 This is the Artichoke Podcast, the show where we bring you actionable tips and strategies on how to better connect socially, boost your emotional intelligence and navigate social behavior. I'm Johnny. And I'm AJ. And we are back from Vienna. We apologize. We were supposed to have an episode out a couple of days ago and we've gotten the letters. It's coming. This is it. Why apologize? I have nothing to apologize for. We had a mastermind. We had a boot camp and it was such a great time. We hadn't been to Europe training clients for 10 years. No. And, you know, it was, well, the reason is with logistics and it started our house here in the hills and it makes for, at least the first time we did it in 2009, it makes for a lot of anxiety of just making sure that the guys have a great time. We put all our efforts into these programs and we want to make sure that it is an experience that only you're going to tell your friends about, that, well, you're going to tell all of your friends about. And we had a great crew. We had an absolute phenomenal crew. We had some guys from the UK. Of course we had some guys from Austria. We had some Germans mixed in. And the thing is the program was in English. We went out every night, tore it up, big shout out to all the guys who took over those clubs and bars and even the daytime. We headed out into the Nashmart, I believe it's called. And we allowed ourselves to get the full European experience, which means we're heading back next year. Yes. Absolutely. And I want it to be a regular part of what we do here at the Art of Charm. And we're working on that and we feel very good about it and we're, it's always good to see things moving forward. Now, if you want first dibs on an Art of Charm boot camp in Europe in 2020, you can sign up for updates at theartofcharm.com slash Europe. We're putting together a little wait list. We're going to let you know the date that's coming up, but we're excited to get back. We proved it out. We figured it out 10 years later and now we're going to be heading back next year. Now that we're back in LA, it's time to open up the mailbag and answer your questions. Of course, this month's all about negotiation, so we had a lot of great questions on the topic and to help us with that, we have Will Schroeder with us. Will is the founder and CEO of startups.com and the co-host of startup therapy podcast. Over the past 25 years, he's launched nine companies, three of those were venture funded and he had sold four companies as well with a history like that. Will has a ton of experience when it comes to negotiating in all kinds of situations and we're very happy to have him on the show for our Q&A episode. Our audience has been asking us all month, especially when it comes to negotiating in the workplace, negotiating salary. How do you become more serious and be taken seriously when negotiating? Same thing that we're talking about before the show here, women are finding this pressure when it comes to negotiating their salary, but also those of us who are starting our career and know that internally we're valued and we want to get paid the right amount. How can we be taken seriously in negotiations? I think for a lot of folks, you don't realize how many pieces there are to getting taken seriously. I'll give you an example. Let me start with my long and awful career of getting into this because it was tough. So I'll give you some backstory. So 1994, I start one of the first web design companies when literally no one understood what the internet was. I went to my guidance counselor at college and I said, I'm dropping out of school and she was like, what's wrong lately? What's going on? I had a huge smile on my face. I was so happy about it. I was like, I'm starting an internet company and this is so perfect. She looked at me totally baffled and she's like, what's the internet? I mean, you got to figure it. There was a time and that was it. And here's why that time period is so just bizarre looking back. I'm 19 years old starting what essentially going to be one of the first internet companies. At a time when there's never been a period where people had started internet companies, which also meant there's no such thing as 19 year old CEOs. If you were 19 years old up until that point and you were starting anything, you're starting an NFL career, maybe you had a hip hop song, maybe those are the only people that were qualified to make any kind of money or any kind of decisions at 19. The rest of us were a year and a half out of homeroom in high school. It didn't make any sense. In the corporate environment, I'm going after big clients trying to design the first web pages on the internet. I walk in, I still have pimples on my face. I'm every bit of 19 years old and I look like a child. I walk in and the people that I'm going to present to are still waiting for the people that are coming from my company to show up. They just assume I'm an intern or something. It looked right through me. It didn't make no bones about it. Get this, first presentation I do, first big meeting I score. It's with AAA, which is a random client, but that happened to be who it was. It was with their board meeting. Everyone in the room, no disrespect, but was 100 years old. It looked like the Jedi Council. It was amazing. I go in and I'm pitching them the internet. I'm in an $8 suit that I bought from Goodwill. I looked ridiculous, hung off me because I didn't know how to dress for a business meeting, but I'm in there pitching and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm sweating like crazy. I'm totally awkward in the pitch, but at the end of the pitch, I'm not getting a single question. I asked the whole group there. So what do you guys think? Dead silent, which as you guys know, if you've ever presented before and you ask a question, you get dead silence, it's not good. No one starts with a slow clap like how amazing it was. Usually like an idiot, right? And so I'm sweating even more. Only question I get is from the CMO. He looks at me and he said, son, do you know we have letterhead older than you? How do you respond to that, right? Like I'm like, I'm sure you guys do the internet and you're concerned about letterhead older than me. But it was the first big pitch that I had and it was the first moment in time where the folks I was going to pitch to, the folks I was going to try to establish credibility with, had no interest in giving me any credibility. And it was at that moment that I learned that your credibility is earned. It's not an entitlement. And you have to earn it in everything you do and every way you present yourself. And it took me a better part of a decade to get through that. And I can tell you all the different dynamics that happen. And earned through experience, right? I think a lot of us look at it and go, I'll just read a book on negotiation. I'll read a book on pitching and then I'm in the boardroom and it just magically comes together. I pitched a lot. So again, it was a professional services business. The company is called Blue Diesel. Again, one of the first web design companies. We grew that to about $700 million and sold it. So it became a good sized company, which is wonderful. But in that time, as that thing was growing, trying to not only negotiate but establish credibility in the negotiation, right? When you sit down and you walk into a room and you establish credibility, people don't think about how important that is. What you say right off the gates, your body language, how you present yourself, looking somebody directly in the eye versus looking down at the floor, your arms crossed versus an open position, squared shoulders as you're looking to people. Like no one taught me this stuff. I just learned from watching what I thought was the smartest guy or gal in the room and how they presented. And I just studied them. And I was like, why is it when they walk into the room, everyone listens, even if they don't know who they are. There's certain people that have that presence. And I wanted that presence and I studied it like crazy. So modeling others was a big part of this experience journey for you? Yeah, because you couldn't Google it. Google didn't exist yet. Anything you knew, you could only pick up from someone you... I sound like a relic talking about this, but anything you knew, you had to stay across from someone and ask them. I could only learn from someone that happened to be in the room that I happened to be in. Well, even now, I mean, if you were to look up how to put a pitch together or how do I look good for my presentation? I mean, you're going to get a bunch of information, but that doesn't count towards the experience of you putting those things together. Yeah, it's a huge thing. And like you have to have the reps, right? So I did, I was on the road for 250 days ish in 1997. To give you a sense for like how much I was pitching. And I just needed to get good at it because my livelihood was at stake. You know, it wasn't things where I could just say, hey, I don't feel like pitching today. As the company was growing and we were getting more and more folks joining the company, I had to feed all those folks. You know, at some point, we had 10 million a month to payroll, right? And that's a lot of malice with you, right? You