How to Generate Self-Confidence without Faking Anything

We all know self-confidence helps you get more of what you want. But how do you get confident if you haven't yet gotten what you want?

There's a better way than "fake it till you make it," pretending to be something you're not, or blowing yourself up like a blowfish... 

The best way is to generate confidence inside of you, by you and for you.

This is something I help my clients do so they can become bolder, braver, and better paid.

This episode is a replay of a webinar where I shared five simple steps anyone can master to generate self-confidence.

If you'd like to watch and not just listen to the replay, come to www.jamieleecoach.com or email me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com. 

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 55 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

How are you?

I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills.

I believe that we are all born to lead, influence, and thrive.

In order to lead, in order to negotiate, in order to influence, confidence is key. And often we look outside of ourselves to generate that confidence for us and it never feels enough. It never feels adequate.

And I think that’s because real confidence comes from within us, not from outside of us.

This is a replay of a webinar that I gave earlier this week, so the sound quality is not super clear but if you are interested in seeing the entire webinar slides and everything, come to jamieleecoach.com and click on Join the Webinar when you land on the home page. There is a button there.

So, without further ado, please enjoy this replay of How to Generate Self-Confidence in Five Steps Without Faking Anything.

Thank you and talk to you soon!

Hello! Welcome to the webinar!

We will get started in literally one minute. I have a lot of amazing content ready for you, so I intend to get started right on time.

Alright, excellent, I love the people who showed up right on time! You’re amazing! Punctuality is an awesome trait, so I really salute you for showing up to the webinar right on time. Love it!

Okay, and I see some of my clients here as well. Great to have you!

So, I have prepared a slide presentation because I know some people like to read as well as listen. Some people are reading-oriented, listening-oriented, visual-oriented, aural-oriented.

So, welcome to the reprisal of this webinar, How to Generate Self-Confidence in Five Steps Without Faking Anything.  

My name is Jamie Lee, I work as a coach. You can email me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com. You can come on over to my site: jamieleecoach.com

I am a coach, I am a speaker, I am a martial artist.

And maybe there’s a lesson right here on this introduction because I think you can generate a lot of self-confidence simply by the way you speak about yourself.

How do you introduce yourself?

What language, what identity do you choose for you?

And for me, I really feel at heart I am a coach, I am really born to be a coach. I love this vocation and I also  have worked as a professional speaker for a little bit longer than I have worked as a coach. And that was supported by the fact that I have been my first and foremost client as a coach. I coach myself constantly, all the time.

I am also a martial artist. This is something that is new in my life. This is about a year ago, I’ll tell you a little bit about that, and that has also helped to generate a lot of self-confidence.

As a coach, my mission is to help high performers like you become bolder, braver, and better paid through powerful mindset shifts.

I started out by helping women negotiate for what they want in the workplace and I have found that the most important thing is how we think, how we feel, and how we act, which is how I define mindset. It’s what we think, how we feel, how we act and how we think on purpose, how we feel on purpose, and how we act on purpose.

In other words, the intentional mindset that we bring to our negotiation, to our workplace, to our lives can generate results and if you think, feel, and act on purpose, you can create the results that you want.

So, as I mentioned, this is a reprisal of a webinar that I gave last week, so I just want to give a public announcement before we dive into the content because last week I was telling people about my Mastermind group and I said it’s going to launch - well, the second iteration- will launch in February and I’ve gotten feedback that more people would like to start in March. So, the date has changed, and you can come to jamieleecoach.com/mastermind to learn more about this group coaching opportunity.

Well, it’s more than just group coaching because you get the opportunity to do self-study, you get the opportunity to work with me privately, and to work within a group of ambitious, like-minded women. So, the first group call with start in March, March 19th, as you can see the dates are listed here.

What you see on this page is a picture from a really wonderful workshop that I get to give again! I’m really excited to reprise this workshop in March. I hosted a speakers’ workshop for global feminists. In this picture are feminists from all over the world: Canada, Poland, Peru, Africa, Congo, Syria. And these women come from places where there are conflict, where there is war, where there is poverty, where there is persecution of women. And yet they still choose to take a stand. They still choose to speak up, use their voice to elevate the status of women all around the world. They come to the UN and they address the UN, here in New York City, and they talk about what we can do as world citizens to uplift women around the world and to make the world a more equal place.

I think the work that I do is so important because I empower women to use their voices and I believe in the work that I do because women can change the world. I really believe that. And I believe that as a woman of color, as a first-generation immigrant, as somebody who is a minority in this country, I really feel that the work I do is important, not just because it generates a living for me, but because it has the power to change the world.

You have the power to change the world.

So, I have a lot to say, obviously.

I work as a speaker, a professional speaker, I often give workshops, keynotes, seminars and webinars just like this one and I still have more to say, so I also host a weekly podcast. You can find it on the Anchor platform, or on iTunes, Android, there’s ten different platforms where you can find Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I have 54 episodes, many of them around the issue of speaking up, communicating, setting boundaries, for example, how to negotiate, how to lead in your life so that you can thrive. I really do believe that we are all born with the capacity to thrive, not just survive, in our lives.

As I mentioned, I’m also a martial artist. I started a year ago. I’m still a white belt, as you can see in this Instagram photo, but this year I really doubled down on my commitment to making growth as a martial artist a priority in my life and I’ve been training quite a lot and it has really generated a lot of self-confidence for me.

I practice the art of Aikido which is a modern Japanese martial art that is focused around peace and protecting both the attacker and the defender. It’s about redirecting the flow of energy rather than putting people down and hurting people.

