Most people look at Ken Sterling and see a high-powered USC professor, a brilliant lawyer, and a legendary dealmaker.

But what they don't see is the rough and tumble streets of New York that forged him.

Ken grew up in an environment where negotiation wasn't just a business skill, it was a survival tactic,

and he learned early on how to read a room, gauge danger, and tilt the odds in his favor when the stakes were literally life and death.

Ken is the executive vice president at BigSpeak and the master of the tilt framework, trust, influence, leverage, and timing.

And in this episode, we're exploring how to stay calm when the you know what hits the fan and how to handle bullies by giving them the autonomy that they crave.

Ken is a master at helping people get out of their own way to close the most complex deals on the planet.

To understand the true depth of his grit and his unique approach to leverage, you have to hear where it all started.

So here's Ken's incredible story of survival.

Face down in a shag carpet with a gun to the back of my head.

And it's just what happened and what unraveled in that time and where I tilted the room then

and then when people see me now, you know, USC professor, USC lawyer, dealmaker, agent,

they just, it just doesn't compute. They look at or like wait you so i think that's that's

the oh shit moment when people really know the background and for the people that don't know the

background and haven't read some of the ink or the Forbes articles i grew up rough and tumble in

new york my old man was in our prison uh my mom did her best to keep the family together and keep everyone on the tracks. But I was largely on my own on the streets of New York for my formative years. And in order to survive, in order to just kind of have shelter, we did a lot of different stuff. And I encountered a lot of interesting people.

So we went from kind of the old man being in and out of prison.

My mom had a thing for bad boys and, you know, ended up with biker gang guys and growing up around

Biker gang guys and guys down in Huma, Louisiana that were bringing stuff in off the oil rigs without

going into lots of details.

I guess their statute of limitations is expired by now.

So I just came up in this element, like this good little sweet kid who was absorbing all

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