Kind: captions
Language: en
we used to talk about this all the time
like what's your opening line
and we would go back and forth on a lot
of stuff um
for the longest time my favorite was
i'm here to talk to you about coming out
knowing that they're going to respond
i ain't coming out
now my next line which and and that's
all i'm scripted is i know you're not
coming out now
i just want you to know that when you do
we're gonna make sure that you feel
treated with dignity and respect and i
gotta make sure you don't get hurt
chris voss welcome to the show tom thank
you pleasure to be here dude i'm really
excited to have you on i
i'm actually a little shocked at myself
that we haven't had you on sooner i find
your book
never split the difference
absolutely incredible
and where i want to start so i think i'm
a terrible negotiator so let's start
with that we will definitely today cover
some of the principles of that but
what i really want to talk about is
in the book when you're talking about
some of the scenarios that you were in
where people it's a life-and-death
situation right and
you're the line of defense how do you
deal with that emotionally like that's
my job feels high stress
but that's no one's life is on the line
how do you deal with that yeah well
there's a couple things i mean first of
all you just don't know any better
[Laughter]
maybe when you first started but
not long term uh you know training in
the fbi they started out really good um
i mean they hit you
you know with the tyson uh line
everybody is playing till they get
punched
like the second day of the negotiation
training the fbi they hit you square
between your eyes with something really
hard like a real story or yeah yeah yeah
you know they spit they spend the first
day laying out a philosophy which if you
understand the nuances of the words
i still completely agree with
a hostage has never been killed on
deadline in the united states ever
and so like you get kind of comfortable
and you got a sense that negotiation's
pretty successful overall i mean in
reality it's about a 93 success rate
whoa
and then and then the very next day they
present a scenario where it looks like a
hostage got
murdered right on deadline right in
front of everybody
and you just like
i mean you were hit in the head can i
use the words you use in the book
because this was when i realized i don't
want your job or the one that you had
back then you said she was shot twice in
the back with a shotgun but almost cut
her in half
as she flew through the glass window
yeah and i thought god damn
like i i don't know
i'd find a way but chris i don't know
how i'd come back from that like that
would
that would damage me in ways that i
can't imagine
well that that ends up kind of getting
into a secondary characteristic because
then when i was running a program
i went out of my way to look for
negotiators that had been involved in a
siege where somebody got killed and they
bounce back
you know typically with a success rate
that that's that high
if any time you're under less than
double digits of a job sieges whatever
you want to call them
probably everything you touch is going
to turn out good and you're going to get
a little overconfident
you know once you start climbing past
double digits i mean
odds are starting to run against you
and what happens with pretty much every
time is the negotiator would be like you
know i didn't get into this to watch
people die i'm gonna find another thing
to do
or they're gonna say
i'm never gonna let this happen again
and those people will double down
and they'll be more courageous and
speaking truth to command
whether it be an ambassador or an onsen
commander and basically saying like no
we can't do it like this
we're involved in an operation where
somebody got killed yeah
so how did you how did you did you need
to put yourself back together or do you
not react like that let's start with
that question
um i've been
uh repeating one phrase in my head for a
long time leading up to that that i
didn't really realize what it meant my
old boss gary nessner used to always
teach us
best chance of success
what we're doing is the best chance of
success
and so then when uh the burnham subaru
case in the philippines a lot of people
got killed
and finally a quick
breakdown what happened um
uh gracia and martin burnham
and another american citizen named
guillermo cebaro got scooped up in a
dive resort in the philippines and a
region of the philippines every thought
was completely safe
now the bad guys the abu sayyaf were
looking for westerners
they'd been a siege earlier in the same
year in another part of the philippines
where they looking for americans and
westerners
they got nothing but western europeans
and he ultimately that case was a train
wreck which i was not involved in
because there were no americans there
and the bad guys ended up scoring about
20 million dollars as a result oh
which made a rival gang jealous of the
score
so they go out and they do an even more
daring raid they cross like 400 miles of
open ocean on these lousy little boats
scooped everybody up in a dive resort
and ended up getting three americans and
a bunch of filipinos
sebero ends up getting murdered by the
the terrorists about uh
three-ish weeks in 21-ish days how does
the siege go on for that long oh this
thing lasted 13 months
so yeah that was just that was just a
beginning that wasn't even the opening
act
so did they kill them to make a point to
just prove like we're serious well you
know they were
western american arrogance if you will
when several finally got killed or got
killed early on you know there had been
filipinos the bad guys were killing
filipinos regularly like it was no big
deal
and i can remember at that point in time
when we tried to stir up a little
outrage over it
i thought you know we have sat here
and not really said much at all
well these filipinos are getting
beheaded
now the sudden we want everybody to be
bent out of shape
and i remember thinking like if i if i
was a host country my reaction would be
like oh now it's important to you
so um but that the group that was doing
