Catamaran Spa and Resort San Diego, CA

Though it is now nearly noon, this picture is a beautiful shot of where I’m writing you from. I’m sitting on the fifth floor of that tall building on the right side of the photograph look ing back down at the boats while I write you my latest blog. Today marks the fourth day of living on the west coast staring out at the Pacific Ocean. Last night was the first full night’s sleep I’ve had in about three weeks very long hours and hard work getting ready for The Miracles Weekend seminar that I’ve helped put together for Dr. Joe Vitale.

First up on the Negotiator’s tales of this seminar weekend are two people that I met who touched me deeply and reinforced some valuable Negotiating Lessons (even for me). Peggy Roux and Dennis (prounounced Din-EE) Hartings we two extraordinary individuals. First they flew all the way from Montreal to be here in San Diego to listen to a fascinating lineup of speakers talk about the relationship between mind, body and spirt. English is not their first language though their proficiency with American English was superb. Secondly both Dennis and Peggy are completely blind.

I have to admit when I first saw them I discovered some social revulsion coming up for me for people with significant disabilities. I got quiet enough to discover I was dealing with my own fear of blindness and realized that I wasn’t repulsed by them but my own lack of gratitude and appreciation for my ability to see. I made the choice to discover what they knew that I did not.

The Miracle’s Weekend seminar Officially Ended with a fantastic talk by Dr. Joe Vitale on “Awakening”. However, after his talk he invited Denis on stage to sing. As a big guy I hate to admit this but while this 80 pound blind French Canadian sang “I can see clearly now the rain has gone” I found myself crying. I was thunderstruck by the exquisite quality of his voice and his massive passion for singing.

So even though I have many tales of the Adventures of Peggy and Dennis, the one thing my Negotiator’s radar picked up was almost comical though you had to really being paying attention to notice. The ballroom had cleared of the Seminar participants, my wife and I were gathering the last remains of things to be shipped back home from the Seminar and the Hotel staff was clearing the room of all the tables, table cloths and chairs. There were just a handful of people left in the ballroom, including Peggy and Dennis. A tradition of Dr. Vitale’s support team is for him to take us out to dinner after an event. Someone (my wife perhaps) was on the phone and talk was being exchanged in the room and on the phone about where to meet and when. I happened to look all the way across the ballroom and noticed Peggy and Dennis were like statues, standing alone, not speaking or doing anything else.

I realized then that they were doing what so many of us only half-do or occasionally do or do poorly - they were listening with every fiber of their being to all the information flying about the room. I walked back over to them and teased them a little about it by saying “You guys are ‘listening’ aren’t you?” They are both very gregarious individuals with strong spirits that have endured obstacles I cannot imagine. The laughed happily and began to Negotiate their way into our private dinner.

Their flight was scheduled to leave in only a few hours and I wasn’t really in a position to get them invited. I’m sorry Peggy and Dennis - next time I see you I’ll do my best to get you a couple of seats at the VIP table. Dennis is self-employed and is the Visionary behind The UFO Proeject (Unified Field Orchestra). Peggy is a full-time mom with her teenage daughter.

I’m probably going to play and relax today after 3 weeks of 16-18 hour days non-stop. I’ll be back in Austin later on this week.

If you’d like to know more about events that I attend or acquire my Negotiating Services or Negotiating Training, please signup on the top right hand of this page for my Negotiator’s Checklist (and Newsletter).

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

]]> http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/09/29/pretending-to-vacation/feed/ http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/09/05/the-negotiators-basic-training/ http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/09/05/the-negotiators-basic-training/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:08:27 +0000 Bruce The Negotiator http://yourownbestgood.com/?p=192

The Negotiator’s Basic Training

by: Bruce Burns

1. Study your Play book

When you find yourself in the specific tunnel leading you to the playing field of a negotiation NOTHING is more important than BEING READY!

1. Evaluate your Positions, Evaluate your Negotiating Compliment’s (party or parties you Negotiate with) Positions
2. Achieve Maximum Familiarity with your Negotiating Compliment
   1. What are their interests ?
   2. What are their fears and concerns ?
   3. What inspires them ?
   4. What expires them (their kill switch) ?
   5. What is their their style ?
   6. What is their manner?
   7. What is their pace?
   8. What is their angle ?
   9. What is their gimmic?
   10. This list can be fairly endless as the Negotiator masters sensory acuity (making more and more distinctions)
3. Prepare three gambits. A gambit is a word often used by chess players.  It is the meta-view of a series of tactics that form a strategy that actually has a specific shape as opposed to a general strategy that has a variable shape.
   1. Stalling Gambit - this strategy (in essence) is where you use various tactics to achieve maximum position in a Negotiation without closing the deal.  The resource that is on your side in this gambit is time.  You draw out the Negotiation often times in order to wear down your Negotiating Compliment. You use time to cause your Negotiating Compliment to alter their position.
   2. Talk Less Gambit - A great error that many negotiators and non-negotiators make is that they give away too much information.  I will refer to this as the TMI rule.  For this gambit to work you have to understand something about your Negotiating Compliment.  This gambit often assumes that the Negotiating Compliment has poor habits and/or training and fills in the awkward silences with words that actually represent a change in their position.  When the Negotiating Compliment changes their position favorably toward you, you reward them with a bit of engagement asking for details about what they mean and more or less getting them to write the contract for you.
   3. The Interview Gambit - the interview gambit is not only a strong starting point for any new Negotiator but it is also the very best excercise in mastering The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions. You start the Negotiations with a tone of curiosity and you reward the Negotiating Compliment every time they participate fully in your questions (regardless of whether you like their answer or not)  The value of this gambit is that it causes the Negotiating Compliment to paint their position into an immoveable corner.  This allows you to Negotiate with an infinite set of options to their finite set of conditions based on a very specific and unmoving position.
4. Relax.  Relaxation is perhaps one of the strongest resources you could ever take to a Negotiation. For those over achievers out there I want you to think of going to a Negotiation the same way you would as if you were taking a very important test for graduation or a license of some sort.  Once you’ve done your preparations, take the last 10 minutes to relax and free your mind before you go meet your Negotiating Compliment

2. Opening Moves

1. Evaluate the Frames. Before you can grasp the nuance of framing you first have to appreciate the difference between “framing” and “positioning”.  A simple definition of positioning is - what any party is willing to do or not willing to do based on a specific set of conditions.  Framing is the act (and art) of telling people what something means or what they think it should mean.  For example a Negotiating Preframe might be found contained in the following opening line “This converstaion is going to be short and we are going to come to an agreement quickly.”  The conversation hasn’t even happened yet and someone is already talking about what the conversation is going to be.  They are trianing your mind or the mind of your Negotiating Compliment what to think and how to think about what’s coming next.

there are 3 basics types of framing Pre-Framing, Re-Framing and De-framing.

2. If your Negotiating Compliment starts with Pre-Framing (defining what something means, telling you how the Negotiation is going to go and so forth)then your response must be to challenge his framing (even if you agree).  When someone’s “framing” process has been allowed to stand they have set a precedent in the Negotiation to do it again and you can almost count on that happening.  Pre-Framing by you is often a very smart way to start off a Negotiation.  Decide what you do and do not want to talk about, where and where-not you want to go in a Negotiation and form a statement or question to reflect that as an opening move.

3. A Major Tenant in a Negotiation is He Who Asks the Questions Controls the Flow of the Negotiation.  Master The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions.

