Chris Voss: FBI-Backed Tactics for Better Communication | Jefferson Fisher

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You can find those down in the show notes. Have you ever been in a conversation that really felt like a negotiation? where almost you felt out of your own depth? Well, I brought you somebody that is the master of all negotiations, Chris Voss. You know him, you love him. Former FBI negotiator, author of Never Split the Difference, an international bestseller, and CEO of the Black Swan Network, a group so focused is to improve your negotiation skills no matter where you're at in life chris my friend good to see you again yeah jeff's an absolute pleasure i always enjoy talking with you yeah it's um it's so cool to be able to talk you're such a hero of mine i know i've told you this we've been able to have a friendship outside of this right here and it's just been you're a huge role model to me so i want to make sure i have it on the record i've always loved your stuff and tactical empathy is right in line with my own mission in the world so thanks for putting that this out here for us yeah man it's my pleasure i think our our thoughts overlap in our approach to life collaborative i love your book and so yeah it's a pleasure talking with you thanks man i have a quote that i pulled from your book now anybody listening right now if you if you don't have never split the difference you're missing out on something that i'm going to tell you is going to immediately make you a better communicator especially when it comes to positions of negotiation and and that didn't mean just in the workplace also means at home too and is this right here for those people who negotiate who view negotiation as a battle of arguments it's the voices in their own head that are overwhelming them i love it because i think there's so much truth to that that people get so caught up in that anxiety because it's not what you're saying It's the voices in their own head of what they're telling themselves. I want you to expand on that, Smorgas. I love this quote. Yeah, well, you know, it's sorting out which voice in your head you're going to listen to also. And most of the time, the voices in your head are your amygdala, your fear centers. They're kicking into gear on you, and they're just not your friend. They're just not. You know, a friend of mine, Sean Stevenson, was a great guy, died tragically. five-ish years ago and it just started to get to know sean and collaborate with him and i knew right away that we're on the same sheet of music because he just flat out said to us like our biggest enemies are amygdala a fear center in our brain it just was necessary to keep us alive when we were actually being chased by saber-toothed tigers and being you know chased down um outside the cave away from the campfire by all sorts of creatures that wanted to eat us on a regular basis but just not our friend these days. And the voice in your head can just make you do stupid things and make you paranoid and overreact. And what voice should you listen to? Like the intuition, if you can sort your fear centers from your intuition. And I even sometimes say to myself, like, what is my gut telling me? Because I get problems over covering my amygdala too. You know, if you're tired, it's been a long day, you didn't get a good night's sleep the night before, like your amygdala just just spoiling for that opportunity to get to take over the controls and if you can listen to your gut instead your gut's really really accurate it's a real help it's just sorting the two out yeah there's something about the voice inside your own head you know it's it's uh how our brain does that i really don't know it doesn't matter it's going to happen anyway i've just what what's the voice that you're listening to and what's really your gut you have this line about getting a no isn't the end of a conversation it's the beginning what is the importance of getting to know in an argument or a conversation yeah you know we didn't even realize how significant that was when we first wrote the book you know the books collaboration between me and my son brandon uh brandon voss um uh uncredited co-author tall ross and tall is doing his best there and did a phenomenal job capturing our thoughts and putting in our voice but like when somebody says no something happens to them the the person who utters the word no versus the person who hears it the person who says no feels safe and protected and so that's how that becomes the beginning of the conversation because having feel like they protected themselves and they feel safe then they're more open to dialogue they're more open to listening you're you're not a threat or the issue isn't a threat there's this pavlovian response to uttering the word no that opens people up and that's why in so many cases if you're willing to give it the space um no we'll start the conversation do you find that it's just because i mean as as we were little kids i mean for anybody listening i know if you have your own kids or you remember being a kid we just have a gut reaction and go no even if you know like to my son this is your favorite meal what are you talking about and he's just no or my my daughter just decides she no longer loves strawberries i'm like you couldn't eat enough strawberries yesterday it is this sense inside of us where maybe it's just our own independence where do you think that comes from this desire for us to immediately just go no i'm going to go for what's safe and that's not filling me right now i need to just say no yeah well that's interesting question i mean the parental dilemma is your kids don't do what you tell them to do they do what they see you do no and your kids saw you say no you know your kid see you say no to them all the time and that's how you assert your autonomy and control of the situation so they want to be like you they're seeing you say no and they're like oh okay saying no is a way to assert my autonomy to protect myself to gain control of my environment it makes me feel good to say it and yeah that's what that's what's happening right and that's really what's happening just it feels good to say it i think that explains it perfectly you have a way of which is is brilliant of asking questions to get to a no for those listening to us right now what is the importance of flipping a question to get to a no rather than finding a way for them to say yes to it yeah that's and that is the craziest thing so it's kind of like a two-step explanation maybe three-step uh everybody's been bamboozled with yes uh the yes momentum momentum selling ask them three questions three different questions they answered each question is a micro agreement or a tie down and you would you like to make more money uh would you like to live in a bigger house you know they seemingly and there may be at a point in time where this worked and i think everybody has been hustled by this at some point in time in their life uh before you realize that you were being led down a path and you got led down the path so many times that your gut instinct oh last time somebody tried to get me to say yes you know they ended up trapping me and so then you have a pavlovian response you know