that in blink that there's a chat.

[1740] in which Malcolm says that cortisol is 10 times stronger than dopamine.

[1741] And I reached out to Malcolm and I asked him, point blank, is this true?

[1742] And he said, no, I don't think so.

[1743] It sounds like something I would say, but I don't remember saying it and it's not in any of the indexes in my book.

[1744] Right.

[1745] In any of my books.

[1746] I'm so fallible.

[1747] I think it was a book on happiness I read.

[1748] Sure.

[1749] Yeah.

[1750] You just attributed it to Malcolm, which is.

[1751] Well, it's so in line with blink, which is talking about all the chemicals in the brain that are responsible for all these thin slicing thought processes.

[1752] So I thought for sure that's where I came from.

[1753] But as soon as you said you emailed them, I started panicking.

[1754] And then when he didn't remember, I was like, yeah, I read other book about happiness.

[1755] This is why we fact check.

[1756] It is.

[1757] But he said that he likes the idea that we're attributing interesting things to him.

[1758] Right.

[1759] Whether or not he did it or not.

[1760] But did you know he discovered the source of the Colorado River?

[1761] What have I just started giving him credit for Lewis and Clark?

[1762] Yeah, exactly.

[1763] Oh, my God.

[1764] You know he blazed the Oregon Trail, one of the first people to do so.

[1765] That's all for Chris.

[1766] Oh, okay.

[1767] Chris Voss.

[1768] Visc cross.

[1769] Viscos.

[1770] This cost.

[1771] Costis.

[1772] That's Andrew's dad's name.

[1773] Costis.

[1774] Oh, it's also Bob Costas's last name.

[1775] Oh, yeah, B. Costis.

[1776] Robert Costas.

[1777] All right.

[1778] Love you.

[1779] Love you.

[1780] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1781] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

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