3. The Negotiating Dance

Once you have established the ground work for a Negotiation your opportunity is to see it through. You must be open to the mystries of the universe (and your Negotiating Compliment) in order to take full advantage of what they say and how you can capitalize upon their information.  Here are some dance moves to consider:

1. 1. If your Negotiating Compliment pushes then do a take away
   2. If you Negotiating Compliment stalls then change the focus (or topic) of the Negotation
   3. If your Negotiating Compliment rushes then stall.
   4. If your Negotiating Compliment is foggy or unclear then ask more questions.
   5. If your Negotiating Compliment asks a positioning question (a question who’s answer will nail down your position and reduce your flexibility possibly later) then challenge his question with your own question instead of answering it.
   6. If you Negotiating Compliment presses you to take a position or tries to box you in play stupid.

A metaphor that might help you Understand what your doing during The Dance Phase of a Negotiation is that you are painting your Negotiating Compliment.  In order for you to do this you need him to assume a position that you like and hold absolutely still (maintain that favorable position)  You want to get your Negotiating Compliment into an unchanging or immoveable position that fully supports your own position then…

4. Close!

The are many resources on the art of closing.  Some great movies to stir up your closing passions are “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Boiler Room”  If you’ve done a great job of the other 3 steps in this Basic Training then most of your work for #4 is already done.  Closing is really about what your Negotiating Compliment is READY TO DO NOW (though that is not always true it’s a good basic rule to follow).  When you close you simply continue to Ask Resourceful Questions like:

1. “Will you give me a credit card number now or do you prefer to use a check?”
2. “How many copies of the contract would you like to have signatures on?”
3. “Do you want me to cc the invoice to any other parties?”
4. “Please give me your banker’s contact details so we can expedite the transaction.”
5. Every question in the close is full of assumptions that THEY ARE ALREADY CLOSED.  The close is about taking action to the commitment you’ve already acquired from them from the course of the Negotiation.
6. “Now that we’ve settled our first successful Negotiation is there anything else we might be able to do for you?” (Upsale as often as you can).

Although there are mountains of information about Negotiating the real Master Negotiator has worn all those mountains down to a simple, smooth and graceful ballet of communicating to and with the Negotiating Compliment to not only acquire exactly what you want in a Negotiation but to obtain even more than you first intended.

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

Austin, Texas

http://yourownbestgood.com

]]> http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/09/05/the-negotiators-basic-training/feed/ http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/08/30/who-is-bruce-burns/ http://yourownbestgood.com/2008/08/30/who-is-bruce-burns/#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:17:53 +0000 Bruce http://yourownbestgood.com/?p=182 Greetings Negotiators!

I’ve been laying a little low but as summer cools off I’m easing back into the money-never-sleeps world wide web with some fresh content.  One thing I’ve just put into the data stream is my new portal site.  At http://bruce-burns.com you can find all the different websites that I personal host, webmaster and generate from my own personal power.

So lets get right to the Negotiator’s Secret of the Day.  I’m not sure how often I’ve shared this as a Negotiator’s Secret on the web but for my apprentices and my clients I’m constantly re-affirming a very important guideline to effective negotiations. In a negotiation there are only 4 possible positions with the negotiating dynamic and they are:

1. No One’s Position Changes
2. Your Position Changes
3. Their Position Changes
4. Both Positions Change

I know that might sound like some kind of faulty zen puzzle, but there it is plain and simple.  You might even ask yourself (or my virtual self) “This is so apparent…why mention it, why include it in the great volume of Negotiating Secrets as if saying ‘The price of gas is expensive.’ isn’t obvious enough?”

Speaking of gas - a great way to thinking about The Four Negotiating Positions is to create a simple metaphor.  Traffic…

What do you do when someone is going to slow in front of you?

Change Your Position.

The reason The Four Negotiating Positions is essential to a powerful and effective negotiation is that knowing which position the negotiation is in helps you to choose what to do next in the negotiation. Lets take something too simple and complicate it.  Have you ever dealt with someone that had no spine at all?  Every negotiation you ever had with them ended up with them acquiesing?  Sure you have.  What was your primary negotiating tactic?  I know when someone else is negotiating for me, my primary negotiating tactic is often just silence.  Let them talk themselves into whatever it is you want to talk them into.

So we review The Four Negotiating Positions and discover that the above-made-up-from-my-imagination-based-on-people-I’ve-actually-dealt-with Negotiating Compliment and discover they are changing their position.  Just as a reminder for simplicity sake we will assume for this lesson that their positions and yours are genuine and not faux-position. What do we know?  We know:

1. Our Position and..
2. they are changing their position and…
3. we haven’t changed our position therefore …
4. we maintain our position as it seems to …
5. be creating a Negotiating Gravity that they are responding too.

Going back to the beginning I remind you that we don’t just Negotiate but we Negotiate to Your Own Best Good.  That “your” can be singular or plural.  In a fulfilling negotiation there is always a transaction to your own best bood.  With few exceptions, The Negotiator wants to avoid position # 1) No one’s position changes.  It is the very change in position that identifies the transaction weather it be words, the signing of a check or the vacating of a condition that was not supportive for The Negotiator.

The study of Position and Positioning in a Negotiation is vast and could be dedicated to an entire other website and set of material.  Since you already know this website I’ll spoil you and keep it here.

If today’s Negotiating Secret has nudged your mind or inspired you to be curious or even if you have an objection (I respect those who challenge the information) then feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com I always respond to real questions and real people (not Viagra spam) and will even use your question as the source of a future blog with your permission.

Soon I’ll be expanding The Negotiator’s Newsletter and if you would like to receive it regularly please find the sign up box in the upper right portion of this page.

I’ll be watching for you to changes positions at the Negotiating Table.

Bruce Burns, The Negotiator!

I’ve been away from the daily discipline of blogging but never has a day gone by that I wasn’t taking Negotiating to the edge and beyond.  As a 4th of July gift to you all I will return to a most basic concept and break it down with some interesting nuances.

Recently I was asked to Negotiate for a client that was in a unique position to help someone she has “other” business dealings with.  Their business dealings has my client indebted to the other party, so my client asked me to fashion a negotiation that would allow her “help” to translate into the resolution of the debt.  The challenge with a request like this is that we each have our own belief about what is really resourceful for another and what is not.  If you are an avid reader of my blog then I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next.

First, calibrate your belief about the other party.  You believe they really need something you have.  Don’t take your own belief as the be-all and end-all analysis, ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS INSTEAD.

So I agreed to enter into this negotiation on my client’s behalf.  Of course the other party had no idea I was negotiating because all I did was call and ask resourceful questions. Interestingly enough I mentioned the very helpful resource over and over again in my conversation without “framing” it (I didn’t explain my client’s intentions for the resource) and the other party just didn’t bite.  They didn’t seem interested, didn’t respond positively, etc.

No Problem! One of the most important rules of a Negotiation is Never Rush a Negotiation. A negotiation is not unlike a garden. Even though my client and I see the potential for Negotiated Transaction until the other party can see it, the vision is nearly useless.  So, plant a seed.

The trick to planting a seed is giving it the time to grow.  The resource you need to make that trick work is patience and faith in the process.

I’ll probably post the results of my plant-and-wait method in the near future.  What seeds have you planted lately?

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

Have you ever watched a kid play with legos or for those of you who are as ancient as I am, Lincoln Logs? They will spend hours fascinated by what comes out of their…what? What is the operative process in what a child or adult is doing when they put two or more legos together? Connection. Where does the connection first occur? Inside the child. How does the connection occur? Asking a resourceful question. What is the result of the connection? I don’t know. That is the mystery and the magic of communication. When your communication creats a connection for yourself - often times we might refer to this as talking out loud. What do we call it when it creates a connection for someone else? Wisdom, insight, intuition?

