Almost all of the information I share is either in the form of a rule “What to do in a situation” or a guideline “One way to create this outcome is…”.  In my daily life I will hear my pet peeve gnashing it’s teeth once in a while over a quasi-negotiating “position”.  So before I continue with my inspired information on this topic, I’ll simply iterate the rule “Whenever a Negotiating Complement (anyone you deal with in any communication event) takes a “victim” position, there is only one response and that is to annihilate THAT position by any means you have available.”  Just having a rule like that probably makes the Politically Correct crowd scream and pull their hair out, delete my website from their favorites list, etc.  It is not a smooth, kind thing to write and perhaps a few of you might want to understand the dynamics a little more before you rage at The Negotiator!

First my rule does not mean I don’t believe their are victims.  I do.  I believe that all true victims are dead.  I believe that there are also victims of the moment or a situation.  For example, a man enters into an intersection at the green light and some drunken crazy runs the perpendicular red light smashing into the man’s side, breaking his arm in 4 places.  The man who had the green light WAS a victim in this context of the man who ran the red light and did serious bodily injury.  In situations like that seldom does the drunken man get back in his car, rev up the engines, take another swig and run the red light AGAIN hitting the same man in a similar fashion breaking even more bones.  If the man with the broken arm is able to receive treatment in time to save his life then in the moment help arrives to make that future a reality he is no longer a victim but a survivor.  He survived that wreck.  The car doesn’t keep hitting him or rebreaking his arm.  I do not debate that there may be emotional and other mental harm done to the survivor, however he still has the opportunity to recover and survive the accident.

People who don’t survive car wrecks are victims.  In most instances being a dead victim doesn’t hold much weight in the negotiations of the living.

The essence of a Negotiation is the transaction of resources.  The obstacle that a “victim” position creates is two fold.  First, one of the most sacred Negotiator’s rules is “Never play someone elses game” – a victim position is always designed to get you to play the victim’s game exclusively. 2nd, the “victim” position is a one way street so it’s very nature annihilates the transaction of resources and makes the transference of resources one sided – that my friends is NOT a good negotiation.  As self-righteous as it may sound, annihilating a victim position actually does the victim a favour.  If you succeed in collapsing the victim position and the person still has breath to take ANY OTHER POSITION whatever that position will be will automatically be more resourceful than being a faux victim – unless they die.

The most powerful tool in The Negotiator’s Toolbox is asking resourceful questions.  One aspect of asking resourceful questions is often referred to as challenging the information.  This is the form of a question which intends to tear down or at least closely examine any position presented by the Negotiating Complement.  In the instance of a victim it is purely to tear down their position and perhaps offer them ANY OTHER position to take for the sake of allowing the Negotiation to be a Transaction and not some one-sided pity party.  The essence of a great negotiation is communicating and closing on accountability.  Think of this when you shape your questions for a victim position.

How much longer will the conditions exist to make you a victim?  Can you hang on to being this kind of victim and recover from whatever got you here at the same time?  Have you ever considered the benefits of moving on, getting on with your life?  If I can show you how you actually loose more and gain less by maintaining your victim stance would you consider an alternative?  Are there people who’ve had it worse than you that made remarkable lives for themselves?  Do you still think they are victims?  Do you know the difference between a victim and a survivor?

The list of creative challenge the information type questions on de-framing a victim position are endless.

Next time you are in ear-shot of someone expressing victim-speak listen to them closely and ask yourlself the following questions:

1) What resource do they gain by maintaining The Victim Stance?

2) What is the typical response to their “victim” stance?

3) How often do their negotiating complements move away from them?

4) Is there a position more suited for their outcomes other than victim?

So remember – you are almost always only a victim very briefly and after that you are either surviving the context that once made you a victim or you are dead.

If you wish to ask me a question or two about this post or any other just write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

the Negotiator

I’ve dabbled with The GNU Project for about 6 years now not really grasping it’s potential power for many industries including our own – negotiating.  There is a fantastic documentary,  Revolution OS, that really gives a thinking person a chance to understand how some greedy players at the dawn personal computing created a spin so powerful that it’s impacted all of our lives for decades on a massive scale and most of us just thought “that is just the way it is”.

For me, ironically – I give credit to Bill Gates for my unexpected education in Open Source.  64 bit computers showed up in about 2003.  I bought and built my first 64 bit PC in 2004.  Like the average “sheepeople” I sleepwalked to my PC to go download a copy of the latest 64 bit Windows Operating System …only to discover it didn’t exist.  For you non-techies my (then) 64 bit pc was the relative equivalent of trading in my Moped for a Jaguar.  Billyboy at MS did eek out a 64-bit version of XP in 2005 but it was unsupported – no one was making any drivers for your video and audio and perhaps even your internnet connection.  It wasn’t until the dreaded Vista that there was an actual MS 64bit OS (2007).

The 32-bit computers came out in 1985 so from that time until the bloated MS Corp finally sold us a “bad” 64 bit OS – we had waited 22 years.  So, I got my fancy new computer home, built it and discovered there was no “sheepeople” OS for me to install in 2004.  That’s when I began to look at Linux.  I consider myself a “super-user” (fancy term that means I’ll try anything on a computer at least once)and in 2004 I was rather intimidated by Linux.  I assumed my geek-factor wasn’t high enough or something.  Since then I’ve realized that it wasn’t that I was too dumb to do Linux but that I had been very well trained by Microsoft on how to think about computers and computing – I had to unlearn some of my assumptions and “understanding” the MS way in order to appreciate a much broader view of the world of connected computers.

I’ve been using the very impressive Ubuntu Distro (if you don’t understand the term distro here that is just one example of how MS has limited  your thinking about computing – it took me months to “get it”)for business and personal use since 2008.  I live in the home-town of Dell and I believe they are carting some of their computers to market with Ubuntu as well.  My wife who gets cranky at a computer for the smallest of infractions migrated from XP to Ubuntu earlier this year.

I titled this post “Open Source has Arrived” as if me discovering it made it so, but that’s not true.  Open Source has been around for decades.  It is the story about how Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo want to sue Google for providing the world with an open source solution in regards to out-of-date books that has inspired the title.  Google will be releasing a free operating system next year and appears to be joining the community of the Open Source world in some ways.  The other three named corps are crying foul because they can’t “compete” with free.  My current Negotiating Position on that is as follows: You Three big greedy corporations please step back so that the other 6+ billion of us on the planet can find some benefit in the great transformation that Google is making toward Open Source.  You CANNOT compete with Open Source because it’s principle is freedom like free speech, not lawsuits, greed and monopolies.  If your Operating System costs $400 and theirs cost $0 then that like all the other qualities of the operating system are for the consumer to decide and use or buy.  Your closed source community is not unlike long-distance phone service.  I’m sure those of us who are old enough remember a time when you had to pay for long-distance.  Perhaps we will be around to look back on a time when you had to purchase an operating system.

Afterthought: As a Negotiator I do not revile anyone making a profit.  To be a little open-sourcy about it – I also do not object to everyone making a profit.  When you ponder my passionate position on Open Source from my above blather, ask yourself this question – who determines what you can make a profit on and what you cant?  If you could do something about that to change that situation would you?  I’ve been pondering what an Open Source Negotiation might look like.

If you would like some Open Source Negotiating Training or just an Open Source Negotiating Dialog please contact me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce, The Negotiator!

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/ 5 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/ 14 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!

I once read a book titled In Resonance by Jasmuheen. The book included a list of spiritual laws. One of those 33 laws was The Law of Adaptation. If I was to merge my knowledge base of Negotiation with her list of Universal Laws – I would probably begin by discussing this law.

One pattern I often see in challenged Negotiators is the resistance of The Law of Adaptation. I’ve often heard Negotiators say things like “If they hadn’t talked so fast..” or “They wouldn’t let me change the subject.” and so on. Basically these types of Negotiators are only effective if the Negotiating Complement “acts right” or plays the Negotiator’s game. So as a guideline – if you are are frustrated with your Negotiations in any context and it’s the Negotiating Complement’s “fault” then you are lacking an essential Negotiating Nutrient known as adaptability.

The Remedy: Practice letting anybody you deal with be who they are. The reason we resist other peoples’ games in communication is based on the fear of not getting what we want out of that communication or worse, having something drawn from ourselves out of that communication that we don’t want to give. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE WHO FAIL AND THOSE WHO SUCCEED IS ALMOST ALWAYS TRAINING. So, if you didn’t know what to do before with people who’s communicating (Negotiating) style doesn’t complement your own – now you will know – you have my permission to release your old habit and embrace the current training. So, let them be who they are, let them show you their style. Give them room to get comfortable while you access how their process works. Every process will show you the following: 1)Their Strength, 2)Their Vulnerability, 3)Their Commitment and 4)Their Vision.

(Does Lindsay drink enough to qualify for the NASA Program?)

1. Their Strength will be what they rely upon in order to Negotiate or do just about anything else that has to do with communication. Perhaps their strength is logic. They can weigh information and transform that information into different configurations like “What’s fair”, “What’s doable”, “What’s Likely”, “What’s realistic” and “What’s out of the question“. If this is their strength then you let this strength work for you as well – tap into their logic, give them contexts and let them do the information crunching for you.

2. Their Vulnerability will be directly related to their strength. Their strength is almost always a cover-up for where they are vulnerable. Whenever you see a strength ask yourself this question – “What is the opposite of (the strength)?” In this example the question would be “What is the opposite of Logic?” Of course there usually isn’t one right answer but looking in that direction will help you discover their vulnerability. Perhaps it is “the abstract” or “thinking outside the box” or some other really creative way of using one’s mind. As you will rely upon their strength – they will often be beholden to you for anything that pertains to their vulnerability.

3. Their Commitment defines how much they are a)interested and b)able to participate in the Negotiation. Sometimes their commitment is greater than yours, which means that you could walk away if be. Their Commitment also defines how solid the Negotiation really is. If they are Negotiating with 12 other parties separate from your own and they’ll just take the best deal then you could say their commitment (to you) isn’t very high. Their Commitment is also defined by “how real” they are about whatever they are proposing. When the Negotiation begins this is an element that you can actually change thus significantly influencing “their game”.

4. Their Vision is the guideline in which they use to go after that which they want. Learning what their vision is will almost always be your ace-in-the-hole. Once you can speak to them directly of their vision and how they might go about realizing that vision then you will find they are considerably more flexible and interested in playing your game than they are in having you play theirs. Often times their vision doesn’t equal their output. What this means is that helping them realize their vision might be quite “doable” for you but their presentation of that vision doesn’t seem doable at all. This is the lost-in-translation effect which is why Asking Resourceful Questions is an essential element of any Negotiator’s skillset.

So, next time you are faced with a Negotiating Complement who’s game is difficult for you to work with start figuring out the list-of-4 above through attentive listening and Asking Resourceful Questions. Appreciate their strength, understand their vulnerability, get real clear on their commitment and unearth their vision. See if this makes a difference.

If you find this information helpful or have questions about it, please feel free to leave a comment or write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  What would happen if everytime you opened your mouth you got exactly what you wanted?  Sign up for my newsletter and get The Negotiator’s Checklist absolutely free, today!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

I have a TV card built into my PC and dual monitors so I can work and (believe it or not) watch TV. I don’t watch much TV but sometime during each day I’ll channel surf to get a glimpse of what’s going on in the world beyond my own home. This morning it was Paula Abdul going to face David Letterman on the Bravo channel.

The show focused on all the behind the scenes scrambling that this celebrity and her entourage make for such an event. Paula had one guy following her around just preparing her for all the topics that Letterman might spring on her. He not only advised her of what she might say but suggested choices of different directions she might go with different scenarios. Paula was very upset at the idea that her infamous recreational drug use might be brought up (yet again)and was drying her pre-Letterman hard-questions jitter tears off as she exited the limo. The talk-coach gave her very good advice in my Negotiating opinion: “Turn it into a joke – let everybody laugh with you, not at you.” (my paraphrase).

One of the most significant rules that I learned early on in my career about how people deal with each other is that they talk “at” each other, not “to” each other. More specifically they are performing a role which they are almost completely focused on. When you enter a room for a job interview or being interviewed by David Letterman – the interviewer has a checklist they usually go off of and though they are paying as much attention to you as they can, their attention is almost always split with things like memories of previous interviewees, thinking of what to tell the boss about you compared to the other interviewees, lunch, getting off early on Friday and “doing a good job”, not to mention personal stuff that might not even relate directly to work.

With this in mind – you the interviewee has a great advantage. You’ve been preparing for this moment for at least a week perhaps months depending upon the type of position you are hunting for. Your know your resume inside and out, you have rehearsed your pitch at least 20 times a day and probably tried it out on other companies. That makes you just like everyone else this interviewer has seen while playing The Checklist Game.