it at the time i mean there were
they did all the bad things that that
terrorist murderers do i mean all of
them how do you so
one was that the first time that you
were on a call where somebody got killed
as a first kidnapping that i was
directly involved in
where somebody or people were getting
killed yes all right so when the first
body shows up what are you the one
talking to them
now we coached okay
uh one of the reasons why you know what
i'm doing now is applicable
the
black swan method is based on hostage
negotiation which is universal
human nature everybody's human
so
i could show up in any country i mean
literally any country any culture
philippines
nigeria
cape town
baghdad
all i need to do is find somebody that's
coachable
and that person probably knows the
market if you will
and i understand the human wiring
so we put together their their their
knowledge of the market
in very general terms
and my knowledge of how to get people
to engage
and then
we can negotiate anywhere
hope you enjoyed this episode brought to
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first month enjoy the episode
okay so
when the first body comes out
what happens to you
it's the first time that this has gone
awry we're in the seven percent now yeah
that don't go well
it
for me when i think about the way that
that would
like impact my mind and force me to like
regroup did it knock you off or are you
just laser focused
well you got to keep rolling because
case was still ongoing
and so no time for emotions right now is
that what you're telling yourself
uh yeah kind of probably you know it's
just i mean you got no choice a case is
still going on you gotta you got a team
you want to go fast go alone you want to
go far go as a team you can always run
screaming from the building
but really and this this is where life
gets interesting for me is that
by nature i would say i'm a run
screaming from the building person but i
had to flip it all because i don't
respect that
and
right in discovering that you don't
respect your initial impulse
becomes a fascinating journey if you're
willing to
walk it so i'm always curious if if
other people are having to do what i
have to do to keep myself centered in
there
or if it's just like nah it didn't occur
to me to run screaming from the building
well when you're when you're in the
midst of
when you're in the battle
i mean you can't you can't you can't
bail i mean people are looking at you to
lead there are other people's lives that
are still online so that's your identity
you wouldn't allow yourself to do that
probably yeah okay
good did you because i know you at least
have one son did you teach him that like
hey in this family we don't tuck tail we
don't run because what fight flea make
friends yeah yeah yeah so
i mean do you have those kind of
conversations then because this like i
don't know how much of this is your
character from birth and how much of
this is you've built this incredible
um value system that allows you to be in
the most insanely difficult situations
on planet earth you go into great detail
about this in the book and it's so true
most people are so uncomfortable with
conflict that even when it's asking for
a raise or negotiating for a car they
can't do it they can't sit in that
discomfort right right right that's
nothing compared to they just dumped a
beheaded body
at our feet to say
you're not convincing basically right
like you're not getting anywhere that's
a real life man like i can
i can understand why most people would
not want to do that so i'm curious
and it i find that asking people how to
raise their kids often gets to what they
do internally so
what did you teach your son or sons
uh about
who we are as a family
yeah i think it was me and my father
simultaneously and you know and
everybody else is what my mother as well
because um uh you know my son brandon
who runs my company
is the best negotiator or something he's
he's a star he's really good
um
he's basically a jersey guy
you know he's mixed race
but he's this bizarre combination of
jersey and iowa because we started
sending them back to iowa my father's
very blue blue collar hard worker
expects you to figure stuff out get
stuff done we start sending my son back
to iowa in the summertime when he's
about six
so he's so comfortable in both worlds
that actually back in iowa i like to
call him metro jethro
because he loves it there he fits in
completely
and you know he's growing up he's eight
years old
uh grandpa's got him working in the
business first half of the day because
the town pool doesn't open till noon
so he he'd have to get out of bed in the
morning and have breakfast was with his
grandpa's grandparents
and then he'd have to get on his bike
and ride
to the same location his grandfather was
driving to
his grandfather wouldn't give him a riot
he's like look you get on your bike you
get out there you're supposed to be
there at 8 30. get yourself out of bed
get yourself fed i'll see you at the
office
and they would leave it approximately
the same time
and you know he'd be like why am i not
getting a ride
but that was just sort of the way that
he grew up
with you know my my parents help and
then then at home it was always
yeah he got knocked down pick stuff up
he's got a memory from when he was
playing football
in uh
he went to fifth year of high school
because he was really young
so there was a special program to get
him ready for college ball
and he was i mean he made a great play
he's playing middle linebacker he
hustled all the way across the field
missed the tackle just barely missed a
guy i mean phenomenal hustle ended up
diving through the air landing on the
ground out of bounds
and put just such effort into it and he
was laying on the ground and he
remembers hearing my voice in the
distance go great hustle
now get up
and it was like
all right well this is the environment i
grew up in
but i think it's yeah it's sort of a
family thing that we inherited from
my dad and
you know
my dad picked out a woman
that believed in those values and his
mom believed brandon's mom believed in
hard work so that's just kind of how he
