LinkedIn Presents.

I'm Maura Aaron's Mili, and this is The Anxious Achiever.

We look at stories from business leaders who've dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they pick themselves up,

and how they hope work will change in the future.

Negotiations, like it or not, are part of all of our lives, every day.

Until I learned to negotiate like myself, I was a puddle in every negotiation.

I said yes too quickly, and I didn't fight for my terms.

I take everything personally, and I left a lot of opportunities and financial benefit on the table

simply because I was scared to ask.

Now I trust my gut, and I handle negotiations in my own way, by doing my homework, asking lots of questions,

and finding a common thread between me and my counterparts. I use empathy. And my guest today says, that's a good thing. And yes, I still get

anxious. The stereotype about a negotiation is that it's a game of chicken.

Someone has to leave the table or die.

This approach is called combative or positional negotiation.

And it's what we see in movies and also in my favorite reality TV genre, real estate shows.

The reality in a lot of negotiations is something more tame, but they can be particularly

hard for people who suffer from anxiety to deal with.

Today we're here to help.

Chris Voss is an author, a former FBI hostage negotiator, and CEO of the Black Swan

Group.

His master class in negotiation is incredibly popular, which I think speaks to

just how much people loathe negotiations and also want to get better at them. I started by asking him

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