better figure out your presentation and negotiation skills very quickly. Otherwise, you know, you've got way too many people on the line. And before we hopped on, we were talking about last week's episode where we sort of picked apart a former employee's email and looking back on it. I can tell you now that through his experience now, he's not sending emails like that ever again. And you were laughing about managing people and how you've experienced this over and over again. And your perspective was really interesting to me and Johnny thinking about what it's like in their shoes, especially the first time you do anything. Yeah, well, for me now, I say, Johnny, I'm 45 years old and I'm a senior citizen at my company at startups.com. You know, we've got 200 people and they're all wonderful, but I'm the oldest person on staff. And so I'm, you know, I'm the office dad at this point. And what I'm realizing and I'm trying to, you know, kind of soak this in is I used to be the peer to all of the people that I was working with, right? I was 19 and if we hired somebody that was 25, they were much older than me. Now I'm the dad to everybody, which means when they have a challenge of some sort, when they want to negotiate salary or anything else like that, it's I have to realize it's the first time they've ever done that. And whatever I teach them in that exchange is how they're going to understand negotiation for kind of the rest of their career. So I have to take extra steps to really walk them through like the email you guys got, which was kind of like an exploding offer. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things where, look, I understood why you probably sent the exploding offer before we even talk about the exploding offer. Let me explain you why exploding offer probably wasn't the right way to go. And it's not like, yeah, I mean, it's like they've sent 10 of these emails in the past, chances are, right? They sent one to me. That's it. And so their entire frame of reference is going to be based on how I respond. And so I try to breathe. I try to take a moment and say, OK, no, it's got to be a teaching moment because if I attack the situation as if this person is a season negotiator, I'm going to be doing it all wrong. Because again, they're using a tactic that they probably didn't even know they were supposed to use to begin with. I what you just said there and that I love that term, a teaching moment. I love that. And that's fantastic. And, you know, now of after hearing that phrase and being in the role at AOC as co-founder with AJ, we certainly have plenty of teaching moments around the office with our employees as well as with our clients and something to think about. Yeah. And it's certainly come with experience. You know, the first time you take it personally and emotionally as well, like, how could you do this to me? I've been on your side. I've been trying to help you. And and now we realize that exactly that with inexperience, especially when we're talking about negotiations. I'd love to unpack this a little more around salary that tends to be that first real moment of, holy cow, I'm going to really push back against someone who's an authority position and I'm going to try to fight for what's mine. And unfortunately, a lot of the information on the Internet just isn't that great around negotiation. No. And what I tend to do in any kind of negotiation and this is going to be it could be a person that work with and negotiating a salary, either whether they're working there now or they're trying to get a job here, it could be a person who I'm looking to buy their company. We've acquired six companies over the past six years at startups.com, intense negotiations. Lots of lawyers involved. I mean, it's incredible. But really my relationship with the founder of those companies that we're buying from, no matter what the situation is, the first thing I try to do and I'm sure this is part of what you guys advocate is to understand where they're coming from. You know, try to put myself in their shoes. And in the case of an employee where I get a similar email, I'd say if I'm them and I'm sending that email, how would I have known to send anything else? In other words, like, how would I look at their frame of reference and say, well, have they sent more of the most of these emails before? Probably not. Answers probably no. So when I sit down with them, let me try to say I understand what you're trying to accomplish. Let's talk about the best way to get there. Right. And so even if we don't agree, they'll at least understand teaching moment why this probably isn't the best way to go. And nine times out of ten, they're really appreciative. Actually, ten times out of ten, this hasn't failed yet. They're really appreciative of me kind of stepping back. Whenever I've gone guns blazing, it never worked, right? Because at that point, they're focused on that. That must have been the right move. And now we're just arguing over the the offer. Well, if you come at me guns blazing, my first move is to defend myself. I mean, right? Exactly. And so those are the things that I tend to put on the table. I said, hey, I got this email. Here's how it made me feel, right? Which a lot of people don't do or don't do as often as they should. And I said, but I don't think you really meant to meant me to feel that way. And almost every time, like, actually, I didn't. I was just trying to accomplish this other thing. And you realize we're starting from very different positions. And so I always try to circle around where are you starting from? Where am I starting from? And let's try to kind of start to figure out if we're just way off base to begin with. Yeah, because, of course, a negotiation where you're not starting from the same place, you're just going to go round and round until someone gives or you're both frustrated. Yeah. And another big one. And this is highly contentious is when we're looking to purchase a company. You know, like I said, we met we bought six startup companies, all venture funded companies over the past six years, a huge transaction. And when I say that doesn't have to be a big dollar transaction. If I called you guys up and I said, I love Art of Charm would love to buy the company. I'm not just buying a company. I'm buying everything you guys just put the last 13 years into, right? It's it's the it's the business equipment. I'm saying I want to buy your child, right? There's no way I can put a price tag that you'll ever feel is the right price tag. There's no way the handoff is going to go in a way that you'll ever feel comfortable with it. It's your heart and soul. I have to think about it from your shoes. What would it take for somebody to say, I feel comfortable handing over my child, so to speak, that's tough to do. You've got to feel like I'm a good next parent. I don't want to beat up the analogy, but it's actually fairly apropos. Yeah. So there's a lot of trust building that goes along with it. It's not just the checkbook, right? You want to know that you feel comfortable with me, right? Because again, you're going to hand this over. You're going to maybe there's an earn out on the deal where, you know, sometimes money gets paid up front, but the rest of the money gets paid over the performance of the deal. You got to be convinced that if you sell me the company, that you're going to be able to earn that extra money. So again, it comes back to trust as it always does. It's complicated, but it starts with empathy. It's utterly terrifying. I mean, we get the question all the time. Well, this was, you know, after the week long programs, we get a lot of, hey, this was great. You know, one of you guys expanding. One of you guys going to be opening more locations. And that idea of somebody else running what we've been running for 13 years to the degree and the care in which we put into it is utterly terrifying. Like, and any time that we have tried to work in that way, it's it's it's just it's just so complicated and scary. With with all of these negotiations and hiring and certainly on raise time when people are asking based on performance to get money out of you or more money out of you. What have been some of the best things that you've seen your staff members do to negotiate a raise with you to negotiate a promotion? I don't want to put them on blast, but I can't think of a lot of good things. No, and I want to be fair. Typically, I when I know it comes raise time, let's say it's an annual time. The first thing we do, we sit down and I'll say, look, this is the time where you're going to ask for more money. And let me put it this way. You've already earned it. We're just talking about what the number is, right? Remember, a part of a part of a raise isn't just about the dollar amount. It's about the validation that you've earned it. In the email that you guys were citing in that podcast episode, you guys talked about how the guide worked for a year, which in the grand scheme isn't that long, but we'll get over that. And felt that he earned it. What he's asking for is validation, right? The dollars are one thing. But how you respond and how you validate his work is really the heart of it. And so the first thing I tend to do is I sit down and I said, the work you've done and I cite