I do this practice every Monday night where I practice freestyle Aikido with my eyes closed and I have simultaneous attacks from my classmates, my fellow martial artists. And as you can imagine, 80% of the martial artists in my dojo are men. And I’m petite. I’m Asian. And most of them are about twice my size.

Regardless, because I commit to the art of this Aikido, I have learned how to flip them, throw them, evade them, even though they’re coming at me with strikes, punches. And I want to say, the number one thing in my practice that has really helped to generate the most self-confidence is every time I fall, I get back up again. Getting back up again over and over and over again not just does wonders for my core but does wonders for my self-confidence because it just reminds me again that I have the capacity to get up and learn, to grow, and try again and again and again.

We’ll talk a bit more about that in-depth.

So, if you are listening to this webinar, you might think, “Well, that’s nice, Jamie. That’s great. Must be easy for you. I bet self-confidence comes really easy for you.”

I can see how people can think that about me because it’s so easy to compare other people’s shiny outsides with your shabby inside. I used to do that too, all the time and think, “Oh! That must be nice for that other person, doing these great, amazing things, being a public speaker and coach and doing martial arts.”

The truth of the matter is I have struggled with self-confidence for most of my life. I struggle with anxiety every day. And there was a time in my life I was so lacking in confidence, I did not know how to speak up in the workplace.

About eleven years ago, I worked in finance, in a male-dominated industry. I was the only woman at the trading desk at a hedge fund and I remember just feeling so down on myself, feeling so frustrating, so lacking in self-esteem, I looked at my life partner and I said, “You know, I’ve really gotta learn how to communicate! I really can’t get through to my boss, to my coworkers. I feel like I’m hitting my head against the wall.”

I also found out I was making $50,000 in a $100,000 job. So there was a point in my life when I didn’t know how to negotiate, I didn’t know how to communicate, I didn’t know how to lead. I just felt like I was being affected by external circumstances and I felt stuck and lacking in self-confidence.

So what turned that around for me is that I made a conscious effort to growing the skills that I realized I needed in order for me to thrive and those skills were negotiating, leading, communicating. And now what I do is I teach other people how to do that because I’ve found out that this is such a powerful skill. You can learn it, you can grow it, and it will change your life.

And when you hear that, you might say, “Yeah, that’s easier said than done, Jamie.”

Absolutely! You’re right! It is easier said than done!

Talk is cheap.

For me, the moment my life really changed was when I started to study these concepts of negotiation, communication, and leadership and I decided that not only did I want to become so adept at it that I can teach it and coach other people to do it, I want to walk the talk that I give.

I want to be a living, walking example of what is possible when you apply those concepts, apply those skills, and really commit to growing as an individual.

So doing it has made the biggest impact, rather than talking about it. And today, we’re talking about it. This is easy. Listening about it is easy. Applying these concepts and seeing the impact in your life? That is going to generate change, power, and transformation.

So, don’t just listen to me. Try them out yourself.

And also, you might be wondering, “But, you know what? Studies say men have it easier. There’s so many books and articles that say men are confident, women are not.”

So, I want to take a pause there because I just want to highlight that this is a matter of perspective. It’s a matter of choice because there are other studies and there are other books that say men don’t have it easier. It’s actually tougher on men now. Women have it easier. It depends on who you ask. Some people will say men have it easier, some people will say women have it easier. So, what this shows us is that it’s a matter of perspective. When it’s a matter of perspective, it means that it’s a matter of choice.

So what’s the choice that you are making?

I used to think that the world is so unfair. I used to think it’s so unfair, men are privileged, women are not. It’s terrible. Something has to change in the world before something can change for me, inside of me.

And when I thought this way, when I believed this way, I felt very resentful, I felt powerless, I felt it was unfair, I felt frustrated, and I noticed that there wasn’t a lot of forward progress in my life. And notice when I held onto these thoughts, it’s unfair, that not a lot changed for me, inside of me.

And having said that, a lot of people think that self-confidence is created at the effect of external circumstances, that self-confidence is created because of the body you have, because of what other people do for you, because of the money you have, because of the success you create outside of you.

So, let’s examine that.

By the way, I looked up the word “self-confidence” on Google.com and this was the sample sentence that was being used just to demonstrate the use of the word self-confidence:

“I feel terribly tired and completely lacking in self-confidence.”

So what this example sentence shows us is that a lot of people think, even Google.com thinks that self-confidence is at the effect of the body. And I want to question that.

If you feel terribly tired, if your body is tired, does that really mean that you can’t generate self-confidence? If you feel terribly tired, does that mean that you will be completely lacking in self-confidence? I want to question that thought.

Here was the second sample sentence:

“She took care to build up his self-confidence by involving him in the planning.”

Now if we have some feminists in this group, in this audience, I think we should all question this. Why is she building up his self-confidence? Why isn’t she building up her own self-confidence? Why does he need her to build up his self-confidence, right? Is she his mother? I mean, it’s just weird. But this was the sentence that I found on Google.com as an example of the usage of the word self-confidence and it shows that a lot of people think that self-confidence is at the effect of other people.

My father, my own dear father told me that he doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence because he didn’t have the right upbringing. Even though my grandmother was this really successful, self-made business woman, he felt that nobody was there for him, therefore he doesn’t have the self-confidence and therefore he doesn’t have the success.

So, this kind of thinking is rampant, like everybody, a lot of people, 99% of the world probably thinks this way.

And also, a lot of people feel that confidence comes at the effect of what you have, of your bank account. This is something that one of my clients told me: “If I had $100,000, then I’d feel confident to quit my job and go for my dreams. Money is security and I need that security so that I can feel confident to quit my job and go for my dreams,”

And I want to question that. Why can’t you create the security in yourself before you have the money, right? And if you could generate that self-confidence before you had the money, imagine, you’d be more empowered, more ready, more confident to create money. And when you’re more confident, you create more money, right? Instead of waiting for the money to give you confidence, what if you created the confidence first and then created the money. I think your results would just be exponentially better.