pavlov's dog the bell rings they feed then every time the bell rings the dog salivates well every time somebody tries to get you to say yes they they led you down a path there was a trap there was a bear trap there that all right so the minute somebody's trying to get me to say yes there's a trapped so there's a is a psychological pavlovian response so and as stupid as that and true as it sounds it seems stupid that the opposite would be true that people feel safe when they say no and they'll open up and but in point of fact they do we were we were teaching this we're doing a course for a company that does business with hospitals probably about five years ago. And this woman in the head of their sales is trying to get the head nurse of this particular hospital to accept a system, have been a yes-oriented approach. And she says, look, this woman is in a no mode. She says no to everything I say. So I'm like, all right, flip your questions. She's like, no, that's not going to work. That's stupid. I mean, if I just reword it and she says no, it's going to change things. And so she got up out of the room, left the training, went to the hallway, sent the head nurse a text. Are you against implementing this program? The head nurse immediately texted back. She's like, no, just let me know what we have to do to move forward. And she comes walking back in a room with her phone in her hand. She can't believe what's on. She said, you guys are not going to believe what just happened. And so people condition themselves that when they say no, they're safe. and they're willing to entertain stuff that they've been blocking previously just because saying yes scared them i think that's just so cool i mean just how funny to use how our minds naturally work i mean for for a wonderful positive way it's just finding how you know our own idiosyncrasies and our defaults of saying no if you're anything like me when you get home You want to take off your work clothes and just get comfortable. One of my favorite sponsors of this podcast is called Cozy Earth. And the reason why I went with Cozy is because I already use their stuff. Their sheets are on my bed right now. My wife loves their pajamas. I, when I get home, I take off my suit and I put on a hoodie and some sweatpants. You can go to CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson. And for this weekend only, March 14th through the 16th, you'll get up to 45% off on Cozy Earth. You can go to CozyEarth.com slash Jefferson and use the code Jefferson for 45% off to celebrate World Sleep Week. Nothing better than that. For people listening right now, what are some great lean-ins or let's say lead-ins for how they might begin a question to flip it to no. So how would you teach somebody to begin a question to get a no answer? I've heard you say, like, are you against? Would it offend you? Would you hate? Is there a certain way? What's the magic behind it? You know, how can you give yourself a lot of practice to start with? First of all, the test to see if it worked. And the most common thing is calling somebody on the phone or even stopping them and saying, have you got a few minutes to talk? flip that to is now a bad time to talk that will get your practice now i'm to i'll tell you in advance what the reaction is going to be when you say it's now a bad time to talk they're going to hesitate for a moment and then they're like no no what do you got or they'll say yeah as a matter of fact it is a bad time and then they'll tell you when they can't talk and what you want is you want a conversation where they don't feel guarded and i've never had anybody not give me a better time you know and plus in many cases they may be able to talk to you but they're distracted a lot of people make the mistake of multitasking um when we were talking about you know the bourbon that my company's launching the you know i got my bourbon shirt on the difference nice you know anything i get any i'm you i'm a human billboard i'm gonna i'm gonna advertise my stuff when i get the opportunity yeah i can learn some things yeah but the guy the guy that did the bourbon previously he'd done a documentary film on my company tactical empathy if you're interested uh it's on amazon yes please but so he screened it for me first time in vegas and the plan was a month and a half later he's going to show it at a function in Beverly Hills and the night I saw it you know I loved it and I woke up the next morning and I realized there was a fundamental flaw with the documentary and I was not going to allow it to go out unless this thing was fixed so it's a Sunday afternoon and I got to talk to him we got to fix this now I sent him a two line text is now a bad time to talk you're not going to want to hear what i have to say so in point of fact he was on a zoom call and he texted me back immediately and said i'm in the middle of a zoom call and i can talk to you at three i'll call you three now if i'd have called him he would have answered the phone because we have that kind of a relationship we're good friends he's got to pick up the phone which means he would have taken my call while he was on a zoom call which means he would have done a bad job at both i don't need that i need his undivided attention because we got a problem and the clock is ticking on us really hard and so i need him to let me know when he can speak to me undivided attention it's now a bad time to talk what is a bad time i don't want to talk to him when it's a bad time i want him to give me an alternative time and i need 100 focus he's he's dialed in he's prepping for bad news now i don't know what was going through his mind when you when you prep somebody for bad news the worst that happens is they imagine something equal to what you have to say nine times out of ten they imagine worst yes i don't know what was on his mind but again work the clock is ticking and we don't have time to argue about this he calls me on the phone i say look this is this is a problem they're gone he's ahead of coaching we left him out of the film we have to put him in the film he's been too critical to everything we've done now we've been working on this film for a year and nick could rightly say we've been working on this for a year you know what's the matter with you this is going to cost me money it's got to be a problem but since i dialed him up with those two text messages he says okay this is what we got to do I need Derek's schedule we got to get Derek on camera that means I got to get a camera crew to him or we got to get him to a camera crew now we're showing this film in a month and it's going to take once we get the film it's going to take me three weeks to edit it in so we have to do this now and I'm like done and done and done But it all started with me not letting him have a multitasking conversation, which was the point of, it's now a bad time to talk. I need focus. And that's what's going to happen when you throw it out there to people. Yeah, it's like the magic that can happen. All you have to do is just to turn a phrase. What I see, for those that are listening to me and Chris right now, I think a good takeaway for how to get people to answer no is to begin with a negative in the first part of your