came up
yeah i love that value system i'm a fan
for sure
uh okay so
at what point do you start articulating
those values out loud
and are you talking about toughness
resilience um like
what what is it like
i read your book before i saw interviews
with you and so i wasn't expecting the
sort of east coast uh attitude
and it was um
then suddenly
it asked an interesting question for me
because
what i'm trying to tease out is okay how
much of like the your ability to
negotiate is just this like
aggressive tough nut
you know it's all about being hardcore
and how much of it is
learned resilience and strategy
i'm a little bit of a believer in uh
that pretty much everything is learned
um
the talent code daniel coyle i think
that's that point that he tries to make
that you know the human beings that we
think are prodigies
they just got interested before anybody
noticed
and then
bang suddenly they were good at it but
they'd been interested in practicing for
a while i think that's pretty close to
being true
um i wish i could think of his name
documentary i saw recently on a
phenomenally successful uh
music producer
picked out uh the correct key when he
was three years old when somebody was
cleaning a piano and hit one hit one of
the
the keys so he probably was born with
some extra
but um i pretty much think everything is
learned now how did my son learn it
what um right after i left the fbi i
attended a training session
and it was the first time
it occurred to me i remember saying to
myself leading by example is not enough
i don't think i ever told them anything
explicitly i think i both hate myself
you know his grandfather
we saw it lead by example you know you
want somebody
to learn how to do something or to learn
how to live i mean then set a great
example and expect them to pick it up so
but if it's not enough what is the magic
formula yeah great question um
depending upon the age of the human
being you know probably they gotta you
gotta you gotta find somebody else
hopefully to mentor them or you gotta
let them find their own way and it's
going to be messy and ideally
you've led by example enough until
you know some that stuff is you were
talking about the age of imprinting
right
so by the time they're starting to get
into trouble in their mid teens or later
i mean they're kind of imprinted
you you got to go with whatever you you
put in them and then
ideally they're mistakes
um that they're gonna have to make
uh ideally they're not costly enough for
their cripples for life over it
but give them some space make them ride
their bike to the pool
pick yourself back up yeah be tough
be resilient face it
yeah i think all that stuff's amazing
okay so and now you know and even to
take a little bit further because
you know and um
taleb's book anti-fragile
great book
post-traumatic stress growth
right and then i'm reading an art piece
about cooper cup today
who uh
uh receiver for the rams cobra cup
cooper cup cooper cup the guy who
settled he wanted a triple crown this
year
everybody forgotten that the guy
recovered from an acl tarik several
years ago normally the end of a football
player's effectiveness
if not their career
like normally they're never the same
after this traumatic injury torn acion
almost none of these guys are ever the
same
cup says to himself
this is my opportunity to rebuild myself
get rid of my bad habits
you know i'm all right fix what i was
ever doing wrong
and rams are in the super bowl and
he won the triple crown for receivers i
mean he's got he's number one in all
these
categories and you and i'm like wait a
minute i
he tore his acl nobody comes back from
an acl tear
and i'm reading that and i'm thinking
post-traumatic stress growth he made the
decision not just to recover
but to be better
as a result of this massively traumatic
injury
that's you know that's that's beyond
resilience that's what tyler would talk
about being anti-fragile yeah no i love
that such a powerful idea that getting
hurt can actually make you stronger
but in the human anyway it comes down to
your mindset how you respond to it so
now let's we're back in the philippines
the first body just gets dropped off you
obviously decide that you're going to
get stronger you don't want it to happen
again
how do you like are you just
really good at re-centering yourself
emotionally
or
have you are is it a meditative practice
like when the body hits i i know what
that would be like for me that rush of
blood to my head where my ears almost
feel like they're closing in you can
hear your heartbeat beating in your ears
um
how did you did that happen and you had
to calm yourself down or does that just
not happen and you're just so laser
focused
well it was principally because we were
still in the midst of the siege there
were still two
still two americans whose lives were at
stake
and up to that point in time
the intergovernment the
intergovernmental
organization
was probably at its worst
like we had previously gotten through a
case and everybody had gotten away with
kind of half cooperating and
the bodies hadn't been the case we just
finished uh just a couple of months
earlier like nobody got killed
and it's a little bit like like success
you went you know a football analogy
again it's tough for a football team to
repeat after they won the super bowl
because people a little more focused on
our own success versus team success once
they reach the pinnacle
so the cooperation in the early part of
the second case was horrible i mean
horrible because they'd gotten away with
it previously
and there was no body count but now
there was there was people were dying
so we really had to we got arms more
around the case
we pushed a little harder on cooperation
people got a little more
serious about not cooperating
which in the long run
12 months later
was when the final round uh
two out of three remaining americans got
killed in a botched rescue attempt
and the case had gotten really ugly
again at that point now that one hit me
harder
than the first one because in the first
one
nobody had been cooperating with us
so i felt less responsible for the