But, you know, a lot of people feel that success comes when you have position, authority, success. But is that true? This is a fascinating TED Talk that I highly recommend. If you Google “Know Your Inner Saboteurs,” a TEDX talk given by executive coach Shirzad Chamine and what he did was he interviewed 100 CEOs and he asked them to share the one secret they never tell anyone, one secret that is really true inside of them.

And this is what they said: My air of confidence is fake. I don’t love myself very much. I am self-destructive and I don’t know why.

And remember, the CEOs in our world right now, 80% of them are men, so even though some people have the perspective that men have it easier, men are more confident, if we look at the actual data, things that real CEOs, again, most of them men, are saying, it seems contrary to our perspective that men have it easier.

My air of confidence is fake.

I don’t love myself very much.

I am self-destructive and I don’t know why.

So, this begs the question, if success and achievement, if position, big salary, big titles like CEO, if they don’t make you confident, then what does?

To summarize, I want to highlight that when you think that confidence is at the effect of external circumstances like position, title, money, other people, your body, this generates a sense of powerlessness, right? You’re giving power to other people to create confidence for you. You’re giving power to money to give you that sense of confidence. And when you feel powerless, you feel like a victim of the circumstance. And when you feel like a victim of the circumstance, you feel resentful. And when you’re resentful, unhappy, you feel insecure, you lack self-confidence.

So, what’s the solution?

Here’s the solution I want to suggest: Instead of waiting for external circumstances, what if you caused the effect? What if you generated that self-confidence from within you? And this, if you are the cause, you cause the effect of self-confidence and the results you have because of self-confidence, you generate immense power. You put yourself in the position of being the creator, you are in creation mode rather than survival mode, rather than stress mode, right? And when you are in creation mode and you generate that power, you have confidence, you generate that confidence.

So, what is self-confidence? Self-confidence, as I see it, is simply a state of mind. It’s a mindset. Remember, mindset is how you think, how you feel, and how you act. So, self-confidence is how you think of yourself. Self-confidence is how you feel trust for you to do the things that you said you will do. And self-confidence is how you act to follow through on your own commitments to yourself.

It’s all about the relationship that you have with yourself. How you think of yourself, how you feel about yourself, and how you act to follow through on commitments to yourself.

So, that said, as I promised, here are the five simple steps that anyone can do. Simple, not easy. It does require effort. It does require focus. It does require action. It does require risk.

So, what are the five steps?

Number one: Believe in your future self. Believe in you. Believe in your future self.

Number two: Commit to taking action.

Number three: Allow yourself to fail when you take that action.

Number four: Think greater than you feel.

Number: five: Do it all over again, again and again and again. Repeat.

So, what do I mean by believing in your future self? To believe is to simply think on repeat. That’s it. Whatever you believe, it feels like your truth. It feels like your reality because you have thought the thought on repeat over and over and over again. So, if you want to believe in your future self, simply think about your future self on repeat, on purpose, over and over and over again. It becomes a habit of the mind. You create a new habit of your new mind.

And just think about what the future is. I love this quote by Dan Sullivan: “The future is your property. The future belongs to you. At any given moment, when we think about the future, the future only exists as a concept in your mind.” And that means you can do whatever you want with your concept of the future.It does not have to look like yesterday, it does not like to look like your present.

You can build your property any way you want. I live in this really great New York City apartment where the shape of the living room is a triangle, not a rectangle. That’s why I have so many windows behind me, it’s a big triangle. So, it doesn’t have to look like every other apartment, right?

So your future is your property. You can make it be whatever you want. The only limitation is your imagination and that goes for whenever you think about the future because whenever you think about the future, the future simply exists as a concept in your mind. When I think about that, it really blows my mind, it’s really fun to think about the future.

So who is your future self?

Your future self is who you will become to live a life of no regrets.

Your future self is who you will come to live a life of no regrets.

So, having said that, this is a question that I want to pose to you and I really want you to think about it, and not just think about it but maybe journal about it. Write it out. What do you think? How would you answer this question: Who would you need to become to say you lived a life of no regrets at the end of your life?

The art of coaching is all about supporting you to live the life that you most want to live. And in order for you to do that, first we need to think about, imagine our future. Who would you need to become to say you lived a life of no regrets at the end of your life?

And for me, I answer this question by saying I would have taken 100% responsibility for everything that I have created in my life. I do not want to be a victim. I do not want to be in the position of blaming people at the end of my life because I didn’t do something, I didn’t generate a specific result. That, for me, is my definition of living a life of no regrets - taking 100% responsibility.

And for you, you may have a different response to that. Maybe for you, you would need to become the person who takes care of your family. You need to become the person who is the breadwinner. You need to become a better student, a better professional, a better architect, a better engineer, a better friend. For you, it’s a very individual and personal answer. No one’s life is like anyone’s life.

So, who would you need to become to say you lived a life of no regrets? Think about it. Journal about it.

And in order for you to believe in your future self, I think this requires for you to have an intentional relationship with your future self.

So, in this picture, what’s happening is that on the left is your current self and on the right is your future self which I’d imagine would be a greater version of you. Don’t we all want to grow and become a better version of ourselves?

So when the current self looks at the future self, what does she see? How do you see your future self? And this can be a really powerful exercise, something that I take all of my clients through. How do you see your future self? Is she more confident? Is she more accomplished? Is she standing tall? Is she bolder? Is she braver? Is she better paid? What kind of life is she living?

