FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss on How to Get a Raise, a Better Job Offer, and Everything Else You Want

**Nicole Lapin** (0:00)
I consider negotiation cardio, but sometimes I need to actually move my body. To trick myself into working out, I like to switch it up. I recently went to a new gym to meet with a trainer my friend recommended. I hated it. It was too hard, it was too fast, and also somehow boring. The only easy part was paying on my way out. Thankfully, they used Square so I could tap and go and never think about doing pendulum squats again. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the easy way for business owners to take payments, book appointments, manage staff, and keep everything running in one place. Whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair, detailing cars, or running a design studio, Square helps you run your business without running yourself into the ground. And right now, listeners can get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/mnn.
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Visit Square to get started, because the right tools make all the difference. This episode was taped in the Money News Network Studio brought to you by US Bank. What's the secret to getting more money? It's how you ask for it. Today on Money Rehab, Chris Voss teaches us exactly how to ask for and get what we want. Chris has spent two decades with the FBI, where he became the lead international kidnapping negotiator. He's taught business negotiation at Harvard and at Georgetown. He's written best-selling books on negotiation, including Never Split the Difference, which is one of my absolute favorites and my husband is obsessed too. He tells us exactly what to say to get a raise at work, how to negotiate a better job offer, what mistakes kill a negotiation before they even start, and the negotiation myths that are actually setting you up to fail.
I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some Money Rehab.
Chris Voss, I am so excited to welcome you to Money Rehab.

**Chris Voss** (2:20)
I'm happy to be here, it's cool.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:22)
I gotta tell you that my husband and I talk about you sometimes in bed.

**Chris Voss** (2:28)
Like, there's so, that's a, you just threw me a softball, and I'm trying to decide whether or not, you know, that straight line, whether or not I should hit it, and I'm gonna take a pass.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:36)
We love, love, love, and are obsessed. This is what happens when two entrepreneurs live together.

**Chris Voss** (2:42)
Oh, yeah.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:42)
We are obsessed with your book.

**Chris Voss** (2:44)
Never Split the Difference.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:45)
So explain to people who haven't read it yet what that means, because when you think about negotiations, the most common thing is one person wants a thing for $10, one person wants a thing for $20. Let's meet in the middle and decide on $15.

**Chris Voss** (2:58)
Right? So theoretically, that's a good idea. The problem is, loss stings twice as much as an equivalent gain. That's one of the-

**Nicole Lapin** (3:08)
Say that one more time.

**Chris Voss** (3:09)
A loss stings twice as much as an equivalent gain. Ignore human nature at your peril, you can't get around that. Daniel Kahneman, Professor Kahneman, Nobel Prize in Behavioral Economics, 2002, Prospect Theory. The summary of it is a loss stings twice as much as an equivalent gain. So it's a rule of human nature. So what does that have to do with meeting in the middle? If I give in by five, I'm going to feel I gave in by ten. And I'm going to resent you. I'm not going to care that you gave in the same amount. I'm going to resent it because it felt like ten. So because I resent you, it's going to interfere in our implementation.
Resentment is a toxin for relationships. And so it's a poison that's going to continue to eat until I get you back, until I feel we're even. So I turn around and I do something in implementation, and I sting you for ten.
Now you got a reason to resent me. And so splitting the difference is a recipe for a downward spiral in a relationship. There's no way around it.

**Nicole Lapin** (4:23)
Because what you're saying is that human nature and the way that we're wired makes us believe that we lost out on something even though we gained half and the other person gained half.

**Chris Voss** (4:36)
You don't feel that.
There was, a long time ago when I was teaching at Georgetown, I stumbled over this video where they were stopping people in the street and getting them to bet on money. And the guy would say, okay, so first of all, I'm gonna give you this $10, the $10 is yours. Now, let's gamble it. Now, the person is playing with house money, they just got $10. And every time they lost it, they were suckered in to gamble more and more and more and more. Because they felt like they had a loss. It's just feeling like you had a loss. And really the real key to empathy is in any given moment, my experience is probably vastly different than yours. Empathy is comprehending what the other person is going through at the same time. And my experience could be so strongly positive or so strongly negative that I don't see what's going on with you. It's one of the reasons why I teach people to stop using common ground to connect.