William, thanks for joining us today. It’s a huge pleasure for me. It is our honor, my friend, to have you here. So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do? Well, I’m a long-term student of negotiation. I started off as an anthropologist, you know, studying human beings and the way in which we deal with our differences in the context of our societies and cultures. And I wanted to get my hands dirty, so I jumped into the field of negotiation because I felt, wow, there’s got to be a better way for us to handle our differences than getting into these vicious disputes. Or in my case, I grew up under the shadow of the atomic bomb, you know, blowing the whole world to smithereens. It’s got to be more creative, more constructive, more compassionate ways to deal with differences. And so I spent my whole life looking for those and wandering around the planet, working in conflicts ranging from coal mine strikes to boardroom battles to civil wars, Middle East, Yugoslavia, the Cold War, you name it, always with that question of where’s the better way. Incredible, incredible. And listeners, for those, the few of you who don’t know, our friend William here is very humble. He is also the co-author of the most impactful book on negotiation out there, Getting to Yes, and then also co-founder of the Harvard program on negotiation. So we are talking to a legend here today. And it’s exciting because you’re coming out now with a new book. Can you tell the audience about that too? Yeah, the new book’s called Possible. How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. And I wrote it inspired by a conversation on a mountain hike with my friend Jim Collins, who’s a leadership author. Some of you may know from Good to Great. And he asked me, he said, he said, William, we’re in tough times here, turbulent times. You’ve wandered around the world. Do you think you could sum up everything you’ve learned about negotiation in a way that might be relevant to today’s times? And here’s the clincher, in a single sentence. I looked at him as we were arguing, and I said, I said, you know, Darwin could. And he gave me the sentence in The Origin of Species, which already summed up the whole theory of evolution. And I like simplicity. I like threes, you know. And so I thought, OK. But I look back my whole experience. What are three principles, three metaphors, three things that really hang together that might offer some guidance for us about how we take these seemingly impossible situations that we face at every level of our lives and in the world at large and see where there might be possibilities that we might not have seen? That’s the book. The book’s about asking it on to people like you, I might say. You and I’m sure the people who listen to you, you give me hope because it’s the next generation because we’ve got our work cut out for us. And I thought, OK, let me see if I can sum up what I’ve learned. And when I went over the sentence with Jim on our next hike, he said, now go write the book. It’s not just enough to go over the sentence. You have to write the book. So that’s the book possible. That is great. And one of the things that I really appreciate about you for work is that you come from a different angle. And I think it’s the background of you being an anthropologist. Can you tell us about how your background as an anthropologist impacts your perspective on conflict? Yeah, well, you’ve got a background in psychology for just saying, you know, it’s anthropology and psychology are like twin sisters and sociology. They’re all kind of trying to understand the human dimension of these conflicts. We’re all human beings and we’ve got our conflicts. And anthropology actually has at its core the idea of, can we put ourselves in the shoes of another culture, of another society? Can we see things a little or feel things the way they see and feel them? And interestingly enough, that’s the core competence of negotiation and mediation is if there is a core competence, it’s that ability to take a different perspective. And the other thing about anthropology that I think really brought into negotiation for me was the methodology of anthropology is participant observation. You are a participant and an observer at the same time. And that’s what you need in negotiation. And especially if you’re a mediator, we have to learn to observe the process as we participate so that we can learn, so we can see ways out. You know, I use the metaphor of going to the balcony. It’s almost like you’re negotiating on a stage. Part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage where you can see the larger picture. You can observe. You can see what’s happening. You can see what’s happening inside of you. And you can see what’s happening on the stage. And you keep on. What I find successful negotiators do is they go to the balcony. Then they go back on the stage. They go back to the balcony stage. So rapidly in between those two. But it’s being a participant and observer so that you can see where there might be possible ways out of the labyrinth. You can see ways forward that might be from mutual gain. And that I also brought from anthropology, really. It’s brilliant because it gives you a different perspective in the conversation. Because we are in the conversation with the other side. But at the same time, we have to absorb another perspective, not just empathetically to try to as much as possible see things from their perspective, but just holistically as well. And it sounds like that comes with a lot of responsibility. Because you might be negotiating with somebody who has not read your book. And they might not. Usually that’s the case. And so when you find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to be reasonable, empathetic, and respectful, but the other side is not returning the favor. How do you adjust and adapt in that of conversation? Well, I’d say that’s more the case than not. And that’s why after working on getting a yes with Roger Fisher many, many years ago, my next book, Down the Pike, was Getting Past No. Because that was a question I most frequently got was, well, what if people haven’t read your book? What if they’re not going to play by those rules? And how do you deal with the difficult people, the difficult situations, the difficult challenges that we all face? And so I’ve made a lifetime study of those situations. And most of my passion really is peace. And so I work on a lot of war situations where that’s the last thing. I mean, people are not just not wanting to be cooperative. They’re actually trying to kill you. So how do you negotiate in those situations? Yeah, it’s tough. And I think it’s really challenging for people because it feels unfair. It feels as though we’re having this conversation. I’m treating the other side with respect. They’re not returning the favor. And I think that people will read, often they read the book, and they