Get really vivid with your imagination.

And at the same time, you have a relationship with your future self. So how does your future self see you, you right now? And when I ask my future self, “Well, how do you see the current Jamie?”, the future self of Jamie says, “She’s doing great! Keep going! What you’re worrying about is not such a big deal. It’s all gonna work out. Don’t worry so much. It’s gonna go great. Keep going, you’re doing good.” There’s only words of encouragement, support, and love when I ask my future self, “How do you see me now,” right?

So this could be a really powerful exercise. You can do it yourself. Just ask yourself, “Who is my future self?” and get really vivid with your imagination. And also, from the perspective of your future self, see what that future you would say to you now.

And from there, number two: Commit to taking action. If you ask your future self, “What do I need to do to become a better version of me?” she may have an answer for you. Or you may know right now what you need to do in order to become that better version of you. So commit to taking action towards that future self because commitment generates immense power.

And for you, that commitment may look like, I am going to reach out to one person a day to grow my professional network. I am going to practice asking for what I want to build my negotiation skills. I’m going to commit to joining Toastmasters, which is something that I did three years ago because I am committed to growing my skills as a speaker.

Action creates results, so commit to taking action.

So, what is one ambitious goal that you want to achieve so you can be more of who you want to be? Write this goal down and make this goal specific and time-bound so it’s real.

Once we do that, we are going to experience the negative emotions, the ugly emotions, right? Fear, doubt, shame. And a lot of us don’t know how to deal with these negative emotions and interpret these emotions as a sign that we need to stop, as a sign that we can’t honor our commitment, honor our commitment and take action, that we can’t do the things, which is not true.

What if fear, doubt, shame, or any other negative emotion that comes up with you committing to taking actions towards an ambitious goal are there for you to get past them? What if they’re not a stop sign? What if they’re not a Do-Not-Proceed sign? What if they are a door, an entryway for you to get past and go to someplace really cool? Maybe you’re exiting the door and going on an adventure or maybe you’re going into the house and living the life of your dreams.

And also, what is failure, exactly? Because in order for us to commit and continue to take action, we need to allow ourselves to fail. That’s number three: allow ourselves to fail.

What is failure, exactly? How do you define failure?

And I have coached many clients and clients have answered this question many different ways. Predominantly, there have been three responses:

Failure is simply an omission of a necessary action or key step. You just didn’t do the thing. So, take for example, last week I gave this webinar and I forgot to hit record. So that was a failure on my part. I omitted the action of hitting record.

Some clients have told me that failure is simply when things are different than what you expected it to be. It’s simply a different result than your expectation. It’s just different. Sometimes people feel that’s a failure. That’s fine.

Also, my client told me this past weekend that for her failure is simply a learning opportunity and I think that is a really great way to look at failure. When you look at failure as a way to learn, as an opportunity to learn, you put yourself in the growth mindset as opposed to the fixed mindset. If you haven’t already, look up Carol Dweck growth mindset and when you think that failure is a way to learn and grow yourself, you’re more likely to generate self-confidence, willingness to take action and continue to develop your skills. But when you have a fixed mindset that it’s either/or, you either succeed or fail and failure is bad. There’s no learning opportunity, it’s just bad. When you have that fixed mindset, you’re less likely to continue to take action, continue to grow and actually grow.

And I think this really sums it up. “For me, the road to success is paved with failure.” This is a quote by my own coach, Brooke Castillo who is an extraordinarily successful woman. She has created $17 million as a life coach! Amazing!

“The road to success is paved with failure”. So are you willing to fail so that you can succeed? Are you willing to get on that road to success and allow yourself to make mistakes, omit necessary actions, and learn in the process? Because that is how you succeed.

And when you continue to allow yourself to fail, allow yourself to learn, then you can generate a lot of self-confidence from that commitment to continuing to grow yourself.

But I think a lot of people mistake the concept of failure with the fear of what other people will think, what other people will say about us. And this is a barrier that I often encounter when I coach negotiation clients. A lot of women have said that they are reluctant to negotiate, especially in the workplace, because they are afraid of being seen as greedy, aggressive, a witch with a ‘b’. So we create barriers for ourselves. We create barriers for developing and generating self-confidence when we let that fear of what other people will think, when we let that fear stop us from taking action. So we create barriers for ourselves when we let fear stop us from taking action and stop us from allowing ourselves to fail.

So, if you have experienced that fear, here’s a question I want to ask you. So what if you gave it your all, you gave it 100% to achieving your ambitious goal, to living a life of no regrets, to making yourself more like the future self that you want to be and you failed? You forgot to do something. It happens to the best of us, right? It didn’t go as you expected or you learned that oh, I had to something completely different. So what if you failed? And what do you think people will say?

And also, I want to highlight, this is a really powerful exercise, so if you are following along, if you have some pen and paper, write it down. What do you really think people will say if you gave it your all and you failed at achieving your ambitious goal?

So, for me, when I ask this question to myself, I can see either way. Some people would be like, “Oh, it’s not big deal, Jamie. You can try again. You’ve got what it takes! Don’t worry so much about it. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” It’s something that I’ve actually heard a lot of people tell me. And if you are an ambitious person who sets some ambitious goals for yourself, you might have also heard that. People are like, “Don’t be so hard on yourself! It’s alright! No big deal,” right? For people outside of you, they see that you can do it, it’s not a big deal.

The part of myself that can imagine the negative things, I call it the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee or the Primitive Brain because it’s always saying things like, “Who do you think you are? You’re gonna fail. You’re not gonna meet expectations. You’re gonna be a disappointment. Why do you even try?”

