So let's switch gears for a little bit. Let's talk about how you protect yourself against somebody who's bluffing.

Let's start off with a word of caution. People will legitimize their bluff with confidence. Never let somebody else's confidence persuade you.

Only allow yourself to be persuaded by substantive arguments or substantive facts.

Just simply because somebody is confident about what they said doesn't really add to the veracity of the statement.

One example of this comes out of the studies of eyewitnesses in cases, in court cases.

So jurors found eyewitnesses that were more confident to be more believable. What those studies also found was that eyewitnesses that were more confident

in their memory were not significantly more accurate in their recollections. So even if somebody

is genuinely trying to tell the truth, confidence

really has little bearing on the quality of the statement that is said in confidence. Similarly,

people will use emotion to try and intimidate you. So you should be skeptical if someone gets

emotional and upset and the emotion is coupled with a

threat. Think about it. If somebody really has a better offer and they are threatening to walk

away and now they're getting upset with you while threatening to walk away, why haven't they

walked away yet? Why are they still talking to you? In that situation, I would say something like, I can tell you're upset.

So how about we do this?

Let's take a break and gather ourselves.

I still want to continue talking to you because I believe that we can still make a deal.

I might be wrong, but I think the reason you're still here is because you see the possibility of making a deal too.

So what does a statement like this do? Two things. I've essentially put them in time out. I've given

them a chance to cool off. The second thing is, I've given them the opportunity to re-evaluate their

threat and come back to the negotiating table in good faith.

I've also communicated that I see their emotion and I'm not intimidated by their emotion.

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