say, I’ll try this. And then seven minutes into the conversation, they say, you know what? I’ve had it. I’m just going to fight through that. Well, that’s why, I mean, when I read this book, I realized a lot of Getting to Yes would be what I would call, it’s about building bridges between parties, building bridges, building, inventing options for mutual gain, looking for creative options or whatever. And what I realized over the years in this world is conflicts. I mean, yes, negotiation has spread enormously. I mean, when I started off, there were hardly any courses in negotiation. There were no programs on negotiation. There were no, you know, it wasn’t a field. And it’s had enormous success in some sense of really permeating the society. At the same time, conflict is a growth industry. I mean, it’s, you know, we’re looking, you look around, political polarization, you know, wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, you know, just AI. I mean, there’s so much change happening and all the change brings more conflict. So what I had, so my question is, so what does it take beyond, you know, if you use Getting to Yes and those kind of methodologies as a kind of a core, what else does it take? That’s necessary, but not always sufficient. So what else do you need to bring to the table, enhance the chances for success? And that’s really what Possible is about. I’ve got a quick story for you. So I was at this keynote and I talked to a listener and he said, Kwame, I love the podcast, but my favorite part, man, I love those commercials. And I said, I don’t think this is a true story. And now let me tell you about Negotiate Anything Premium, where you can listen to your favorite Negotiate Anything episodes ad-free. With a subscription to Premium, you can get access to more insights from your favorite experts and ad-free listening and extended episodes. Bonus, you’ll also get access to exclusive episodes and personalized advice from yours truly. If you’ve been looking for an easy and affordable way to level up your skills and negotiate more of the best things in life, join our Premium community. Now for that gentleman in that fictional story, this ad’s for you and for the rest of you, I’ll see you in Premium. And let’s get into those things. So let’s say somebody’s trying to get deeper and understand what it takes to have those really tough conversations when there’s a lot on the line, if the emotions are running out. What are the things that you’ve seen expert negotiators do that novice negotiators often don’t? Well, the first thing, and I would say maybe the biggest, perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned since getting Yes, is that the single biggest obstacle to me getting what I want in the negotiation is not what I think it is. You know, we tend to think it’s that difficult person, that client, that boss, whatever it is, the situation in the family. It’s a difficult person. Actually, it’s not the person on the other side of the table. It’s the person on this side of the table. It’s right here. It’s me. It lies in our own very human, very understandable, very natural tendency to react. In other words, to act without thinking, to react out of fear often in conflict situations. To react out of anger. And as the old saying goes, when you are angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret. You will send the best email you will ever regret. And the question is, it turns out that even though we think of negotiation as influencing the other side, it starts by influencing ourselves. It’s an inside game. It works from the inside out. And so the foundation of negotiating, particularly in the conflictual situations that we face, is we have to get to yes with ourselves in order then to be able to get to yes with others. Maybe you should write a book on getting to yes with yourself. That sounds like a great idea. That’s why I wrote that book. And that’s one part of the equation. To me, there’s kind of three parts of this equation. There are three parts of this secret sauce. One of them is getting to yes with yourself. It’s the balcony. I use that metaphor of the balcony, the ability to go to the balcony. We ask ourselves, well, it’s really hard to listen, as you were mentioning, listen to things you don’t want to hear in a negotiation. And it’s really hard to do this stuff. And what I found paradoxically, actually, is if you want to listen to someone else, you have to start by listening to yourself first. Because our minds are so full of all these things, you know, thoughts and emotions and baggage from the past and traumas and all this stuff. There’s no space for us to be able to take in someone else’s. We might even hear their words. We can’t even take in where they actually are unless we clear that a little bit by listening to our own feelings, listening to our, knowing our own traumas, listening to our own thoughts and sensations. If we can take a little bit of that internal work, then we can clear out space so that we can actually take someone else’s perspective into account. So it starts there. And all of us have our favorite ways of going to the balcony. I mean, you know, in the moment, a lot of people may like to, let me ask you, what’s your favorite way to go to the balcony? Ah, great question. I like to take notes. As you can tell, I’m already taking pages of notes already. Right? I see that. So I take notes. But sometimes if I realize that I’m getting a little bit triggered, I will say, okay, you just gave me a lot to think about. Would you mind giving me some time to take a few notes? And so a lot of times I’m turning that into a meditation. A lot of times I’m not even writing anything at that moment if I just really need to calm down. I like to focus on my toes a lot too because I don’t want to give away any tell that I’m, you know, as much as possible. I don’t want to give away a tell. And so I recognize that if I’m just kind of turning the movement of my toes into a meditation, that can ground me in reality a little bit better. And then focusing on my breathing. And then usually once I do that for about five, 10 seconds, I can come back to the table with an open-ended question to try to steer the conversation in a positive direction. Beautiful. That’s gorgeous. But you know, it’s like taking a breath, you know, taking two breaths. It brings oxygen to your brain. You’re going to see things more clearly. It calms, you know, your nervous system. Taking notes is you’re going, when you take notes, you’re on the balcony. You are becoming an observer. You’re actually creating a little bit of psychological emotional distance between you so that you can then see things more clearly. I love focusing on your toes. I hadn’t heard that one, but it makes perfect sense to meditate a little bit. And it just could be, as you mentioned, just could be a few seconds, but our physiology shifts. You know, the limbic system, which