How does it work? This might be the only real lesson you’ll ever need to achieve Mastery in Communication and Negotiation. It works just the way it did when we are kids. The child sees the different colored Legos and ponders (by Asking a Resourceful Question) what the result might look like, then confirms that result by making the connections.

I was at an after-work part recently with some friends and more significantly some friends-of-friends. The group was a mixture of genders and ages, coupled and single. They were mostly in the sub-business-culture of marketing, internet marketing and sales. The first thing I “did” to make the connections was to interview anyone that would let me. Most people actually like being interviewed, it’s a chance for them to get undivided attention and feel significant to someone else. My interview starts like a cocktail party conversation:

1. What’s your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. What do you do?
4. How are you connected to this group (or the person that sponsored the party)

Who can’t do that, you ask? People who are in bed sleeping. Everyone CAN DO THIS. Ok so what makes my cocktail questions different from any other shallow smoozer? I’m the kid who can’t put the Legos down. I immediately start making connections not only in my mind - but out of my mouth for the interviewee. Here’s a sample of some follow up questions from the above four:

1. Wow that’s an interesting name where does that come from? (asked that at the party)
2. I’ve been to (name place person is from). Do they still have “Rodeo Day” every year? (show you that I know where your from and entertain you with some local trivia)
3. That’s fascinating (what they do), I once (tell a short story or related life fact about their business)…(if you don’t have a story or fact then reveal a personal or secret interest in something that really relates to what they do) When I went to college I really wanted to go into law but..
4. If you’ve heard about them through friend then say so “Penny has mentioned you a few times - I always wanted to connect the name with a face.” If you haven’t heard of them then at least feign disappointment that you hadn’t met sooner “I’m going to tell Penny she’s been hiding you for herself!”

Still cocktail party you say? Yeah, though a good one. Imagine though if for every (of the original 4)cocktail question that gets answered, you generate 10-50 new questions. Think back to a family get together or even just babysitting a relative’s child. What does a child do before about the age of 8? Do they ask a lot of questions? “where do babies come from” ad infintum. They are making connections in their mind. They are mapping out relationships for the first time that we old, slow, stuck-in-our-ways adults take for granted.

Do you have some fear on asking 200 questions to one person at a party? I can appreciate that. It’s been my experience that about 1 in ever 50 people or so don’t like to be interviewed to that degree. So that means the next 49 people will let you ask 200 questions while that 50th person might only let you get away with 10. Lets break that down. 49 x 200 = 9800 + 10 (from #50). So do you think you can come up with something amazing with 9810 answers? That is an enormous amount of information.

The party I went to consisted of about 15 or 20 people. I talked to about half of those. I even found #50 in the group I spoke to - which I thought was funny. I don’t badger the #50s but when I come across them I still smile. After 3 hours, I had made several appointments, 2 future get-together dates with a larger group and had circulated my phone # and my website shamelessly. Oh here’s another fact - of all the people I did speak to about 90 percent of them had already heard of me. Here is the irony - the person that put the party together is also a #50. She won’t even let me ask questions of her boyfriend questions (though he and I talked anyway). The lesson there is just because a #50 mind find you annoying doesn’t mean they don’t see your value - I still get invited to parties.

So let me wrap up this construct for you with some value. The difference between a child making a lego pyrmaid and any human making the connections with other humans is that once you’ve inventoried their map (the interview) then you share your map and finally you build a new map with the two existing maps. Connections build the bridges between your map and theirs. Those bridges are a map unto themselves and allow resources and opportunities and possibilities to pass back and forth.

If you’d be interested to know more about making connections or just have questions, feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. I’m available for private consultation and training.

I’ll see you at the cocktail party or perhaps the Negotiating table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Some of you may have been wondering why there’s been no new posts in a month’s time.  One of my pet peeves is “excuses”.  In all my years of having someone to account to - I’ve only heard 1 person not like this comment: “I have no excuse”.  So, I have no excuse.  However, I do have some good news.  I’ve been working with a woman who has a  stack of credentials in the world of producing.  By producing, I mean Television and the Big Screen.  She’s contacted me for some of my services and while we were getting to know one another’s businesses better, I discovered she had as much to offer me in the way of her knowledge and training as I did her.

I’d like to share my Personal Calibration.  If you remember I’ve mentioned calibration at least a few times.  It is the process by which you determine the impact of your Negotiation.  Calibration has both a short term benefit and a long term benefit.  Simply put, Calibration is the evaluation of what you are doing and MOST IMPORTANTLY what impact that is having on those around you.   One form of Calibration is to ask yourself Resourceful Questions or more specifically, ask yourself Resourceful Calibrating Questions.  You’ve just asked a new potential business client about his hair transplants.  What happened to his body language, did his tonality change?  Did you de-rail him or did he smile?  Is this something you ever want to bring up again or will this get him to talking no matter what?  Of course your questions will be based in real time evaluations.  The error in most peoples communications and Negotiations is that they simply don’t calibrate.  The short term benefit of calibration is to adapt your communication so that your Negotiating Compliment is inspired to continue sharing information and making communication transactions in your favor.  The long term benefit is that in each subsequent Communication you don’t have to start from scratch.  You can remember NOT to bring up the hair transplants or  TO bring up his new grand-daughter he can’t stop talking about.

So, this website is a form of my communication to you.  I have not calibrated as effectively regarding this website as I am able.  Part of my New Years’ Resolution was to increase my sensory acuity in regards to my personal and professional Calibrations.  I hope that you benefit from this.  The first distinction I had help making and I would like to share with you is this: Most people don’t want to become a Negotiator.  They may want some of the skills and benefits that a Negotiator could offer, but by-and-large few are able to maintain that frame about themselves.   If you are the empirical type, here’s the data: less than .83 % (that’s less than 1%)of the members who’ve signed up for my newsletter have signed up for my apprenticeship program.

Without an hour discussion about what I did in the month you’ve not heard from me - let me show you my bottom line.  After working with this woman (who I might give credit to later once she’s given me permission to do so)who lives in the world of producing, I discovered that what almost everyone is interested in and can “see” themselves “being” is a Communicator.  I’ve been working on an audio series called (tentatively) Life Communication Series.  I’ve been adapting my training for daily situations where people may have previously felt dis-empowered in terms of what they communicate and how they communicate.

Don’t get me wrong, Negotiating is still my passion and I will have much more material both free and for sale in the coming months on that as well.

So, lets see if I can get up something today for you as a gift for being so patient with my month long hiatus.

Thank you.

I’ll be Communicating with You soon or see You at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce  the Communicator and

the Negotiator!

Since I’ve had great success keeping up with this blog (blogging everyday….not)I’ve decided to launch a second blog. Actually my blog diversity is simply a way to maintain the integrity of each of the two areas that the blogs represent: 1)Negotiation (of course) and 2)Ho’oponopono. There may be some overlap once in a while but mostly I wish to let each site grow on it’s on. If you have an interest in the new site - fantastic and if you don’t fantastic!

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN
NEGOTIATORS
BRUCE BURNS
PRESENTS

TEXAS HO’OPONOPONO

AND

TEXAS HO’OPONOPONO MEETUP (#1 in google)

I love experiencing new things. Ho’oponopono is definitely different (and relatively new for me) than Negotiating.