sentence. So instead of asking someone, is it a good time to talk, is now a bad time to talk. So you find ways to flip the positive words and the negative words. Would it be terrible of me to ask you this? Would you be offended by is now a bad time? Use words that are negative in the first part of your sentence, and that's going to flip for them to have to answer also in the negative rather than try to say something positive in the beginning. Would you agree with that? That's perfectly described. Yeah, well, I think that's a and I'm going to do that my own life. Also, I want to make sure we get this. This is tactical empathy on Netflix. Yes. Yeah, it's on Amazon. I want to put that in my I want to put that in my cart I want to I want to bookmark that yeah record it my memory well I think that is one of the just magical ways but just a simple turn of phrase will create so much power in the conversation that the other person really just has no clue about it it's still the same thing you're still wanting to get that same information but you're using the fact that we naturally want to say no because no is very comfortable Not that they're trying to turn you down. It's just know what's more comfortable to say. And so by using that to your advantage, you're going to get more of what you want. There's something else that you teach that it's called an accusation audit. Yeah. I love these. When I first read the book and saw that, I was like, this is brilliant. For anybody who has not heard what an accusation audit is in your world, can you just tell us? it's principally we tried to make it this self-defining so think of yourself as an accountant who's going to do an audit now do an audit slash assessment slash inventory of the negative thoughts the other side might be harboring against you their accusations and be liberal um thinking lots you know once you start thinking about this a lot of stuff occur to you yeah you say be liberally like be creative be creative yeah and um and then what you do is you lay it out up front now what scares most people about this is even if they are believe that labeling identifying a negative diffuses it and it does there's actually a brain science that backs it up not denying it uh you say seem say something like it's gonna it's it sounds like I'm going to sound disrespectful instead of I don't want to sound disrespectful. I don't want to sound disrespectful is the wrong way. That's a denial. I'm going to sound disrespectful is the correct way. It's a prediction. It's an observation. So if it's there, it deactivates it. Now, what scares everybody is that you can plant the negative. You can plant the negative emotion. You can't plant emotions in people's heads. You can't plant negatives. You can't plant positive. you can only work with what's there so the accusations audit is probably one of the single most effective most used strategies that we coach people on to break open negotiations to break down barriers to solve problems in an accelerated fashion to really get to the heart of the matter really quickly because it just deactivates and disables the negatives and inoculates for many that may pop up you don't know what just my nerd weird communication brain like how much i love i love this so much uh i've been dreaming of this conversation with you what is the one thing that somebody can do in their conversation that is going to apply the principles of an accusation audit and let's put in maybe a home scenario in a work scenario You know, I'm glad you asked that because my staff is doing this to me all the time. And why do they do it to me all the time? Because it works at home. Like, they'll walk into my office and go, it's now a bad time to talk. No. You're going to hate me for this. I got, you know, my girlfriend, I got to take my girlfriend to the grocery store. Like, I don't know what it is. Like, they are throwing this one word out, you know, and when you're doing the accusations all right i mean go for the strong work you know don't don't pull your punches which is why they say you know you're gonna hate me for this like no i'm not gonna you know my first reaction is like what are you gonna do are you gonna are you gonna are you gonna set my house on fire are you gonna dump your garbage in in my in inside my truck like i imagined something horrible and and they'll ask me something that is less than what i was worried about and you know they're preempting it and so you're gonna hate me for this start that on your ass on a people in your regular in your life now why why is everybody on my staff doing this to me instantly not because they're trying to show off they got an inkling of this and they actually started using it at home and they changed all their conversations at home and so they're like hey this works and if it works at home it's going to work you know out on the street on a regular basis so yeah start start trying you got to ask of it's going to make somebody uncomfortable yeah say you know i don't and don't say i don't want this to make you uncomfortable which is again denial right you know you're going to hate me for this and then and then see what happens look playfully see what happens on small stakes stuff you know let's get some data what i find so uh fascinating about this is that it uses our contradictory nature like if i uh if i was going to tell you like um now you're probably really exhausted today naturally you're going to be like no i'm not exhausted like you naturally want to find another word oh no i'm not exhausted i mean i'm tired but i'm not like we naturally kind of just have this contrarian sense to us some more than others in our lives and it just plays to that so well like if i was going to tell you um where like you talked about the bad way to do this the wrong way to do it is to say i don't mean to offend you but now you've only almost confirmed that you will you've almost guaranteed you will now offend them right but if you come at it from you're probably going to think this is offensive but and then tell them that now they're going to think like the contrarian in the heads goes no that's not offensive no you can't offend me like that now they have to push against you do you find that it's this contradiction that we like to have of just natural disagreement with somebody no matter what it is it's like our gut instinct and it's that disagreement that makes this work so well yeah yeah i think you're definitely on the right track i think it's probably two or three things um and very similar to the contrarian uh correction as well i mean it's it's a correcting not you don't feel that way that's both that's both contrarian and correcting yeah and people love to correct i mean you know people love to correct we do yes so i think that yeah you know there's a famous judge judy thing you know this guy his girl's accused of this guy is stealing her purse and you know she's sitting there and she outlines all the stuff that was in a purse and and then of course she throws in there like forty dollars in cash and the guy immediately says there was no cash in that purse and the judge starts to laugh and said folks the only way you know that is if you stole it yeah i love that yeah judge judy what an icon