outcome because government of the
philippines
was playing games with us you know they
they
they felt out of control on the last
case
so they gave us a guy who was supposed
to handle the negotiations that was just
completely going missing in action on a
regular basis
when he was supposed to be with us i
mean he went and they pulled him
right after the first series of deaths
they were like all right this ain't
working out so good
so i felt
you know we still had the case going
and
i hadn't gotten my arms wrapped around
it that well
now 12 months later
i had had my arms wrapped around it and
then when martin burnham when the ward
came in then he got killed that
that hit me that was that was a real
i'll never forget that moment i was i
was at home in the u.s when i when i got
the call that he'd been killed
back for me at the time
was difficult
uh worst moment of my professional
career
one of my worst personal moments until
i'm listening to a case a couple years
later
listening to a negotiator talk about how
hard it was on him
when a baby got killed in siege oh god
and i remember thinking at the time and
it was a guy i had a tremendous amount
of respect for
i thought hard on you
that wasn't your relative
and then when i thought about that i
thought and
how am i
you know
feeling sorry for myself over martin
burnham's death because he wasn't my
father
he wasn't you know my spouse he was my
brother
you know i i got no right feeling bad
about this
or at least to the extent that his
family members do
so that you know that was a bit of you
know the overall journey there putting
things in perspective like you asked to
be in the middle of this stuff
it's a volunteer job
you're going to feel sorry for yourself
when you volunteered
that's probably out of perspective
why did you volunteer
you know i i found myself i was in
crisis response i was a member of the
fbi swat team
and i had reinjured my knee and i wanted
to stay in christ's response i liked
crisis response people got to make up
their mind
you know you can't go well let's sleep
on this you know let's give this 24
hours to think about it you know you
can't do that you get you know you got
to make a decision
and i've always been in favor of
decision making
so i'd been a swat guy and we had
hostage negotiators and it was a little
bit like what we were talking about
earlier you know some stuff is a lot
harder than it looks from the outside oh
yeah
and i literally remember thinking to
myself i talk to people every day i can
talk to terrorists how hard could it be
you know my son and i joke that the voss
family motto is how hard could it be
which is a little bit like you know it's
a little bit like the rednecks famous
last words hey watch this yeah hold my
beer on my beer
so uh but then i got into it and
i've been volunteered when i finally got
trained i got volunteered on a suicide
hotline and then
when i'm in it i'm like i'm
around these extraordinary people that
are doing phenomenal things with words
i mean with words
not actual actions just words
making a huge difference and being in
the middle of these sieges
and making a difference simply by what
they said
and i thought now you know i could get
into this this this this could be good
it was
and so how does that journey begin of
learning what to say
like what are they what are the sort of
magic words like take us back to the
philippines the
bodies start coming out
how do you talk somebody down like that
like it it just seems like all hope is
lost once they kill the first person
there's no backing out
yeah man they still get more people that
are at stake
and so
you you can't not communicate
and
you know it's kind of like any other
negotiation where the other side is
doing stuff that is just not in their
interest but they're absolutely
convinced that they're right
i mean these guys want to get paid
and
negotiation is not what it is to you
it's what it is to the other side you
get all bent out of shape that it's a
horrific
horrible thing that was something i
heard you say i think in in an interview
yeah so there is no such thing as
logical there's only what matters to you
yeah i was like oh my god that is so
true you literally just cut through
decades worth of economics textbooks
that try to make people seem rational
with that one that that the second i
heard you said i was like oh my god that
is absolutely true
there is no such thing as logical
there's only what matters to you yeah
okay so is that like when you come into
a situation like that are you just
asking yourself what matters to this
person yeah
is that is that the most fundamental
question what matters
well then what matters and and then
ultimately people make up their mind
principally on what they perceive
the loss to be
um and that's that's human nature
doesn't matter the scenario when you say
the loss the loss that led them to do
this or
what losing in that scenario would look
like gotta look at both
lost the drove them to the table in the
first place to take the action
and then
what loss are they avoiding by the
action
and you want to get in their head and
find out what it is
and
since what loss are they avoiding is all
perception you know vision of the future
then depending upon how you got in their
head if you're in there by invitation
which is the whole point of empathy or
the tactical application of empathy
to get in by invitation
since you're in there by the invitation
then the idea is to get them to look at
another loss
so if it's a kidnapping
it's a question that's as is seems as um
merciless
as
how are you gonna get paid if you kill
people
how how are we gonna how are we gonna
collaborate
you know how much are you losing
by getting rid of hostages
when you could have gotten paid for them
because somebody's going to scare up the
money for the hostage right somebody's
going to
a hostage negotiators real job
internationally
is to make sure that if somebody scares
up that money
that there's enough of a trail left
that you can hunt them down
afterwards it's exactly why you give a
bank teller bait money
you don't want the bank teller to get
shot
over money
now you also don't want the bank robber