I don’t usually talk about my Negotiating “failures” but since this one is in the spirit of the Winter Holidays (did someone say Christmas?) perhaps it will help someone out there. My wife and her family are like Christmas-a-holics. I’m not sure if there is a 12 step program for those kinds of people, but the first year I lived in Austin there were 3 Christmas trees in the house stacked neck deep in a 100 foot radius “under” each tree. I prefer to do more in the morning and less in the evenings - perhaps it’s my 40-something year old “gravity”. She just closed me on going to Hobby Lobby during rush hour traffic. I’d almost rather fold clothes (almost). So, if your wife or girlfriend closes you on a regular basis and you’d like to learn a few Negotiating turn-arounds for that or you just have a question - feel free to leave it in the comments section just beneath this post or write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. If you are interested in a more intensive look at Negotiating and Negotiations you might consider applying for my APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM (currently free).

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

This weekend I spent an entire day with a client. He was managing many major changes in his life and it requires him to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. While I happened to be in ear-shot he received a call from an irate customer. I knew some of the back story to this particular customer and I suspected the call might be a defining moment in my client’s relationship with his client.

10 minutes later after some rather intense phone time with the irate customer my client was unhinged. He like many Negotiating Clients wanted to validate his “point of view” with me after having gotten off the phone. Me, like I am when it comes to Negotiating, wanted to TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN my client to appreciate the phone call like a Negotiator.

In the first few minutes of the conversation between my client and his client “blame” surfaced. The irate customer blamed my client. My client’s response to that was to defend the blame and talk about what he “didn’t do”. After the phone call had ended and some cool-down time had passed, I addressed these areas with my client.

Here’s what I said:

1. You can’t prove a negative.
2. When a client blames you for something unfairly if you can manage to keep your center and remember you are a Negotiator you can actually turn that event into a great advantage.
3. Blame or being a victim is a Negotiating Position. The position looks like “I take the position of a victim with all the victim monologue”
4. When you start “reacting” in a Negotiation you’ve lost the Negotiation. If both parties are reacting, the Negotiation is simply “done”.
5. The key to managing someone who is taking a “victim” Negotiating Position is to challenge the position through Asking Resourceful Questions. Most “victims” will change their tune when they discover there is a)absolutely no pay-off or b)a potential loss for taking such a Negotiating Position to begin with.

My client wanted sympathy and to focus on the drama of what his client had said while he and I were working through his experience. This is a very important distinction to make in each potential Negotiator’s mind. You can either get lost in the drama of a Passionate Negotiation or you can appreciate the value of a Passionate Negotiation and navigate through it to even greater rewards than a standard non-passionate Negotiation.

By challenging a “victim” Negotiating Position effecitvely, the Negotiating Complement often times will regret having been a baby and try to make up for the self-realizing humiliation by Overcompensating you in a Negotiation. Who doesn’t want $ in terms of overcompensation?

If you’ve ever been faced with Blame in business and would like to ask questions or just have a comment then feel free to comment or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  To hear more about how to Negotiate, sign up for my newsletter on the right hand side of my site and receive a free copy of The Negotiator’s Checklist.  If you would like to dive deeper into the world of Negotiations then you may want to consider my (currently free) Apprenticeship Program.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table.

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

I promised to talk about T-Shirts and Maui last night so let me cut to the chase. In a few hours I’ll be driving Suzanne and myself to the airport to fly to Hawaii. How does that make me feel - you ask? Probably not (you didn’t ask) but I’ll answer anyway. I’m scared, a bit nervous to say the least. I’ve not had a real vacation since 1989 and guess where it was at…

…Maui, Hawaii. All vacation-talk set aside, I wish to acknowledge that the main reason I’m going to Hawaii (besides having the time of my life) is to support two very significant people in my life: Dr. Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len with the Zero Limits II Seminar. I’m quite confident that Dr. Hew Len will talk about erasing memories and I hope he can forgive me but I intend to create a few not just for myself but for anyone who wants to go or even thought who wished they could go but couldn’t. Here’s how..

I’ll be shamelessly wearing one everyday I suspect and you’ll find me displaying my website on the back of mine with great Internet humility! I’ve got a great deal of packing to do so I’ll leave you the link so you can buy a few memories for yourself now:

ZERO LIMITS T-SHIRT PRODUCTS PAGE

The Zero Limits II seminar will be held here:

I think you get the idea. I’m very excited and if I wasn’t overwhelmed with last-minute getting-ready - I’ stay a while and share some Negotiating Tips. Perhaps tomorrow on a layover or something.

If you’d like to know how to Negotiate your way to Hawaii or have a story about Hawaii or Negotiations the please feel free to leave a comment. You can also write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. For those of you who might want a closer look at training as a Negotiator please consider what a powerful experience my (currently) free Apprenticeship Program might be fore you!  I’ll see you in Maui!!

Bruce Burns, The Negotiator!

The holidays have struck again and people are fighting at department stores at 5am to be the first through the doors. I remember a few years back when I arrived at my local theater at 5 am to be the second family in line for Revenge of the Sith for the 8:30am showing. Being second in line isn’t so bad when the line wraps entirely around the 20 theater metroplex as the sun rises. Jar-Jar Binks didn’t inspire any violence outside of the theater though - I’m happy to report.

With the holidays comes the kind of forced reality-check that occurs when individuals either joyfully plan to spend time with their family and loved ones. I took along a long time friend of mine for Thanksgiving this year to my in-laws country estate in Driftwood, Texas.

My friends name is Randy and we go all the way back to 1984, the year I moved to New England. Since then we’ve entered quite a few business opportunities together. In fact the first job he helped me get in 1985 doubled my all time record for an hourly wage. I’m sure I could attribute a list of my strengths today as a result of my long-time friend’s influence but since this isn’t MySpace I’ll just name one that relates to Negotiating. Randy was the inspiration and the model for me for decades for the process I now refer to as Challenge the Information.

He relocated to Texas some years back and is now a thriving business owner in the Austin area. www.cpuaustin.com. He creates industry standard blogs and websites as well as designs residential and commercial computer networks with an emphasis on customer support and drive-up service.

I wanted to thank Randy for being such a joy at my in-laws for Thanksgiving. Everyone really enjoyed his festive spirit and his Yankee-in-Texas bravado. And as far as persistence goes, Randy would negotiate with you at a funeral if he got the chance.  You can call him at (512) 351-7841.

So in closing you Negotiators out there might want to ask yourselves this resourceful question: “What Negotiating Strategy did Randy apply in order to get an entire post devoted to him including his website and his home phone number?”

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about T-shirts and my first vacation in almost 20 years.

If you’ve found anything in this post interesting feel free to leave a comment or even complain if you wish. Also I take any and all questions directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. If you wish a more intensive look at training as a Negotiator, please consider signing up for my (currently) free apprenticeship program. I’ll see you all at the Negotiating Table and some of you in Maui soon!

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

I’ve been Negotiating calories but not to my own best good for a long time. I had the good fortune of being invited onto a One Hour Teleconference training call as the guest speaker twice in the past few weeks. The products and services that the company these people represent are about nutrition, health and weight loss. After the second call I spoke at length to my contact’s mentor. I listened and learned and was inspired to try their products and services for about two weeks. I’m nearing the end of week one (after some Negotiating of course!)

One of the most interesting things that I learned is that our bodies produce fat to insulate our organs from toxins that we come in contact with.  So some fat in our bodies can be caused by the level of toxicity of your environment.

I’m going to give the program and products a few months then I’ll share my results.

On a more serious note - I have a friend who’s created an amazing game.  He’s marketing it with a video that he’s included me in at the very end.  You can check out a talking gorilla here: http://yourownbestgood.com/?page_id=24.  He and his life’s love Nan have returned recently from a European Tour focused mostly on the British Isles.

Today I received a call from one of my Relationship Coaching clients.  Her dilemma was that she really wants a relationship but the counter-intention belief that was contrasting her will to find a significant other sounds like this:

I don’t need a man to be a whole person.