That voice is the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee and that voice is like, “Well people might say, ‘Told you so. This coaching thing is a hack. I told you you’re not gonna succeed.’” Okay, so I can imagine both sides.

So, if you can imagine both sides, write down what they would say and then ask yourself, “Who are these people? Who are these people exactly? What are they saying and who are they?” I want you to name ten. Really think about it. Who are ten people who are gonna say that it wasn’t worth it for you to go for your dreams. Who are they?

When I ask myself this question, I realize that I have generalized one or two people who said something that wasn’t quite as bad I think it’s gonna be and then I extrapolated it in my brain and then I created this story that they said these things.

I’ll be more specific. I recognize that when I was growing up, my sister used to be like, “Well, don’t do that! I’m gonna tell Mom! You said a bad word!” She said things like that, with the best intention, I’m sure. And then I blew it up in my mind over time that I can’t do the things that I want because then people will criticize me. And when I really try to think of ten people who say negative things about me, I can’t name them! There might have been one person who was having a bad day and said something that was tangential to what I was doing.

So, anyway, long story short, what I do in my own brain is create a story, a fictional story, from an irrelevant past. And I often blow up a story that is not actually what people literally said.

So try it out for you. Who are these ten people who are gonna have an opinion if you go for your dreams and fail? And really name them. Is that exactly what they said? Be really truthful here.

Number four: Now that you have believed in your future self, now that you have committed to taking action, now that you have allowed yourself to fail, number four is the key step, which is to think greater than you feel.

Think greater about you than how you feel about you.

What do I mean by that?

This is a quote from this phenomenal book I highly, highly recommend. This book is literally changing my life inside out. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe DiSpenza. I love it so much, I bought a copy for everyone in the January Small Group Mastermind. It’s a book about the science of the human brain and how you can leverage meditation to change your brain. I love that! So powerful.

So, what does it mean to think greater than how you feel?

Well, first of all, you have to write down your thoughts. What is it that you think about you when you go to take that ambitious action towards your ambitious goal so that you can live a life of no regrets? What are all the negative thoughts? What are all the positive thoughts? All of them. Who do you think you are? You’re gonna fail. This isn’t gonna go well. I’m probably gonna give up. Or maybe you have some great thoughts. This is great. I’m excited! Write them down. Our mind is very fickle. Our minds are slippery. The act of writing down the thoughts will give you the opportunity to assume the position of authority as the watcher of your mind.

So you’re not just at the effect of your mind, you get to watch your mind. This is a very powerful act, actually.

And thoughts and feelings are very connected, interconnected. Thoughts cause emotions and so you want to become aware of your emotion. What is the feeling? And what is the connection between what you’re feeling and what you are thinking? Because there is always a connection. And the thing here is we have not been taught to become aware of our feelings. We have been taught to just think, think, think, think, use our analytical minds to survive and get by, make money, right? And more thoughts, more stressful thoughts, just create more stress.

We have not been taught how to become aware of our emotions inside of ourselves and how to deal with them, so I’m gonna talk about that in a little bit.

So, write down your thoughts, become aware of the feelings. What is the emotion? And then choose new thoughts on purpose. Allow yourself to become aware of the thoughts. Allow yourself to become aware of the feelings. And even if you feel a negative thought, you can choose to think a greater thought on purpose.

So, as I said, we’ve not been taught how to manage negative emotions like fear, doubt, and shame which will come up when we commit to taking action, when we commit to a really ambitious goal. They will come up. It’s just part of the process. So, how do we manage them?

Well, first of all, we’ve not been taught how to manage them, so most people take three steps when they feel uncomfortable emotions like fear, doubt, and shame.

Number one: We resist. If you’re not familiar with the symbol beneath the word ‘Resist,’ these are emojis, text emojis that were invented in Japan and in this emoji you can see that the mouth is like a squiggly line. You’re tensing like this, you’re trying to resist the emotion, just not allow yourself to feel the uncomfortable emotions. This is something that a lot of us do by habit, by default.

And some of us just react. And what’s happening here is this little text guy, text emoji guy is flipping a table. Might be a girl, might be woman, excuse me. Text emoji person is flipping a table because they’re reacting to negative emotion. Just blame and anger and attack.

Or you simply avoid. You just shut down the conversation. You walk away. You don’t deal with it at all. And this is a common reaction to how people deal with conflict as well, which is a whole other topic.

But what can happen is, when you resist, react, and avoid, you create this trap, this cycle of resisting, reacting, avoiding, resisting, reacting, avoiding. And it just becomes this cycle that perpetuates itself. You don’t evolve out of the negative emotion, you just make it greater unintentionally.

So, what is an emotion? Why do we create these negative cycles? Why is it so difficult to deal, why do people think that it’s so difficult to deal with? Well, simply, emotion is a vibration in the body. When you feel excitement, like when I feel excitement, I feel it in my chest, I feel like a lightness in my head. When I feel shame, I feel this heaviness in the pit of my stomach.

Emotion is a vibration that you can experience in the body. That’s it.

And as I mentioned earlier, it’s associated with a thought, which is simply a sentence in your mind. And so emotion, by itself, is completely harmless. Anger, when you feel the emotion of anger, you might feel tightness in your stomach and it’s completely harmless to just allow that emotion to be and to pass through the body. It is possible and it is something that I coach my clients to do. And it’s a very, very powerful thing because you can observe emotion with compassion, you can experience emotion without suffering, and you can generate new emotion. And remember, self-confidence is the feeling of trust that you will do what you said you will do, and you can generate that emotion inside of yourself.

And emotions are so powerful because there are only five things in the universe. WHAT?! That’s crazy! There are only five things in the Universe? I mean, everything in our world, in our lives, can be categorized into one of these five things. That’s it!

