The best trainer on how to negotiate I ever saw was a New Yorker named Herb Cohen. He was an internationally renowned negotiator and crisis management consultant (he consulted with the Carter administration during the Iran Hostage Crisis). He led his lecture with the phrase. “You have to care…but not so much.” (it reads better if you imagine it being said with a little bit of an old man New York accent). This has stuck with me for years.
In other words, never get so emotionally attached to an outcome that you won’t walk away from a bad deal. Why? Because if you have no point of rejection, no line on the sand, no intolerable outcomes, you will cave in to ridiculous demands and leave with a deal you hate. This is not just guidance in business, but applies to life in general.
It’s really simple. You get what you tolerate. What are you putting up with that you hate? What have you not walked away from that you know you must? A difficult customer? A dead-beat employee? A relationship gone bad? A dangerous environment? Abuse? Where will you draw the line?
A characteristic trait of highly successful people is their rigid adherence to their “must haves” and their willingness to walk away from their intolerable. They view these things as black and white…no gray. Where do you stand?
“If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.” – Alexander Hamilton
“You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” – Herb Cohen
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