Another thing I remember from some of my own interviews is that though Human Resource people might be “trained” to do interviews – I’ve seen very few of them relish the process. In our society “interrogation” isn’t polite and we all typically resist having it done to us or doing it to someone else at least unconsciously. Therefore most interviewers are incongruent about their role and that my Negotiating Friends is always a gift to any Negotiator!

In my 20s I lived in New York City where I made a very decent living trading in a skill today that even children have – typing. Wordprocessing was still a new phenomena that law firms and financial companies paid a fortune to sustain in the mid 80s. I remember my interview for the first job I got living in the Big Apple. Let me spell out the job, then my skills and the final result for you as a reference of what is possible.

The job was for a position as a wordprocessor in a wordprocessing pool which was one room with 4 desks all “manned” by women. It had a 60 words-per-minute requirement, short-hand was required and I think they were probably looking for a woman. The best I had ever typed at that point in my life on any test was about 34 words-per-minute. My hands were quite long and though I could write a few sentences of French and Spanish – there was no short-hand in my repertoire. Last but not least – I was a man.

I knew then in a course way that I had to stand out if I wanted the job. So, I answered the questions that were put to me and I added something to the interview that is still useful today. I asked questions back. Not just the “What are the benefits” type questions but things like the space I would work in, the number of lawyers in the firm. I played dumb and asked the interviewer what it was like to work with lawyers and what helped her decide to settle into a position at a law firm as opposed to the financial district or any other well paying industry. I didn’t just take an interest (self-interest) in my potential future position, but in the interviewer herself.

When she called me in for the second interview she said “I’ve decided to give you the job. I must tell you that you are the least qualified and your co-workers were hoping I’d hire a woman. Furthermore the firm will buy you a book on shorthand so that you can learn it over the next six months. The main reason that I hired you was that you told me you would do whatever it took to get the job done. That is the kind of attitude I want in my office. Congratulations.”

As a result of that Negotiation I just about doubled my weekly take home, I now had benefits, I was a single man working in an office with 3 very attractive women and I got to learn every bad lawyer joke ever told.

I was hired because I stood out – not because of my shinning resume or typing test. Of course if you are shopping for a job as a Nuclear Engineer at a Power Plant your resume might count a little more than mine did in this example – however in most situations people are people and that really is the bottom line.

If you would like more details on how to apply Negotiating Excellence to an interview you might consider looking at my at-your-own-pace Apprenticeship. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to use the comments beneath this post or you can write directly to me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. You can receive my free Negotiator’s Checklist just by signing up for my newsletter on the right hand side of this page.

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

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

One of my earlier mentors was Anthony Robbins – author of Unlimited Power, Awaken the Giant Within and so much more. Part of my training under his tutalage was a process called “false neuro-association”. It basically means when someone links a relationship between two things when there is no such relationship. For example – if a 5 year old hears your horn honk the moment his touches the handle on the car – he might create a temporary (we can hope) false neuro-association between the horn and the door handle.

Tony’s example is much more entertaining than mine and the punchline is “It’s the Knight”. His reference for this FNA (false neuro-association) is made doubly funny because if you don’t know the story then you might hear Tony say “It’s the night” – thus another FNA.

Uncovering your FNAs can be very much like joining Alice in Wonderland down the the rabbit hole. This evening as my wife was going to bed – I had a gourmet platter of my own FNA served to me. Suzanne asked me why I had slept in a different bed last night than I usually do. I had no idea what she was talking about. She said “Yeah, I saw you in the other bed that didn’t have any sheets on it- I thought you slept there cause I was watching TV.” I told her she must have been mistaken – I woke up in my usual bed this morning feeling quite rested. She laughed at me and reassured me when she went to bed (after me) that I was snoring in the “other” bed. She wasn’t that fascinated with the topic after I got to chewing on it and she went right off to sleep.

So, my “doorway” currently has a Chineese tri-fold blind in front of it until I can get my custom made door installed there, which means that I got up in the middle of the night, while Suzanne was making noise and watching TV, sleptwalked out of my bedroom “past” the tri-fold blind (somehow), hunkered down in an unmade bed with no sheets or pillows or even a blanket then after she went to bed, sleptwalked back to my normal bed past the tri-fold blind again and tucked myself in without ever knowing I had left.

I remember reading a Dean Koontz book once where the government would take people that had seen a UFO and put them in a long coma while head-sets played constantly on a loop about what “really” happened until they were re-conditioned with the new “story” in order to protect the public from the truth. It’s so easy to dismiss things because we don’t believe it til we see it. Now that I know that I’m busy doing things while I sleep, perhaps I should leave a recording playing as I fall off with a to-do list on it.

I suspect the inspiration that is emerging from this story is a new course called Negotiate while you Sleep.

One of the most helpful habits you can ever develop for anything – especially Negotiations is to day-dream practice. Or do a mental practice. For those of you who don’t know what that means – it’s simply putting yourself in the exact place with as many details as possible via your imagination and then practicing in your head whatever skill you are trying to develop. The body doesn’t know the difference between mental practice and the real thing.

When a client tells me of a situation where they need Negotiating Help, I immediately put myself in their shoes and begin this “practicing” as a way to understand what they are faced with and what their response has been thus far. You could say that the difference between a novice Negotiator and a Pro is simply how effective either can be with conjuring up the overall Negotiation in their head then navigating their way through it with Negotiating Excellence.

I’m quite curious about sleepwalking so if you have any information you’d like to share or a story or even a question then please share it via the comment section beneath this post or just send it to justask@yourownbestgood.com.

What would happen if everytime you opened your mouth you got exactly what you wanted? If you haven’t already seen The Negotiation Checklist then sign up for my newsletter-mailings and download it today!

I’ll see you at the negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

So I’M BACK! Please forgive the absence. Suzanne and I were so physically exhausted from the move that we both detoxed for at least a week afterwards.

A NEW AND FREE GIFT IS AVAILABLE FOR ALL OF YOU!

I’m going to be replacing the Negotiator’s Primer with The Negotiator’s Checklist. For all of you who are on my list currently – I will email you the link and for any of you new to the site or not currently signed up – please sign up for my mailing list and receive a comprehensive checklist for Negotiating as my complement to you for visiting my site.

THATS NOT ALL!

I’ve almost finished work on my first Audio product The Audio Primer which is a training audio that goes with the Free Negotiator’s Checklist. I’ll be providing snippets of the audio for all of you to sample in the next week or so (maybe sooner keep checking back!)

WAIT THERE IS MORE!

My wife, Suzanne now has her first website up and running and she is promoting some amazing jewelry that goes with Dr. Joe Vitale’s and Dr. Ihaleakala Len’s book Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More. So to go to Suzanne’s site and see all her fine creations just click here: Intentional Treasures. She’s also offering a free report I believe.

I’ve been gathering apprentices for some time now. I suspect I will close the door in the near future on any more free coaching or apprenticeships so if you have a genuine interest please considering clicking on the menu bar for Apprenticeship and filling out the form.

If you’ve ever built an ark or moved to a new home and have comments or questions about anything to do with anything on this site, please feel free to leave a comment or write me direct at justask@yourownbestgood.com

What would happen if you found that everytime you opened your mouth you received exactly what you wanted? Have you Negotiated today? Every Form of Communication is a Negotiation!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Today is the big Move for Suzanne and I and yesterday on the way home, spending our last night in our old house this is what we saw:

So, until I hook up my new internet connection (sometime this evening) I’ll see you Somewhere over the Rainbow!

Bruce Burns  the Negotiator!

My great friends Dr. Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Len have given me a wonderful birthday present this year!! They published me in their new book:

My wife, Suzanne is also published in this fine work. It’s amazing the difference between talking about a great idea and actually holding that idea in your hands. I’m not much of a new-faith idea person. In fact I never reach for what some of my more open minded new age friends playfully refer to as “woo-woo” material when I’m in a book store or ordering something through Amazon.

Dr. Joe Vitale had a dinner in honor of Dr. Ihaleakala in February of 2006. My wife, being Joe’s publicist put the affair on and thus I had the incidental opportunity to meet Ihaleakala at that time. Of course being the modern-day New Age Scrooge – I simply walked passed his table without even a wave. I sat before my fine meal and listened to the two Doctors discuss their understanding and experiences of Ho’oponopono. The steak was decent (Dr. Vitale is a steak connoisseur) and the 20 some odd guests had somehow turned into nearly 90 that night atop the Hyatt Regency hotel overlooking the south bank of the Colorado River in downtown Austin, Texas.

It was two words that caught my ear that night, which Ihaleakala uttered as he talked about “what” Ho’oponopono was. Zero State. I’ve not always been a rusty-dusty closed vault to new ideas. In my younger years I was fairly well read about most of the New Age material. I had remembered the concept of Zero State from those years and the feeling I attached to the idea – I was (back in the day) quite fascinated with it.

Nearly One Year Later…

Dr. Joe Vitale puts on seminars regularly. My wife sets up the logistics of all his events and attends all that she can possibly get to. He always invites me to attend and though I do show up for the first evening’s meal with my wife and her luggage – I’ve never stayed. When Suzanne offered me to attend The by-invitation-only Zero Limits Weekend seminar – I transported those two words through a year’s worth of memories and said emphatically “Yes, I’ll go!”.

The Experience!

As I stated in Zero Limits I am not a Ho’oponopono expert. I could easily write 100 pages on my experiences with Ho’oponopono – so lets skip that for now and let me just reveal a few highlights. First, most people who know me would say that I am NOT a touchy-feely type person. This is true even today. I cry once every 5 years whether I need to or not. I cried ever day sometimes for 20 minutes at a time at the Zero Limits seminar. I assisted Dr. Vitale and Dr. Len during the seminar and as a result I was able to get some one-on-one face time with my now friend, Ihaleakala (Dr. Len).

I don’t hunt UFOs, I don’t believe in a Reptilian Race, I don’t see Angels or hear voices or speak in tongues. As I stood quietly before Ihaleakala for the first time in my life, in a few minutes he told me that someone was sick to the point of choking with a lung problem in my family. My father had been suffering from fluid surrounding his lungs for some months when he told me this. This information was private and not known outside the family not even to my friend Dr. Joe Vitale. This is just one of thousands of experiences I’ve had since I began exploring the simply Hawaiian tradition of Ho’oponopono.

Some recent conclusions

I don’t really know how a TV works, or a cell phone but I use them and I’m better off for it. In fact I find I don’t need to be able to create my own TV or cell phone in order to enjoy their functions and the fruit of their existence. Well the same is true for me in regards to my own experiences with Ho’oponopono. I don’t know how it works, I don’t know why it works and I really don’t know what I’m doing when I practice the four thoughts. I do know that things change and transform in ways I could never have engineered myself. I can discuss that in furture posts if there is an interest.

So…

I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you – thank you.

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Updating my Site

Complain, Comment, Praise

or just plain ol

NEGOTIATE

First and Foremost! I’ve been completing some material that will be available any day now for purchase.  I won’t give too much away now – lets just say this is a Negotiator’s First Dimension of Negotiation by the Numbers.

Secondly, I was a VIP Guest at Pat O’Bryan’s Unseminar Three seminar earlier this year and the golden egg that’s about to hatch from that is that I somewhat accomplished a major goal I defined there – Suzanne and I are moving in to a model home that has nearly twice the square footage of our current castle.   We’ll start physically moving in (let me check my google count down timer) 127 hours and 34 minutes or 6 days.

I’m going to do another post to catch you up on the rest!

If you’ve manifested a goal you set and would like to share about it or even ask a question or two, feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com or leave a comment.

Have you been Negotiating to Your Own Best Good?  What choices would you make now if you discovered every time you opened your mouth you got what you wanted?  If you might be interested in my newsletter or getting some one-on-one apprenticeship training please find the link to the right of this post that corresponds.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!

Knowledge is Power to the Negotiator on a scale like no other profession. Your words equal an increase in profit, position, opportunity, alliances, options and every other word that represents Resource. If you never learn anything else about Negotiating then please please hear this: A Negotiator’s duty is to inspire the Negotiating Complement’s information to flow and flow and flow. Get your Negotiating Complement talking by any means necessary. The metaphor that helps me remember what I’m doing in this part of a Negotiation is to think of myself as a Safe Cracker. My function is to get the Negotiating Complement to reveal his entire combination so that when I begin spinning the tumblers – the question of accessing all his resources is only a mater of how long I wish to draw the Negotiation out, nothing else.