There are neutral circumstances. We talked about the body, we talked about money, we talked about other people, we talked about titles, position, these are all circumstances that are provable, that are neutral, that are factual. Circumstances are things that you can prove in the court of law. And how we interpret or what we think of those neutral circumstances are thoughts which are 100% optional.

Now, our brains are wired in such a way that think thoughts by default and that is because our brains are wired for efficiency and it’s just efficient for the brain to just have these knee-jerk reaction thoughts. And in the book that I mentioned to you earlier, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Joe DiSpenza talks about how 95% of our thoughts are unconscious. They come from our subconscious mind because it has been programmed by socialization, by habit, by our past.

So, what I’m saying is even though 95% of your thoughts will not feel like an option, they’ll just feel factual and believable, they are in fact optional because you can choose to use the human brain, the prefrontal cortex to generate new thoughts on purpose.

And that’s what I mean when I say think greater than you feel.

And the thoughts that you have generate feelings, generate emotions, and the emotions are so powerful according to MIT professor Jared Curhan, feelings rule negotiation. How you feel about yourself, how you feel about the counterpart, how you feel about the potential outcome, how you feel about the process. That’s what drives the success of a negotiation.

Why?

Because feelings drive behavior. Feelings drive your actions. And as I mentioned earlier, actions drive results. And the results that you get from a specific thought will always prove the originating thought.

So, let me give you an example of this model when I indulged in a default thought, in a thought that comes from the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee, as I mentioned, or the Primitive Brain. So, as I mentioned, three years ago, I lacked confidence as a speaker but I had this dream, I had the vision of becoming a professional speaker, workshop leader, and coach. So, I joined Toastmasters and I committed to delivering a prepared speech at least once a month for ten months. They had a program called The Competent Communicator and in The Competent Communicator, there are ten speeches. I said, I am going to deliver a speech at least once a month.So, I made the commitment.

And so the neutral circumstance was that I had scheduled myself to give a speech at New York Toastmasters and New York Toastmasters is a wonderful nonprofit that really does wonders, especially if you are looking to develop your self-confidence as a speaker, communicator, and leader.

But at one point, I had the default thought that I’m afraid to fail in front of people. I’m afraid what people will think. I’m afraid of messing up. And when I had this thought, when I thought this thought, I’m afraid to fail in front of people, I experienced the emotion of fear and also anxiety, fearful anxiety. And when I was coming from this fearful anxiety, I procrastinated. That was the action that I took from this fearful anxiety because I didn’t know how to deal, I didn’t know how to allow for this emotion. I was resisting it, I was avoiding it, and I was looking for distractions like looking for snacks in the kitchen or checking my email or going on social media.

And then I would worry rather than work on the speech. And then I fumbled through the speech. I didn’t really do my best because I had spent so much time procrastinating, looking for distractions, worrying rather than working on this speech.

And what was the result that I had created for myself from thinking that I’m afraid to fail in front of people is that I felt like a failure. And you see how the result, feeling like a failure, provided evidence for the thought that I’m afraid to fail in front of people.

So, how did I apply thinking greater than how I feel to myself?

Once I started coaching myself, I decided to approach the Toastmasters speech with a different mindset, with a different thought. So, same circumstance, Toastmasters speech, and I decided to think a new thought on purpose, even though I was still experiencing anxiety.

I am committed to learn by doing. I am committed to learn by failing. I am committed to allow myself to fail in front of 60 people who attend New York Toastmasters because that is how I will learn. That is how I will grow myself and I am committed to learn by doing because this is how I grow. I’m committed to learn by doing.

And when I told myself that I’m committed to this, I’m committed to doing this, I felt the emotion of commitment. And the emotion of commitment feels solid. It feels like strength inside my body and from that feeling of strength, I can allow the feeling of anxiety to pass through. I can let it be and not resist it, not react to it, not avoid it.

And when I allow the feeling of anxiety to pass through, then I can use the power of my human brain to plan, to prepare, and to practice ahead of time. And when I planned, prepared, and practiced ahead of time, I can ride the adrenaline when I’m standing in front of 60-some-odd people and follow through on my commitment.

So you see how the intentional thought created this new feeling that allowed me to process the negative feeling and follow through on taking action.

And of course there were times I did fail. I didn’t always give perfect speeches. I fumbled. I used a lot of space-filler words, ums and uhs, I still do. I have made mistakes in front of people but that’s okay. It was my commitment to keep showing up, keep following through because I really believed in the vision of my future self who is a professional speaker.

And now I’m doing that! I get paid thousands of dollars to attend leadership conferences, to show up to organizations and teach people the art of negotiating, the art of communicating, the art of leading.

And as a result, I have grown my self-confidence. You can do this too. You don’t need to be a coach, speaker, whatever. You can apply this new thinking on purpose to generate emotion on purpose so that you can generate self-confidence for you, by you.

And so, finally, the last step in the process is to do it over and over and over again. Repeat it, 1-4. Believe in your future self, commit to taking action, allow yourself to fail, continue to think greater than how you feel. And that takes courage.

I remember the last year I was in Toastmasters, I was VP of Membership and I committed to acting from courage rather than comfort. That was inspired by reading Brené Brown. Brené Brown talks about how you can rise about shame by choosing courage over comfort.

So how does courage look for you? What does it look like when you act from courage? When you act from the courage to dream, to believe in your future self, the courage to take action, the courage to feel discomfort because you can and it’s harmless, and the courage to do it over and over and over again.

This, I tell you, will change your life.

So, that wraps up the official content and if you like this material then I want to take this opportunity, the last five minutes that we have, to tell you a little bit more about Small Group Mastermind, which I said earlier will start in March 2019. I got feedback from people that March works better.