to leave the bank with the entire
contents of the vault
you give them enough money so bank tell
it doesn't get shot
the bad guy leaves
and you chase them down afterwards
that's the way
to save lives and put the bad guys out
of business
you want to get them focused back on the
money again
and then if they kill more hostages it's
their loss
and that's when they start to think like
all right well maybe we made our point
you know let them let them feel that way
who cares how they feel as long as you
get what you want
and that's the idea to try to
re-engineer the outcome that's really
interesting that um
is that an easy position to take because
it definitely makes them feel like
we're a game this is a game or they're a
chip versus like
you almost have to divorce yourself from
their humanity and meaning the hostages
right i can't even think about them as
people right now because that may stop
me from actually getting them back
is that do you approach it that way or
are you trying to hold front and center
this is somebody's mom daughter or
whatever and keep that front of mind
like how do you what's the best tactic
well yeah
you know you actually you learn the
success
tactic again and i learned it from gary
the process is you you lower the value
as a bargaining chip you increase your
value as a human being to the bad guys
so that decreases the chances not only
the bad guys will kill them
but also you impact how they're treated
in the meantime
that's incredibly shrewd so how do we
lower their value as a bargaining chip
and then how do we increase our value as
a human without the person feeling like
they're being manipulated that's always
the fine line right right
well
it's one of the reasons for potentially
for a proof-of-life question
not necessarily that you're getting
proof of life but you're making them
thinking about it as a human being like
all right at this point in time we got
no hostage still alive
what's
uh you know martin burnham's favorite
thing to do with his kids first thing in
the morning
and by asking that question
you force a thought pattern into the bad
guys
because they were kids at one point in
time
you know um terrorists
really bad guys
it's not that they're completely lacking
in emotion they're completely lacking in
certain emotions which means they've had
some emotional experiences
you want to see which ones are there
that they resonate positively with
you know one of the crazy things
that i learned a long time after the
fact is tara's got moms
i mean you'd be shocked
at the emotional vulnerability across
the board
to the power of a well-crafted message
from a mom really i mean and if like the
first we found this out
and again my boss gary nestor he had a
great feel for this
one admits to the first case um the um
uh jeff schilling case
which in baghdad nobody died hostage
walks away because the bad guys get so
um
uh disorganized and disheartened
and two months after the case the the
serial killer terrorist on the other
side
calls the negotiator that i coached
to congratulate him on how effective he
was
not in a rage
but to
literally say
you know you're really good at what you
do wow they should promote you
so in the midst of that one
bad guys are threatening that they're
torturing the american not they're going
to kill them but they're torturing them
and the state department is like you
know we got to get this torture threat
off the table
and i remember thinking like you're not
really bent out of shape unless you're
being made to look bad here because
having american tortured overseas makes
you look bad and that's what you're
concerned about
i'm like all right so we'll see what we
can do and i talked i talked to my boss
gary and i'm like
all right so how do we
go from release him
release him to be nice to him
[Laughter]
this is absurd
and uh
you know gay says to me says um
tell him that his mom is worried about
him
i can remember literally in that moment
like i held the phone away from my head
and i remember looking at the phone
and i thought to myself
that is the dumbest effing thing i have
ever heard in my life
and i kind of roll my eyes
and and i used to ignore so much what
gary told me anyway you know he was good
he gave me a lot of rope
and so i go okay
we'll see if we can work that into the
conversation because i want to make him
feel like i was paying attention to him
so we coach up the negotiator the next
day and you know we got the negotiation
operations center set up and we got
sheets of paper with dialogue and we're
going to be there with him the whole
time you can hear tone of voice when you
get the cadence you get a pretty good
idea what's being said just based on
tone
and we tell him he says you know you got
to work this mom thing into the
conversation and he looks at us like
you're kidding right
you know it's just find a way to work it
in
so he's on the phone with a bad guy
and we're we're all but getting them to
come right out that they're not
torturing them because they're not i
mean there's no need to but it makes
them look good
to claim they are
and and benji says to the bad guy
says you know his mom's worried about
him
and the sociopathic
terrorist on the other end of the phone
literally says
his mom knows about this
you tell her he's okay whoa and we're
like
this is the dumbest thing i've ever
heard
and you know we're on the other side of
the clock in manila you know we're 12
hours on the other side of the clock so
it's the middle of the afternoon for me
it's a middle it's 1 30 in the morning
for gary
and i'm like i got to get this out of
the way i mean i i i have to get this
out of the way so i immediately call
gary and i wake him up in the middle of
the night
you know he always took the calls 1 30
in the morning phone rings and i hear
you oh
and i go
you always f and have to be right
and he's like
what do you mean
[Laughter]
let go i don't know how you knew that
this guy was going to resonate with the
mob stuff but it worked perfectly how
did he know did he say you know a great
gut instinct but once we started looking
for it then it would show up in case
after case