I wish to qualify the point earlier about any means necessary. I don’t intend to arm any of you with ugly negotiating tools. The only time that I pull out my lumber-jack Negotiating tools is when the context is instantaneous and the rules of the game are already dirty and unforgiving – like catching the car thief hot-wiring your car or the guy that cuts in front of you at the movie theater. Hostile Negotiations are an essential element in the vast array of tools and resources needed by The Excellent Negotiator! that we will cover another day.

The opposite of an assumption in a Negotiation is Asking a Resourceful Question.  If you find yourself thinking in terms of an assumption or if the next thing out of your mouth is derived from an assumption – STOP!  Take a little more time and Ask a Resourceful Quesiton.

In my youth – I remember learning one thing and the excitement and the power of knowing one thing – like how to change the oil in my car was so great that it helped me halucinate the following logic: I know one thing and I learned that thing.  Therefore – I can learn anything and the knowing of all things is simply a mater of learning it.  Therefore I know all things though a few of those things are as yet unlearned.  (which gets shortened to) I know all things.

Today I am 43 years and 1 day old.  I’ve learned enough to know I hardly know anything at all.  In my Negotiations I amp up my own ignorance.  I want my Negotiating Complement to feel the great rush of vast knowledge and shine his rays upon my dull self…so I can then open up his safe and take what I wish.  By the way – each model of car requires you to learn how to change the oil all over again and oh my god that’s such a great way to spend my time.

If you have a story about someone who Negotiates through Assumption (including yourself) or have a question about how to deal with assumptions, asking resourceful quesitons or anything else I may have covered, please feel free to leave a comment or write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

If you are interested in hearing more about Negotiations and would like to receive my Newsletter please fill out the form under my picture to the right.  If you wish an even deeper grasp of Negotiations you might wish to sign up for my currently Free Apprenticeship Program.

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you got exactly what you wanted?  Have you Negotiated to your Own Best Good Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

I’m not big on LONG HEADLINES – however I am a sucker for any resourceful question. I’m sure each of you has stopped everything you are doing to contemplate the answer to today’s post’s headline. Hopefully I’ll remember to give you the answer somewhere in this post!

First off I just want to say thank you to Koorosh Vahabi for sending his first copy of The Million Dollar Secret That Lies Hidden Within Your Mind. You can find his material at http://www.hiddenmindsecrets.com. I’ve not yet had a chance to read the book, but I was quite honored to receive his first copy. I only know Korrosh through the internet, we’ve never spoken or colluded on any business project. Congratulations again Koorosh. Koorosh’s timing with his gift was quite synchronistic (can you figure out the answer to the headline yet?)

I can’t say too much about this next topic (today) so I’ll just touch upon it. I’ve been contributing to a product that is about dealing with fear. Yesterday I participated in some audio material. This product isn’t my idea though I was grateful to have my attention drawn toward it and to have to use my varied skill sets to engineer some solutions that have to do with dealing with fear. An hour after I was done – I took action to face the greatest fear I’ve been juggling with for nearly a year now. As I said in the work I contributed to yesterday – you have to move from your head to your body and take action to escape the paralyzing prison. Of course today I have some resourceful questions. How do we negotiate our way into fear? How do we negotiate our way out? Who are we negotiating with when we do either?

Finally – I want to thank Amy Grant (http://www.newsuccess.org/success/success_blog/index.html). Amy gave me some one-on-one coaching in February of this year. The coaching was part of a seminar we both attended. She was a contributor. She asked me a very powerful and resourceful question about what I REALLY want. The answer was quite specific with middle of June deadline that I created. (Can you guess the answer to the headline yet?) I didn’t hit my specific mark on the answer I gave her, however I must say from the deepest pit of my skeptical self that her work has paid off! Suzanne and I signed the paperwork last weekend to move into a home that is nearly double the floor space of what we are living in currently. My wife is so excited about the move that we don’t sleep much at night (we went to bed at midnight last night and fell asleep after talking around 5am). Thank you Amy!!

In my headline I named Erin Murphy. She was the little girl that played Tabitha on the 60s-70s TV show Bewitched. She and I and all the other people listed in my headline were born on the same day – June 17th. Tomorrow is my birthday. Erin and I were born the same year as well. Barry Manilo (God I can’t believe I’m revealing this)was once my all-time favorite singer (5th grade). King Edward the I was also known as Longshanks. He was the King in the historical fiction Braveheart with Mel Gibson. The Scotsman that rallied the Scots in the end of the Movie was named Robert the Bruce – that is who I am named after. Venus Williams turned Pro the same year Suzanne and I were married. I have no known connection to Joe Piscopo except that I almost rented a 4 story house in New Jersey (where Joe is from) in the late 80s with 3 women that were all in love with me. Happy Birthday to all of you!

What would happen if everytime you opened your mouth you got what you wanted? Have you Negotiated to Your Own Best Good today? If you found any of this post interesting enough to comment on please feel free to do so below. If you’d like to know more about Negotiating or might be considering a serious study of Negotiations please find the signup for my newsletter and/or my apprenticeship program to the right of this post.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

What’s ironic is that in all walks of life people attract to them in many different ways preferential treatment all the time. Perhaps you are a regular at a restaurant and you are given a seat with a view and they know what you want so you don’t even have to order – they just bring the food. Doesn’t that feel good? What about parents who donate money to schools, colleges and the like – do their children get preferential treatment at those institutions? I’m sure thats factored into many wealthy parents decisions on such a choice.

How about politicians? Would you give up your fine seat at a concert or 5 star restaurant for the candidate of your choice? Even your neighbors – don’t we prefer one neighbor over the other – a polite and thoughtful neighbor gets preferential treatment over a noisy, busybody – don’t they? Did I hear someone cry unfair? Sure it’s unfair. Fair is a very abstract idea. Fair can also be considered a resource though because of it’s abstract nature it isn’t easy to acquire or hang on too.

In my own personal philosophy I’d rather help someone acquire the resource of fulfilling or compelling or joyous. I suppose the last question I might ask about Paris would be – who of you that had the resources of the Hiltons wouldn’t attempt to ease your child’s suffering if you could? A few of you wouldn’t – you’d want her to toughen up. Learn a little respect perhaps – but I think that most parents have a hard time watching their child suffer and would use their resources to transform that if they could.

Interestingly enough, Paris did get out for a brief time. She or her handlers understood the value of learning the rules of the game (see #12). Apparently one of the rules of the convicted is that you can get special consideration and preferential treatment for a medical condition. Some might call it an exception to the rules. Paris got a brief exception. Of course her and her handlers knowledge of the rules of the game weren’t perfect – seems the judge didn’t accept her exception.

In any negotiation knowing the rules of the game is an essential edge that can make or break some deals. One of the rules of internet marketing that I learned which has been quite beneficial is that you should research your competitors and then add 1 new thing they don’t offer. Find the crowd you want to be in (Internet marketing wise) and then create one new component to your discipline and stand out. Internet Marketing is a form of Negotiation. Each Marketer is negotiating for the interest, attention, traffic etc of a finite set. There are a large but finite number of people who utilize the Internet.

If there is a context you are in or know about that you’d like help with please feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. I’d be glad to help you learn the rules of the game of any given context (for free) if I can. You are welcome to comment on today’s post at the comments section even if you don’t agree with me.

What would happen if every time you opened your mouth you were able to get what you wanted? What will you do to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good, Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

One of the challenges that arises when you are negotiating purely for yourself or your loved ones is a connection the negotiator experiences that might be akin to being the chess piece that you are about to move (if that makes any sense). My wife of course has been participating in this process fully as well with her own understanding of negotiating (that reminds me of yet another aspect of Negotiations that I’d like to speak about.)

When we play chess and we decide to sacrifice the knight in order to expose the queen – we just do it because it is how we will win the game. However, when we are the king or queen and that knight that was just sacrificed is the family dog – your emotional connection to the negotiation in this chess metaphor can be like a giant tree fallen in the road before you, blocking the fruition of your intended negotiations.

What pollutes our Negotiating Excellence? The last time you thought you might negotiate then you found yourself backpedaling – what caused the backpedaling? What feeling do you experience when you step up to Negotiate and then suddenly it seems that negotiating at all was foolish? I don’t know what your answer is (though you are encouraged to share them with me via the comments section), but mine is fear. When I was a young man one of my favorite movies (I’m dating myself here!) was Dune. There is a scene in the movie where the “smart” guy speaks the following affirmation:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Fear is the Negotiation killer as well.  What happens to me when fear enters the equation is that I often forget what to say or do next.  How do I bring myself back?  What do I do to climb out of the dark hole of embarassment, guilt, shame and any of the other triggers of fear?  Well – if my fear hasn’t completely paralyzed me then I remind myself of Why any of us Negotiate at all, ever.  We have something to offer!  So, whatever you have to offer is truly the focus of a Negotiation for you, Negotiator!  You may ask 500 resourceful questions of the Negotiating Complement and his or her Targeted Resources, but if you cannot tie what they have to what you have then there is no Negotiation.

June is going to be the busiest month of my life in a long time.  I will do my best to post here daily.  I’m going to be working on more things to offer so as to become a greater resource for each of you.  Currently I offer a free Apprenticeship to those who want to really step-up their Negotiating Excellence!  If you are interested in receiving my Newsletter and/or joining my Free Apprenticeship Program then find the links to the right of this post and sign up today!

What have you done to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?  What would it feel like to get whatever you wanted every time you opened your mouth?  Sign up today and find out!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Even before the first scene of the movie opened I was elated. It was a story of how once man had been inspired by other human-like beings that lived in the sea and then man decided to own everything and his method for doing that (to this day) was war. The rest of the movie was one man’s (played by Paul Giamatti) struggle to reverse engineer a chance for that connection and inspiration to occur again. This may sound very “woo-woo” so just for a reference point – I’d rather drive around in a parking lot in circles until I run out of gas than go see a chick-flick.

At the end of the movie (this is not a spoiler) he had to develop a result that required about 20 people to co-operate based on an outcome that wasn’t clear to anyone, even himself. He faced the toughest negotiation that anyone can ever face: a mutable negotiation through time (see #11). I won’t tell you if he achieved his goal or not, though I will tell you what he did in order to attempt to achieve it. He asked resourceful questions. Just a reminder – the opposite of asking resourceful questions is assuming you know.

Yesterday I went with one of my clients to negotiate a lease. My client had a close personal tie to the property she was intending to acquire a lease on. She was very excited she had this extra card to play in the negotiation. We met the agent and began to inspect the property. The agent began her litany of information about the property. Because of the close personal tie – my client already knew most of what could be said about the property. The agent was about to reveal some information that related to the close personal tie and my client blurted out who they were and that she knew them – 2 minutes into the evaluation of the property. The agent didn’t finish her sentence and for the next 30 minutes of the walk-through she didn’t give any new information.

After the initial negotiation my client was very frustrated. She said (paraphrase) “I played that close-personal tie card and the woman was like ‘That’s nice’. I told my client that I wouldn’t have played that card unless there was a pay-off for doing so. My client’s situation for use of the property wasn’t ideal. Some agents might have dismissed her specific needs just on the surface of those needs. Tony Allesandro who is the author of The Platinum Rule breaks people down in to four categories. My client is definitely a relater. Her need to be part of something motivated her to play the close personal tie card immediately upon entering the negotiation. She assumed that she knew playing this card would be powerful, perhaps because if someone had played it with her she would have liked it. And that is the moral of The Platinum Rule - Only about 1 out of 4 people are like you (since there are 4 categories according to The Platinum Rule). If you treat people like you wanted to be treated (the golden rule) then 3/4ths of the time you’ll be missing your mark.

Have you ever played a card in any communicating situation and were disappointed it had no impact whatsoever? If you’d like to share a story or ask a question please feel free to use the comment section beneath this post or you can just email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

If you would like to receive my free Negotiator’s Primer then go ahead and sign up for my newsletter and mailings at the right side of this page. If you really want some extra negotiating power feel free to click on the link to become (currently free)a Negotiator’s Apprentice by clicking on the link above my picture.

What would happen if whenever you opened your mouth people gave you exactly what you wanted? Are you ready to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

How many times a year do you download something or open some file on the internet then wham! your computer stops working or works with a significant degraded capacity? I do it about ever six months.  One of my skill sets is that I custom build computers, develop LANs and am fairly masterful at tweaking a computer.  The advantage to me is that it only takes me one long night to re-install everything.

Yesterday I apparently asked my computer to perform an unresourceful task.  Last night I re-installed everything.  As I began to reinstall all the big programs “essential” to my daily tasks I was inspired to try something new.  I decided that I would load up on all the open source programs I thought I could manage and still run my businesses.