specific things is amazing. Assuming it's amazing. I don't, you know, sugar coat it if it's not. But to our teams credit, it usually is. The work's amazing. All we're talking about is what a fair compensation is for that, right? What I find that does as well is it diffuses some things because if all we do is let the dollar value determine the validity of the work or the validation of the work, it's the wrong queue, right? If all we say is, hey, you know, you wanted a $10,000 raise, I'm going to totally overlook the fact that I think your work was amazing and I appreciate it and I validate it and just use the $10,000 or less as a validator. It's the wrong way to do it. People want validation more than anything. They also want dollars, but you can't you can't combine the two. It can't just be one transaction, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. And you look at everyone when they think about their career, they want to see forward motion. They don't want to feel like they're in a standstill. When they feel like they're in a standstill, they start looking at other options. They start daydreaming about different jobs and different companies, which obviously doesn't help us as the employer. So a lot of times we're also talking about a title shift and an opportunity for them to be commended by the team for their effort, which also has value. Right. And I think that people need to know the way forward. And this is this is an important piece for those that either are employees or employers. I don't think it's a great idea to take a single discussion and make a seminal shift in the person's title and salary. And what I mean by that is let's say someone comes to you and they want a promotion from where they are to the next rank, whatever the next rank might be. It's possible to say, I want you to get there, but I'm going to just need to see a few more things to get there. I also want you to I want to see you at that salary level, but I need a few more things to get there. So we're going to do an interim step now to get you to recognize the fact that I want to keep forward progression, but I need you to compromise to understand here's where I'm looking to get. I need you to get to, you know, as far as your skill set, your contribution and ultimately your comp in order for you to get where you want to get. What people hate the most is when you say, you wanted 10,000, here's 5,000, and it's the end of the discussion. Right? They lose the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is, well, I'm trying to get to 10,000. Show me how to get there. Even if the answer is not today, show me how to get there. Don't cut me short. That's that's just a weak move. Yeah, it sounds a lot like your negotiation strategy is calling out at times the obvious and making sure that everyone is aware of it because we're talking about emotions, getting the best of us. We're talking about sometimes we're so focused on our end goal, we're just not hearing everything that's being put it in front of us. So spelling it out and making it clear that even if this is the end result that you weren't hoping for, here's how we can get to that end result you were hoping for. You bet. And I think for folks, what I found time and time again, knowing that there's an opportunity to get to where you want, even if it's not today is so much more important than getting a hard no. Right. Getting turned away. It's it's like when your your mom would say to you, well, you can't have that now. But if you're a good boy, you'll get it later, right? All of a sudden you're like, OK, I can deal with not having it now. But I get this later situation I'm going to start working on. Right. I mean, we do think in those terms. Yeah, we all salivate for that candy later as long as we know it's coming. Yeah, there needs to be a plan in place that we know if we were hitting the steps and we're moving there and we can see some movement and we can get excited about that journey. So experience and empathy key roles in your negotiation strategy. Are there negotiations that you still struggle with? For for me, the challenge is and this is I'm trying to put this in the right light. There's certain cases where it's going to sound silly. I know I'm right, not because I'm being righteous about it. I know I'm right only because I've actually done this before. I actually know what the answer is going to be. And I know that until you beat yourself up enough times, you won't see it. By the way, this is the nature of being a parent. Like, I know you're going to do dumb stuff in high school and I know it's going to be terrible. I'm going to probably bill you out of jail one time, but I have to watch you go through it anyway, because I know you're supposed to be over here, but I got to I got to watch this whole thing go through. So sometimes sometimes the challenge for for me is again, let's say we got someone in the product team and they're like, you know, I think this is absolutely the right way to go with the product. I'm like, oh, my God, dude, I've done this like 10 times. It never works, but I kind of got to let you just run through the wall in this one to see it for yourself, or you'll never really believe what I have to say. I don't have a answer for that, right? Like, other than just, you know, go on spring break, get locked up and I'll show you why you don't do that on spring break kind of thing. I'm silly example, but it's kind of true. Yeah, well, experience is the most valuable lesson in all of this. I think all of us were shaking our head that moment because we all know what we put our fathers through. So God bless them circle. And at the same time, you know, we've certainly been there where we have to watch an employee make those those mistakes. And you you hope they will they will learn after the first one or you can even lay it out, say, OK, listen, we've done this before. And now this is going to work out the way you're going. This is what's going to happen. But I'm going to let you go ahead and roll with it. And let's have that chat when that does so we can talk about the next way we're going to go about it and not a hope that we're going to see this movie three, four, five times. You know, there's another piece right there that I think is valuable. And I think this comes with, you know, time in the saddle with having been a negotiator, a good negotiator recognizes that not every negotiation has to get settled today. A good negotiator can look for I'm going to get a little piece of forward motion now with the expectation that I'll get a little bit more later, a little bit more later and a little bit more later. A junior negotiator, an inexperienced one like I used to be wanted it all today. I need the full answer today. I need to get everything I'm asking for today. And if I don't get it today, I'm out. Guess what? Most things don't work that way. Most things you don't get all up front, right? Same with your employee example. Here's what I want. I want it today. A good negotiator, the employee and the employer will say, look, I want to get you there, but here's part one of three that we're going to get through today. When I was at the agency and I was working with big clients, this took me a long time to figure out. I used to think that I'd go in with a client and I had to nail the entire deal today. I had to get a $10 million deal today. Later on, as I talked to big agency guys, like, it doesn't work that way, man. You ask for $500,000 today. You get in the door. You start walking the halls. You start to build relationships with as many people as possible. And then eventually, you get $1 million, then $2 million, then $5 million, then $10 million. That's how you win deals. They don't just get one fell swoop. You're thinking about it in such a narrow, kind of minded perspective. And I started to realize that kind of patient process is what won me the biggest deals in my life every single time and something that's not often taught. And as you started with building credibility and understanding at 19 ill-fitting suit, a lack of experience isn't going to get you there. What lessons do you have now in terms of building credibility for those of us who are starting out our career looking to get our foot in the door? Okay, here's a really important one. Be an expert at something. Even if it's minor, right? Even if it seems simple or trivial now, begin your career by being an absolute best of at something. Example, if you're getting into marketing and marketing has many tentacles, it's got SEO, it's got social, it's got so many things, right? That's actually one of the hardest things to wrap your arms around. But you wanna get into marketing, be an expert at one part of marketing, no matter how small of a sliver and build from there. Here's what happens. Let's say that I wanna be a growth marketer at an internet company, which for those that don't know, has lots of tentacles. It's got SEO capabilities, it's got social capabilities, it's got paid search capabilities. It's all kind of stuff that you need to be great at. And maybe if you're 22 right now, you'll be awesome at it by the time you're 28 or 32, right? I mean, if you're really kind of gunning at it. But you can't be great at it now. So when you walk in a room and say, I wanna be a marketing