and which is really hard
you know once i was looking for that
dynamic every terrorist got a mom
and if you had to bet
it's a good bet that they're bonded to
their mom
like
physically they were born they had to
have a mom
mom was probably nurturing all the
different stuff to bend them out of
shape and turn them into the twisted
human being that they became
i didn't have any anything to do with
mom
so they still got
deep inside in a first year of their
life they were nurtured by mom mom
did everything she could she possibly
could even terrorists got moms and i saw
this show up a couple times later on
and i started realizing it was probably
if i you took me to vegas which i lived
there now
and you said place a bet
is this guy gonna resonate emotionally
with the mom
and i'd say based on our data
we got an 85 to 90 chance
that the mom is a button we can punch
and so then in subsequent cases knowing
this
i'd bring it up with ambassadors or
you know fbi headquarters or the white
house
and they'd all react the exact same way
that i did that's the dumbest thing i
ever heard that ain't you know they're
inhuman
that ain't ever gonna work and we saw i
saw evidence of it in 2012
when um
son of al qaeda uh the group in in iraq
that was chopping people's heads in 2012
2014 2014 time frame
um
their name will come to me after the
fact but there was uh there was one case
there
where the mom car got played really
strongly
and the head of head of the group
responded
and i remember thinking like i've been
telling you know i know this sounds
crazy but we see it
over and over and over again
so there's a common humanity thread to
every human being regardless of
circumstances
that's really interesting so we've got
the mom thread we've got what are some
of the other threads a desire to be
heard want to be in control like what
are what are some known knowns when you
roll up on average the sort of 80 85
percent range when you roll up you know
okay mom probably going to be a button
they want to be in control they want to
be heard
um
are there any others sense of loss
and you know an idea of some sort of a
loss loss is the strongest be true uh
behavior trigger of human nature
period
how do you track that down um well first
of all
it's it's like you know what you're
looking for to begin with but it's not
really active listening it's proactive
listening and there's certain things or
the tactical application of empathy what
do we know to be true what do we got to
bet on
loss is the primary
the biggest impact on decision making of
human beings across the board
danny kahneman 2002 nobel prize winner
behavioral economics lost things twice
as much as an equivalent gain
for people
period if you're human
you're wired that way
which makes it the biggest trigger in
thinking
so if they're engaged in a behavior that
we don't understand they perceive the
loss and we got to start you know
sniffing around for it looking for the
hints
knowing it's there and then consequently
you're going to get them change their
mind about something you reformulate the
loss
if i say to you
if you do this there's a 90 chance you
fail like i'm not doing that
but if i say do this says you know you
got a 10 chance of success
ooh that sounds and lands completely
different
10 percent i could succeed 10
i'm a winner i'm in the 10 percent
you know it it lands differently but if
you want to make sure they don't do it
90 chance you'll fail here i'm not doing
that i'm not taking that risk that's too
far against me i mean that will shut
somebody down for sure
10 success might move them forward
but i guarantee you i shut you down with
a 90 failure rate
there is no difference in those numbers
exact same numbers
and so you start to see it across the
board and like all right so we're going
to get them to change their mind
we just
change the frame of the loss you're
going to merge in an acquisition
negotiation
entrepreneur sole proprietors trying to
sell this company
wants to get you know whatever um
10x ebitda
because a buddy of his get 10x
now
the person buying his company wants to
take him wants him to take a lower
multiple
so that in two years he retains a piece
and he makes
30 40 50 100 million dollars more
by taking less now
guys thinking is lost i you know i can't
i can't take a million dollars less for
this i can't take nine when i should
take ten i lose a million dollars
take nine take a piece
you're willing to risk a hundred million
dollars seven years from now you wanna
lose a hundred million dollars
over a million dollars now
and be like no that's crazy that's the
dumbest thing i ever heard
you just
re-framed what the law says
and that's where you get people to
change their mind because whether it's a
terrorist thinking
we have law you know we've been harmed
in the past we've lost our homeland
you know we've lost our identity
terrorism is about
choosing violence as a way to make up
for laws
interesting i have never heard that
before
uh
is that universal
um it's the universal driver of human
decision making
now how they're looking at the loss you
know
you know there's kind of three groups
that are out there
that you see over and over again
in a lethal triad they called it the
charismatic leader the
sociopathic um
middlemen you know the number twos
captains lieutenants and then the
inadequate followers
it was a terrorism book from way back
when called crusaders criminals and
crazies
a friend of mine tom strench wrote a
book called the bad the man the sad
so it kind of breaks down into you know
the complete charismatic leader
maybe he believes in a cause maybe just
believes in himself
the criminals are involved they're just
doing it because it's a way to combat
the status quo and continue to commit
crime
the people that are looking for identity
you know it's hard to describe as being
inadequate followers
but the sad
you know they're looking for an identity
and
the leadership has convinced them that
they've been harmed by this perceived
loss and they have to make up for it
so it's kind of packaged along those
lines and is that who's going to be
there actually doing the hostage part so