I understood her challenge and I broke it down like this:

1. When our needs go unmet long enough our neediness becomes Desperation
2. Desperation leads to Devastation - Whenever we act out of a desperate state we always create devastating results.
3. The first resourceful behavior to inspire in someone who is feeling or acting desperate is to help them get some needs met.  As soon as their neediness starts to decrease they can think creatively again and start accessing their own resources.
4. Yes it’s true you don’t need another person to be “whole” however we all have needs.   Companionship and attention are some of those needs.  So if you go out and find someone for companionship then you are making a proactive choice to get your needs met.
5. As you develop a relationship with yourself the relationships that you can attract and maintain with others grows  proportionally.

One rule I try to remember when an avalanche of philosophy seems to swarm over a tiny practicality in our personal lives is When Philosophy meets Reality, Reality always Wins!

If you have a Philosophy that is in conflict with your Reality and would like some help then leave a comment or email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  You can Recieve my FREE Negotiator’s Checklist by signing up for my newsletter at the top right hand side of my site.  If you are interested in a deeper level of information my Apprenticeship is still free: Apprentice Now!

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

I took on a new client last night.  She’s in a work situation that is intolerable to her.  Her work-situation-pain was bad enough that a friend put her in contact with the Negotiator!

The basics of her situation are that she is the most seasoned professional in her field at her company by decades of experience to the next most experienced person.  In fact all the other people that do what she does at the company are just a few years out of college at best, some are probably still in college studying to get a degree in what she does.  The owner of her company (her boss) makes many snap decisions based on little or no information from any outside sources.  Another way of describing that process is to say that her boss hallucinates the living picture of her own company instead of calibrating what she thinks she knows against what is presently occurring in the “real world”.

So as a result of one of her bosses hallucinations, she was demoted in status from “Project Manager” to “Blank”.  She told she didn’t even know she was a “Project Manager” until she received the demotion (sounds like Enron Accounting practices).  I asked her how this demotion occurred and she told me it was a result of her boss reframing her (this means the boss was “translating” what my new client had done and continuing her “translation” of the situation by telling her that she couldn’t be a “Project Manager”).

Do you let someone talk to you like a dog?

So I asked my client what she is doing now.  She said “Exactly the same thing”.  So as I understand my client’s translation of the situation, her boss demoted my client’s title and nothing else.  Here was the homework assignment I gave my latest client:

1. Write down in the most precise way the message that you wish to deliver to your boss.  Write it like you were giving instructions to a computer like “Stop demeaning me.  Start supporting me.  Respect my expertise.” very simple messages like this.
2. Think of all the things you want to say, all the feelings and attitudes and views that you have about the current situation.  Get really clear on what all this is and don’t leave anything out.
3. For each thought from #2 find evidence to support your feeling or attitude or view.  If you “Feel disrespected” then remember the 3 times she said “Your no better than these interns, get out of my sight!”
4. For ever scrap of evidence form a resourceful question.  Example: evidence= “the 3 times she said ‘You’re no better than these interns, get out of my sight!’ question(s) = “How often do you think you can tell an adult with grown children “..get out of my sight!” before the consequences of your childish behavior fall back in your lap?” or “Which training seminar did you go to that led you to believe disrespecting your employees is an effective tool in maximizing their efficiency?” and so on.

After having spent about 30 minutes coaching my new client I asked her (calibrated) what all that meant to her.  She said “I feel fantastic, this is really helpful and I’m scared to death!”  I reassured her that taking back her power, standing up for herself, creating boundaries for people including her boss for the first time is scary.  So I asked her how many more months she’d be willing to tolerate the demeaning experience before she burst.  That was an arrow that hit the bullseye of her focus.

When someone starts to put you in a box (re-frame you) that you don’t fit in, you’ll look like you are in the box to everyone else that is mesmerized by the box-putting action, especially if it’s from an authority figure.  The appropriate response immediately when this starts happening is to challenge the information.  You must collapse any frame that doesn’t support you or help you experience your own best good. If you find that you’ve failed to do this in any relationship and suddenly you want to collapse the frame you’ve been shoved into by someone else then follow my 4 step technique above.

Collapsing a frame is called “de-framing” 

My new client at times told me some of my information seem “mean” or didn’t “feel nice”.  I asked her if she felt like the way she  had been treated made her “feel nice”.  She agreed immediately that it did not.  The perception-in-error that standing up for yourself, getting firm, declaring your boundaries and being real with others “isn’t nice” is based on our fear of how people will react when we take these bold positions.  The correction of this error is to shift the emphasis off of what other people feel long enough to take care of yourself and your own feelings first.  You cannot give something to someone else before you first give it to yourself: respect, loyalty, honesty, validation, inspiration, etc.

If this post stirs up feelings in you or reminds you of a situation you h ave questions about feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com or you can leave a comment beneath this post in the comments section.  If you are looking for more information about Negotiations then sign up for my newsletter to the right and receive your FREE Negotiator’s Checklist.  For the rare individual that really wants to take his Negotiating Skills up a notch you might want to consider joining my (currently free) Apprenticeship Program.

What would you do now if you could discover every time you open your mouth you get exactly what you want?

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Within the framework of Negotiations, the most consistently passionate Negotiations that I see in my work daily is that of Negotiating in a Relationship. My wife and I have been watching an amazing new show on HBO: Tell Me You Love Me. Suzanne and I are TV-Talkers - most people can’t stand watching TV with us. We were laughing the other day that we need two remotes so that either one of us can pause a show and discuss what we are thinking, feeling and wondering. The show is very provocative, very adult-thematic and had Suzanne and I wearing out the pause button discussing what we were seeing.

(A couple on the show in therapy lying to their therapist)

Here is the jist of almost all intimate-relational negotiations: 1) Negotiator becomes tunnel visioned in their desired outcome, 2) Negotiator shapes huge passionate intent and blurts it to their Negotiating Complement (usually the love interest), 3) Negotiating Compliment doesn’t experience being involved in the blurted intent, can’t find personal connectivity to the blurt and neutralizes the Negotiation by erecting an emotional and psychological wall and in some cases a physical wall that looks like a door shutting in your face.

Most Romantic Negotiators loose hope and experience a huge drop in self-worth and self-esteem at this point and return to the lonely-I’ll-always-be-lonely frame that they tried to escape from in the first place. The Key to understanding what is happening is that Negotiating for love and companionship is almost always done out of a state of desperation. I’m not speaking for every couple or single-wanting-to-be-coupled person of course - I am speaking to all of you who experience a huge disconnect between what you want and desire and what you currently have in your life.

If I never share another post or thought with you about intimate relationships then know that my answer to this equation is my answer to everything - Ask Resourceful Questions! If you wanted to simplify and sum up what your job is in a relationship then I just told you: The most important duty in any form of relationship, especially an intimate one is to continue to ask the Negotiating Compliment (your significant other) questions. Pretend you don’t understand, ask questions that help you understand, reiterate your understanding (calibration) and evaluate creatively what you can do with your new found understanding.

The greatest gift you can ever give any intimate relationship is the gift of understanding! If you want to piss off your companion, then misunderstand them and you are there.