um something i want to make sure and bring up so that uh my listeners can hear this the phrase sounds like there's a reason for saying that sounds like you have a reason for saying that what is the power behind that phrase that somebody can use immediately in their next conversation and what will that do for them yeah that is one of the magic wand phrases uh and we've for whatever reason just for the fun of it you We label a number of go-to phrases, magic wand phrases, because it just changes so much instantly. It's like waving a magic wand. So what is behind what somebody said is always more important than what they said. It's always more important. Some people call it the question behind the question, the thought behind it. What makes them say that? It's so much more important. You need to know what their thought process is. and your guess at best is going to be accurate about 30 percent of the time which is not a bad accuracy you know it's not better than half but it's not it's not a horrible percentage but that means about two-thirds of the time your guess is going to be wrong so you need to pull out why they said that and you know it sounds like you have a reason for saying that it seems like you have a reason for saying that whatever sort of take you want on that you want to approach them in a way and that's different than a question because if I say what makes you say that the word what causes you to stop and think you're going to go into in-depth thinking which means you may not have the energy to answer number one because in-depth thinking is tiring and number two you're going to think about it before you answer me and I really want an unvarnished answer. I want it coming right out of your mouth without sucking a lot of energy out of you. And I know that if I say it seems like I have a reason for saying that, you are more likely to give it to me straight right off the bat. It doesn't feel judgmental on your part. It feels very encouraging. It feels open and collaborative. It opens all these doors to sharing information that is not exhausting and actually develops rapport. So it's a great way to find out what made him say what they just said. Listen, I care about you. If you're listening to this podcast, I care about you. And because I care about you as somebody who also loves communication and conversations, I know that you can't just have all these conversations in your head. Yeah, I can give you advice, but sometimes you need more. You need to talk to somebody else who's trained in helping guide you through this. And that's where therapy comes in. I go to therapy. it's incredibly helpful and a sponsor of this podcast is better help what they do it's an online platform where they can connect you with online therapists all you have to do is fill out a quick questionnaire and they match you with a therapist and if it doesn't work out with somebody else they can easily switch you to somebody new but the point is you're getting it out and diving deeper for better answers because conversations come with questions therapy comes with answers you You can go to betterhelp.com slash jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash jeffersonfisher. I find that in my world, I cross-examine people in a deposition. And if I say, sounds like there's more to that, which is very similar. I mean, it's the same type of method here. They always have a reason for saying it. You know, they always have more behind it. and I think you're absolutely right. It's such a good way of getting more information out without making them defensive, like making them feel like you're on the attack. Yeah, it's a great circumstance too because in that deposition, probably by definition, you're a threat, and so they're going to be reluctant, and you want them to pull that information where they don't see you as a threat, and also if it's a deposition, it's probably going to go on for hours. It doesn't really help you to exhaust them because the more tired they get, the less information they're going to be able to supply. Right. Here's a question I got. What is the Chris Voss way of handling passive aggressive people? It would really be, first of all, they may be what I refer to as a seven percenter, which is a person I don't want to deal with anyway. Yeah. I learned a long time ago, do I have to deal with this person? My former boss, Gary Nessner, used to say our approach to negotiation was best chance of success. Which means by definition, it's not a guaranteed chance of success. So I'm going to gauge the other person. How passive aggressive are they? Do I have to deal with them? Do I want to be handcuffed to this person for the foreseeable future, for forever? um a friend of mine joe polish refers to these people as halves hard annoying lame and frustrated and joy says just don't deal with halves cut them out of your life and so if somebody's passive-aggressive my first question to myself is do i want to be handcuffed to this person over a long-term period of time and if the answer is no then i'm out uh the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior if you're passive-aggressive now for me personally there's a really good chance that uh you're gonna get fired the relationship yeah um now what happens if i feel like i have to what if uh i'm handcuffed to him what if i've taken myself hostage then probably gonna start labeling and then if it sounds to me like you don't want to give me an answer because passive aggressive what they do is they throw stuff back on you what do you want me to do is one of their favorite questions after you've just told them what you want them to do right because they know how exhausting that is they'll be like ah you know look i need you to go down i need you to do this this is a problem this is a problem we need to fix this and they'll be like well what do you want me to do like like they well like they're deaf because you just told them but it's a great strategy for exhausting you and wearing you out, which is what a passive-aggressive person is often going to do. So I might label them. It sounds to me like what I just said was confusing. Yeah. When you say labeling, define that for us real quick, how you apply that. The basic label is a verbal observation which starts with it seems like, and then you make your observation it sounds like it looks like sometimes it even feels like and if somebody's passive-aggressive uh they're dragging their feet you can say it feels like you're dragging your feet here uh let's just make it an observation based on an emotion or dynamic that you see it's a verbal observation and if if you see it if even if you sense it it's now fair game to observe it verbally slap a label on it identify what you're seeing and say it out loud and depending upon how you're wired or how it's presented that's why the choices are basically like it looks like sounds like it seems like it feels like it's a very collaborative thing to do it's you're open to correction somebody can say what you know don't don't don't don't tell me what i am my answer is going to be like i didn't say you were i said that's the way it look well that's the way it sounds so it's it's a it's not accusatory believe it or not yeah this it feels