Once in a while I’ll watch CNN or some other mainstream news source.  It seems to me that this election cycle has a greater lather than ever before in my 43 (my birthday is in a few weeks) years of living in the red-white-and-blue-vote-for-someone sensation.  When I laid my head on my pillow this morning at 4am I was thinking about what’s wrong with politics and government.  Then as I thought for sure I was going to pass out from exhaustion I asked myself a fun question.  What would happen if we had an Open Source Government?  And suddenly what I thought was the error of our government was that it wasn’t open source.  I think it’s ironic that we (the people) require an ‘act’ to know what are government is doing that is “public”.  I refer to the Freedom of Information Act.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what open source is: Open Source refers to software that has a public license and is usually free to the public.  Because it’s code is open people who use this software all over the world are able to improve it and do so all the time.  The value of the “open” aspect is that each software product has hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands maybe even millions of volunteer programmers around the world improving any given software product daily.  Contrasted by Microsoft who only codes as much as it needs to in order to make a profit and look at the bottom line.

Open Source asks the question “Where, truly, is the balance between healthy competition and healthy cooperation?”  What aspects of your life are open source?  Are those parts more fulfilling or less fulfilling?  The Art of Asking Resoruceful Questions relies upon the open source-ness of your negotiating complement to reveal/share enough information with you that you can apply the appropriate Negotiating Response.  Sometimes a negotiating complement isn’t so “open”.  Turning a Negotiating Complement into an Open Source Negotiating Complement is very much a part of the power of a Negotiator!

If you would like more information on how to open up a Negotiating Complment or you have a question or comment, please feel free to email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com or leave a comment.

What would happen if you were to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Powered by ScribeFire.

His situation is that he’s had several unfulfilled relationships in the last 8 or 9 years. He really wants to step-up the quality of his mate-choice process and discover someone that is willing to commit for the long haul. As we began our training for this aspect of his life – I do what I always do – ask resourceful questions. When someone asks you a resourceful question, what they are really doing is examining your life. A resourceful question is almost always a question that you ask someone else that they themselves have refused or not known to ask their own self. Thus the essence of The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions is revealed by the relative significance of any question to the person being asked.

As I began my barrage of resourceful questions I soon discovered that my client had a low frequency of flirting as a result of having a vast array of rules governing his own process of flirting. I challenged his information and instructed him to practice every chance he was offered. This was quite challenging to him and he of course showed me his resistance. His resistance was-is a form of anxiety that is defined by unresourceful questions such as “What if I’m wasting my time? What if she’s not the one? What if she states on her myspace account that she’s not looking? What if she’s wearing a ring and I’m not sure if it’s a wedding ring or not..” His list was endless.

We have all played the “what if” game. When adults play it to prevent taking action – they can become self-oppressing. When I find a client has this much resistance to new information then the new behavior I help them install must be easy and simple – something they can do all the time in any situation without alot of thought. For this client the prescription was this: 1)Ask any woman you meet thoughtful questions and 2)Make her feel good. Of course he had a million questions and “what ifs” and so on. He didn’t like the specific instructions – he wanted to “get there himself” so he asked me for a metaphor as a guide. My metaphor was “Treat flirting like golf. When a woman appears before you in any situation think of the golf rule of “playing the ball where it lands”. So if you are in a restaurant, on a subway, walking your dog, jogging, parking your car, etc. that is the right place to flirt. He had another wave of questions for this of course. Resistance is as resitance does not.

The purpose of my instruction was for him to become masterful at flirting so that if he ever did meet the one he’d be ready for it instead of getting overwhelmed by his emotions and choking. Have you ever been in a situation where you knew what you wanted in a relationship but you had no idea what to say next to get it? Feel free to share your thoughts and comments or even your questions in the comment section or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

What would happen if you were able to flirt for your own best good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

My wife, Suzanne is a very devoted entrepreneur. When she’s managing her home-based business and I “pop-in” her Ignore Quotient is quite high. This morning while I was showering I thought I might negotiate through her high Ignore Quotient by creating a pattern-interrupt (see #10). I was looking in my shaving mirror and thought – What would happen if I removed my mustache but kept the goatee? then laughed knowing I had found a way to negotiate thru the Ignore Quotient.

After turning myself into a dead-ringer for the Stone Temple Pilot Singer:

I went into her office and snuck up behind her. I began giving her a shoulder massage and talking to her quietly they way you might speak to an animal that’s about to bite you. Then I told her I had to leave so I walked away from her desk and picked up one of her girly office pillows and covered my face from the nose down real quick. She looked at me a few times kind of the way you look at the person in the left-hand turn lane that has a green light but isn’t turning.

Finally I asked her some benign question with the pillow down. Her Ignore Quotient was strong and unfettered. I asked the question again and the part of her wife-censor that detects annoyance began to wake up. After asking the same boring question a third time she stopped working and looked at me. “What did you do? Did you cut your hair? Something’s different…” It was at that moment that I made a kissy face at her.

Then she made the face. She saw the missing mustache and said not-so-sweetly “That’s scary”. Now considering I was about to go out into the world and deal with people – this was not the wife-will-boost-your-confidence comment I was hoping she’d make. Nonetheless, I did pierce her Ignore Quotient. I’ve been reaping the rewards of my shaved-mustache gambit all day now. Everytime she sees me – we talk about how I need to shave the chin-brow now that the lip-brow has departed.

I was going to shave it but when she compared me to the Stone Temple Pilot singer I changed my mind. I might be bias so you be the judge:

I think there will be some negotiating post I make in the near future that relates to “holding out” for your own best good. How many days do you think I’ll go without shaving the scary chin-brow? What will Suzanne ultimately offer me to do so. Stay tuned…find out!

If you’ve had someone attempt or even succeed to do something with you that put you in shock and changed the entire dynamic of any kind of communication and would like to share a story – please feel free to leave a comment or write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. What can you do right now to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

If you enjoyed this post and would like access to more information – please join my newsletter group on the right side of the screen. If you would like personal help with anything to do with Negotiations I’m currently offering Free Apprenticeships to a limited number of people. You can sign up for the apprenticeship at the right-side of the page as well.

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

One of my busiest clients happens to also be my most challenging client. Challenging in that there are circumstances in his personal life that influence his state (see #9) so greatly that each time I deal with him I never know what page we’ll start on. This of course requires an extra measure of calibration when dealing with him. This weekend I was trying to arrange a meeting and work through some business with this client of mine. At first I thought – “Oh boy – it’s going to be a real doosy” We were communicating through cell phone and it was just like that cell phone commercial where the woman receives flowers from her boyfriend at work and it’s such a big deal she wonders if he did something. She’s telling her girlfriend about it on her cell phone and at the moment she nervously asks “You don’t think he did…” they loose the connection and she assumes the worse.

I hate to admit I was acting like a woman on a cell phone commercial… Anyway I finally got a good connection with him and discovered my assumptions about his state were completely false. This guy never stops working. He was taking the day off and by the sounds of his “share” he was really enjoying himself. He was so easy to work with that I thought to myself “How can I help him duplicate whatever needs he’s getting met right now? What would happen if he was always this smooth to work with?”

I don’t doubt my resourceful questions will inspire my subconscious mind to create a result. And I also acknowledge that his states really are in general beyond my control. I could of course influence and even steer sometimes but it his life. What I have learned from this might be ideal times to negotiate with him. I’ve learned a new flag that might indicate a greater likelihood of rapport between us. Perhaps the opposite of rapport between he and I would be the opposite of the apparent needs he was getting met this weekend.

Do you deal with someone in your personal or professional life that is nearly impossible to predict day to day in terms of his or her current State? If you have a thought or comment or even a question please feel free to leave it here in the comment’s section after each post. Or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com. Can you imagine what it would be like to Negotiate to Your Own Best Good today?

If you enjoyed this post or any others and would like more information please feel free to sign up on the right side of the page for either my newsletter or for more in-depth and up close Negotiating Training you could sign up for my (currently) free Apprenticeship.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

My Master Mind took a little break in our schedule recently for various wonderful reasons including my 13th Wedding Anniversary. Last night we picked back up and nothing is as amazing as revving up your creative process as joining others to realize your unlimited power. The daily grind has a way of mesmerizing you to the beat of your own routine. Master Mind is a group of unique beats and rhythms all designed to release your creative passion and inspire you to right action which of course allows you to negotiate to your own best good!

What’s really great about Master Mind is that each person in the group is in their own “place” in the world of creating abundance and mastering the law of attraction. That allows each of us to look at the others and either remember resourceful patterns we’ve already discovered and might have set aside or discover new resources and patterns that truly allow you to spring to the next level.

The group I belong to is my first group. I’m so grateful that it’s a strong and focused group. All the details that seem to go into forming and maintaining a Master Mind can be overwhelming in the beginning. All I can say to any of you who haven’t tried it is that first hour of Master Mind will be so strong and so inspiring that the lure of repeating the experience will easily become a resourceful habit.

Thank you Bill Hibbler for demonstrating Master Mind at Unseminar 3. I know we break a few rules that Joe Vitale and Bill Hibbler lay out in Meet and Grow Rich. Our general attitude toward Master Mind is to rock until we drop. Since we don’t meet but every two weeks – we give and receive all that we have for that night (and sometimes the next morning) to each other.

If you are interested in Master Mind or you are already a member of one please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question.  You can also leave comments or ask questions at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  If you’d like to receive my free Negotiator Primer or Join my free Apprenticeship just sign up on the right hand side of this page.  What will you do to Negotiate toYour Own Best Good Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

I often say it to clients as a form of training – giving them a reference for how to focus on Negotiation. However I’ve not spent much time demonstrating how my theorem is true and how to recognize it. Two elements of the world of communication come dramatically into my mind: Spin Doctoring and Arguments.

Recently Paris Hilton has been making the news about her overly-significant driving with a suspended license. She’s demonstrating her resourcefulness by having an online petition placed online to urge The Terminator’s own Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to “pardon” her.

I’m sure each of you have your thoughts or lack thereof about this topic – what I wish to point out is how this “maneuver” is a negotiation. One simple way of understanding any negotiation is to think of it in terms of Agreement. Before I go into that however I want to point out some resourceful aspects of the Paris Petition:

1)By writing the petition she requires people to consider her position however strong or weak as opposed to her position being disregarded or even unheard of.

2)In regards to agreement every person that signs the petition publically agrees with Paris. Public Agreement is a very strong form of leverage.

3)The Paris Petition is an interactive focal point that can be discussed, blogged about, bantered about on TV, Radio, You Tube, etc. Without the petition such talk or interest would be unfocused and gather a considerably reduced negotiating position.

4)The Paris Petition requires others to “take” a position themselves. Arnold’s press corp has already issued a statement. People who “take positions” are the easiest to negotiate with. It’s the ambiguous or indifferent person that provides the greatest challenge in a negotiation.

5)By publishing the Paris Petition online Paris has taken a public position. Once you take a position you can begin to adjust it (that is one way of understanding what a negotiation is).

I’ve revealed some of the resourceful aspects of the Paris Petition. Now lets return to the topic of Agreement. One mis-perception about the result of agreement is that a person agrees because what is being presented is what they believe is true or viable or completely acceptable.

One cultural belief that challenges the new negotiator is that of compromise. How often have you heard the words “You need to compromise.” or “You must find a compromise!”? As a professional Negotiator I simply wish to remind you that the concept of compromise is to make you vulnerable or reduce or weaken your position – whatever the topic.  Agreements are often achieved even when your negotiating complement is not attaining what they believe is true, completely acceptable or viable.

Arguments are also another form of negotiation.  Often times in an argument the leverage in the argument is intense emotions stemming from a difference of position or perceived position.  Think back to your childhood when a parent might have said “Don’t take that tone with me young lady (or young man).”  What was that parent really communicating?  You aren’t permitted to take a position of “indignation”, “anger”, “frustration”, “impatience”, “disbelief” and so on.

They key to using Negotiating Excellence in an Argument is to negotiate toward the root of the argument. Another way of appreciate an argument in light of negotiating is to think of it as a previous agreement that at least one party believes has been violated or broken.  There are really only two approaches to resolving an arguemet like this: 1)change your negotiating compliment’s mind about the broken agreement (ie prove you didn’t break the agreement) or 2) re-negotiate the original agreement.

If you’ve been challenged by spin or arguments and would like to ask a question or leave a comment – please comment below this post or write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com

How can you Negotiate to Your Own Best Good Today?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Today I was multi-tasking more than my male-hunter genetic programing typically allows. I wrapped up one thing and decided to catch up with a friend who I sometimes help in business. This friend has a great “need” to be heard and has mastered a technique I like to call “talking over people”. I’m sure no one needs an explanation of that phrase. My standard response for people I deal with regularly for this behavior is to ask a resourceful question. “Did you hear what I said about blah blah blah?” – they will often times admit they did not (probably because they know I will ask more questions if they ‘pretend’). When they admit this I will make a very clear commit that it is because they were talking over me.