The question I get asked every day is How do I formulate my Resourceful Questions? This of course is a very resourceful question. Here is my answer:

Get real still. Get real focused on the subject of your Negotiation. Imagine all the dialog that is going to occur between you and the Negotiating Complement or anyone you are going to Ask Resourceful Questions of. Take every concept you wish to convey, every position you wish to demonstrate, every feeling, every insight, every doubt, everything and translate it into a question. That’s the formula, here’s an example …

[situation]:Single woman taking her car to the dealership for an undetermined repair. [thoughts of a single woman]“Last time I went to get the wiper fluid refilled, they replaced my radiator and charged me $2800.00! I think that place is a rip off! I wish I could just get them to fix what’s wrong with the car instead of turning loose steering into a major car drama. I’m going to go to another dealership if they try to rip me off again! I wish I had someone who understood cars to talk too or even go with me and ask all the questions I don’t even know to ask! ” [translation into Resourceful Questions]:1)How does a dealership stay in business when refilling the wiper fluid turns into a $2800 repair? Is it the policy of the dealership’s owner and management to find major things wrong with a car even when someone’s just coming in to get an oil change? Has this happened to other customers? Where would such an event be recorded if it had? If I called another dealership and explain my frustration to them, would they treat me better - would they want to earn my trust instead of burning it up like the initial dealership did? Next time I’m flirting with some fellow at a club (remember single woman)I wonder if I could remember to to ask him what he knows about cars? I wonder if I could even set up a first date as him riding with me to the dealership to at least listen to the “lines” the repair shop gives me? What would have to happen for me to get treated honestly at this dealership if I went back? Who would I have to speak to, what questions would I have to ask them to ensure that I wasn’t duped into paying for things I don’t need?

This is just the beginning of all the Resourceful Questions the single woman could ask not only herself but all the other players that might be involved. It takes practice to convert what you are thinking into questions. Once you develop a habit of thinking in questions instead of emotional blurts though, you suddenly can think of hundreds of questions to ask in any situation and I promise you that Asking more and more Resourceful Questions creates more and more choices and resources for you NOW!

What would you do next if you found someone who could teach you how to get exactly what you wanted just by opening your mouth and speaking? If you’ve found any of the material on today’s post interesting and would like to know more about Negotiations or any elements of Negotiating feel free to leave a comment or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

You can also receive my FREE Negotiator’s Checklist just by signing up for my newsletter on the right-hand side of this page.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Later this morning I’m giving a one hour Tele-Seminar to a group of business professionals who are seeking to grow and refine their business practices, especially in the arena of closing the deal. So, I decided I would get fully associated with the topic by returning to my own starting point of consciously working with my outcomes and the outcomes of others through an interventionistic model that I was trained in by Anthony Robbins.

In Tony’s first book (that I read) Unlimited Power there is a 5 step technique for asking. The one step that still sticks in my mind today is Ask Until. Tony tells a story about Colonel Sanders, the man who started up Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’ll save you the story and race to the punchline. The punchline is that Colonel Sanders asked 1009 restaurants to try his recipe in exchange for a cut of the profits they would get when the sales went up as a result of his delicious chicken.

My challenge for each of you today is to consider this: If you knew you would eventually succeed as long as you continued to re-engineer your approach and were willing to give of yourself for as long as it took to succeed - would you still find a reason to quit or would you play full out and accomplish your dream? Colonel Sanders lived in his car and traveled all across the U.S. asking different chicken restaurants if they would try his recipe in return for a share of the increased profits they would make. How many of you have stayed with a dream where you had to present your vision 1009 times? Would you like to inherit KFC? Do you think the owners of KFC are grateful that the Colonel didn’t stop at 1008?

Here is the mistake that many of us, including myself often make at some point in our life experience. We REALLY need something, perhaps we are even desperate for that something and we ask for help, or we ask for resources to turn our desperation around or we ask god to change our situation but whoever and whatever we are asking for - we ASK for it! And the magic solution doesn’t come, the resource doesn’t seem to appear. THEN we shriek in agony and often we blame THE ASKING, the process of asking itself, which leads us to a very very unresourceful belief system asking doesn’t work. Do you think on the 490th time or the 756th time or the 999th time that Colonel Sanders might have had these doubts, fears, disappointments and frustrations? I don’t for certain but I suspect he did. He proved your doubts, my doubts and his doubts wrong in a time before self-help was part of our pop culture.

So, I give this today - The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions! If you spent the next 5 years mastering this one technique and you did in fact master it - I guarantee that you would transform the quality of your life and many lives of those around you during and after that 5 year period. This doesn’t mean that you have to wait 5 years to see a powerful result, I simply mean if you gave it 5 years to master and you did indeed master it. On the Tele-seminar I’m about to dial into I’ll be talking about this.

If you are interested in receiving more information about Negotiating you can sign up for my newsletter and RECEIVE THE NEGOTIATORS CHECKLIST FOR FREE!  If you want a strong dose of my techniques you might want to consider looking at my apprenticeship program.

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Although I am passionate about my Negotiating material, insights, strategies, etc., I do my best to shy away from controversial topics for my blog. I differentiate between controversial and sensational. Sensational draws clicks to my site, gets peoples’ voyeuristic side engaged and is a great marketing tool. Controversial on the other hand usually divides the readers literally in two, which is to say - those who agree and those who disagree.

Today, I wish to share my insights and experience with the seldom-thought-of, greatly devalued resource that is in my opinion THE resource of all the resources a Negotiator has available. The reason that I share this with you today is that I would use my blog to inspire and compel any of you who read it to find any way you can to preserve this resource. Before I tell you what the resource is, I want you to see the following:

I suspect by now you are clear on the resource I am referring too. I’ve seen this video about 8 times now and I would think after a few times of watching it I might become numb to the reality that video represents. Fortunately that is not so. The intense passion and the depth of the seriousness that I feel for being free and being able to express myself freely does not chill so easily as I feared.

I’m neither for nor against John Kerry, I have no idea what he was speaking about. I know though if I was someone who won the presidential vote even if I lost the election and I cared about freedom of speech - I would never allow local police to arrest anyone for asking me a question - no matter how much I might hate that question.

One form of speech inhibiting that occurs in our society today, especially in the U.S. is the Matrix-esque political correctness. The whole idea that you are “not supposed to say that” reflects how far the average citizen has been mislead by the mega-conglomerate mass-media and their owners. The mere fact that the police were standing right behind the microphone for the question and answer session suggest to me that the whole production was done with the repression of freedom of speech in mind.

If you ever find yourself in a situation similar to this - my advice to you is to challenge the information. You ask as many resourceful questions as you can possibly think of. Challenge everything they do if it’s about inhibiting your right to speak. Regardless of the “investigations” or even potential trial outcomes that might occur as a result of this event between the social dissenting college student and a should-have-been president - those cops were breaking many laws. The fat white one even had the mindless pride to look up and smile right in the camera. If our children who we send to college to learn more about life and the world might be arrested for asking the wrong questions - where have we come to?

In almost every case when someone lies - it is because the challenge to their information is so strong that they are afraid of the truth. The truth being in most peoples minds a relative thing is the most accurate portrayal of any person’s right-minded understanding of whatever context is being challenged. Are you afraid to ask hard questions? Are you afraid of being asked hard questions? If you are afraid then challenge your own information! Discover the source of your fear and Negotiate to Your Own Best Good in order to transcend it.

I encourage responses to today’s video and my take on it. You are as always welcome to challenge the information! You can leave a comment or send an email directly to me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. You may also sign up for my newsletter and receive the FREE NEGOTIATORS CHECKLIST on the top right-hand side of my site.

What would you be willing to learn now if every time you opened your mouth, you got exactly what you asked for?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

In the late summer of 2001 I had the habit of working at night and sleeping during the early hours of the morning. After having descended into the blissful oblivion of up-all-night sleep at about 6 am on September 11th, I was awakened sometime after 8am by my wife. She said the following things to my still nearly comatose brain:

“Cheryl just called and she said that the Pentagon has just been hit and the World Trade Center has been taken hostage by a Jet Airplane.”

