 And I think one of the biggest fears is being taken advantage of. I think another fear is, I'm afraid the other side will walk away. I'm afraid all damage the relationship. I'm afraid that I will get a bad deal. I think there are so many fears that impede our ability to negotiate in confident ways. And that's where we wanna give you strategy to help you to be able to take that fear out of negotiation. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. When most people think about negotiation, we'll get to this. All of a sudden they get a pit in their stomach, they start to get nauseous, they don't wanna deal with it. And we always hear, much like cells, there's always these people like, I don't like cells people. They're always too pushy. That's why I'm not a sales guy. And then there's the same thing with negotiation. I don't like negotiation. Everyone on the other side's a big jerk. And then it always comes down to the same thing, which is cells and negotiation is going to be an integral part of your life if you have a mission, if you have reach in your life because you're looking to acquire things, you're looking to achieve things. And so you have to get out there and make things happen. And in order to make things happen, you have to deal with other people. So either you're selling your ideas or you're negotiating to enable and to get your ideas into play. I couldn't agree more, Johnny. And in fact, I would argue that that pit in your stomach that you feel, that is the fear that I tackle in my new book, Negotiate Without Fear. I wanna take the fear out of negotiations and allow people to negotiate in more confident and comfortable ways. Because I would absolutely agree with you that negotiation is critical to so many parts of our life. And I actually believe that when you can embolden yourself and empower yourself to be able to negotiate, you actually create a much more satisfied life. Because I think a lot of times we're dissatisfied with situations. We don't like what's happening. We don't like how we were treated. We don't like what someone is doing. And if we recognize that we can change that through our negotiation capabilities, we feel more empowered and more satisfied. So I agree with you that getting the fear out of negotiation is critical to leading to satisfaction. And I believe there's no worse feeling than being taken advantage of because you don't know how to negotiate. We've all kicked ourselves for paying too much for something, for not negotiating our salary and then finding out a coworker or a peer who's less talented than us is making more money simply because they asked for it. So we love looking at fear and overcoming fear in changing our attitude, gaining knowledge. And of course, the last piece is gaining experience. I wanna tackle the first one, that mindset and the attitude going into negotiation because that lays the groundwork for how it is gonna go in that room. And I think one of the biggest fears is being taken advantage of. I think another fear is, I'm afraid the other side will walk away. I'm afraid all damage the relationship. I'm afraid that I will get a bad deal. I think there are so many fears that impede our ability to negotiate in confident ways. And that's where we wanna give you strategy to help you to be able to take that fear out of negotiation and be able to appropriately go into that situation in a really confident way. And when it comes to attitude, and we talk a lot about this when it comes to socializing, what you think about before you enter that room comes into play when you're actually in communication with someone. And I believe it's the same with negotiation. We have to prepare ourselves before we even enter that dialogue. I would argue that preparation is the single most important element in negotiation. And that preparation actually gives you power in negotiation. The better prepared negotiation always does better. I wanna get well prepared. And I think a lot of times people would agree with that AJ, but they don't necessarily know what it looks like to be really well prepared to negotiate. Like what's involved in that? And I would argue it involves, number one, thinking about the other side and ensuring that you're really putting the right issues on the table. So I always encourage people to think about their objectives in this situation. What are you trying to achieve with the other side? What objectives do you have? And really ensure that for every single objective you have at least one, if not more than one negotiable issue. Things that you will negotiate, things you will discuss. So getting prepared by putting the right issues on the table, doing the right analysis and creating a plan for your discussion allows you to approach that better prepared, more confident and certainly positioned to get a better deal. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. That is certainly important. And you're right, I don't think many people or people who are, they don't have the experience in negotiation. They know what leverage looks like. They don't understand what that power is going to be. And I think they tend to think of it as something that they can leverage to hold over the other person to get their way. And that's just not what it is. This is, I think healthy proper negotiations are gonna be looked at as a win-win. And in order to get to a win-win, we need both parties to feel comfortable. They can't have fear to come to the table and discuss how to compromise, what sacrifices will be made and what things they can leverage in order to find that win-win. And of course, you've done a wonderful job in illustrating all those things in the book. Well, thank you, Johnny. And you know, when you say the word leverage, I think it's important to sort of unpack that word because I think a lot of people use it and don't really think about what they mean by leverage. They have this sense of I've got it or not, but they don't really dig into what is it. And I would argue when they're talking about it, they're usually talking about two very distinctive and really different things. One piece of leverage is often thinking through, what is my best outside option? My best outside option is my biggest source of power