you're not dealing with the charismatic
leader you're dealing with the sad
underlings
principally the sad underlings of their
implementers
because they're the cannon fodder
for the leader you know the leadership
whether it's a charismatic leader of a
sociopathic
enabler
who are they going to put at risk who
are you going to send out to conduct the
kidnapping
who's going to who's going to hold the
hostage who's going to be the hostages
jailer
that's the worst job
on their side you know to have to sit
around with a hostage day after day
it's a it's a it's you know you're not
you're not giving that to your talented
people how did these guys 13 months yeah
how did they not just get bored and want
it to end
um they're prepared for a little longer
siege
they've got a vision of a big payoff in
the end that 20 million dollar payout
the year previous
painted visions of wealth
which means if they don't get their 20
million they're losing
so you'll stay in the game longer
because of this perceived loss and these
guys letting food get in or have they
stocked up enough food to get through
all this well we're trying we're trying
to get stuff in
um
uh
you know didn't know this was going on
at the time but um dan bowden the author
of black hawk down
[Music]
wrote an article in vanity fair
probably about a year after this case
went down
[Music]
revealing a whole bunch of information
that i was not privy to in the case
so according to dan bowden
who evidently has great resources in the
us government not in the fbi
there were unnamed government agencies
they were setting in sending in food
deliveries with informants that had
tracking devices in them oh
that again according to dan bowden in
his article in vanity fair
you know i am quoting a publicly source
i am not quoting pri you know secret
government information
that uh there were food deliveries that
were being made with tractors on them
okay so that starts getting complicated
with all kinds of different agencies
pulling in different directions right um
what is all this like seeing people
beheaded uh recognizing the
sad the
man
yeah that's rhyme there huh thank you
tom strand i'll try to remember it
better but um what is all of this
revealing to you like about humanity do
you
do you have a
look at humanity like this is
crazy that this is ugly are you
optimistic like i mean that you've seen
some gnarly [ __ ] like what does this
give you a takeaway because you said i
could drop you anywhere and you know
enough about human wiring right to to go
into this yeah and it does not paint a
pretty picture with the ways in which we
are manipulatable between this is all
about loss
and just reframing the loss completely
reframed like the fact that we would do
this kind of crazy [ __ ] over loss
that
my mother
is gonna like trigger some
very strange reaction given the
circumstances like how do you
conceptualize of human nature at this
point
well yeah first of all i'm very
optimistic
um
you know it to me it's relief
that we're kind of relieved that we're
all kind of rewired the same interesting
you know even though it means that we
are all then in
oh god who was it soldier nitsan i think
that said
either soulja nitsan or frankel that
evil runs through the center of every
human heart
i wouldn't go that far
i think um
the
the capability of doing something that
appears to be very evil and heartless
when people get really scared
and afraid for their own survival
i am i am somewhat like when people
start getting really afraid for their
own survival
people's ability to uh discard the
humanity of people around them as a
defense mechanism
you know that saddens me to some degree
but it it is
so
you know don't curse the darkness get a
flashlight figure it out get night
vision goggles you know just there are
certain things that simply are
um but they're they're consistent
so if i understand what is and it's
consistent and you don't it doesn't do
you any good
to get angry at people for having a
propensity to to do really bad things
inadvertently or just out of self self
protection and but maybe it makes it
more forgivable to know that
when backed into a corner people are
more scared rabbits
than they are predatory wolves
so most people are not predatory wolves
they're they're they're out there
but the vast majority of people are not
have you come across predatory wolves
well you know i think you know the guy
in the uh um
uh the the schilling case
who was only on the other end of the
phone yeah he was
he was a predatory wolf i mean he was a
bad guy he was the one that was batting
people yeah
and then then the crazy thing was i mean
it's really interesting the way that
plays out because in the second case
instead of being in charge of the
negotiations
second case he's in a chart in charge of
the hostages
same guy same guy he gets a terrible he
got demoted
from negotiator to jailer okay
but the hostages loved him because he he
understood
that a hostage
who was so spiritually broken
that they couldn't get up off the ground
[Music]
was a logistical problem
because they were on the run for most of
the 13 months they were moving from
place to place they were staying ahead
of drones they're staying ahead of
patrol like sitting in in one house and
you guys are surrounding it no no
kidnapping is a mobile operation
wow i've had the wrong impression this
whole time well there's two kinds of
cases i could be working i could work on
a contained case like what you're
talking about where they're not getting
away
or i could i could be working the
uncontained you know to use real simple
terminology
so you know talking with gracia burnham
uh the the american lived she got shot
by friendly fire in the leg and she
survived phenomenal human being and her
kids whom i'm acquainted with
um are
wonderful people
every every member of their family
wonderful human being and that's the
father that got killed yeah
now she's telling us about this after
the fact because we're always debriefing
hostages who survive because we want to
understand the dynamics behind the
scenes number one number two
our survival debriefings happen to be
great
stress debriefings for them