So, Small Group Mastermind. It is for eight women who want to lead, influence, and thrive. I’m looking for ambitious people who have strong values of service and excellence. And what you get is, in addition to one-on-one coaching, two one-on-one coaching sessions with me, you also get deep dives into future self, self-confidence, boundaries, emotional mastery, and more. And you’ll get to benefit from both private coaching as well as group accountability as well as the opportunity to study this material by yourself.

So, how does it work exactly? Come to this link: jamieleecoach.com/mastermind. But basically, as I said, you get private coaching, group coaching calls with deep dives on these specific topics and in between calls you will be held accountable to complete worksheets and take action towards your goals.

So if you really want this unique opportunity to be supported by me individually and by a group of like-minded, ambitious women, this is perfect for you because it’s a great deal. And these are the dates and the plan. I just wrapped up the January Mastermind and Sarah S. who was one of the seven women - the first group was seven women - she said that, “Working with Jamie in the Mastermind was extremely valuable.” She said with the group’s help, she developed and applied strategies for helping her regain control over her responses to life’s hurdles and in turn, this empowered her to better pursue the life that she wants.

I love this testimonial.

Here are the next steps: It’s only three payments of $210. You save about $1295 compared to my retail, one-on-one, private coaching rate of $350/hour. This is a great bargain.

If you are interested, email me. Let’s set up a time for us to talk. Let’s make sure this is a good fit for you or you can go to my site and apply at jamieleecoach.com/apply. If you apply, you will get the opportunity to have a free consultation, so there’s no risk, really.

So, does coaching actually work? Does it generate results? Will it generate results for you? So, if you got www.jamieleecoach.com/results, you can see all of the testimonials from my previous negotiation, leadership coaching clients, as well as workshop clients.

I want to tell you some of the success stories from the past year. I coached this amazing woman, Sarah, who was also in the January Mastermind and through coaching, she was able to flip a no to a yes with her dream job company. She was initially turned down but she didn’t give up. She didn’t give up believing in her future self. She didn’t give up generating her own self-confidence and so she was able to go back, get an informational interview, and then get an offer from her dream job. And in the process, she also negotiated a $10,000 salary increase. She is now maxing out her quarterly bonus and she’s still coaching with me and coached her through the performance review process.

I have another client who also hired me to coach her through a salary negotiation process and she’s still coaching with me now as a leadership client. And when she got the offer, she countered, she asked for what she really wanted which was a bigger role. She wanted to be in a capacity to lead technical conversations rather than just be a project manager and as a result she also got a $10,000 salary increase and she is on target to achieve her goal of attending grad school. She’s working towards that goal on purpose with a lot of thought work.

I have another client who I coached and as a result of our coaching, she grew her impact-focused side hustle. She created this wonderful business in addition to her day job that supports women with ADHD and as a result, she was interviewed by industry influencers and this was as a result of her generating her own self-confidence, not looking outside of herself, but generating it from within herself. And she’s also doing so well at her day job. I recently coached her through her performance review cycle and she’s been tapped by the founder of her organization to be a thought leader at her day job. So she’s also growing her entrepreneurial side hustle and excelling at her day job. You can do that. You can thrive.

Do you have any questions for me? We are out of time. I like to end my webinars on time because I want to honor and respect your time commitments as well. If you have any questions for me, feel free to email me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com. This webinar was recorded, so if you were not able to attend it live, you will still be able to watch it and stream it.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. If you have any questions, email me. I am grateful for your time and focus. Thank you! Have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day.

Why It Feels Gross to Claim Value for Ourselves

Clients often tell me, “It feels gross to claim value for myself. It feels like bragging. It’s uncomfortable to assign dollar value to my accomplishments.” 

In this episode, I dispel a persistent myth -- one that was ingrained in me by the patriarchy from a very young age --  that holds us back from generating real self-worth and authentic self-confidence. 

Find out how to generate power, so you can claim value for yourself and become unstoppable as a negotiator. 

Here's where you can access transcriptions of previous episodes and get in touch with me: https://www.jamieleecoach.com/podcast

Your review on iTunes would be super appreciated!

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Hello! Welcome to Episode 52 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

First, I just want to say thank you for listening!

I really appreciate you.

I would love if you would go to iTunes and leave a review because that would help other people find and access this content.

I really appreciate that my listeners are coming back and listening every week, every time I produce content, and I intend to create more podcasts this year, marrying the best of coaching principles, leadership principles, and helping you negotiate so that you can lead, influence, and thrive.

I was away last week. I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and delivered a negotiation workshop for women who work in the nuclear industry. That was phenomenal!

And today I want to talk to you about why it feels gross to claim value for ourselves at the negotiation table.

When clients come to me, they’re often struggling with speaking and articulating their unique value at the negotiation table, especially when it comes to asking for money.

They tell me, “I don’t want to come across as too aggressive.”

“I don’t want to be seen as arrogant.”

“I don’t want to be seen as selfish or greedy.”

Or the often say, “It feels gross to brag about my accomplishments. It feels gross to assign a dollar to the value I bring.”

Now, I think that this is because, from a very young age, we’ve been trained to seek external validation from others.

I was born in South Korea and I was really trained to seek external validation from authority figures like parents, teachers, basically, the patriarchy.

And we’ve been told that conforming to the expectations of other people will make them feel good about us.

And when they feel good, they reward us with acceptance, recognition, and reward which sometimes takes the form of money.

We’ve been taught this myth that how we do, how we behave, makes other people feel something inside that then causes them to give us what we want and that, basically, the power is in their hands to give us what we really want for ourselves which is acceptance, recognition, and reward.