I thought I was in a Saturday Night Live skit or something. Since the information didn’t make any sense - I had the urge to tell my wife to turn the lights off and go back to sleep. I love my wife so I asked a question to her Peter Pan/Tinkerbell story: “What?” She repeated the comment and I told her as I was coming back to consciousness “That doesn’t make sense.” She was very upset and had probably been up for hours. She replied “It’s what Cheryl said”.

So I asked a few more questions which led me to believe that something had happened to get two women spreading stories that had a Twilight Zone element to them. My wife was wanting to know if I thought “we” were safe. I explained to her how far away D.C. was from Austin and reminded her that we probably aren’t high on any target list. She likes to walk when she wants to clear her head so I asked her if she would walk our newly acquired puppy, Smooches and I would watch CNN and sort it out.

Smooches Reaction to 9/11 (and everything else)

I did sort it out and of course the “reality” was far less believable than the wake-up story my wife had told me. Like most Americans that day I watched the TV trying to grasp what I was seeing and hoping that some “explanation” would help it make sense.

In the 6 years since that day my life has been shaped by the 9/11 Events in many ways. For those of you who follow my blog closely you know that I’m a big fan of Asking Resourceful Questions. I also train my clients and apprentices how to and when to Challenge the Information. I suppose the biggest transformation that’s occurred to myself as a result of the 9/11 attacks was-is a greater and more focused sense of understanding my place in the complex country we live in, both philosophically and literally (two very different pictures of course). In short I’m 500 percent more civic-minded now than I was before that morning.

Today, children born in 2001 are now old enough to start school and learn to read and write. How many years from now will it take them to grasp all the changes that 9/11 brought into their world (our country). They will mostly like think that:

1. Terror Drills and Lock-Downs at Elementary Schools and Above are normal
2. That anyone with a police uniform should be detaining them, asking them questions, requesting they discuss what their parents do at home, if they have guns, and how many guns is normal.
3. Being stripped searched at Airports is normal.
4. Having an hour of gym a week at school and not being able to “get excited” on the play yard is normal.
5. That every 200th kid they might randomly meet has Autism is normal (there’s never been a report of Amish Autism)
6. That news about war and an existing war is just how the world works.
7. That the biometric “chip” that’s coming down the pipeline in a few years which will implanted somewhere on their body is “normal” and even “cool”.
8. That using a camera or video camera in NYC is a crime.
9. That the right to free speech can only be “allowed” in “free speech zones” is normal
10. Mandatory Civil Service is normal
11. Food scares, local terrorism and FEMA camps are normal.
12. That the word used by the media to represent any ill-defined villain is called Al-Keda
13. That the current “outcasts” of society are Muslim in faith or are of obvious middle-eastern descent but the 4-6 new Hispanic kids in each class each year that can’t speak English are normal.
14. That going to the doctor for most things is an absolute waste of time is normal.
15. Seeing a tape of Osama every year that never seems to change in appearance or content is normal.

Not all of the above is directly related to the attacks of 9/11 however they are a “normal” for these post-9/11 children. I remember what life was like for the 38 years I lived before 9/11. Do we just “get used to it” or do we choose to challenge the information? What each of us as parents and adults living in the post-9/11 society choose will determine what our children believe is “true” and “real” about the world we raise them in.

I wish to say to all those who love someone who died on or after September 11th, 2001 as a result of what happened that day on the South End of Manhattan - I am truly sorry for your loss. For those who were marred by those events directly or indirectly who still are among us - please forgive me for not contributing sooner, for not listening sooner, for not doing something to make a difference sooner - I have no excuse.

If you have been touched by 9/11 or related events and wish to comment or share a story you are welcome to leave a comment at the bottom of this article or send it to me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. Even if you disagree with me, your comments or emails are welcome.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns, the Negotiator!

In the last few days my subscriber list has climb considerably! I want to welcome all the new folks to my Negotiator’s Training Grounds. Some of the new subscribers might have heard about my website, products and services through Pat O’bryan’s recent book Launch:

So of course I now have to tell you the latest Bruce & Pat story. Before I begin the story I just want to breakdown the road to how I became the Negotiator and more recently the Dateinator (will explain this title in a minute). In 1989 I was certified in a technique called Neuro-Associative Conditioning Systems created by Anthony Robbins. I was fortunate enough to have gone to the 2nd to last 15 day certification process in Maui, Hawaii. The Certification Process was the first significant benchmark in my developing human-behavior and human-results model. The title interventionist was what I went by and still do from time to time helping couples, families and businesses break the cycle of unfulfilling results and installing-developing new resourceful processes instead. I’ve worked with and helped some of the most challenged people you can imagine.

Two areas of personal challenge were common to almost all my clients: 1)the world of personal & intimate relationships and 2)Communicating AND Getting what you want in both the personal and professional worlds we live in.

I discovered along the road of my now almost 19 years of Intervention that getting what you want was nearly an infinite market for me to apply my profession toward. I stress-tested the world of Negotiations and Negotiators and discovered that the demand was very high and the supply was very low. After a few clients created the Negotiating Results they wanted and never thought they would achieve I hung out a new shingle and my Negotiating career took off with wings and a sizzle. Thus I entered (unbeknown to me at th time) the highest paid profession in the world.

When you try something new, something new always happens! The number 1 topic that people want to learn HOW TO Negotiate on is personal relationships. The seeds of the Dateinator were planted. The source for the title Dateinator is of course Dating Coach + Terminator + Negotiator. I’m not sure I’ll keep it since it’s still kind of new, so if you have a better suggestion then please send me your suggestions. If I use your suggestion I’ll gladly provide you with my up & coming The Negotiator’s Checklist Explained audio gratis. With encouragement from clients from every genre of Intervention - I began Date & Relationship coaching. And now back to our story…

One of the techniques I used is called pattern interrupt (see #10). I was sitting at a nearby Starbucks with one of my newest Dating and Relationship clients. We were on about hour number 2 when I wondered if someone had dropped a Twilight Zone pill in my coffee. In through the door walks this mountain of a man that I would recognize anywhere because of all the public work we’ve done together - the One the Only Pat O’Bryan. My client of course was impressed that I new Pat and we hugged like to Sumo Wrestlers (I’m not tiny) would hug as is our custom.

Pat is the creator of Your Portable Empire and nothing reveals a man’s true colors as much as a behind the scenes peek into what he is doing. After Pat and I said our hellos and introduced him to my Date & Relationship Coaching Client he said “Hopefully I can work on some emails finally…” took his lap top out and proceeded to work on his Portable Empire.

If you would like to comment or ask a question about anything I’ve shared today please feel free to leave it in the comments section or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. In the days to come I’ll be setting up something more definite about my Date & Relationship Coaching.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Two weekends ago I went to a “Metaphysical Seminar” or something like that. Now, I’m not sure if I come off as being skeptical in my posts or not, but if I don’t, I am. And if I don’t it’s probably just an unconscious reaction to the concern I might have for some of my readers who may be “way” into things that happen at a “Metaphysical Seminar”. This seminar wasn’t like a religion with it’s “topics” it was mostly focused on healing the self or seeing into the invisible worlds through tarot cards, psychics, that sort of thing. One man even had an Aura Camera and I had not one $25 picture taken but two.

The reason I went was because my wife and I were invited by:

Chris & Ginger Pennell, Developers/Owners

to try out their healing device:

(Click to Englarge)

Click Here for More Information

I’m not sure they knew I was a big New Age skeptic, but skepticism isn’t enough to keep me from learning from people who are different so while my wife laid on the table and experienced her 30 minutes of “therapy” I mingled around the large ball room where all the different participants displayed their tables, wares and services.