Before I get to the punchline of this post – I will go ahead and share the moral of my story. Sometimes the most effective form of negotiation is silence. Sometimes that silence can be coupled with time to enhance it’s impact. Being silent through time requires your negotiating complement to consider the various impacts of his or her words and to slow down enough to change course for the next round.

So, my friend became belligerent and started a rant full of explicatives. In this particular instance he took offense to me calling him on his behavior. As we entered into sentence two of his rant – I hung up the phone, left my office and had dinner with my family then watched a movie with my wife. Hours later when I returned to my phone I saw that he had left a message. I reluctantly listened to the message but only for a moment – when he began to apologize and make fun of himself and take responsibility for his outburst. He had time to cool off and think about what he would offer next. He offered an apology.

Personally, I think the second highest form of respect you can ever show yourself or anyone else is ownership. Ownership is the opposite of blame. If you are wondering what the highest form of respect is (in my mind) then it is offering someone a choice.

I accepted my friends apology and even raised the bar of his character in my opinion that he took ownership.

I’m off to my family’s country estate to visit my Dad. I’m setting him up with some countrified broadband internet – so I’ll be blogging from the boonies as well! If you know someone who talks over others and have any negotiating questions for me, feel free to leave a comment or email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com. How can you Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Do you know anyone who tries so hard to be “liked” personally or in business that they finish someone’s sentences or extrapolate what the “other” person is thinking or feeling based on just a few words?  Have you ever met a person in business that treated you this way and they were way off the mark?  Did they seem confident and self-assured that what they “thought” you were thinking was accurate?  Have you ever dealt with someone who had never seen your specific situation, had no information about your details but seemed to have it “all figured out” as soon as they arrived or even before they arrived?

If so then you’ve experienced someone mind reading first hand.  Perhaps you have done some of these things yourself.  “What does mind reading have to do with Negotiating?” you might be asking.  I’m glad you asked (pun intended)!

Mind reading is the communication opposite of asking resourceful questions!  If you are my negotiating complement and I look over at you and ask (myself) “I wonder if they need a service contract to go along with this bid?” then I mind read –> “Of course they do!  This is an ideal place for a service contract.  I’m sure they can afford it and it will make it that much easier to close them.  I’m glad I had this discussion (with myself).”  And then I say “So are we going to sign you up with a 2 year service contract or a 5 year service contract?” (thinking that is a resourceful question) And you have that business feeling that is like being drowned by a huge octopus…

Negotiating with someone who mind reads is like riding in a car with someone who’s not paying attention to the road as they drive.  A mind reader is so busy trying to impress you or himself that he’s not demonstrating any sensory acuity(see #8 ).  Mind readers are either the easiest people to close or the hardest.  They are essentially negotiating with themselves.

The way to manage a mind reader is to consistently ask him or her questions that don’t relate to what they are saying.  You need to interrupt their script.  This will cause them to actually think about your position and question their own self-contained negotiation.

If you are a mind reader then the cure for this personal challenge is to spend your days asking people really simple questions and forcing yourself to listen as closely to their answer (both verbal and non-verbal) then form strategies of how to interact.  Being a mind reader usually means that you have a far greater need to be listened to than to actually listen.

If you know anyone who mind reads and would like to share a story please feel free to comment on this post or you can write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.  Just tell me what I can do to help you Negotiate to Your Own Best Good!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

The path that led me to become a Negotiating Trainer was personal and professional intervention. In every single intervention I’ve ever completed that had to do with “relationships” – I added this resource to my client’s resourceful skill set: “Never Play Someone Else’s Game”

One element of intervention that is in the N.A.C.S. technique is labeled pattern interrupt. A successful Negotiator will learn ways to derail their Negotiating Complement’s Negotiating Pattern. Can you remember when you had this great idea or plan that you were so excited about you were about to bust and you went to share it with someone but before you were done talking you had completely lost your excitement? What happened?

What happened was that someone got you to play their game – thus you stopped playing yours (which included feeling very excited about this amazing idea or plan). Considering that every form of communication is a negotiation that means that at least some of the people you speak to will derail you if they consciously or unconsciously don’t prefer “your game”. A “decent” negotiator will not only derail you but he or she will then “re-rail” you onto their way of responding and thinking, they will put your attention where they want it basically.

There is a CEO of a local company that I sometimes consult for. His reasons for being in business are far from common thus he and I are ALWAYS attempting to attain different goals as businessmen. This creates a great deal of friction between he and I on at least a few occasions. In the beginning of our business relationship he was demonstrating a bad habit: fairytaling (see #7 ). Recently he requested I accompany him on a follow up visit to a relatively new client of his. He intuits that I play my game very differently than he does even if he can’t clearly intellectualize the difference. His reaction to this “difference” has been to try and control my output (what I lend to a negotiation or business scenario). I have a very strong rule about Not playing someone elses game so of course I’ve been incongruent about conducting business with him because of this.

You can recognize someone trying to derail you from your game by the comments they make and the questions they ask. Those comments and questions will be requests for you to eliminate or add something to your contribution that you don’t normally add or eliminate. They will ask you questions that start with these words “Is it necessary…” or “You think this time you could..” or “I’m not sure you understand what I need from you…” This process is about boxing you in and getting you to agree to conditions that highly limit you or force you onto someone elses playing field.

This would be a great time to exercise the word NO. If “NO” is a challenge for you then I probably need to do a post or two on the value of “NO”. Actually if you are in the throes of negotiating then of course there are many other alternatives besides “NO” you might negotiate toward – though the ability to say NO in a Negotiation is very powerful!

If you have ever experienced being “derailed” or discovered that you were playing someone else’s game and wish to share that experience or ask a question you are welcome to send me an email at justask@yourownbestgood.com or leave a comment here! How can I help you Negotiate to Your Own Best Good?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Yesterday afternoon I was working with one of my long-term clients. Our business relationship is such that I walk him through negotiations over the phone and once in a while I’ll go along with him on a face-to-face meeting. Before I say anything else about this client – I want to make it clear that he has come a long way from his previous Negotiating patterns.

Yesterday evening was the initial meet-and-greet with new client for him. I went along as a consultant. My client examined his new prospect’s business and when the client asked for the bottom line – my client impressed me by asking for more than I would have asked. I sat there smiling at my client thinking he’s really been learning a lot since the last time we did a meet-and-greet together.

The new prospect didn’t hesitate when he agreed to what I thought was an outrageously high price. Once again I was impressed. A Negotiator really has to believe in himself/herself to utter the outrageous and have someone “just agree”. I assisted my client in performing the work that was involved. The situation was either the “fix” was going to be fairly straightforward or it was going to be an “allnighter” with complex troubleshooting involved. During the course of “the fix” a situation popped up that required “the client” to be inconvenienced. My client offered a discount and that seemed to oil the wheels of commerce between the two companies.

At the end of the evening “the client” asked for the total and my client suddenly showed his fear which was reflective of his own self-worth. The number he gave “the client” was 20 percent less than the original outrageous number. I thought: “I wouldn’t have managed it that way – but he did offer a discount”. Then my client said “Oh, I also promised you a discount.” When it was all said and done – my client gave the client about a 30% cut on the originally agreed to price.

The Client didn’t negotiate at all. He agreed to every number that was presented to him. Ironically the type of company the client had was a call center where all the employees sole purpose was to close people for profit.

One of the precepts that is elemental in the journey of a Negotiator is to ALWAYS BE WILLING TO RECEIVE MORE THAN YOU ASK FOR OR WANT. If I had to create an affirmation that was representative of that essential negotiating concept it would be: “I always negotiate to my own best good. I always accept the complete manifestation of my intentions. I love that the universe can provide me infinite percent more than I have asked for and I’m willing to accept that as well.”

Do you ever find yourself Negotiating down out of fear? Negotiating Down is when your Negotiating Complement has congruently accepted your proposal-offer and then you reduce it. I’ve given you an affirmation that is intended to guide your conscious and unconscious toward accepting all that you ask for and more. What would be the opposite of the affirmation for you? If you can identify what that opposite is – you will have uncovered an unconscious counter intention that minimizes your fullfilment and success. Bringing limiting beliefs and counter-intentions to the conscious level allows us to clean them out and be free of their shackles.

If you have Negotiating Fears or find yourself Negotiating Down and would like some help, leave a comment or email me at justask@yourownbestgood.com

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

Let’s ask a question about my experience: “What was the value of my Mother’s words upon my future actions? Did she “reach” me? Could she have “reached” me?” Ok, enough about me for the moment – let zoom out and consider how people are or can be in the spectrum of operation that I define as accessing leverage vs. feeling management.

Feelings Management: a personal process of listening, thinking, speaking and taking action that revolves around changing one’s own personal feelings about a situation which often times negates or invalidates sound strategies and tactics in any given context. [more simply put]: It’s when something happens in your life involving other people and you react to the situation based on your feelings and not necessarily the smartest plan. A personal life management style where you make choices based on how doing (or not doing) saying (or not saying) something will make you and other people feel at the expense of being EFFECTIVE beyond the scope of peoples feelings.

Example: Mary has worked two 8-hour shifts back-to-back in the local coal mine and has to return to the mine the next morning to work two more. She has just enough time to get home, shower off the soot and get to bed in order to get 6 hours of sleep. Upon arriving home Mary discovers that her brother Led has set up his drum set in the garage because he is practicing for an audition that starts tomorrow at the same time that Mary has to be at work. Led is basically unemployed and sometimes comes over to Mary’s house to use the garage as a studio. The feelings management dialog between brother and sister is as follows: Led: “Hey Mary! I’ve got a real audition tomorrow morning! Mary: “That’s really wonderful, Led!” Led: “I’m only going to practice until Midnight then I need to take down my drumset, pack it up and be ready for my audition in the morning. Can you give me a ride to the audition – it’s only about an hour out of the way from the mines? Mary: “Led, I’m very proud of you – of course I can give you a ride. I was giong to leave at 7am but since I have to drop you off first – we’ll leave at 5am so that I have enough time to get you to your audition and get to work by 8am.” Mary trudges off to the shower and cries for 10 minutes as the war between “loving her brother” and “loving herself” wages on inside of her. She gets to work the next day after having slept from 2am (when her brother was done packing) to 4am(when she had to get up and get ready for work to leave by 5am) and pulls another 16 hour shift.

Acessing Leverage: A process by which we find the reasons within ourselves and others to inspire our own effective action as well as the actions of others most consistently. [more simply put]A way to communicate to yourself and others that allows you to experience your own best good as much as humanly possible. A way to inspire people to connect with you in the most resourceful way possible.

Example: (see the first part of the above example about Mary having to pull doubles and lets pick up where she arrives home to find her brother practicing his drums) Led: “Hey Mary! I’ve got a real audition tomorrow morning! Mary: “Congratulations Led! What are all these drums doing set up here in my garage?” (note: Mary is now accessing information so that she might access leverage soon by asking resourceful questions) Led: Well I’m practicing for my audition of course! Mary: “Ahh – that’s what I thought you were doing? Is your cell phone broken?” Led: “No, why?” Mary: “Well I don’t remember a phone call from you asking me if it was alright to come over and setup your drums – so I thought it might be that someone stole your phone or it’s broken.” Led: “You always let me practice my drums in your garage.” Mary: Do you happen to know what my plans are tomorrow?” Led: “Um…I’m sorry…I don’t.” Mary: “How long would it take you to tear down your drum set and pack it up? Led: Well…about 30 minutes if I hurry – how come you are asking me all these questions? (note: The person that asks the questions in a conversation controls the direction of where that conversation can go.) Mary: “That’s a great question, Led – do you have a ride yet to the Audition?” Led: “Well I was going to …ask you..if you could give me a ride.” Mary: “Where you going to ask me that before or after you asked if you could set up your drums here in my garage? Led, should we call someone now to come help you pack your drums up or can you have them packed and loaded in your van by the time I get out of my shower? (note:By offering your Negotiating Complement two choices – whereby either decision they make is a resourceful choice for you – you create a double bind.) Led: “I can pack them myself. Mary…what about the ride?” Mary: “If you can drop me off at 8am for my work – you can barrow my car afterwards as long as you come get me 16 hours later. Of course that will make you two hours late for your own appointment.” (note: “Offering people things they don’t want or need is a great way to inspire them to discover “No” on their own – they will close themselves.) Led: “If I’m gone by the time you get out of the Shower then…well wish me luck for tomorrow’s audition now if you would” Mary: “Good luck, Led.”