person, problem is no one's gonna look at you as an expert if you try to be this bigger thing. So dial it down. Be an absolute expert in one small thing and keep building from there. In our world, we're no longer rewarded for being jack of all trades, right? You guys, yeah, exactly, man. You guys can't be just podcasters in general. You have to have a demo. You have to have a way you present. You have to have a guest style. You have to be unique. And for folks that are trying to establish credibility early in their careers, man, you gotta be the best at something. Even if it's small, start there and build from there. Don't try to wait until you're the best at something that'll take 10 years from now if you ever get there. I love that advice. Thank you for sharing and being honest with us. Time to open up our mail bag. We got a few questions here, specifically on negotiation that we're so excited for you to help us answer. First one is from Jonathan. I'm good at negotiating with strangers and building relationships with them. However, when it comes to negotiating with friends, I have trouble distinguishing the friendship from the negotiation we're trying to tackle. I think that sometimes it makes me more prone to settling with the deal quickly and not pushing things further since they're a friend. What's your advice? Well, let me start with this. And this is tough, man. I've lost some friends in business because I didn't make that separation, right? You know, we're working together. We're maybe partners or something like that. And we work so closely together, but we're really close friends, you know, going into the business, which is why we got involved in it. And we let the business become our friendship, right? We couldn't separate the two. And years later, we had to make a lot of work to kind of get some of that relationship back. But now I've learned way too late, honestly, because I've lost some really close friends, you know, over things that, they weren't like hardcore. It was just more of like, man, business is going like this direction. We're so tired of kind of dealing with it together. Our friendship is the business right now, and we just need to break from each other and the business. So it kind of sucks. What I wish I had done, I wish on a regular basis, I'd done a check-in to say, hey, man, just to be clear, like I love you and I love our relationship and everything that we're doing and I love our lives together. The business is the business. If it doesn't work, right? Let's always know that we can step back. And I wish we had taken time to have those deliberate conversations about separating the two so that we didn't get the whole thing dragged in together, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I think, you know, for me, in my perspective on this, a lot of times we get so caught up in the short-term gains and the wins and losses, we don't realize that over the long haul, there's probably a high likelihood that you're gonna negotiate with this friend again. And he's gonna remember that first negotiation where you pushed a little hard and you got that win and that notch under your belt, but now he's not willing to share his contacts with you. He's not willing to open up his network with you because you left that bad taste in his mouth. And I think, unfortunately, when we start tallying these wins and losses, and of course we read, we listen to podcasts, we go, oh, I could have got a little bit more. I could have got that extra inch. We don't realize that that extra inch comes at a cost of feet and miles, years from now, on deals that are missed because that person doesn't wanna work with you. Well, and something else that we've talked about earlier, and this is, especially when it comes to friends. And in our research and doing negotiation for the month, we certainly learned a lot about negotiation that certainly had helped us. And when I look back at some of these things, I know that there's been times in my life where someone says, oh, we need to go into a negotiation or we're gonna have to talk about this. And if you haven't had much experience with it, your first tendency is to get nervous, to be on guard and to go or either guns blasting or be extremely defensive, where we have learned that if everyone understands what's going on and we're all in the look for a win-win together and that there's no time and that we're gonna sit and we're gonna figure this out, it's gonna take some days, but we're gonna enjoy this process and we're gonna make sure that everyone leaves with something they want here, then people don't have to freak out and get angry and play dirty pool. Think about it this way, if you're going into a fight in the street with somebody you know you can't win, your first move is to do something dirty to get it in so you can walk out of that alive. And if you feel you're going into a negotiation that way where you have to hold back or play dirty so you can leave, that's not good for anybody. And I think if you don't have people who are educated on what negotiation really is and how it could be a win for everybody, well then of course you're gonna be nervous about dealing with friends in negotiation. Yeah, I always say the same things. Negotiations are won by questions, not statements. If you're good at asking questions, if at every point in the negotiation you're constantly asking, how do you feel about this? Why are you saying that? Why do you need that? Why would that work for you, et cetera? Then you're learning about the negotiation. If you're making statements, all you're doing is whittling down the conversation and the negotiation and often sending the negotiation in the wrong direction because you didn't ask enough questions. Yeah, you're constraining the options in that situation. I can speak from experience. There was an agent knows this situation. There was a case where there was a few friends that had to go into mediation to figure out how to work together because things had had gotten rocky. And everyone, at least from my thoughts, were going in with the intentions of figuring out our issues so we can make this thing work. Now upon sitting there for four days with a mediator and hashing it out and being open, we leave and one of the guys turns to the other guy goes, would you get what you wanted out of that? I got what I wanted and I was like, wait a minute. I thought we were going in to be open with each other to make this thing work. I didn't know this was a cash grab and now how do you think I felt after leaving that? I didn't trust any of those people again. I never wanted to get back into another room with any of those people without a lawyer. I didn't feel good working with anyone. And obviously, and of course I was slighted and AJ knows how the rest of that relationship with that person was. And you hold on to those things. Of course. I mean, when you feel slighted, you hold on. And I think Jonathan pushing a little bit too hard with friends can backfire on the long haul. And of course your friends for a reason. It's really not worth sacrificing a friendship to get that little extra win. You said something AJ a moment ago. You said you lose access to their contacts. You lose access to every person that they ever come in contact with. People always forget about that. If you go on a bad date with a girl, you don't just feel an opportunity to go with that girl. You go out with all her friends, friends of friends, anybody that she's ever talked to. That becomes a challenge. Same with business. There's nothing worse than poisoning them well. Here's a question about salary negotiation from Jessica. Hey, AJ and Johnny, I just finished college and now I'm applying for jobs. I have a few interviews coming up and I think I'll do well in terms of competency, but I'm worried about my skills when it comes to negotiating a salary. What's the best way to answer when this inevitably comes up? I don't wanna ruin my chances by aiming too high, but I also don't want my starting salary to be too low. I'm interviewing for a job as a programmer in case that's important. Perfect guest to have on for this. Will, we would love to hear your perspective on this. Well, I've hired hundreds of programmers, so I've had this conversation many times, so I can tell you exactly how it goes. Programmers have a disproportionately high salary in context of most other people that are getting hired and they're well aware of this and well deserved. They usually create an amazing product. What folks will do, whether they're a programmer or otherwise, they'll always say, here's the salary bands I'm aware of in the market, right? I would say, look, I would love to be at the top of the salary band, but I'm sure that's reserved for me at my top level, which I still have to demonstrate to you. What's the best place where I can start with you to help achieve that top salary band? What you're saying there is a few things. Number one, that is the direction I want to go, but I don't necessarily have to get there today, but, Mr. Employer, Mrs. Employer, if I'm coming into this job and you're saying there's no way to get to that salary band, now would be the time to know that, right? You know? Yeah. So let's say, for example, your salary band, let's say we're using LA prices, is 150,000 