controls the emotions, you know, the prefrontal cortex can get a little bit engaged. That’s an evolutionary gift we have from our ancestors. Use it, you know, to think before you act or before you react. You know, it’s the ability to just pause for a second. And, you know, I have a colleague at MIT, Eric Curran, who with his colleagues did a study once of, you know, you know, they teach negotiation and they recorded a whole bunch of negotiations and they just measured the relationship between the amount of moments of silence in that negotiation, like you were just talking about a moment of silence and the cooperativeness of the outcomes. And there was a direct correlation. The more silence, the more cooperative the outcome. So there’s evidence behind this. As a lawyer, this is something I saw in my clients all the time. You know what it is that most small businesses don’t plan for? It’s when something goes wrong. You lose a client, a shipment disappears, a tool breaks, someone gets hurt and money flies out the door. And most folks only realize that they needed insurance after it’s too late. And that’s why I like Next Insurance. They make business insurance as simple as ordering lunch online. 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People were arming themselves. There were rumors. Civil war was in the offing. And former President Jimmy Carter asked me if I would go down there and just listen and see what I could. And so in the course of that, I had a number of meetings with President Chavez. One of them in particular, he liked to meet at night. It was nine o’clock set in the presidential palace. He was there. I was there with my Argentinian colleague Francisco Diaz from the Carter Center. And we waited patiently, nine, ten, eleven. Midnight, we were finally ushered in to see the president, expecting to find him alone. In fact, he had his entire cabinet arrayed behind him, so we were a little shocked. And then he motions me to a chair and he says, So Yuri, tell me, what’s your impression of the situation here in Venezuela? And I said to him, I said, Senor Presidente, I’ve been talking to some of your ministers here. I’ve been talking to some of the leaders of the opposition, and I believe they’re making a little progress. Well, progress wasn’t the word he wanted to hear. He started shouting, he said, Are you a fool? You naive, you third parties, you mediators, you know nothing at all. You’re not seeing the dirty tricks those traitors on the other side are up to. And he leaned very close to my face. I could feel his, you know, I could smell his breath, you know. And he proceeded to shout at me for approximately 30 minutes. And, you know, I was kind of stunned. I wasn’t expecting this. You know, I was feeling a little embarrassed in front of the entire, you know, dress down. I’ve seen all this work I’ve been doing for months down the drain. You know, you’re going through this whole internal thought process and feelings going. A friend of mine had once said to me, he said, William, when you’re in a tough situation, pinch the palm of your hand. And I said, if not, why would I pinch the palm of my hand? He said, because that will give you temporary pay to keep you alert. Whatever reason, that was my way of going to the balcony, was pinching the palm of my hand. So that I could then, when you go to the balcony, the balcony is that place of calm and perspective we all have inside of ourselves. We have to access it, where you can keep your eyes on the prize. And what was the prize here? I could ask myself the fundamental question, what do I want here? What’s my goal? And, you know, my goal is to try and calm the situation. And then I could further ask myself, because I was preparing, you know, my defenses, you know, as we do, you know, what are you going to say and respond to all these attacks? And I said to myself, is it really going to advance things if I get into an argument with the president about his way out? And I could say, no. So then I bit my tongue and I listened. And having paid attention to myself and my own feelings for a moment, in those little moments of silence that you’re talking about, Kwame, I just took those little moments of silence to pay attention. My nervous system settled a little bit. And I was able to listen to him, like on the balcony, just watching it as if it was a play unfolding. You know, and is he trying to impress his cabinet? Why is he doing this? And just bring curiosity. This is one of my favorite things, is meet animosity with curiosity. You know, just, OK, be curious. And so what’s going on for him? And, you know, he was a man who could give speeches for seven, eight hours, no problem. But 30 minutes without any reaction from me, I was just watching his body language and his shoulder slowly stank for a moment. And in a kind of weary tone of voice, he said to me, so Yuri, what should I do? Well, that, my friends, is the faint sound of a human mind opening. Is it that? Because before that, if I tried to reason with him, someone’s angry, they’re not going to listen. It’s like banging your head against a wall. But in that moment, he was open. And so I said to him, you know, Mr. President, it’s nearly Christmas. The festivities are, you know, are all being canceled like they were last year. Why not just give everyone a break? A tregua in Spanish, you know, a truce for three weeks, four weeks. Allow people to enjoy the holidays with their families. Come back in January. Maybe everybody will be in a better mood to listen. Well, he looks at me, the moment of silence. He says, you know what? That’s an excellent idea. I’m going to propose that in my next speech. And he claps, I’m back. So, you know, his mood had completely shifted. And what I learned then and there, or realized most dramatically, is that the greatest power that we have in negotiation is the power not to react. It’s to pause. It’s to go to the balcony. The best way to start a negotiation is to stop. Oh my goodness. I am tempted to end the interview right there, but I shall not, because I am very intrigued. I mean, where do I start here? So let me, I’m going to give a brief breakdown and then see, and kind of go through this line by line here. So first we see a trigger word. So you use the word progress and that was a trigger word. And that was a trigger word. Typically that’s a positive word. It was negative for him. And those will happen from time to time. Sometimes you can anticipate them. Sometimes you can’t. And I like the pinching of the hand strategy. And what it shows is that there are multiple ways to get to the balcony. And it really inspires authenticity because people might listen to you, me and say, okay, this is how we get to the balcony. No, you have to figure out what works for you through experience. And then when you go to the balcony, you’re having that conversation with yourself. It’s an actual negotiation, engaging in