Summary: In the first scenario Led accesses studio time at Mary’s house until the wee hours and a cheaufer to his audition. In short – he makes Mary responsible for his success or failure. She probably makes herself responsible as well. This leads to Mary collapsing from fatigue and exhaustion the next day at the mines. Led being her “Next of Kin” is notified and has to cancel his audition because of “family problems”. He drives two hours to the mines to take Mary home.

In the second scenario Led finds a groupie of one of his former bands that still worships his music to provide him with a makeshift studio and a ride the next morning to the audition. The producers are impressed by Led’s skill of the drum but it’s the groupie that catches their eye. They are so impressed that he still has groupie following him around even though he’s not in any band that they give him the contract on the spot. A month later a limo picks up Mary one Friday evening and takes her to Led’s first concert.

The Negotiating Moral of the Stories: Often times doing what is for your own best good is exactly what you need to do for the good of others as well. When Mary tried to manage her feelings of guilt and Led’s feelings of frustration about practicing and a ride to the audition – the result was a depletion of resources. When Mary allowed Led the opportunity to take 100 percent responsibility for his experience, he not only survived but he Thrived. She was able to continue appreciating his career path and his creative talents while giving herself the time and energy to manage her own life. Mary’s greatest leverage in this scneario was her desire to give to herself first what she required before giving to other people what they might require of her. She negotiated to her own best good and as a consequence so did Led.

If you enjoyed the scenario learning from above and would like to see more of this type of information please leave a comment or send me an email at justask@yourownbestgood.com Are you a feeling manager? Do you know others that are?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator

I sit with 40-something year old sore muscles thinking about the word “stodgy” and how it’s applied to me for quite some time. Last night my adopted niece, Corrie celebrated her 15th birthday party in grand style. Her (my) immediate family rented a party boat for her and all of her friends and we cruised north up the Colorado River along a stretch of the river known as Lake Austin.

There were teens to pick up, waiver forms to sign for the youth, agreements to sign by the adults, presents and food to load aboard the party-boat and so on. I remember thinking my stodgy thoughts – “Gawd all this work just for a birthday” and “Why can’t we just buy a cake, sing the song and blow out the candles?” (that’s an example of an unresourceful question). I even asked my wife “Shouldn’t we be spending this money on practical things like a computer or a new desk or some new clothes?” She just gave me that “you’re a he-tard” look and kept preparing for the party.

Well lo and behold – I gathered up the necessary man-courage to help organize this teen river-ride and boarded near sundown. I noticed once I got there that I was…enjoying myself. The Co-Captains of the boat were a married couple who had been doing this for 14 years. I developed a quick comfortable rapport with them and as the time to launch move toward the here-and-now I was having a really good time.

We launched and I saw these amazing mansions on the left bank high atop a cliff (which I video taped). The sun was setting and I felt like I was in some other-worldly heaven. The boat finally weighed anchor somewhere along the river and the teens (and me) all went swiming and diving off the 2nd floor deck of the boat. There was music and food and even enough adults for some adult conversation. After exhausting myself in the river’s current (swimming) I sat there air drying off as the last of the sun vanished from the horizon thinking: “God this is a great life – how peaceful and beautiful it is here.” Then I was inspired “I want a boat!”

I had grown up on boats as a youth myself and I’m certainly a water baby. The question I’ve asked myself this morning and I’ll ask you as well is this: “What are you willing to choose, to plan, to do in order to live an inspired life? What new experience will you let yourself have each day in order to experience a life driven by and defined by INSPIRATION?”

“What does this have to do with negotiation? ” you might ask? We are always negotiating toward or away from something. The NLP guideline states that “We will move away from pain and toward pleasure. And we will move away from pain before we move toward pleasure.” Inspiration is a resource. It’s difficult to talk about or even think about a resource that you seldom experience. It’s like a made up word that people just use. I was truly inspired last night and I made a decision today to continue to access that resource daily.

To answer your question – I was negotiating with myself. I was negotiating with the universe for inspiration. I didn’t mean to negotiate for that in the time before the boat-experience – I kept telling myself “I’m doing this for Corrie”, but when I got there I was open and willing to experience something new AND I DID!

If you’ve been inspired lately – please share how you got there, what you experienced and what you’ve decided to do since the experience. What does being inspired mean to you?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

By signing up you can now receive the new Negotiator’s Primer. The Primer is a e-reference in pdf format that gets you started on the road to more effective Negotiations! If you want to make your words count, double, triple or even quadruple the resources you access on a daily basis FROM ANY RELATIONSHIP then the Negotiator’s Primer is a must read. There’s no fluff in this e-reference just a good starting point for people who want to negotiate but don’t know where to start!

Sign up today for a membership to my newsletter and periodic mailings to find out how you can get your own primer!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

The advantage that “knowing thyself” brings to the Negotiator is that few negotiators ever explore their own mind that completely. When you are facing your negotiating complement it will be the question that you ask him that he has not yet asked himself that will give you “wiggle room”. Unasked questions cause us to stumble. They will cause the Negotiating Complement to stumble as well. Your job at that point is to gracefully help the Negotiating Complement back to his feet as you change your own position toward fulfillment plus.

The Invisible Side of a negotiation is the unspoken minimums, maximums and the “ideal” outcome on the part of the Negotiating Complement. Many people in a negotiating situation don’t think once of the invisible side of Negotiations. They barter and banter, argue and agree only about what is seen or heard.

One technique that is usually above the beginner is called the double bind. The double bind is simply a Negotiating Proposition that has a multiple choice (Negotiating Complement’s choice) design. Lets say that you have silver, gold and platinum to transact with, but you do not wish to tap into your platinum supply. You offer your Negotiating Complement the multiple choice of silver or gold.

The error on the Negotiating Complement’s part at this point would be that he assumes that silver and gold are the full spectrum of available resources. In the Western world from the earliest school age on – we are trained to make multiple choices. We pride ourselves on making the “best” choice. The moral of the double bind is to always ask about what resources aren’t being offered.

How many times have you studied a menu only to see someone served something not on the menu at a restaurant? Good training for the “counter” to the double bind would be to ALWAYS ask for things not on the menu when you go out to eat.

If you have enjoyed this post would you be kind enough to leave a comment or email me a question justask@yourownbestgood.com? What would happen if you could perform the double bind tomorrow at work or perhaps somewhere significant in your personal life?

Bruce Burns the Negotiator!

It seems that the folks over at ezinearticles.com liked my article on The Ludicrous Factor which spelled out a simple but powerful element in getting over your fear of negotiations. I’ve placed the most recent article on my newest web page “Published Works” http://yourownbestgood.com/?page_id=32 I’ve been getting some excellent feed back from you folks about things you’d like to see – you’ll notice changes here and there.  Feel free to continue negotiating my website into perfection.

One of the most powerful aspects of N.L.P. that I’ve ever studied is called Value Hierarchies.  This element of N.L.P.  defines how our personal values control much of our conscious and unconscious processes as they relate to what we do and how we act in any given context.  One of the most challenging and potentially dangerous interventions that can be performed is to “change” the hierarchal position of a value.  What I mean is that our values represent a long list of the things we value according to how much we value each thing.  Our “highest” value would equal “What I would DO ANYTHING to obtain” or “What I would DO ANYTHING to prevent LOOSING”.

For each of us – this list is usually different.  Think about the value that drives a bunch of men to drink beer, watch football on TV for 6 hours and scream like they just won the lottery over and over and over again.  Think about their wives or girlfriends (I’m only being a sexist to make a point)who are out shopping and making fun of the beer drinking maniacs.  When you challenge someone on their values – they usually become irrational.  A value is typically what “feels right” in a certain context and sometimes that feeling of “right” can be so strong that the person can’t hear or see or think of anything else.

What do you value the most?  Has that information ever been used against you?  What does your client, mate, boss, child or parent value the most?  Can you use this information to help them live a better life?  One of the most important aspects of The Art of Asking Resourceful Questions is to unearth what someone values the most.  In the hands of a decent negotiator that information is quite potent.  An error that some negotiators make is that they project their own values onto their clients (negotiating complement) – they assume and communicate what they feel themselves – the negotiating complement feels as well.

It’s a primal human reaction to fear things that are “different”.  The truth is – we all live in a very modern age.  The pan-genesis of our multi-racial, multi-cultural world is here surrounding us now whether we accept it or not.   Acceptance means that you can ask the next set of resourceful quesitons.

If this article inspired any questions or thoughts – please feel free to leave a comment or you can write me directly at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!

What’s it all for? What makes “Every form of communication is a Negotiation!” significant, true? Resources. Dr. Joe Vitale – one of the contributors of The Secret (the movie) speaks of unconscious counter intentions neutralizing our conscious intentions. The solution to dealing with unconscious counter intentions is to bring them to the surface, make them conscious.

How do you do this? You must ask yourself Resourceful Questions. “What thoughts or beliefs have I held for so long that I don’t even remember holding them anymore that MIGHT be between me and my conscious intentions? Can I remember a time when I held a silly belief that kept me from happiness?” An example of a silly belief might be something like: “I should wait a few days before I call her back – so she won’t think I’m needy or clingy.” Usually an unconscious counter intention is a belief we formed based on strong reactive fear at some point in our life and when the fear cooled off or left the belief DID NOT.

So the resolution of an unconscious counter intention is the opposite of it’s creation which would be a proactive, conscious “attitude” formed from joy and loving thoughts. “I’m going to call her now because I want her to really be able to appreciate what I am and I’m not – I know she may not like what I show her and that will be as perfect as if she can’t get enough.”

So, we are constantly Negotiating and it is not uncommon to find people holding strong, counter-Negotiating beliefs. If you feel fear at the very idea of Negotiating I can help you. What would you do now to release your fear and embrace your Negotiating Power consciously? Would you like to access resources with every breath that you take? If any of my questions or thoughts stir something in you – leave a comment or you can send a private question to justask@yourownbestgood.com

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!
P.S. If you are curious about my New Apprenticeship Program then check it out at http://yourownbestgood.com/?page_id=37

So, tonight I was surfing for some information about Ho’oponopono and discovered that one way that the Hawaiians describe it’s traditional process is that it’s an ancient form of conflict resolution.  Conflict resolution of course IS NEGOTIATION or at least one form of it.  I found it comforting that when I accept apprentices or train people in negotiations that I’m actually showing them my Ho’oponopono.  I’m not an expert in Ho’oponopono just in case someone thinks that’s what I’m suggesting – but I am an expert in Negotiations.

Do you have an interest in Ho’oponopono?  Are you aware of the book Zero Limits coming out this summer? Can you think of a situation where you deal with life and any other sentient creature besides yourself when you are not negotiating?  If so, leave a comment -share your thoughts.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!

You will notice a NEW page on The Negotiator’s Secret Blog titled: Online and Offline Apprenticeship! Currently we are building a small, dynamic group of Negotiator Apprentices who are willing to chart their progress and work diligently toward Negotiator Mastery. Those who make the cut as My Apprentices will then be eligible for:

1. Direct Training from The Negotiator via email, instant message, phone and in some cases face-to-face training
2. Considerable discounts or even Free Products made for sale by The Negotiator
3. Potential participation on current and future products including credit and business sponsorship
4. Certification and Affiliate opportunities upon successful conclusion
5. The SATISFACTION of CLOSING time after time after time!

TO APPLY NOW CLICK HERE: Online and Offline Apprenticeship!

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!

A few months ago he was diagnoised with Congestive Heart Failure. As an electrical engineer – he is accustomed to doing research on the internet. He did his research and discovered that a)in most Hospitals if you are over 50 and sneeze they diagnose you with CHF and b)he had no symptoms whatsoever of heart problems. For months the doctors wanted to cut him open and operate – pump him full of end-game drugs and so on. He refused. Finally – he discovered that he had acid reflux – which was causing the hydrochloric gas in his stomach to seep into his lungs – starving him for oxygen.

Living in Austin, Texas means I also live in the land of alternative medicine. I’ve been “communicating” the option that my father come to Austin, stay in my home (he lives 2 hours away) and “try” the alternative means to getting better – all the doctors and meds of “modern” medicine haven’t improved his situation even slightly. Sometimes in a Negotiation “time” is the one ingredient that you require in order to succeed. My father will be pulling up in my driveway in a matter of minutes. We are going to see two different kinds of alternative medicine practitioners this morning.

I don’t truly know if they can help him – what I do know is that the difference between those who fail and those who succeed is that he who is willing to fail and try again will eventually succeed – he who fails and quits (in this context at least) dies. My father’s misery with this condition is something I don’t wish to share with the public. I’ll just say that I spent two days with him recently at our Family Estate and when I returned home it took me 3 days to get over the sense of overwhelm of watching him suffer through this.