in any negotiation. If I'm buying a house, my biggest source of power is, the other house I would buy if I didn't buy this house. If I'm negotiating for a job, my biggest source of power is the other job I would take if I didn't take this job, my best outside alternative is my biggest source of power. But I think that when they use the word leverage, a lot of times what they're confounding is also this analysis of what are the other side's options. And in fact, when I look at and really analyze the weakness of the other side's alternatives, that's what I should use to drive my goal for the negotiation. So I shoot for something based on the weakness of the other side's options. My bottom line is based on the weakness of my own option. So I wanna unpack that word leverage because I think that too often we combine those. And it can be that I have a situation where I have really, really, really strong outside options and so do you. Or it could be that I have weak outside options, but you have weak outside options too. And then I could have a super ambitious goal even though I don't have a particularly attractive bottom line. So I think it's important to think through that. And you used another concept called win-win. And I think what you're talking about there is such a critical idea, which is we wanna identify those trade-offs, things that are important to you that aren't as important to me, things that are really important to me that are not as difficult for you. And I always think about the negotiation as trying to really make sure that we optimize all of those potential trade-offs. In the book, I talk about an issue matrix to help you lay out all of the negotiable issues along a two-dimensional piece to think about the relative importance of the issue to each side. And as I'm helping and guiding people in negotiations, I always have that matrix in my mind and I'm thinking about how do I trade off those issues to get more of what I want on issues that matter the most to me? So I think that's what win-win looks like. It's about identifying those trade-offs. I think what a lot of people get tripped up on is they're a little too assumptive in what the win for the other party would be. It's very easy from our vantage point to know what our wins are. And we talk a lot about empathy and bringing that to the table in our communication. And of course, thinking through what the other opportunities are for the other person is helpful. But oftentimes we don't spend enough time asking questions. We make these broad assumptions and it can actually keep us off the mark of what could be a potential win for the other party simply by discussing it and being open to questioning them a little bit more and hearing from them. So for example, over the pandemic, we had to leave our office and we had to look for another office. And in looking for another office, I was very concerned about signing a year-long lease. I didn't know what the pandemic was gonna hold. I didn't know if we were gonna continue downsizing or things would start back up. So I was very nervous about getting another year-long plus lease. But of course, landlords at that time, they wanted that security of knowing that I'm signing a year-long lease because they have the same concerns. Are you not gonna be there six, eight months from now? And if I just went into the negotiation assuming that I had to give a year-long lease, I wouldn't have been able to come to the conclusion in negotiation with our landlord that by simply prepaying a few months, allying his concerns around, are we gonna be good for the money, actually opened up an opportunity to shorten the lease and build trust in our relationship without having to extend it for a year. But the only reason I knew that is because I was asking questions around what they were looking for in a tenant, what type of businesses had rented from them previously to gain that valuable insight. And when we talk to a lot of our clients who are worried and nervous around negotiating, they tend to just focus inward and think about themselves and they don't spend a lot of time asking questions of the other party. I think they don't often ask questions of the other party. I think they often don't even focus on the other party or what the other party's interests are. So I would argue that one of your first objectives in every negotiation is to address the other side's pressing business needs. And the reason I like to lead with that objective is because it forces me to think about what's important to them? Why is that so important to them? What's driving them? What metrics are they being evaluated by? I think that's important in work negotiations but I also think it's important even in personal negotiations with your contractor or with someone who is doing work on your car. I think it's really important to think through what are their most pressing needs? What are their underlying interests? Your landlord's interest was in ensuring that you didn't disappear, that you weren't there one month and gone the next and that that could be a laid, that fear could be a laid by either having a long-term lease or by getting a big chunk of money upfront that might cause them to feel like you're gonna stick around. So I think it's really a great example of understanding the other side's pressing needs and making sure that I put issues on the table that address those needs. But what's shocking is how often people don't even do the research to know what the other side's needs are. They don't think about the other side, they think about themselves and I think that leads to two mistakes. Number one, I don't negotiate the right issues but number two, I build the wrong rationale. I build a rationale and it's all about what I want, when I need because I want it. And I always say when you're negotiating, you should be a pronoun checker. You should not use the pronoun I. You should use the pronoun you, right? Because you wanna focus on the other side, not yourself. So I say, check your pronouns and check the first line of your script. If my first line of my script has to do with me, I have a problem. If my first line of my script has to do with them, I'm in better shape. So watch your lines and watch your pronouns.