metacognition, asking yourself questions and answering it in the moment. Powerful. And then as you’re going through that investigation with yourself, I think a lot of times people from the outside looking in, looking at a negotiator that might say they don’t feel these emotions, but clearly you did. You didn’t reject them. You didn’t deny them. You acknowledged, accepted them. And that helped you to process it. And it was almost as if you switched from being a negotiator at that moment back to an anthropologist, observing this with curiosity and understanding that the best move was really no move. And I love this story, but I know there are going to be some people who are greatly entertained, but also deeply distressed because they’re probably going to say, I want to be able to say something. Can you give me some negotiation wizardry tips to say these things? But I think that’s the hardest part. Embracing silence for that long and absorbing that much vitriol can be incredibly tough, but it takes a really strong person to recognize that sometimes the best move is no move. That is so beautifully analyzed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone give such a beautiful break it down like that, but that’s exactly it. I just want to emphasize, the magic lies within you. You can take a technique, you can take a phrase, but it’s like this is our birthright. We all, if you think about your own experience, we all have ways we go to the balcony. What are your strengths? What is your favorite way? What works for your psychology? And obviously, it’s tough to be able to take that. And for some of us, it’s extremely tough. For anyone, it’s tough. And in some situations, silence is the best thing, especially if you can’t think of anything. There’s a reason why they say silence is golden. Silence is maybe the ultimate power move in a negotiation. We think of negotiation as talking. So much of negotiation is about silence. So much of it is about listening. There’s a reason why we’re given two ears and one mouth, because listening is when you actually shift minds. Listening is when you have a change. By listening to him, he, for me, in my sense of that, I was able to go to the balcony, which was not easy, but that’s what you do. You go to the balcony. And by going to the balcony, I was able to help him go to the balcony. And he wasn’t a guy who naturally goes to the balcony. He was more of a very emotional, passionate leader. And then, interestingly enough, by him going to the balcony, he was then able to propose in his next speech, wait for the whole country to go to the balcony. To give… So it starts within us, it then influences the other, and then it maybe influence a whole society. Just a breather, a pause. Does it end the conflict? No. But it creates a better condition than to deal with the next thing. And arguably, even though Venezuela is still a deep political struggle, it didn’t tip, as many international observers were fearing at the time, it didn’t dip into a civil war that, as I saw, because I worked in the neighboring country of Colombia, where hundreds, literally like 400,000 people died. There were 8 million victims. It didn’t tip into that kind of situation. It’s bad, but it didn’t go as bad as it could go. Right. And it shows that winning looks differently in different situations. And it might not have resolved the conflict completely, but it did not escalate the conflict unnecessarily. And I love this concept of silence. It’s one of the most powerful tools we have. And then, of course, listening and pausing. I think about silence almost like, all right, we might have silence in the moment in a conversation. We might need to take a break or a caucus to reevaluate. And then sometimes the negotiation needs to end completely. And in the moment, let’s say if you’re having a tough conversation and you recognize this might be a good time to take a pause. What is a good way to approach taking that break in the conversation without losing faith yourself and while helping the other party to say faith as well? Yeah. Well, for example, one phrase you might say, like, we’ve been going on for a while here. Let’s grab a cup of coffee, a bathroom break. I mean, you could, you know, there are a lot of, but this is the thing. I remember this early on because I used to work in labor management negotiations. You know, they would go at it sometimes. And I remember hearing from a union leader, you know, we’d go at it. And management and union would sit down. And somehow there was some kind of thing that whoever asks for a break is the weak one. And so he said we would go for 12 hours. And it was an exercise in bladder control. You know, and, you know, we’ve got to break that. We’ve got to change the game. You know, one of the most powerful things you can do is change the game and just say, yeah, actually frequent breaks helps. You could even introduce it up front. Let’s make sure that we build in balcony space. You know, you could actually have that conversation about how we’re going to continue this negotiation. And when anyone starts to get really angry and lose it, have as a ground rule, we can take a break. Anybody can say, hey, you know, like in sports, they have timeouts. Why not timeouts in negotiation and conflict where things get even testier? You know, I’m just speaking of the union stuff. I remember one union management, they thought about this problem and they developed a ground rule, which was a very simple one, which was only one side can get angry at any one time. So you can imagine if you adopt that as a ground rule, then one side is, you know, blasting the other side. The other side is sitting there kind of saying, well, it’ll be our turn. We’ll get our turn. And you cut that reaction, reaction, reaction cycle that so often causes a train to go off the tracks. And what we’re seeing here is that you can negotiate anything. You see the name of the podcast, right? You can negotiate the process, too. And we think there’s a certain specific way that negotiations have to go. But when you read the room and understand the situation, you can say, no, this process is not working for either of us right now. Let’s take a step back and negotiate this process so we can move forward in a productive way. You got it. That’s it. And that’s what, I mean, I call that the meta-negotiation, you know, it’s like metacognition, the meta-negotiation. And we need, meta-negotiation is just so useful because you go into a situation like it’s going to be hard. But suddenly you’re having that meta-negotiate. How are we going to talk about this difficult subject? Suddenly you’re on the same side of the table talking about what are the ground rules. So the joint problem-solving stance starts to, you introduce it when you don’t, you know, when you can all agree, yeah, let’s agree that we’re going to hear the other one out. Not going to be interruptions. You know, we’re