very related to the the whole sense of like we said correction they'll they'll want to correct you so if you do something simple as labeling of yeah i'm i'm feeling like you feel nervous about this conversation or you feel uneasy about this it's just you labeling that they're going to correct you and go no i'm not uneasy i i just and they give you the truth versus you trying more to skate around it so labeling is just a verbally saying out loud what you're sensing and feeling in that moment exactly yeah well said one part of what i feel makes chris foss chris for us is what i guess the younger kids would call the vibes like you have this vibe that you know is your vibe where did you grow up by the way uh small town in iowa i'm a small town iowa boy got it and it's i don't know where your accent comes from is it that i don't know how iowans sound it's convoluted no yeah but it's this this tone that you have that like if you had told me like look i just wanna i want your couch i'd be like no chris you can't have my couch i know it's a great couch i shouldn't have it but i just i really like this couch and i feel like gosh you know what you sound so good chris here you can you can take it it's um what i'm getting here too is It's just the power of the voice and the volume and the tone, which you just have a signature style on. And I know that you talk about that as something that you were trained on, you know, that late night DJ voice. So what kind of lessons can somebody take from slowing down their words and lowering their volume, regardless of their gender? people connect you a lot easier and the connection tends to stick um if you're communicating with a high volume of words with a lot of energy with a lot of emotion uh it has a really fast half-life it goes away really quickly and you want to communicate in a way with people they kind of resonate with you know it it resonates with their bones and they don't feel pushed the energy is not necessary to continue the relationship um yeah i learned it on a suicide hotline you know then continue to learn it as a hostage negotiator ran across a hypnotherapist one time that said that's exactly how we get people to relax uh and so then ideally the perfect combination if you can if you can downward inflect if you could slow down and you don't have to have a deep voice like women can downward inflect by simply dropping their chin downward and inflection and then the occasional smile like it just gives people a warm feeling it's something they're drawn to that they resonate with and you put the two of those together it it tends to really it really lasts it sticks people like it and they feel comfortable with it i find that it's this this sound when you can hear it in somebody's voice you just think to yourself i want them on my side i don't know what they have but listening to it i i want them on my side what i try to picture often when somebody is communicating i kind of apply a music style like if i had a cd album for this person's voice what would i apply you know would it be something very frank sinatra would it be something super loud and crazy or would it be hip-hop like what is the vibe of this person and if it all takes different walks of life some people are not for other people and it's some people are easier to listen to uh and some music is easier to listen to so i think you're spot on with you know having the ability to slow down is going to make people more drawn to you is that would that be right yeah drawn to you less rushed less cornered they feel voluntary they feel collaborative it just makes it easier yeah they're very drawn to you with it you um have just been such a truly a legend in how the way you've turned in my view arguments and negotiations on their head of just that's not how we think about them but it's the way you the techniques you teach are really i i just find groundbreaking to the person right now who is thinking i don't want anybody to disagree with me i want everybody to agree with me i want every conversation i have an argument that i'm in i i want to win it and everybody needs to go along with my plan what what would you say to that person right now who feels like they always have something to prove in the conversation yeah you're driving people away from here yeah you're just you're consistently you're going to find your meaningful conversations are going to be fewer and fewer they're going to be farther and farther apart you know the ones that you win will obscure how much you lose I think of it as a Las Vegas slot machine effect. Like, people get addicted to the slots. What are the numbers? How often do you win on a slot machine? I've read that the arithmetic, the algorithm is, if they let you win one in every 84 polls, you're going to keep dumping money into the slot machine. Because the win is so celebratory. Like, if you got something to prove, and you got somebody over a barrel and you force them into submission, it's like the slot machine going off. The bells and the whistles are ringing. The lights are flashing. You're getting this huge hit of dopamine, anticipation, it feels so good. And you don't realize that you lose 83 out of 84 times. And they're slowly draining your bank account. So if you got something to prove, you're just slowly driving people away from you. And suddenly, you can't remember the last time you had a breakthrough or nobody in your industry talks to you or people pay you the annoyance tax just so you go away. And you got all these small wins, but they don't accumulate. They don't add to much. You're not doing as well as the other people that somehow, they get along with people. They're not as argumentative, but they got a bigger house than I do. They got a better car. They're making more money. how did that happen i think exactly right um this idea of when you're trying to come in and prove everything and push people away like you said you're only draining your own bank account uh bank account of life uh and i i think that's uh i think that's wise wisdom all right what i learned today in our conversation and i i wish this was seven hours uh is that one it's easier to get questions answered when you flip them to get a no rather than a yes. And one way to do that is you can begin with a negative in your question. That's going to help get a negative response to keep you down the road. Second of all, accusation audit. It's a way of simply saying how you assume that they might be feeling in the conversation. And the idea here is one way to actually correct you and tell you more of what they're feeling behind the scenes. Or three is labeling and that is simply visually saying out loud it seems like it sounds like it feels like of what you're perceiving that's also going to get them to open up in this conversation chris did we did we hit it did we cover it well said brother very well said i love talking with you man it's the best it really is from somebody who um this is just like my i feel like i'm a Minor league baseball player talking to Babe Ruth like it's just I think it's just so cool That's kind of I get so excited talking to you and love love what you do. Thank you for coming on the podcast It's a true honor. Thanks. Pleasure's mine Jefferson