Today he Negotiates for relief with new doctors. I Negotiate traffic and parking spaces so he can get that relief.  Every chance I had to Negotiate through time with my father without wearing out my welcome on the subject of trying something different in order to create a result – I did.  Even though that’s true, when he called me earlier this week and told me what he wanted – I was still surprised.

The fruit of our Negotiations sometimes appear when we least expect them too.

I love my father.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator

Today, I attended a birthday luncheon of a dear friend of my wife’s.  It was a Vegetarian restaurant that had “some” Vegan dishes as well.  Being a new Vegan myself – I was happy for the choice and looked forward to trying out my first Vegan Restaurant dish as I’ve been making my meals at home mostly til today.  We all ate, opened presents, took pictures and made middle-of-the-work-day chit chat.  I have to wonder if some waitresses find me “high maintenance” since I’m pretty strict about the foods I eat.

Our waitress didn’t flash me alot of smiles or engage me in Vegan talk during the different times that I ordered something.  No big deal – I have accepted that there might be Vegan Prejudice in the world before I embarked on my new dietary lifestyle.  The party had died down and everyone had left for work.  I’m finishing off my Vegan desert when this pretty young waitress comes marching up to our table.  “I have heard that you are a Vegan!” she said with a sparkle in her eyes.

I smiled up at her and agreed.   She then proceeded in a very passionate way to speak about her own journey into Veganism.  As she spoke Resourceful Questions arose in my mind.  “How is she sharing this passion with others?  Does she have an interest in sharing this passion with others on a larger scale”? and so on.  So of course no sooner did I think it than I began to ask her those very questions.

She seemed intrigued at the idea of having her own blog and sharing her interest with others, etc.   We all finished the exchange with trading numbers and email addresses for some followup.

What inspired her to come out and announce to me that she was a Vegan?  How often does she act on such inspiration?  What did her inspiration lead too?  What will happen if she follows the thread of her inspiration to completion?  She was inspired to ask about my Veganism and I was inspired to ask about her Internet Presence.  It was interesting that she had never even considered sharing her thoughts and wisdom with the world.

What have you been inspired to do lately?  What would happen if you ACTED on that inspiration??  If ever form of communication is a negotiation, then what was she negotiating for?  I’m curious what your answers maybe and how you came to those conclusions.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator!

Today I had a business lunch with my favorite client.  She’s launching quite a few new products online and she’s really enter a new league of Internet Marketing.  As a result of stepping up her game – she’s added some consultants to her retinue in order to meets some important deadlines.  One consultant is her new webmaster.  So she shared her challenges and disappointsments over a salad and I of course bombarded her with resourceful questions.

Her delimma was that she really likes her new webmaster, but he’s not delivering what she wants or apparently what he promised.  And of course like a “typical” man I blurt out “Get another!” – ohhhh soooo obvious to the linear-minded man.  Her face immediately revealed what her lips resisted expressing.  I’m thinking “uh oh that wasn’t the right answer for some reason” – so what do I do?  ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS.

I began to inquire about what was keeping her stuck and what was important and what was exciting about the experience she was having.  She revealed that she was not “readily deciding” to can the new webmaster because her feelings were involved (she likes him).  I asked her a few questions about her very real deadlines coming up and asked her how she would feel if she weren’t ready when it was showtime.  She was trying to hang on to the webmaster and make the best choice for her own best good businesswise.

Being my favorite client – she owned her process, which I call feeling management, and we were able to come up with some strong strategies to get her moving again.

Are you ever faced with a feeling conflicting with what you know is sound advice or good judgement?  How do you manage your feelings and make sound choices?  What would happen if no matter what you did – you would have good feelings?  Can a choice be proactive or reactive?  If so, how do we discern the difference between the two?

If you have questions – then post them – lets hear what you think, what you feel and how you agree or even challenge my information.

Bruce Burns The Negotiator

In most instances in human communication when I ask a resourceful question on the other side of the dialog my Negotiating Complement has a filter that probably sounds like this: “What part of my information would I like to share with this stranger?”  This woman didn’t seem to have that filter.   Since she was giving me too much information I decided to take the time to appreciate the environment around her.  What I noticed behind her and just to her right was The Secret (DVD).  What I noticed directly behind her was The Attractor Factor (Audio)by Dr. Joe Vitale.   At some point other people started gathering around the counter and I was able to extract myself as the perpetual information dump occurred and others were able to receive the limitless flow of information coming from the woman behind the counter.

A couple of months ago I had the great fortune of hearing Depak Chopra speak live at The World Wellness Weekend here in Austin.  He had mentioned the 15 commitments.  That’s what I was in search of in the bookstore.  So I went to the different areas that carried his things and finally returned to the counter.  One of the CDs I picked up by him was named The Book of Secrets.   When I returned to the counter a woman engaging the perpetual information generator (lady behind the counter) said “I was at the Public Library earlier and speaking to one of the Librarians about getting more copies of The Secret.  While we were speaking I recommended that she also clear some space on her bookshelves for the next book by Dr. Joe Vitale – Zero Limits.

I’m a contributor to Zero Limits in several ways (but I’ll brag after the book is on the shelves) and I thought it was fascinating that a woman who isn’t nearly as in the loop as I am on this book launch would be having conversations with librarians about ordering and clearing space, etc.  The group’s conversation was quite engaging and I discovered I had things to say – so I kept trying to politely interject but the energy of the conversation just kept on moving.  Finally I was able to get a word in edgewise and I really enjoyed meeting that many strangers in a place I don’t often go and having things in common with them.  When the discussion was over we all shook hands and introduced ourselves.

I had watched The Secret the night before and had to ask myself – “How did I attract this experience?”  I listened to The Book of Secrets on the drive home.  It seems that my Negotiating Excellence is now being flushed out by the Secrets of some of the finest minds in the world.   My wife has a specific business that would fit well with this bookstore and of course before we left I asked about 10 resourceful questions that might help her develop a business relationship with the store.  She was very grateful for the plug and thanked me when we got home.

At some point in Mastering The Art of Resourceful Questions – you just DO IT!  When you reach that point – the value of your communication is always RESOURCEFUL.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns  The Negotiator

After presenting the idea to my Master Mind group and letting them tear it apart and show me the flaws – I felt like a million dollars – I take that back – I felt like a Trillion Dollars. My wife went off to parts unknown today as a celebration from the relief of the end of the work week AND getting taxes done before the deadline. Master Mind is so intense for me – I don’t want to party the day after – or “take a break”. Master Mind brings everything into focus and adds lots of valuable information to the participant’s game. My wife deserves her “break” AND I FEEL closer to manifesting the Visions in my Head so I’m paddling away toward the realization of those dreams.

If you have stories or experiences you’d like to share about any topics reflected here on my blog, please feel free to submit them. Ask questions, challenge the (my) information and Negotiate to Your Own Best Good!

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce Burns the Negotiator

Yesterday evening I negotiated Bull Creek with my two dogs Smooches and Nikita. My wife and I watched the sun go down and our two canine children swim in the cool waters of a local “leash free” gathering spot.

We were celebrating climbing out from under the oh-so-happy task of completing our taxes. The resource of spending the evening with my family at the creek was serenity and joy. On the way home from Bull Creek, I called my younger brother in Florida and he told me the most amazing story.

I’ve had the good fortune of working with Dr. Joe Vitale behind the scenes and at many of his seminars revolving around Manifestation and Ho’oponopono. He is of course one of the significant contributors of the world sweeping Movie The Secret.

My brother just return from Texas back to Florida after dealing with some custody issues in court. It was a heavy time for him though the result was not as heavy as the dread leading up to the courtroom experience. My brother is a Master Electrician who’s worked on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. He lives less than a mile from the Atlantic and sees every Hurricane we ever hear about on TV. Anyway, for Easter his mother-in-law gave him her copy of The Secret. My brother is not a big self-help reader, doesn’t watch Oprah, doesn’t follow the latest craze on anything. Here is what he told me last night:

“I’ve watched The Secret 5 times since Easter. Everytime I watch it, it makes my heart race. I’m so excited about what I’ve seen I’m going to plaster up posters all over my walls to remind me of what I’ve seen in The Secret.”

I asked him if he knew who I worked with sometimes. He said ‘No’. I asked him if he would be surprised to find out that I work with one of the contributors to The Secret, then I described Joe Vitale to him. We both laughed. Anyone who knows anything about Dr. Joe Vitale knows that Marketing is just part of what he does. My brother finds out about The Secret from a woman I’ve never even met. My brother’s last request before we hung up was for me to help him find a “group” out his way that gathers to talk about The Secret.

If you or someone you know is interested in The Secret be sure to read my article about whether The Secret is a Cult or not in:

MARKETING The Secret

How ONE Marketing Strategy Turned an Independent Movie into a Sold-Out Blockbuster!

http://www.thevideoqueen.com/marketingthesecret.html

Bruce The Negotiator

I’ve passed the 1 month mark on a Vegan Diet. I’ve lost over 8 pounds in the last month! So what am I negotiating? I’m negotiating my health and “look” with my body. I’m negotiating some small drop of “wellness”for the planet.

Nearly half the fresh water in the U.S. goes to raising meat-food products. I saw a video from Peta today that’s pretty intense – I’ll leave it in my library but not out here on the blog – look at it if you dare.

The Negotiator!

The way this part of the Negotiation between the taxpayer and the government works is that you find a “rules” expert often known as a CPA. There is nothing intuitive about taxes or tax people. In my experience there is no reference to draw on to anticipate how an “expert” might help. Last year we hired a CPA (she’s amazing) and with just one rule she knew about that I didn’t she found my company thousands of dollars of real deductions. That’s thousands of dollars of earnings that I would have paid taxes on that I didn’t have too.

By accessing the Resource known as “My CPA” I now know or employ someone that knows more rules of the Tax game than I did before. She is worth her weight in gold.

The Negotiating Moral of the story is: Make time to do research on the context you are negotiating in. The difference between a Make or Break situation in negotiations is often what the other party knows and hope you do not. Sometimes it’s even just a matter of you knowing something that they do not.

If you use negotiations as part of your workstyle or lifestyle then explore all the parts that are significant to you or at least significant to the people that you negotiate with. Many negotations fail as a result of being caught off guard or underprepared.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaY7VU3jiqk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaftrHk0e1c[/youtube]

So, Al had my attention as he droned on about having Imus fired. Al talked about a “well regulated public TV” and summoned the words “FCC” several times without taking responsibility for WHAT the event meant to him (Al). What I would inspire in you, Negotiators is that you listen very carefully to what people say and then watch what they do. People often say what they think needs to be said or wants to be heard but people almost always DO what they mean.

So Al said something to the nature that Imus saying “nappy-headed hos” on national TV that is WELL REGULATED by the FCC shouldn’t be ‘excused’ by ‘hiding’ behind “freedom of speech”. Al’s counter to Imus’s remark was to parade his daughter on his show and talk about her achievements.

I had heard some other chatter about it earlier in the day from various sources. One voice seemed to make more sense than the others in my opinion (of course). The basic comment was that Imus was very popular – well sponsored by the corporations because he really brings in the viewers and listeners. So the mass-media has made the “discussion” about whether Imus should be “canned” or not.

Imus has made money talking on TV and Radio for a long time. If he is decent at Negotiating – he will profit greatly from this free publicity show that Al has given him. There is an interesting negotiation going on here via the TV. It’s a negotiation in the form of a public debate. Debate is yet another form of negotiation. In fact debate is as close as Negotiation ever gets taught in public school for K through 12. It’s a form of Negotiation where resources by each party are used to conquer an opposing position. There are two kinds of resources in a debate that a debating-negotiator uses. The first kind is a neutralizing resource. An opponent might discuss how high gas prices are and the neutralizing resource would be to discuss that the public schools are receiving record amounts of gas-tax money and grades are rising and Johnny can read again. The second kind of resource in the debate form of negotiation is to demonstrate significant and irrefutable logic (meaning demonstrating a resource of information that can’t be neutralized). Ultimately the debate form of negotiations is about someone being viewed as wrong and someone being viewed as ‘right’.

In the real world, away from the high-school debate team, the right-wrong paradigm is very 2nd grade-ish. So here is a Negotiating Guideline NEVER PLAY THE RIGHT-WRONG GAME in a Negotiation. The easiest way to derail any negotiation that’s premise is in the “right-wrong game” or any other pattern you think will eliminate your advantage (from having been trained) simply confront the approach to the negotiation and REFUSE to participate in any Negotiation that starts out that way.