two kinds of interviews information
gathering and stress debriefing why is
it a step stress debriefing what do they
get out of it uh you know the
opportunity
to talk somebody through a horrific
situation from beginning to end
and for the listener to be genuinely
curious
as opposed to trying to extract
information
like an interview of a released hostage
by an investigator is exhausting i mean
exhausting
and they don't like it and it sucks the
life out of them
if they said we sit around we asked them
questions about what was the experience
like
what were the bad guys what were they
like
how did you survive
you know what emotional triggers did you
go through
it's very cathartic for the hostage
so
we're talking to gracia burnham and like
you know of your captors what was your
reaction
to this guy this guy this guy
and we bring up the sociopathic murderer
and she said yeah we kind of liked him i
mean he could tell when we were really
down
and if he sensed that i was really down
he would say you know take her down the
river you know give her some time alone
let her clean herself up you know just
just give her a break take it a little
bit easier on her this is the guy that
was beheading people yeah
because so weird to me he's responsible
for moving these people
if they need to move in a hurry see this
this is something that
from uh what what are humans like chris
voss let us answer the question what are
humans like
so
it is
really strange to me that a human can
in one scenario be beheading people and
then get a slightly different job
description and be like all right take
them down to the water and let them wash
um that does say to me that the line of
evil runs through every human heart how
does that not say it to you do you think
that
is that not the predictable part like
you just
of course like that makes sense he's
going to have bonded with them because
that's his job
with him he's tr he's he's
to him their commodity
that he has to be able to move in a
hurry and so he's just letting him go
down to the river so they they will move
quickly when he needs them to exactly
yeah he knows he's got to he you know he
doesn't want him like happy to be there
but if they're completely
disabled emotionally they're going to be
disabled physically
and if a military patrol comes too close
they're not going to be able to bug out
of there in a hurry
and this is a valuable commodity he's
got to take care of
and so he's agnostic
now some of the other captors
are messing with them
because they're bored and they're
inadequate followers and they're
inadequate human beings
and that's a completely different
approach which is what most hostages go
through on a regular basis you know the
people out there they just start [ __ ]
with them yeah and what does that take
the look of throwing rocks at them
you know i've heard plenty of stories in
uh
you know in in some of the rougher
kidnappings in south america
where just for entertainment they'll put
a rifle to somebody's head and pull the
trigger on an empty chamber just to
watch them fly just
and you know
because they got nothing better to do
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what do you take away from that
like that's so sadistic
yeah
so have you read um soulja nitsan's book
uh the gulag archipelago i have not oh
my god read it chris i'm so curious to
know what you think about this
so it's interesting i i am not yet sure
i understand what you have taken away
from all of these people i have
thankfully not encountered anything like
this there was one guy in high school
that people said he beat kittens to
death and i remember thinking oh my god
that's so dark i almost couldn't allow
myself to believe that it was true so i
was like ah maybe it's exaggerating
whatever
so anyway that always stuck in the back
of my head did that guy really beat
kittens to death so that just freaks me
out but when i read the gulag
archipelago and
it's basically soulja nitsan screaming
for like
a thousand pages it's unreal cataloging
the cruelty that befell him
the way that people turn on each other
the way that you could get a prisoner to
turn into a guard and that they would
then be cruel to other prisoners just as
a way to like get themselves out of it
and
that so easily
we could
turn on each other and
pluck you know fingernails and
just torture people cruelly kill them uh
send them away to you know these prison
camps that were almost certainly death
sentences
and
it was like
jordan peterson introduced this idea to
me which has been useful he said don't
think of yourself as the one that hides
jews in the attic think of yourself as a
nazi guard
and i was like whoa because you want to
talk about something i just always no
way like i could never ever ever
and then when you
allow yourself to
go do i have weakness inside of me i do
and is there a threshold at which just
to save my own family that i would do
something horrendous i worry that i
would
and so hearing soulja nitsan basically
say you're all capable of it we're all
capable of it
and
it's like oh man so
when you talk about somebody
going from because i don't know i don't
read that guy like you obviously were in
the mix and so i could just be totally
misreading this but when i hear the guy
in one kidnapping time is beheading
people hey no problem and the next is
like letting them go down to the river
that to me is more of a mother moment
than it is
a this guy's a logistical genius and he
knows i have to like keep them to a
certain level of prime maybe he is maybe
he is you heard first-hand experience
but to me i just hear
when you're in a different role and i
don't know how real the stanford prison
experiment is and if it's ever been
replicated but i'm sure you've heard
that classic thing where they had some
students they said you guys are the
guards you guys are the prisoners but
they were classmates and within three
days they had to shut the experiment
down because the prison guards started
acting so abusively towards the
prisoners even though they were randomly
assigned that they ethically they just
couldn't continue
and so that's
what i h