Chris Voss: FBI-Backed Tactics for Better Communication | Jefferson FisherChrisVoss, #JeffersonFisher, #CommunicationSkills, #NegotiationTactics, #FBITechniques, #TacticalEmpathy, #ConflictResolution, Discover powerful, real-world communication strategies inspired by Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, and explained through the clear, practical lens of Jefferson Fisher. In this 20-minute news-style speech, you’ll learn how FBI-backed tactics can help you stay calm, persuasive, and confident in difficult conversations—whether at work, at home, or in high-pressure moments.
This talk breaks down negotiation psychology, emotional intelligence, and tactical empathy into simple tools you can use immediately to improve your communication and influence without aggression.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 ⏳ Introduction: Why Communication Is Power
01:45 🧠 Who Is Chris Voss & FBI Negotiation Principles
04:10 🎯 Tactical Empathy Explained
06:30 🗣️ How Tone and Labels Change Conversations
09:00 🔑 The Power of Mirroring in Communication
11:20 ⚖️ Staying Calm Under Pressure
13:40 💬 Turning Conflict into Cooperation
16:00 🚀 Applying FBI Tactics to Daily Life
18:30 ✅ Key Takeaways & Final Thoughts

❓ Why Watch
Learn FBI-proven communication tactics used in high-stakes negotiations