The confrontation of course would be a resourceful question that sounds like this: Are you really going to try and simplify this topic (discussion, evaluation, whatever)to the level of a second grader by making it about “right and wrong”? We are discussing resources and the exchange of resources – lets do it like grown men and women. No more insults to our intelligence with such school yard tactics. Or…are is your position so weak this is all you have left? Challenge the information, Negotiators! Another way of understand the right-wrong tactic is to call it by another name. It’s a the Villianize approach by invalidating the person – you invalidate their choices and beliefs and resources. Once again if you find yourself thrown into a Negotiation configured to make you a villain – simply choose not to participate in the Negotiation. Many Negotiations are completed by guilting a result from the “villain” through the childish right-wrong approach. In more advanced lessons – you will learn to use even these crude tactics for your best good when dealing with someone who chooses this path.

So, Al attempts to villianize Imus and Imus ‘attempts’ to entertain the discussion then goes into a personality coma when he tells the world “I’m not a bad person, I just did a bad thing.” Don’t most 4 year olds talk like this? Publicity is yet another form of Negotiation. Imus – if you happen to read my blog then here is my advice: Setup a publicity event at the College on the half-court circle surrounded by these women you insulted. Start out the “interview” by asking if any of the women were insulted. For each one that was – request that they respond to your remark on national TV just as you delivered it. Let them say WHATEVER they want ( you did). When you are done letting them vent, then ask each one what she would accept in the way of a sincere apology. If they ask you to quit TV – ask them if they would quit basketball if they made a serious mistake. Otherwise do your best to entertain their requests. No matter what talking points are invented after this event – people just won’t care enough for it to matter. You gave them each an opportunity to respond to you in the same manner that you spoke of them. This is a good use of Freedom of Speech – where no one hides. By the way – the people that didn’t like you for your remark (not for other stuff)will probably respect you afterwards – I suspect your fan-base will grow. And of course if you and Al cooked this idea up together for mutual publicity – well you’ve done a very fine job at Negotiating already.

I don’t have a side in this public debate though you freedom-of-speechers should be granted somekind of freedom favor for your work. Negotiation requires freedom-of-speech don’t ever forget it!

Bruce the Negotiator!

Today’s Tip is The Negotiator discussing the concept of Every Form of Communication is a Negotiation. Please click on the Audio Tips Page to hear today’s PodCast.

Sit back and soak it up.

Bruce

Last night I had the great fortune of speaking with a woman named Kelly for the first time who had read The Attractor Factor by Dr. Joe Vitale. She was in alot of emotional pain and after reading a part of the his book she was inspired to contact him. Her call was eventually directed to my office. We spoke for over 2 hours and the topic of our conversation was RESOURCES.

If Negotiation is my strong right arm, then Resource Coaching is my other strong right arm. The first challenge when someone needs Resource First Aid is to re-direct their attention. When people are in a resource-depraved state – so is their attention. If you ask them what they notice about what’s going on around them and their life – they will tell you all that is wrong, broken and missing. I asked Kelly if she would be open to some training from me over the phone and she agreed.

Resource Coaching is a step-by-step technique. You must train the eyes to see where the feet need to go and get everything working in concert step-by-step. I was taking the first step with Kelly when she balked. She went from listening and wanting help to a long dreadful story about her life. I thought “We’ve slid off the road and now we are back in the ditch she probably called me from. I don’t like being muddy, so I washed my brain down and refocused to get Kelly and I back to the smooth clean road of Resources.

We stumbled up the incline to the road again and I put our “car” into gear and headed on back down the road trying to complete the “first step”. We were approaching the first step when suddenly she reached over (through the phone) and steered us right back in the ditch. It was like 8 or 9 pm when this was happening and I had already had a full day. I was “trying” to be “happy” about Kelly and I being in the ditch again.

This time instead of climbing back up the incline of our experience – I just stayed muddy with her as long as I could to “get” how she kept recreating the ditch result. I asked her lots of RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS. Guess what I learned? She hated the word “resource”. I use the word resource in about every other sentence when I’m sleeping – you can imagine how often I might use it when I’m awake. So now I have to keep from laughing at the potential Mad TV skit that is arising from this experience: A woman in a resource-depraved state contacts me so she can really hike up her resources and I start giving her the Resource Remedy but she can’t stand to literally hear the word “resources”.

Would you have quit at that point? I did briefly think of hanging up so I could go eat dinner before 10pm but I decided since I had already uesd the words “Play Full Out” with her – that I had to be a model for those words or look like a snake oil salesman.

Staying in the ditch with Kelly (nice and muddy), I began to ask her questions about things that made her happy. Her level of resource-depravity was so strong that we had to sort through about 3 stories before I finally actually found a happy one. (The mud was starting to dry) On the third story of her son eating doodle bugs as a child – I discovered the word “doodle” made her laugh so much she could hardly think of what to do next – so I substituted the word “resources” with the word “doodle”.

We spent the next 30 minutes or so doing some “Doodle Coaching”. We quickly climbed out of the mud, got back on Doodle Road and I discoverd that the Resource Coach’s Fast Car was now a Doodle Bug (pun intended). Near the end of the conversation Kelly asked me if I knew anyone that did Energy Work. I have another client who I do Resource Coaching with and lo and behold at that moment (almost 10pm) she called me on the other line. I took the synchronicity as a sign I could finally have dinner so I networked the two women together and got off the phone.

In a Negotiation sometimes you have to be willing to either a) speak someone else’s thought-language or b) invent a new language in order to Manifest your outcomes. If all forms of communication are a negotiations then communication itself is the most prized negotiation-resource there is.

The subtraction I refer to is my old posts (etc) from my Blogger blog. WordPress required me to ‘catch up’ my education about blogs and after a week of focusing on my list building and my blog – my Word Press Blog is born.

You are welcome to congratulate me if you wish.

No one provides me as much opportunity to negotiate as my wife does. If you are in an intimate relationship and it’s lasted longer than a weekend then you have experienced the duel of wills that occurs between two people that function like two people but think they exist as one.

The construct of “Negotiate to Your Own Best Good” requires the practitioner to consider the long and short term impact of their marvelous skills in any given context. I know in most situations I could probably out-negotiate my wife and there have certainly been situations where I did just that. I don’t do it often, I try not to do it at all. With a significant other, it’s best if your negotiation really is a capital “Y” in the word “Your” as opposed to a little “y” which really just is you.

I would like to contrast “Your” vs “your”. First of all if you wish to negotiate more than once with people – or think you might, resist the urge to “beat” someone in a negotiation. The best negotiation is when the other person isn’t really aware they are negotiation AND they are doing most of your work for you in the face of your magnificent resourceful questions and other fine tactics.

That reminds me of this joke: “There are these two bulls standing at the top of this hill looking down into a valley full of cows. The young bull says…” if you’ve not heard the joke – it’s a great moral about scaring away your resources.

In short, if you don’t highlight the capital “Y” in Your then there is a good chance your negotiating compliment might not ask you back for round two.

It’s late so I will negotiate into the world of dreams now.

Bruce
The Negotiator
http://negotiate2yourownbestgood.com

Where does a negotiation start? Each starts inside of you. For example – lets assume for sample-context sake that you are hungry. Negotiations almost always begin (as does any tangible object) as a question or questions. “Am I hungry?” (Isn’t it interesting when we crave or need something we still oblige ourselves to ask such questions anyway [probably where sarcasm was born]). “What am I hungry for?” “Do I have the time, energy, inclination to get ‘that’?” “What else might I be interested in eating?” Conscious or unconscious we have such internal dialogues running through our heads most of the day. When we find ourselves at McDonalds and we ask the pathetic question “Why did I come here?” or “What am I doing here agian?” – the answer is the litany of questions that you asked up to that point THATS HOW! From the time you ask yourself “Am I hungry?” to the moment you sink your teeth into that Quadruple Meat with Mega Cheese Tripple Bypass McCholestoral burger you were in a near constant negotiation. At this point some of you might think “What the hell is he talking about?”.

I’m talking about the non-verbal communication that occurs inside your body, from your cellular (blood cells not your phone)neediness to your psychological dependency (“I could quit eating these if I really wanted to.”) there is a sea of negotiations going on that are mostly in the form of questions. This means that when you look for a model of excellence in the world of Negotiations, you need look no further than your own self – within you is a near constant hurricane of negotations occurring.

The awakening to your already natural state of negotiations is to give “voice” to all those questions and to learn how simple and complex negotiations can be. The advantage you have is that almost no one understands how to transform their “natural questions” into human-speak questions. You “FEEL” what you want and how you want to get it, or you “SEE” it but you’ve not been adequately trained to claim it verbally, say it, speak it, find your voice!

Tomorrow will be my 7th day of experiencing a Vegan lifestyle. I’m not perfect of course (I’m a true newbie that HAS to figure it all out himself), but I’m learning and NEGOTIATING to my own best Vegan good as fast as possible.

Here is a secret for you – when you begin to negotiate consciously, on purpose – you will in a very short time begin to access new resources. When you do, you will suddenly begin to consider new possibilities, understand your present experience with broader depth, see through new and more powerful (resourceful) eyes. When your mind completely absorbs that all forms of communication are a negotiation, then you will be summoning relationships, resources and experiences to you exponentially more fulfilling and true to who and what you are than you ever have before.

Negotiating to Your Own Best Good,

Bruce
The Negotiator
www.negotiate2yourownbestgood.com

William Shatner certainly uses a diffrent technique than I do (notice the stun gun)to close his Negotiating Complements. See if you can tell who asked the resourceful question in the clip?

Bruce
The Negotiator

In Negotiating to Your Own Best Good – I have an ABN and I bet you can guess what that is! That’s right, Always be Negotiating. At some point in your training and life experience you realize that this isn’t a tool you need to take out and dust off once in a while – but a way of translating what’s going on in your moment to moment life.

Recently a client of mine had a situation where a friend was offered an opportunity to get one of her photos published in one of the major magazines (ie Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, etc). The client was in the photo and wished to use it for an interview. The photographer “friend” responded back with a “demand” – she wanted to be “compensated” for the photo. The client discussed her dismay and disappointment. The client had other photos but preferred the one the “friend” had.

After telling me the story – the client ask me what I thought. In Negotiating to Your Own Best Good you MUST know what you want. So I started there “What is it you’d like to happen in this situation?” She said “I’d like to be able to use the photo without complicating a 3 party situation with discussions of Money.” I asked “How did the photographer’s counter-offer make you feel?” She explained those feelings – suprise, disappointment and a sense of loss. “Loss in what?” I asked. “Loss in appreciation for the friend, loss of interest in the business connection with the friend.” she responded.

***Pay Attention to this Part***

The error that we make when we negotiate conscious or unconsciously is that we hide our feelings from the person of whom we are conducting the negotiations.

The CORRECTION of that error is to consider your negotiation-compliment’s (the person you are negotiating with)position from their point of view the best that you can. And of course you do this through asking resourceful questions. “Does the photographer know what effect she’s had with her counter-offer?” “Does she realize that the ‘feelings’ that she inspired from her counter-offer might effect any future business (like sorry – we’re not interested)?” “Can the photographer truly afford to loose the business of my client on a long term basis?”

Here is a paraphrase of the email that went to the Photographer:

“We are a little surprised by your response. I’m sure you have better offers (than to be published in a major magazine). I will be informing [insert name of magazine here] that your photo will not be available as a choice for the article they are publishing tomorrow morning.”

And the rest of the email was a “thank you and gratitude for doing business with you” type thing.

Here is the forumula of the email 1)Reveal your emotions – “We are a little surprised by your response” in this instance the emotion-reveal was very understated – nonetheless included as a starting point for the negotiation. 2)Frame her “false position” as is represented by her “counter-offer” “I’m sure you have better offers.” – You are almost certain this is not true but her offer gives that impression – so put her in the box she forged with her counter-offer (make her FEEL the weight of “demand”). 3)Leave a you-control-the-terms window to “re-negotiate” open. “I will be informing said magazine that your photo will not be available as a choice for the article they are publishing TOMORROW MORNING.” She still has time to take the information you’ve given her and change her position.

That’s it. My client wanted to add other stuff in the email to soften the blow but I advised against it. If people were encouraged to feel the weight of their choices, then often times they would not just consider themselves in a negotiation – be it in our professional lives or our personal lives.

…then I’d want to make sure you had the first and most important key of the whole set of keys you might choose to collect.

The most essential key to negotiating to your own best good is to Ask Resourceful Questions!

Let me begin with the second question (the first one is in the subject line):

If enhancing every Negotiation you ever had from this day foward ONLY required you to learn HOW TO ASK RESOURCEFUL QUESTIONS, when would you choose to learn this powerful yet simple technique?

When you’ve answered this question then see if the resources that are available for you now on http://yourownbestgood.com/ sound like something you would try now. Get a feeling for it.