to 180,000. It could sway more, but let's say that's what it was. What you're saying is, first, I understand what salary bands are. It's 150 to 180. Ergo, if you come up to me and say it's 130, I'm already implying that it can't be less than 150. So setting the salary band just kind of indicates really a lower level, if you will. The top end of the salary band is also you modestly saying, I'm not there yet, but I'd like to get there. Is there an opportunity for me to earn up that way? So you're setting both the goal and the bottom tier by introducing the band. Well, one of the first things I thought when I saw this question as well, and please speak to this from your perspective, is she just graduated, right? More so than thinking about I've gotten too low money or I'm getting too high money. How about show what you're capable of to the employee, to your employer, and maybe start out saying, listen, I'm willing to work for this much, but I have a, you know, in six months, I wanna revisit this after I can show you what I can do or whatever that may look like, because have you just graduated? I don't think you're in a place to start making demands of where you should be. Obviously, you know what the salary band is, but there is work to be done in proving your worth. Well, here's what I think is interesting about the band discussion. Just because you know what the salary band is, let's say it's 150 to 180,000, it doesn't necessarily mean that the employer does, right? The employer could be like said, hey, I'm just gonna try to get this person for 90,000. So the salary band is a very pleasant way of saying I'm not gonna take anything less than what the salary band is, right? So if you try to come at me with some low ball offer below that, I'm already telling you kind of what my thresholds are. But what you're also saying is I wanna get to the top of the salary band, how can I do that here? Also putting it in the employer's court to explain to you where there's room for growth. Sometimes the employer will come to you and say, well, we're definitely at the lower end of the salary band and we've never paid people at the top end of the salary band. Think of how valuable that information is before you're even considering that job. Eric Gold never make much money here compared to what I'm worth in the market and you can still take the job but at least you know where you stand. Yeah, especially when you become a good negotiator and you negotiate an amazing starting salary that is the highest you're ever gonna get paid in that role. Happens all the time. That's why I keep bringing it up. The high end of the salary band isn't what you expect to make. It's what you'd like to get to and you're testing the waters to see if that's even possible. The other thing that I like about that is it definitely qualifies you as a candidate who knows their stuff. The worst thing is going into a negotiation having no reference point and pulling a rabbit out of the hat or even worse just throwing it back on them and saying, okay, well, you just put out a starting point. When you come in educated on the salary band when you give them flexibility you're actually allowing the negotiation to happen in a way that benefits you. Absolutely, and the best negotiators so to speak and these weren't even negotiators. I think they were just people that were just very confident in their skills. Say the same things. Here's what I can bring to the table and here's why based on what you're willing to offer me here's why I think I'm gonna be worth it. I think what works best is just a little bit of humility. In other words, here's why I think I'm gonna contribute a lot. As an employer, that's what I wanna hear. Here's why I think I should get paid a lot. That's not the same submission, right? Understanding what the employer needs from that contribution is huge. Exactly, exactly. If you're not talking the same code, if you're not on the same page as them you're not gonna be valuable regardless of what the salary band is. Another great way I've seen it presented is what could I do, I'm sorry, what do your top performers do now in order to earn at the higher end of the salary band? By the way, a lot of employers can't answer that. I know it's gonna sound odd but it's often not quantified, right? You know, they're thinking, well, I know this one person earns 180,000 but come to think of it, I don't know why exactly like what their stats are that have them earning that much. That's actually a good question but I think it forces them to say here's what it'll take for you to be great here. If this is what you're offering, this is what you can do. It's sort of similar to what that guy or gal does at the top end of the salary band that starts to move you upward. I think the other perspective that I like about that as well is it allows you to see the bigger picture. Especially when you're coming out of college, I think it's so easy to get hung up on what is gonna be my starting salary? What is that number? And not thinking about the culture fit, not thinking about your upward mobility within that company. Right, the only thing worse than getting a starting salary that isn't great is that being your last starting salary. It's like there's no worlds to go from there, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Our listener Miles has a hard time making compromises. When it comes to negotiations and business, as well as with my friends and family, I find that I'm having a hard time making compromises. It's as if my ego is getting in the way. It's either my way or I'll walk away from the deal. In the few cases where I made a compromise, I felt resentment for the other party. Rachele, I know that I should look at this in the long term, but as soon as I'm about to invest some time or money, I don't feel content unless there is a quick win. Needless to say, this mindset has led to some disasters, both professionally and with friends, and it's time to let go of my ego. I just don't know how to do that, and I'd be thankful for any advice you have here. Yeah, so when I go into negotiation, I create two buckets in my mind. I create what I'm trying to accomplish and what I'm willing to compromise. Most people don't have a compromise bucket. This guy does, what he's saying is you didn't have a compromise bucket, right? The only way to kill a deal is to not have a compromise bucket. It'd kill any relationship, right? If my wife and I didn't have a compromise bucket, our relationship wouldn't last very long. I think part of what happens is when folks go in, I know when we go into negotiations, any negotiation, I say here's what I'm trying to accomplish, but I'm leaving a lot of room for compromise. Sometimes I'll fill that bucket myself, saying honestly, if I don't get this part of the negotiation, I'm kind of just as willing to put it in the compromise bucket as well. Or I want to get 200,000, but I'm willing to accept 150,000. So I've got 50,000 as a placeholder in the compromise bucket. If you don't deliberately and mentally have a compromise bucket that you're willing to contribute to, everything in your life is going to break. I mean, it's just kind of that simple. There's no way we get all one. It's the equivalent of standing on the plate when you're playing baseball and saying I only want to hit home runs. I'm not willing to hit base hits. I'm not willing to hit triples. I'm not willing to strike. They all have to be home runs or I'm not interested. You're not going to live very long in a career of baseball. And that compromise bucket softens the ego. A lot of times if we're only thinking about one outcome, it hardens the ego. It allows the ego to drive the car. When you have to force yourself to think about the compromise bucket before that negotiation, you're actually visually going through the negotiation in your mind, working out the different scenarios, thinking about what the other person might want out of the deal, that softens, that grip that the ego has on the steering wheel in this negotiation. In compromises aren't losses. I think people tend to equate those as anything that goes in the compromise bucket is something I've lost. I look at the compromise bucket as anything that goes in the compromise bucket was ammunition to get what I needed to get, right? I look at that as a facilitator, not a loss. But there's something else here that stuck out to me in his question, which is he said he considers it a feat if there's not large gains up quickly, which is also showing his inexperience in business and how it works and how it's built on base hits, not home runs. And he needs to put that in perspective. I think that will help him understand that thought process of always trying to be the winner in this and it will allow things to develop and build. And in order to do that, you have to be data-driven. You have to be able to celebrate your small wins. And you should be having regular scheduled meetings. So that everyone can talk about where things are growing and where things aren't. And if they're not, what can we be doing differently to get some movement? And we're gonna be talking about this next month in networking with this idea of social capital. When we are in a situation where both parties are leaving with the win, the other party is not