going to take breaks. Whatever those rules are, we’re going to treat this with confidentiality. Whatever the ground rules are, that’s the initial success of reaching agreement. And then that creates the momentum. And you do that, I mean, you know, when you’re bringing like, you know, I’ve brought, you know, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, guerrillas in government, you bring them in Columbia, you bring them together. You want to have that meta-negotiation of what are the ground rules so that people can feel safe enough to actually talk about things when outside of the room they may be killing each other. Right. And you’ve discussed a number of incredibly high level negotiations that you’ve had. What does the preparation process look like for something like that? Preparation is absolutely essential. And, you know, it’s the thing, I think, prepare, repair, prepare. And that doesn’t mean that everything will go according to your plan, but you prepare and even, you know, and the plan should have to shift because you have to improvise on the spot. But, for example, with President Chávez, this is an example. Before I met with him, I ran up everything I could on him. I listened to his speeches. I had learned that the person he revered the most was Simón Bolívar, who was kind of a revolutionary, you know, he’s like the George Washington of Latin America, Bolívar. And I wrote a biography of Simón Bolívar because I kind of sensed that I was really trying to get into the essence of what makes this human being tick. And I sensed that he saw himself, he didn’t talk about so much, but he saw himself kind of as a modern day reincarnation of Simón Bolívar. So the first time actually I met with him, it was going to be a courtesy call, maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I, you know, who was, I’m a Yankee, I’m a professor, you know, I mean, oh, he’s like enough much time for me. And it was interesting, in the hubbub, there was a lot of hubbub going around outside, there were protests and demonstrations. I took a few moments before to go to the balcony. I sat in a garden and just, you know, meditated for a moment, just to make sure I was going to be at my best in those few moments that I might have with him. And, of course, if you’re going to have 10 minutes, you start thinking, well, what are the most intelligent things I can say, you know, what can I say? And then I realized, you know, it’s interesting, I’d been in Brazil a few weeks earlier and I’d heard a song in the jungle that had a line that said, in Portuguese, do not give advice to those who do not want to listen. And I thought, you know what, that’s it. I was just about to try and give him advice, but he might not want to hear it. So, and we make that mistake all the time. So, when I went in, having done all this research beforehand about him, about his family, about his daughter, about his family, whatever it is, I went in and I sat with him and started a conversation and President Carter sends his regards and all this. But, you know, we both had a three-year-old daughter. And as I mentioned that we have, you know, his daughter’s name was Rosines, my daughter’s name, Gabi, Gabriela. And so we talked about how much fun three-year-old daughters are a little bit. And then I pointed out there was this huge painting of Simón Bolívar. I mean, huge. I mean, there were many paintings of Simón Bolívar. You know, I said, you know, I’ve been reading this biography of Simón Bolívar, what an amazing leader he was. Well, he lit up. I mean, that’s like, that was the pathway to his heart was Simón Bolívar. He said, you know, that’s why I’m here in this office, because I was a colonel in the army and, you know, years ago, and there were some food rioting going on in Caracas and they called us out to suppress it. And Simón Bolívar said, never fire on your fellow countrymen. And so, and so I started a coup d’etat, whatever, and I got thrown into jail. And then I came back out of jail and then I ran for president. But he, you know, he, then he started telling me the whole story of his life. And when I got to the palace, there was about, there were hundreds of people waiting to see him. It was like everyone waiting to get a few minutes with him. And I thought I would have 10 minutes. An hour went by while he was telling me the story of his whole life. And all I was doing was connecting with him. I wasn’t trying to give him any advice. And at the end of that hour, he turns to me and he says, so, Professor, you know, what would you say about our situation here in Venezuela and the conflict here? That’s the moment when he’s asking me for advice, right? So I waited for that moment. And I could tell the rest of the, I could tell the rest of the story. I don’t want to take too long here, but that conversation went on for two and a half hours. And at the end of it, he asked me to come back the next day. Why? Because I’d gone to the balcony, I’d given up trying to give him advice, and I was just trying to listen, to connect with this human being who was so vital to trying to influence if we’re trying to prevent a civil war. So much to explore here, my friend William. So here I was listening to an interview with Kobe Bryant, and he said that when you’re obsessed with your crafts, the world becomes your library. And I think it’s fascinating because you got that, a negotiation piece of advice from that song in Brazil that was pivotal in your significant conversation with Chavez. I think that is incredible because I think that goes back to the preparation process. It’s something that you’ve been preparing for all of your life through constant study, but then also in the moment, you’re trying to figure out what is the best approach here. And so you’re most likely preparing for days, weeks, months, you read a biography for this. And then in the conversation, two and a half hours, I’m assuming you spoke for maybe 10% of the time. Relatively, if that. If that. And I think sometimes people have this mentality where they say, I have prepared and I want to get points for that. So I’m going to show off how much I prepared by regurgitating random facts and everything. But I think what’s fascinating about this is that a good negotiator has to have the restraints to know how to use that preparation in the conversation. And you read a whole book to make one statement, and then it opened everything up. And then you started to build trust with somebody who I know is very guarded, and it triggered a little bit of affinity bias. So affinity bias is you are like me, so I like you. Wow. We like and admire the same person. You must be a good person just like me. We both have daughters. You’re just like me. And then that is what led to this connection. Yeah. Sorry, some snow just dropped off the roof here. It’s okay. That’s it. That’s exactly it, Kwame. You’ve got it. And the reason you prepare, you prepare