5 Lessons in Negotiation from an FBI Hostage Negotiator

My First Million

Hubspot

Entrepreneurship, Investing, Business

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Want to use these FBI negotiation tactics to make money? Turn conversations into customers - get your first 100: https://clickhubspot.com/rtb Episode 746: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) gets coached by Chris Voss ( https://x.com/fbinegotiator ) on how to be a better negotiator in business. — Show Notes: (0:00) The hijack moment (10:04) High stakes hostage negotiation (20:53) Rule 1. You have imperfect information (23:51) Rule 2. Label (28:00) Rule 3. Go for no (34:30) Rule 4. Leverage will never make you a better negotiator (36:53) Rule 5. Be predictable (39:00) Oprah as a master negotiator (42:49) How to prep for a negotiation (47:46) Chris Voss in situ (50:23) Parenting advice from a hostage negotiator (52:38) Let them talk — Links: • Join the Black Swan Community - https://www.blackswanltd.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'll start with this, Chris, I don't know if you could see this, but I'm writing down today's date, because today is the day that I become a better negotiator.
0:10.5	I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off.
0:17.9	On the road, let's travel, never look at back. You are a master negotiator, former FBI negotiator for 20 plus years. Now you've been consulting, teaching the art of negotiation to business people and anybody who needs negotiation. And the funny thing about negotiation is it's this skill we all need that I feel like I personally never got taught.
0:39.7	I never, it's all self-taught, anything you learn.
0:41.9	And one of the things I realized was so often I was negotiating and I didn't even realize it,
0:47.0	whether it was with an investor or with an employee or a customer,
0:52.9	life is full of negotiations.
0:54.6	So I'm excited because I think this is going to be quite useful.
0:57.1	So maybe my starting point is this.
0:59.8	If today was the day I'm getting better at negotiation, where do we start?
1:05.5	Yeah, well, the first thing is let the other side go first.
1:09.4	And then actually listening is a challenge.
1:15.0	Because when the other person is talking, there's times you want to jump in.
1:18.7	It's almost impossible to resist.
1:21.9	It's basically if there are five, six steps to becoming a better listener.
1:27.2	The real challenge comes at step two.
1:30.5	It's a hijack point.
1:33.6	If you're listening at all,
1:35.6	as opposed to completely focusing on your internal dialogue
1:39.2	where you're waiting to speak,
1:41.4	most people get past that stage.
1:47.5	But if you're listening at all, you're listening to rebut, aha. Here's where you're wrong. The urge to correct is irresistible. I mean,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hubspot, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Hubspot and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.