feeling resentful, that allows you to build social capital that grows your career and allows you to open up other opportunities that you're not even aware of right now. It's so short-sighted to build resentment over that one outcome versus those of us who've been in business tens of years, 20 years plus, we understand the long game and the familiar faces you're gonna see over and over again throughout your career. This isn't just with friends, this is in any business that you're going into. That person who was your coworker that got screwed over at one point might become your boss and they're gonna hold onto that little negotiation that you had over lunch money. Yep, future client, yeah, you name it. And the truth is, people only remember how you left things. You know, the argument will be what it is, but it's at the end, if you come away all steamed and heated, that's how they're gonna remember you, right? And you gotta be able to see things through. The best negotiators I've seen are those that understand how to use compromise, how to use the give in order to get the get. Yeah, well, we always say it's, people don't remember the words you say, they remember how you allowed them to feel. And just, and you just mentioned, if they remember this negotiation, it's heated and you're flipping out and you're nervous in that room, why would you wanna walk back in there? Yeah, absolutely. You know, in a lot of times, wherever I've had a tough run in a negotiation, you know, and it could be any number of things, but at the end of the negotiation, I always make it a point to kind of come back, even if things were, it was tough, it was a tough outcome, et cetera, and try to say, look, even though like maybe you didn't get exactly what you want, maybe I didn't get exactly what you want, I appreciate the fact that we've been able to get through this together, right? And which means we'll be able to get through another one together, right? And it'll be a lot easier because we understand each other better now, et cetera. I always circle back to try to make sure the relationship is intact. If I can, you can always do it, but it's always a really important thing to me because I wanna make sure that there's a personal connection there that it's not just all business. Yeah, and solidifying those positive emotions, right? I enjoyed this negotiation with you. I enjoyed the spiritedness of it and I feel like we both got to a win. You know, I have a lot of negotiations in my life that the first, second, and third time failed. A lot of it's in hiring people, right? I've got people that I've hired in the past year that I've been trying to hire and essentially the negotiation failed for 10 years. You know, we're startups.com. We just bought that domain a year and a half ago. I spent four and a half years negotiating that domain, right? I mean, think about it, man, and the only make one of them. And so it was one of those things where I knew I had to have it. I knew it was important to me. The person that owned it also knew I had to have it, it was important to me, right? And so I was a bit over a barrel, but every three months I keep calling him back and I'd say, well, what about this? Well, what about this? And I just kept looking for different ways to provide a give to ultimately be able to get what I was trying to get. But I wasn't concerned about the get. I knew I wanted the domain. I was concerned about how to make him feel good about it. I love that. This next question is negotiation in your dating life. I've been dating a girl for four months. Two weeks ago, we were getting pizza. I ran in to get it and she looked at my phone and saw a text from a guy friend of mine she didn't like. He was rude with her a few months back. When I got back to the car, she asked me if I'd ever talked to him. I said no because I hadn't. The last time we had an actual conversation, I asked him to apologize to her and he said he wouldn't. She's mad that I lied to her about speaking to this guy even though it was literally a two text exchange between us. We fought that night. I tried to apologize and explain that I didn't lie with any malice in my heart. I just didn't think it was something worth telling. She said she would give me another chance. On Thursday night, she went with this nice text saying, I'm sorry for being so distant, but when you lied to me, it crushed me. Now we're on a break or broken up or whatever because she needs time to think and I don't know if we're done. Obviously I don't want to be and I think the whole argument was so stupid that it doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. I just want her back and she's very stubborn. I just need to know if there's anything I could do to change things for the better. The argument wasn't stupid to her. That's what actually matters, right? You know what I mean? Think about it. We all have these challenges. We trivialize things. As parents, we do it with our children. We write down their emotions. Oh, you're just being emotional. Your problem is so silly. You have it so well. It's not the way they see it, right? In the moment that we take someone else's feelings and we start to trivialize them, we've already lost the negotiation, right? Even if I don't agree in this case with her feelings, I have to understand her feelings for this thing to ever work, right? And the moment I say it's trivial, you're being ridiculous, I've already lost. I've lost empathy. And exactly that. Your intention is not going to alleviate the argument, right? His entire comeback was I tried to explain that I didn't have any malice in my heart when I lied. And of course, your intention is not why she's upset. She's upset by the fact that there was dishonesty, no matter how trivial it may have been to you. And I think that's really, we call it invalidating someone's emotions. When you invalidate the way someone else feels, you break their trust. They don't feel comfortable sharing future feelings with you. And of course, now we're in a situation where they don't see the relationship continuing. You know, there's something funny here that is a guy thing. We do this all the time. And not to say that women don't do it either. I don't want to get the letters, but the thing is just a guy thing where it goes. We know that there's a fight about to happen. So we might think that we'll just kind of push this aside or not tell the truth. Just so we can avoid the fight and hope that it doesn't come up later or we get nabbed. But if you get nabbed in the middle of this, now it's twofold because you trivialized and you lied where it would have been better to just put your argument up front and just get it taken care of because now there's a trust issue. But you know, there's how many times have we been in this situation? I know I've done it a bunch where I just said what I needed to to get through because I was busy. I wanted to move on. I want to get to the movie. I want to get to dinner. I don't want to have this argument. But if you don't have it, it's gonna be worse later. I think guys try to look at things in the form of facts and women look at them in the form of feelings. It doesn't matter what the facts are in her mind. It matters how she feels. That's why when guys negotiate with each other, we're often looking at facts and we're very kind of robotic in the right way. I'm not saying there's no feelings. We do have emotions, but it's a very different negotiation. I say this because within our organization, in working, let's say at an employer level, with men or women, the conversations are very different. And kind of our points of reference are very different. Also for what it's worth, we've got 200 people and it's an 85% female organization. So how the folks interact with each other is very different. Most of the folks have a more emotional response between each other and it's fantastic. But if you don't appreciate that, if you don't have that same kind of dialogue, it breaks. My wife is gonna be very emotional about things. She doesn't necessarily care about the facts. I'm not saying she's ignorant to them, but she cares about how she feels and I need to be able to relate to that. Same with her. I was recently just with a friend and his fiancee. We were hanging out and I was visiting. And so she mentions that we were back at the hotel room and she mentions, oh, so this is where you stayed on the couch here with Johnny the other night. And he says, no, no, because I was in a room and I mentioned no, he didn't stay with me. He told his fiance that he was staying in the house only because he was getting trashed and they were, and they dropped me off and he went to his other buddies to continue drinking and just didn't wanna have to get into this whole thing. But however, he gets busted in that moment and now we had to go to dinner and I had to sit there in the middle of them just looking at each other and the faces. And I was like, really, we gotta do this now. I was like, you just could have put this up front and said the truth, right? And I was laughing because of course as the guy I'm like, guys, this is stupid. Let's just hang out. This is first of all, it's not my fight. And no, it's not stupid to her, as you mentioned. And these feelings of distrust can last a lot longer than we'd like. So