Improve confidence in difficult or emotional conversations

Understand how to influence without arguing or forcing

Practical tools for relationships, business, and leadership

Simple, clear explanations by Jefferson Fisher

🔍  Keywords

Chris Voss communication, FBI negotiation tactics, Jefferson Fisher speech, tactical empathy, better communication skills, negotiation psychology, conflict resolution, persuasive communication, emotional intelligence, difficult conversations, influence skills, hostage negotiation techniques, calm communication, leadership communication, workplace communication, relationship communication, negotiation tips, communication mastery, high pressure conversations, persuasion skills, listening techniques, communication strategies, negotiation mindset, confidence in speaking, verbal influence, conflict management, communication coaching, negotiation skills training, FBI techniques, speaking skills

🔖 Hashtags

#chrisvoss , #JeffersonFisher, #CommunicationSkills, #NegotiationTactics, #FBITechniques, #TacticalEmpathy, #ConflictResolution, #EmotionalIntelligence, #PersuasionSkills, #LeadershipCommunication, #DifficultConversations, #InfluenceSkills, #NegotiationPsychology, #PublicSpeaking, #SelfImprovement, #PersonalDevelopment, #MindsetGrowth, #CommunicationTips, #WorkplaceSkills, #RelationshipAdvice, #HighPressure, #ConfidenceBuilding, #ListeningSkills, #VerbalSkills, #SuccessMindset, #LifeSkills, #PsychologyOfCommunication, #CalmCommunication, #ProfessionalGrowth, #NegotiationTraining

🏷️Tags

Chris Voss,
Jefferson Fisher,
FBI negotiation,
communication skills,
tactical empathy,
better communication,
conflict resolution,
negotiation tips,
persuasion tactics,
emotional intelligence,
leadership skills,
difficult conversations,
influence skills,
communication coaching,
workplace communication,
relationship communication,
public speaking,
confidence building,
listening skills,
psychology of negotiation,
verbal communication,
self improvement,
personal development,
high pressure talks,
communication mastery,

⚠️ Disclaimer

This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is based on communication principles and public insights inspired by Chris Voss and presented by Jefferson Fisher. It does not replace professional legal, psychological, or negotiation training. Viewer discretion is advised.