and then you throw out all the preparation in order to be present, in order to not let that stuff, you know, it’s like to be fully at your full potential, you know, to play basketball, you have to be there in the moment. All the preparation goes, and then you get rid of it all. Or you don’t get rid of it all, but it all recedes into the background and only shows up that little bit that you need in that precise moment. Absolutely. And as a negotiator, you have to understand how to adapt and adjust and flow during the conversation. And that can be terrifying because when people often prepare, they prepare almost in terms of a script. It’s very rigid. Things have to go this way. Then when things go outside of their anticipation or their preparation, things fall apart really rapidly. And tell me if I’m conceptualizing this well. It sounds like what you have to do is you have to prepare, prepare, prepare. And then when you go into the conversation, you have to trust your negotiation skills in the moment to know when to use that preparation at the right time. That’s it. That’s it. Otherwise, you’re thinking about the stuff you prepared instead of like paying attention to connecting them. Because when he asked me, what you do? I said, well, Mr. President, I think you have an amazing power here, which is you have the power to prevent a civil war before it happens. So I was appealing to his sense of statesmanship and, you know, he’s a Simón Bolívar, right? He could save the country. I said, you could save the country here because I’ve been in a lot of situations where the war is going on. You have a possibility to prevent it before it happens. You like that, of course. He said, so what would you do? I said, well, why not initiate a dialogue with the opposition? And then he flew off the handle. So plans off the thing. He flew off the handle and said, what are you talking about dialogue with them? They’re traitors. They tried to murder me right here in this room six months ago. There was a coup d’etat. And, you know, he got into a fury. So then, of course, his script is out, right? So I’m just listening. And I think, so listen, right? So I said, you know, I understand you don’t trust them, right? He said, you’re darn right I don’t trust them. And so suddenly we’re then, you know, we’re then talking about distrust. I said, OK, I understand you don’t trust them. And then an idea showed up. Maybe, I don’t know why I prepared this idea. I don’t even know, or maybe it was in the past, but I thought, you know, if you don’t trust them, what about this? Let me ask you this question. Is there anything the leaders of the opposition could do tomorrow morning that would send you a signal that maybe they turned over a new page, that maybe you could begin to think about entering into a conversation with them? Just what would be the very beginning? What could they do? He looked at me and he said, you know what they could do? Because they own the, the opposition owned the private media. He said, they could stop calling me on their television shows a mono. And a mono is a monkey. And you could just, even like grimaces, he made his face almost like, you know, and, and I could tell it was, it was a sign of profound disrespect. Like, it was almost like, like, like, like a racist thing of kind of like going back to his indigenous origins or whatever. And, and you could just tell. And that’s, what’s often behind conflicts is like, this conflict was about political power. Of course, it’s about economic resources, oil. Venezuela was the, you know, the leading petroleum producer in, in the, in the continent. And, but in the end, it came down to basic human respect. That’s what he wanted. And I said, what else could they do? And he said, well, they could stop berating generals with all their uniforms on the, on their television, calling for the overthrow of the government. Anyway, so I said, what about this? He said, what about this? What if you were to make up a list? What if you were to appoint someone? We’d make up a list, like a, like a menu. I called it trust menu. A list of what are some small, significant steps the other side could take that would send you a signal of goodwill, let’s say. And maybe they would do it the same. What about that? He said, señales, you know, signals. I said, yeah, signals. Make up a list of signals we could send. He said, that’s a good idea. And he pointed to the person right next to him was the right hand guy, the minister of the interior. He said, work with this guy. Figure out that list of signals and come see me tomorrow. And, you know, then the story goes on from there. But it was just, it was all about in the moment, seeing where the opportunity is and just following it and leaving the script behind. One of the things I’m recognizing, I’m seeing this pattern, is that we have in these conversations a high level of emotionality. When people are emotional, you’re not offering solutions. You’re not trying to get them to be creative. You’re not creating proposals at that time. When people are emotional, it sounds like your focus is listening and managing those emotions. And then you’re paying attention to the body language, recognizing when the shoulders start to relax. And then once they move into a more receptive mental state, it’s at that point that you’re gipping the proposal. Am I sensing that right? Absolutely. Because in negotiation, we’re often in the business of giving bad news. We’re telling people things they don’t want to hear. And, you know, there was a Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I don’t know if you know her, but she once studied how human beings react to bad news. In her case, it was like getting the news that you’ve got a terminal disease, say. And people go through a kind of a series of emotions. It’s not lockstep, but it’s kind of like, first thing is avoid this. It’s like, you know, I didn’t hear anything. No, you’ve got a diagnosis here. Then it’s denial. No, that can’t be right. Do the test again, whatever it is. You know, then it’s anxiety, right? And then it’s anger. Oh, you doctors, you know, it’s like this thing. And then it’s almost like it escalates up to anger. And then if you can stay with it, depression is on the other side. And after depression comes acceptance. And after acceptance comes problem solving. So it’s almost like a curve, right? It’s not lockstep, but I’ve noticed the same thing in negotiation. You present something, you know, like Chavez, you know, he got angry. You know, he gets angry. And you feel like when you’re in the presence of someone who’s getting angry at you, and if that’s a person of superior authority of some kind, you can see your life flash before your eyes. You think this is going up to, you just extrapolate the curve to nuclear war. But if you can go to the balcony and listen, you can help them go through that cycle quicker so that they go into depression, the