right now he's like, is there anything I could do to change things for the better? And again, he's looking for solutions. He's looking for facts. And these emotions need to be processed and everyone's emotions, especially around distrust and dishonesty, they take longer than we'd like to imagine. And unfortunately for us, when we think this is really trivial or oh, I'm upset because she looked at my phone, at the end of the day, that dishonesty is what's being held on to and we have to be empathetic to them. We have to validate that emotion and that frustration that they're feeling with the dishonesty and give her the space to come back to the table. Yeah, absolutely. And it's what I'd mentioned before. The best negotiators ask questions that don't make statements, right? If you sit down with your spouse and you say, look, help me understand why you're feeling the way you do. The moment I use statements like it wasn't important, I'm gonna lose. Help me not do this again. What could I have done better? Like I wanna be great at this and I think it's important to offer vulnerability. I understand that I made a mistake. I don't wanna make that mistake. Help me understand what I could have done to be better at this because I wanna be better at it in the future. It's really hard to argue against that. Yeah, and remove your intentions from the equation. That's a lesson that's taken me a while to learn as well. But no matter how good your intentions are, they don't matter in these moments. Martin is struggling with a limiting belief around making friends. I found a core belief in myself that I must earn love from others. I'm looking to find what behaviors reflect this idea and what I can change in them in order to be able to be accepting of love and change my belief. And I can imagine working with founders of startups the same thing, this external validation. If I just hit this valuation of my company, I'll feel complete. If I can just get this VC to invest in me, I'll feel complete. What is your advice for those of us who are struggling with external validation? Here's the wonderful thing, you'll never feel complete. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's such a pipe dream. And I hate to say this because it's such a key engine for all of us, right? Trying to accomplish that next level is what drives us. But time and time again, every single person that I know that have hit that next level, I've done okay in my own career, it doesn't matter. It doesn't change a thing. There's never the validation you expected to get. In the moment you get to that point, I was mentioning before this show, I don't wanna name them by names, but I've had a few friends over the past year sell their companies for over a billion dollars. Sounds like you'd have all the validation you want. No change, right? And talk to every single one of them, no change. It didn't fix anything. It doesn't change my hunger. It doesn't change my contentness. People use happiness, but I think happiness is a very amorphous term. The moment you're seeking external validation, you already lose. And by the way, we all do it. I know it. I know it. I know absolutely, right? That doesn't work. And yet I do it every day, right? That's the worst part about it is knowing you're driving off the cliff, yet hitting the gas anyway. Yeah, we have to start with just accepting. Accepting of the fact that, and writing in is one of those moments of accepting this core belief in yourself. And these beliefs are built up through this past experience in our childhood, the way we've interacted with friends and family, earning their love, and we've found certain patterns to find that validation. And unfortunately, those patterns get hardwired into us and lead to this frustration. Understanding and accepting yourself as part of the equation. I think the other thing when it comes to changing beliefs is looking for new evidence and data. A lot of times we talk about belief restructuring in class and the bootcamp. And we hold onto these beliefs because we have this one data point in our past that validates that belief. And sometimes it takes careful self-examination of, well, does that data really represent the whole picture? Or am I holding onto the wrong things? Or am I only attributing this selfishly to myself and not realizing that there could be other reasons for this behavior? And when we start to question the data itself, we start to loosen that belief from holding us and fusing us to that emotion. I know, Johnny, you have a whole section on belief restructuring. Yeah, I think the first part of this has been made where he identifies that he looks for value and other people. Great, so let's refocus it to yourself. And then in order to begin to do this, you have to put a narrative together of who you are and who you are striving to be. And then you have to look at your core values and are they representative of the narrative that you've built for yourself and who you want to be? Or are they unsupportive of that? If your narrative is unsupported by facts that strengthen it, then it's weak. And of course, you're not gonna feel very good about yourself. And of course, you're looking to others to fill in the gap and tell you that you are who you so you are. However, if you wake up every day and you're putting in the hard work and now you have evidence and data that are supporting your narrative, well then your frame becomes much stronger and you can begin to start feeling good that even though you'll always have that yearning, at least you're building yourself up and you can start to look at your accomplishments and you can look at that data and evidence that is showing that you are this person that you've set out to be and you're working towards the person that you wanna be. And that is a process and that is a journey and that becomes the long road that we start working on ourselves every day. And it sounds daunting, but when you're actually doing it and you're living it well, it becomes quite fun. Well, I'm sure that you have a routine and a schedule that keeps you one step ahead of being in the grips of some depression or fighting any of the self-doubt that comes with being an entrepreneur. I gotta say one thing that I do, it's simple, but every night when my head hits the pillow and usually the last thoughts I have for the night is I list off every single thing that I'm grateful for. And I gotta say, I make it even minute things that happened in the day, it could be how good my salad was at lunch. It sounds odd, but when you make it a practice of showing gratitude, it makes you realize that not everything comes in these big life-changing things. If I can only get married, if I can only get this new job, if I can only do those things, if you have a practice of gratitude. And I gotta tell you, I only need to come up with like 10 items, right? Like it doesn't have to be. And again, these are super small items. The items itself don't matter. It's the exercise that makes me go to bed every night going, man, you know, life ain't so bad, right? Even on a shitty day, to be fair, right? You know, especially on a shitty day where you're at home and you're like, man, I can't believe we just got into this, you know, huge thing. And I'm like, man, my son's so adorable, right? And my daughter's so smart. And like, I just start like listing off these things. And I'm like, man, today was still a pretty shitty day, but I'm really grateful for a lot. And if you keep doing that every single night, it battles depression, anxiety, and most importantly, during the day, like today, I actually didn't have a really delicious salad. That's gonna come up tonight. But during the day, you start to pick up on all the things that are great in not having to only ascribe them to these big, massive goals. It's the little things that matter. Yeah, training your brain to put the spotlight on the right things. Yes. And right now, he's putting the spotlight on the external things. The things that he doesn't have any control over. Does this person love me? How can I get them to love me? You don't have control over that, but you do have control over what you're grateful for. And it's not an easy practice. And sometimes the things you're grateful for are the same, day in and day out. It doesn't have to be 10 new things every single day, either. And that's something that I know a lot of our guys after the program, we give them the five minute journal and they struggle, well, can I put the same thing in today as I put in yesterday? Yes, you can. We are strengthening this grateful attitude in ourselves to look internally for that validation instead of externally. And you will find, much like a flashlight, as much as you try to put that beam of light, there's gonna be some stray beams of light that hit external validation. And you're still looking at your neighbor, looking at his car, looking at his business valuation. But that flashlight is pointed in the right direction and you're filling yourself internally with the validation that you need to move forward. Yeah, well, the problem is, for what it's worth, most folks are looking for too big of objects to get that validation. I mentioned the big job, marriage, et cetera. Those by themselves are too big. In order to be able to feel validated, you