The last booth that I investigated was defined by it’s colorful yet simple sign “Aura Photos”. This was right across the way from where Suzanne was laying down so I could easily watch for my “turn”. After speaking to the proprietor of the Aura-Photo booth, I did what I always do - I made a deal. In exchange for a before and after photo (before and after I laid on the table with the colorful lights I was so skeptical about)I would provide him some internet exposure, which I’m doing now. The details of the deal will of course be kept confidential because being too “glad” about what a great deal you got in public can often sour future opportunities.

Bruce and the Aura Photographer

So, what is it that I’m really in a lather about? I was wonderfully surprised at how amazing the entire Chromatic Therapy was! I don’t go to therapists, massage therapists (though I like them), Reiki masters, healers, doctors, vets or free-hug huggers. Perhaps because of my memory of having strep throat and my mother taking me to the doctor who looked like he’d slept in his suit for 3 days charging my mother $25 to say “You’re son has strep throat” and then telling me I’d walk it off or something without prescribing any medication.

So, I crawled atop the Chromatic Therapy Table and Ginger put a nice headset on my ears. Then the first amazing surprise happened - the table began to play music with the headphones. My whole body was listening to this amazing yet calming symphony, not just my ears. The sonic vibrations of the table put me into an almost instant trance. I tried to impress Chris with my knowledge of electrical work (he invented and created the entire device himself) only to watch him give me that knowing smile of someone not yet full in the Kinetic Chromatherapy Table Trance.

Chris and Ginger both worked on me non-stop for 30 minutes from my head to my toes. They bring there own super oxygenated water and I thought in my new-agey skeptic’s way that it was quaint until the sessions was over. I was parched. I was literally dehydrated. All I had done was lay down and listen to their music and be vibrated by their sonic table and let them do their “thing” (which I don’t know enough about to explain) for 30 minutes and suddenly I’m in a condition that is akin to running 10 miles and having super cotton mouth.

I felt very very different afterwards. I liked the session so much that I would love to have the entire device in my own home. Here is what my “aura” looked like before the session:

My Aura Before Chromatic Therapy (click to enlarge)

My Aura After Chromatic Therapy (click to enlarge)

I have much to share about how I Negotiated to my own best good that day, but for the benefit of the fine people that worked on me that day and captured my aura for posterity - I want to get this up now. More to come.

If you’ve Negotiated to Your Own Best Good lately in regards to your Aura or would like to know more about how to do that, please feel free to leave a comment or write to me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns, The Negotiator!

This afternoon I was doing the weekly grocery shopping with my wife at our favorite has-everything, high-end grocery store. We buy their store-brand dog food in three different flavors for our two furry children, Smooches and Nikita. So we get three cases worth and there were only two cases in our brand. There were two men in the isle re-stocking so I look at my wife, then I look at the stokers and guess what I did next?

If you guessed Started Negotiating then you are correct. Of course it is at this point most people ask the question “how?”. Here is the technique:

Ask yourself “What do I need, what do I want, what is my interest…” something along those lines. When you get the answers to those questions then turn those answers into questions themselves. Does that sound like a puppy chasing it’s tail? Lets return to today’s experience for the answer.

I wanted to buy a case of the-best-brand dog food for the our-standard-brand dog food price. The difference between our brand and best-brand was $1.00. When you buy in bulk, that $1.00 quickly turns into a tank full of gas. Once I decided what I wanted - I turned that what-I-wanted information into questions and here is what they sounded like:

Bruce: “Hey, looks like you are out of our favorite brand of dog food. Do you have any in the back?” David the Stocker: “No.” came the reply after a bit of stocker discussion with the other fellow in the isle. Bruce: “Any chance you’d sell me the super-expensive brand for our-favorite-brand prices if I buy a case?” David the Stocker: (Looks at me then at the empty shelf and ponders a moment) “Sure, I can do that. I’ll have to write my initials on each can and write the new price as well. Do you want two cases?” (David attempts an upsale then takes out his marksalot black marker and gets to writing) Suzanne: “Can we split that new-brand case into the three different flavors it comes from?” Bruce: (experiences just-closed-the-deal jitters and almost has a Negotiation Panic Attack thus almost vetos the wife-request but keeps quiet SOMEHOW) David the Stocker: (smiles and just nods his ascent) Second Negotiator (an elderly lady who was eavesdropping my Negotiation): “Can I get that too?” David the Stocker: (plays dumb [I think]) “Can you get what?” Second Negotiator: “The same deal that they got?” Bruce: (thinks to himself “Negotiate your own deal or buy my dog food for the price of getting such a great impromptu deal!”) David the Stocker: (bores Second Negotiator with a long monolgue about “quantity”, “supply and demand”, “special circumstance”…) Second Negotiator: (wanders off).

Second Negotiator

Don’t get me wrong - Second Negotiator can be a resourceful role. Especially if the Second Negotiator can structure a better deal or add (sometimes subtract) something from the original deal to make the deal sweeter and still create his-her Negotiating outcomes. HOWEVER, if the First Negotiator is worth his weight in $100 bills then few Second Negotiators can leech off your deal. I’m worth 13.4 million in $100 bills by the way.

And if Second Negotiator had known anything about Negotiating she might have offered to pay me directly for the cans she wanted - he did try to sell me two cases. That would have made her a First Negotiator by the way since she would be dealing with me, not him. I would have tried to get her to throw in her car and her pension fund however.

If you would like to know more about First and Second Negotiator please feel free to leave a comment or write me directly: justask@yourownbestgood.com. What would happen if everytime you opened your mouth you got EXACTLY what you wanted?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

The priviledge of working with and around Dr. Joe Vitale mrfire.com at various public events would take “Harry Potter book size” blog posts to cover.

Recently I was invited to contribute at Joe’s Hometown (Wimberley, Texas)book signing that he did at a local business http://www.ranchodeluxe.net/AboutUs.htm

Sally at Rancho Deluxe

Bruce at Rancho Deluxe

I often work as Joe’s Bodyguard at public events. I wish I could brag that I thwarted several kidnapping attempts but to my public shame we’ve not even had a close call. I was fascinated to see all the different kinds of people that traveled as far as 600 miles just to get some ink from Joe. But the ink wasn’t what they were Negotiating for - it was to hear his voice, to talk to him personally and they often asked him for advice or his blessing on some challenge or victory in their lives.

Joe signed books for over 4 hours when his hand began to seize up with cramps and signer’s hand exhaustion syndrome (I just made that up). Being the Guardian of the Body (thus bodyguard), I massaged his wrist and forearm until he could bravely go on signing more books.

My wife was there offering her treasures IntentionalTreasures.com. The “treasures” relate to Joe and Ihaleakala’s book Zero Limits. Here’s a piece that I especially liked:

Suzanne comes up with the ideas for these fantastic creations and her Artist-Friend, Lisa Coltman:

Transforms these ideas magically into amazing creations!

Lisa is on the Right (this was at the World Wellness Weekend)

I’ve got a ton of Negotiating News and will spill it tonight or tomorrow. I had a great time with all these people I’ve mentioned above and if only I could wave a Magic Wand and turn the rest of the world in to such easy going, good hearted folks - I’d do it today!

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you got exactly what you asked for?

If you are interested in more information relating to Negotiating to Your Own Best Good the feel free to write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com or leave a comment. You can receive a free Negotiator’s Checklist by signing up for my newsletter at the top right hand corner of this page.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!