shoulder sank, remember? That was depression. Then there’s acceptance. And then he might be open to problem solving. But trying to, we want people to go directly from giving the news to problem solving. No, we’re emotional creatures. You were giving people news they don’t want to hear. They need to go through their cycle. See your job as helping them go through that cycle. You’re the psychologist, as it were, not your fancy therapist, but you’re psychologically accompanying them, helping them go through that cycle until they’re ready to hear the things that you want to present. Powerful. Powerful. William, this has been an absolute masterclass, my friend. I really appreciate this. And before you go, I want to give you an opportunity again to remind the listeners about the new book that is out. I’m really excited about it. And I want to make sure that my listeners go out and get it. Well, thank you, Kwame. You know, people often ask me after all these years, are you an optimist or are you a pessimist? And I’d like to answer now. Actually, I’m a possibleist. You know, I believe in human possibilities. I believe in our human potential to take these really difficult conflict situations and transform them from destructive fighting into constructive, creative negotiation. And I believe if you’re listening to this podcast, you are a possibleist. I know you are, Kwame. So right now, the world needs possibleists. We need all the possibleists we can. You know, my dream is to have like a league of possibleists around the world of people, individuals and teams swarming the toughest conflicts there are, looking for possibilities, whether they’re conflicts, you know, legal conflicts or business conflicts or personal conflicts or whether they’re, you know, the political conflicts that are bedeviling us. That’s my dream. So my humble request to all of you who are listening to this is you consider taking your negotiation skills, which I’m sure are well developed and applying it to these tough conflicts because if we can transform our conflicts, we can transform our lives and we can transform the world. William, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. My pleasure, Kwame. Listeners, if you liked that, you will love this bonus content and I’ll drop you right in immediately after the interview ended because what happened afterwards was magical. That was great. Unbelievable. This is so good. I want to introduce you to our executive producer, Simone Perez. He’s here. Hey, Simone. Hi, nice to meet you. Simone, tell us a little bit about your background. This is… Wow, it’s incredible because when you were telling this story, I was crying because I’m from Venezuela, right? I was 16 years old and I remember that I don’t have a father. It’s just my mother, right? So we were at home and we were scared because we were about to go to war, you know? So my mom said, okay, let’s go to the forest. We don’t know what to do, right? And it was December. So we were planning to go on vacation, but then we said, no, we have to go to the forest. We don’t know what to do. And then Chavez came and said, okay, let’s make a pause and let’s open a negotiation table in January. So we said, oh my God, oh my God, our Christmas is possible, you know? Because we were on the other side, you know? For William, it’s just a decision in a room, right? But for me, it was my life. I didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if we have to go out of the country, if we had to hide or fight. We didn’t know what to do because we were close to a war, and that’s true. And I remember, so when you were telling me, I was remembering this list that they made. I remembered everything, the negotiation table, and when Chavez came out on television and he said, okay, let’s stop and talk in January. I remember everything. It was vivid. It was clear for me. And now I’m crying because I don’t know if I would be alive or not. I don’t know. That is so touching, Simon. Really touches straight to my heart. The world works in very strange ways, but the very last interview I had this morning was with a fellow in Venezuela who was there at a talk that I gave 20 years ago in a theater between Chavistas and anti-Chavistas. And it’s amazing that you are listening to this conversation and for me to hear just what you were going through with your mother, with the fear, that palpable fear of civil war, and we have to go to the jungle. It brings tears to my eyes. Great, great. Yeah, and my name is Simon because of Simon Bolivar, right? So there you go, of course. Yeah, yeah. For me, it was incredible. This episode is incredible for me. Well, this should be part of the podcast. I don’t know if you recorded this, but it’s like… Yeah, we didn’t stop. We should. No, there’s something very powerful here. Yeah, Simon, that’s amazing. What an amazing story. And that’s what it’s all about. Well, what can you say about that? That’s why we do what we do. It is. And there’s a business apparatus for the American English-Persian Institute that has to fuel this. But that’s it. Well, that’s what gives me hope. I mean, I was telling you, Christian, before the call, Guame, that for me, it just gives me so much hope to see people like you and Simon and all the people, because, you know, it’s the next generation. I’ve been at this for almost 50 years, and yeah, that’s why we do what we do. And I was thinking about this earlier today. I was not sure exactly if or how to ask, but, you know, the world can be a dark place. And we want to make a change. You’ve been a model. And if you could mentor us as we grow, that would mean a lot. If you could help us in terms of, you’re busy. I’m not asking for a big commitment. If from time to time, if I have questions, could we reach out, ask for guidance? I modeled ANI after the Harvard program on negotiation, because I see the impact that you’re having on a global level. So it’s confusing. It’s hard. It’s challenging. And a lot of times I’m not sure where to go. The answer is yes, Guame. Yeah, of course. Speaking from the heart to the heart. Okay. Oh my gosh. Everybody’s going to think we’re weenies. Maybe a little bit of this weenie-ism is what the world needs right now. Oh man, this is great. Well, I appreciate this, William. We are going to expedite this. We’ll get this out tomorrow. And we’re just excited to be a part of the journey and helping you grow it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Guame. And I’d love to send you both a book, signed book. Oh, that’d be great. If you’ve got your address or send me your address or something, I’d love to send it to each one of you. Perfect. Thank you so much for the book and for being part of the history of my country. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s funny, Simone. You know, you go to a country like Venezuela, you get touched in the heart. Venezuela is still in my heart to this day. And I actually, even 20 years later, I’m still working with some Venezuelans. Because you can’t just walk away. You’ve got to stay. And it’s that persistence. And I have a group of Venezuelans in my train who are called the optimistas, the optimists. And they’re working behind the scenes, trying to even see today in today’s world, what’s possible there. And it’s like, you know, it’s like a game of tag when you’re touched. You’re it, you know, and you get tagged. And I got tagged. I could feel the heart of the Venezuelan people. And it’s just enormously painful just even to watch all the suffering that’s happened, you know, with all the people who had to leave Venezuela, everything. So my heart is part Venezuelan. Incredible. Incredible. Thank you so much. This is incredible. We’re excited to promote it. And we’ve taken enough of your time. We’re two minutes over. I’ll let you go. Yeah, this is great. We’ll post about this. And I would love to, again, I ask permission. I’m a contributor for Forbes. Can I write an article? Please, please, please. Let’s make that happen. We’ll make that happen. Please. And yeah, just feel free to reach out to me. I’m about to go on sabbatical next month for a few months just to go myself to the balcony. So but definitely between now and then or after when I get back, feel free to reach out. And you give me hope. I mean it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. This is great. We will be in touch, my friend. Okay, Kwame. Okay, Simon. Bye. You have a good one. Simon. Bye. Man, how do I, how do I, how do I come back to another podcast? I want to retire. Yeah, me too, man. Oh, man. Wow, that, uh, I think we have our number one episode. I think that’s pretty safe to say. Unreal. Unreal. Yeah. It was incredible. What it means to me, man. What it means to me. It’s incredible. It’s incredible because I was there, you know. I was on the other side. I was suffering and we were about to go to war and we didn’t know. I mean, Chavez didn’t go out and say, hey, William is here, you know. Yeah. He just said, okay, let’s pause. And everybody was like, okay, we’re not going to war. We can enjoy December because we had no food. We had no electricity, you know, because no one could go on the streets because it was almost a war. Right. It was very dangerous. So when he said that, everybody said, okay, let’s have Christmas and we’ll do everything in January. So that’s the power. That’s the power of costs, right? The balcony. Right. Wow. And, you know, I think for me, and I guess this is a good demo for negotiate anything premium too, because we, there’s no way we cannot debrief this. I think for me, one of the things that’s powerful is 345. Okay. It is the fact that there weren’t any really negotiation lines that he gave in terms of, okay, say this. And then they say that I don’t, and they say this, you do this because that’s not how the negotiation works. And I think that’s what makes people so scared about it too, because they want that those, those one-liners that they can drop that change everything. But those don’t really exist. The experts don’t go in with the zingers that they’re going to say they prep, prep, prep, prep, prep more than anybody can even fathom. And then they sit back and rely, rely on their skills and to, to lead the day. They don’t know exactly what’s going to work. What’s not going to work, what they’re going to say, what they’re not going to say, but in the moment they will. Yeah. Yes, exactly. For instance, when you make a cake, you follow a receipt, right? But when you play chess, you know, not unless what you have to do, but you know, that things will change over the road, right? Over the game. So sometimes people think that the negotiation is like a receipt. Yeah. And, and negotiation is like a game, right? Man, man, that was powerful. And I think, again, he’s the, one of the godfathers of negotiation, several books and everything. And to see the fluidity of his approach and is just astounding and refreshing too, because you’re seeing a lot of, um, a lot of methodologies coming out that are very, very rigid. And I think a lot of times that rigidity is a manifestation of fear. I’m going to try to control the uncontrollable because I’m afraid of that, which I cannot control. But if you can focus more on your skills, you get more confidence in those skills, and then you can be more relaxed in the heat of the moment. And when he was talking about when Chavez was yelling at him, it was not comfortable, but he had enough confidence in his skills to say, this is uncomfortable, but I know what I’m going to do. And I trust that it’ll work even under duress. Because I think sometimes people say, well, okay, well, that could work in a normal negotiation, but the negotiations that I have are really high level. Those things can’t work, heck, the highest level, but the negotiation fundamentals are the same in every conversation. They’re just applied somewhat differently. And what’s that difference? It depends on the situation. It’s completely contextual. And the expert negotiators are able to understand that context, read the situation, and then do the right thing at the right time. Yeah. Yeah. And I have listened to 1000 episodes of the podcast, and I still make one mistake. That when I’m going to negotiate, I say, okay, and I’m going to say this, and I’m going to say this, and I’m going to say this. And that’s wrong. He said, no, you have to prepare and go to listen. You know, it’s not about what you have to say. It’s about listening. Oh, you know, the prep for this interview is a great example, because what I did is I created a dossier with just a summary of the book, his background, biography, and everything. And then I came up with a list of like 100 to between 100 and 150 questions I could potentially ask. I turned it into an MP3 file, and I listened to it for hours and hours, hours, all this morning, just prepping. I didn’t refer to, I took notes, but I didn’t refer to notes during the conversation. It’s like, at some point, the preparation becomes a part of you. Great. Yeah. Then you flow. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don’t even think, when I think about the specific questions that I wrote down, I don’t think I asked one, one of those specific questions. But I asked a ton of questions, but it built on the preparation I did beforehand. Yeah. And he was as well an example of preparation, because he was prepared as well. He was prepared. He knew about your psychology background. He knew about the episode, the compassionate curiosity framework. He knew about everything. Yeah, that’s wild. Why do you know about me? Why me and Yuri? Man, goodness gracious. I’m going to have this dorky smile on my face for the rest of my career. Man, this is really, really good. Amazing. Well, I’m glad we have like 18 different recorders recording this episode, so we should be good. Man, I am excited. I am excited.