need small things that you can actually wrap your head around on a day-to-day basis. I love that. Here's the last question for today. And I think you'll get a kick out of this, again, working with founders. The AOC teaching is so much about proactivity and becoming a great personality through mastering the art of socializing. Where does this intersect with the more spiritual approaches to personal development? Can I do both meditate, accept what is, and actively work on myself? And I know in the startup space, everyone is talking about all these different ways to find mindfulness, to find happiness, to feel fulfilled. There is no one magic bullet, and we highly encourage you to try all of these things. I think it's about cross-training. Yeah, it's gotta be around the board. Yeah, why not? And here's what I found. In working with startups for a long time for the past 25 years, what I've discovered over and over is that we all had a false profit that was startup success. We all believe that if we could just get to this next level, if we could just get to this next outcome, that all our hopes and dreams will be fulfilled. And I wanna be clear, some of them were, right? You know, some of that, you wanted that nice house or the nice car or whatever. Yeah, that actually does provide it. But nobody ever asked, then what? I've got so many friends, because a lot of them are founders, that have gone on to sell their companies. And they're glad to have made that milestone. But now that no one ever asked, and then what are you gonna do? And they realized that their lives had no meaning, that they had no core purpose that existed outside of their companies. And when something can go away even if it's good, that leaves you really empty. And now, so I think you mentioned this, a lot of the folks in the startup business are coming back and saying, dude, I don't wanna wait until if maybe I sell my company, like I wanna start living my life and enjoying myself now, right? And I think, right, yeah, why wait? I think deferred happiness is bullshit. And understanding that when we're talking about personal development, we're talking about being proactive or talking about trying to become something else, it doesn't mean you should stop celebrating who you are right now and how far you've come. We get so focused on exactly that. What's the next foothold? What's the next rung of the ladder? Or where's the next mountaintop? We don't think about, man, I built this team from zero to 10 people. Sure, I'd love it to be 200 people. I'd love to be as successful as will. But wow, I never thought that I could even build this business. And wow, my problems today are a lot different than my problems were two years ago. And if I would have told myself two years ago, those are my problems, I'd be whistling Dixie. I'd be really freaking happy right now. That perspective is so important with all of this and meditation can help with that, acceptance can help with that, journaling can help with that. It's not just about proactivity and what's next, it's understanding the journey. Well, we'll mention it about the big wins, right? It's these large expectations. And if you're only focused on them, you're not gonna be able to see any of the incremental stuff. And if you're only focused on that, you're, it's going to make it difficult for you to, if you can't see the incremental stuff, to enjoy that process. I was gonna say for a lot of folks, the process right now is strenuous, right? I'm loaded up in debt, I'm on the startup side, right? It's hard for me to see the good in this part of the journey, but I think you guys nailed it. All of those different exercises, whether it's journaling, whether it's meditating, whether it's just mindfulness and gratitude, are what makes the big exit at the end worthwhile. What happened for most of the folks in kind of my own in the startup world, we never went through those exercises. We just expected all of the reward to come from the sale of the company or something like that. And then that time came, there was no reward and we were more miserable than when we started. That's a shitty way to live, you know? Absolutely, that's not a way that I wanna live. And I love what you're doing with startups.com and the podcasts. I think it's phenomenal to get so candid and open and honest. I know a lot of us put founders on a pedestal. We read about these amazing success stories. We don't often realize the internal battle that goes on wrestling with family, spouse, our own self-doubt, how do we overcome all of that? And I appreciate what you're doing with the show and obviously where can our listeners find more about your podcast and startups.com? Sure, so startups.com, you can hop out to the website or go to startups.com slash podcast and you can get the startup therapy podcast where just like this guys, we sit around and we unpack all of the crazy stuff that's going through our minds. It's very candid as you guys listen to it. Like we've talked very deeply about how we feel emotionally, what we're really getting out of this journey, what we're not getting out of this journey, how we're destroying relationships around us. It's pretty bare. And even if you're not in a startup or you're thinking about starting a startup, you wanna understand the journey. I think it's a great place to start. I know a lot of our listeners ask us all the time, should I do this? Should I leave my job? I have this idea, what if? And you do a great job breaking it down. Thank you so much for joining us, Will. We appreciate it. Thanks guys, appreciate it. Thanks. Special thanks to Will for coming and joining us on the show. Great to get his answers to those questions. I know he had a wealth of negotiating experience. Johnny and I were taking some notes as well. And we have a couple shout outs. Before we give you this week's challenge, a shout out from Ken who recently discovered our show. I've listened to episodes 739 and 742 about two weeks ago and started to focus on people around me, rekindled that lost communication with my friends and started to rekindle my relationships with my family. Focused on the quality relationships I have, cut out the people who are holding me back and put the negative chatter in my head. And I feel better and more energetic than before. Just wanna say thank you, you guys are the first podcast I've listened to on Spotify and you guys never fail to give quality content, whether it's about dating, other forms of relationships, confidence or mindset. And I still remember that time, you guys had a lot of tips in one episode that it actually made me take notes. I love that, we hear that all the time. Here's another one from Chloe. I just wanted to say a massive thank you for the work you and Johnny do making your podcast. I've only discovered them a few weeks back and I can happily say that I've seen a massive increase in my self-confidence and overall happiness. We'd love to hear that. Listen to your podcast or the highlight of my day and I will literally go for a walk just so I can listen to them. They are so real positive and enjoyable to listen to. Thanks, so thank you to Ken and Chloe. As always, you can leave us a glowing review on any of the podcast apps you listen to. So here is our challenge for you this week. As you've heard, this negotiation month, it is a skill that needs a lot of practice. As Will said, it took experience to build that credibility and at the same time, we usually only ever practice when we're already in a situation where we know a lot is on the line, like job interviews as we heard from Jessica. So we have a challenge for you. Johnny and I want to give you an exercise in which you can practice negotiation in a fun way on a day-to-day basis. This week, whenever you go out and buy something at the checkout, we want you to ask for something that you could have for free. For example, if you're getting a coffee, ask if you can get a cookie with it. If you're buying a new pair of pants, ask if they could throw in a shirt for free. You get the point. Now here's the important part. Of course they're gonna reject you at first. They'll ask why or tell you straight up, no, that's not possible. That's when we want you to not give up so quickly. See, if you can hold your ground for a bit there. And yes, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, but that's the point. If you can't get uncomfortable asking for a free cookie with your coffee, you probably won't get comfortable negotiating your salary either. And if you get something for free, take a photo of whatever you got and send it on over to us. We're always excited to hear from you on these challenges. You could send your thoughts or questions by heading on over to theartofcharm.com slash questions. You can also email us questions at theartofcharm.com and you can find us on social media at theartofcharm, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Also, could you do us and the entire Art of Charm team a big favor? Could you go on over to iTunes and rate this podcast? It would really mean the world to us all. The Art of Charm podcast is produced by Chris Olin and Michael Harold and engineered by Danny Luber and Bradley Denham at Cast Media Studios in sunny downtown Hollywood. I'm AJ. And I'm Johnny. We'll see you next week.