Take for example this common phrase, “Be a good girl and make mom proud.”

It feels so innocent and yet there is this myth, this lie that when you do something it will make other people feel something.

And I’ll tell you why I think that is not true.

And this line of thinking extends into the workplace where I used to believe that if I work hard and if I keep my head down then my boss will love me, then my boss will reward me with recognition, money, promotions.

When it feels gross to claim value for ourselves, we’re not only experiencing the feeling of powerlessness but we’re experiencing the fear of social rejection and losing the approval of others.

When I was afraid of losing other people’s approval, it was because I was relying on external validation to make me feel good about me on the inside. It was because I was relying on external validation to make me feel that I am worthy and that I can ask for what I want.

I was waiting.

I badly, badly wanted my boss to approve of me so that I could feel good and worthy inside.

So this meant that even though I was a fully grown adult, I was really acting as an emotional child. Emotional child basically means that I was relying on other people to make me feel something good, something worthy, some sense of certainty that I deliver value, that I deliver value and am worth the money that I want.

I believed my boss was responsible for both my positive emotions and negative emotions. I believed he was responsible for my lack of motivation, which I didn’t have a lot of and therefore that he was responsible for my lack of career fulfillment, lack of growth, that I was stuck in my career, and it was all because my boss was not giving me what I wanted so I can feel good and feel certain of my value.

So instead of feeling what I wanted to feel, which was fulfillment and worthiness, I was full of blame, anger, and resentment. They were gross feelings. Those feelings felt really gross.

I was not a lot of fun to be around at this time. I was full of misery. And you know, as the saying goes, misery loves company. I would complain and whine and throw temper tantrums about my boss behind my boss’ back. This is how I behaved as an emotional child.

But here is the truth that I have learned since then. Here is the truth that I think can help us really become powerful from the inside out: It’s that we are 100% responsible for our feelings.

Every moment. In every situation.

Yes, even at work.

Yes, even when it comes to claiming value for ourselves.

And especially when we are negotiating for what we want, for money, for example.

We are 100% responsible for the confidence we bring. We are 100% responsible for the nervousness we feel. We are 100% responsible for the certainty that we want to generate so that we can claim value with confidence.

Now this is because there are only five things in the Universe.

Number one: Circumstances, which are neutral, factual, and provable.

And how we interpret those circumstances is number two: our thoughts, our judgments, our beliefs.

And number three is that our thoughts generate our feelings, our emotions, which is so important in a negotiation.

According to research by MIT professor Jared Curhan, our feelings are the number one factor that is most important to negotiators.

It is not because feelings are fluffy, not because we’re soft people.

It’s because feelings drive number four: our actions. At the root of all our behavior is how we feel, and how we feel drives what we do or don’t do.

And then finally number five: the sum of our actions or inactions creates the results we have.

So, let me give you an example of this.

Back then, when I was acting as an emotional child in the workplace and always blaming my boss and feeling unworthy and therefore I felt gross to claim value for myself, I had the thought that he (it was always a he for some reason) should give me recognition.

At work, which is the neutral circumstance, I want him to give me recognition so that I can feel good about me and my value.

And when I had the thought that he should give me recognition, I felt a lot of resentment. I felt a lot of just this yucky feeling. That’s the phrase I like to label resentment. It’s yucky, it feels yucky to feel resentment, right?

And I was feeling this yucky resentment, I was complaining and whining and throwing temper tantrums behind my boss’ back. I was not speaking up at work. I was not contributing my ideas. I was very passive. I was waiting for him to give me recognition.

In negotiation, this is sometimes called the tiara syndrome, where we’re waiting for people to anoint us with validation and recognition, as opposed to us actively seeking what we want right?

So that’s what I was doing. And the sum of my actions, the result that I was creating by thinking that he should give me recognition, feeling yucky resentment, and not taking any action was that I was not giving myself recognition and I was also not giving him any recognition.

So there was no recognition to go around and it felt even more gross when I thought about claiming my value. There was no sense of power and certainty in this model.

So here’s another model I’d like to suggest:

At work, which is the neutral circumstance, what if you had the thought: I create value?

What if you had the thought: What I do benefits others?

So, don’t make it about other people. Don’t create manuals in which other people have to do certain things to make you feel good. But what if you dropped those manuals, you drop the shoulds, and you came from a place of real authenticity and personal responsibility, emotional responsibility?

I am responsible for how I feel and I can create value at work.

I create value that benefits others.

So, what if you had the thought and you really believed that I create value and I benefit others?

What would that feel like for you?

And maybe at this point you’re hearing this and you’re thinking, “I don’t know, it’s kind of inconceivable for me to think that I just feel that I am creating value that benefits others, period.”

But what if you did?

Because it is a choice. It is a choice for you to think that.

For me, when I think I am creating value that benefits others, it makes me feel valued. It makes me feel like I am worthy. That what I’m doing is worthy.

And from this place of feeling valued, I am motivated to create even more value. I am motivated to step out of my comfort zone and try to learn how I can benefit others.

I would be more willing to listen. I’d be more willing to take action to create even more value, because I feel inspired to think that I create value that benefits others.

And as a result, because I am taking action, because I am taking action from this place of feeling valued and feeling inspired, I would create even more value. And you see how the thought will help support the result that you have.

And the result creates evidence for the thought.

So this is great news because, as I said, we can choose all our thoughts and we can choose all our beliefs. And when we choose empowering thoughts, when choose empowering beliefs without relying on external validation, without relying on other people to make us feel something inside of us, this puts power back in our hands. This gives us that real, authentic power.

And we then can create emotions that we need to drive the actions that we do want to take. For example, claiming value for ourselves at the negotiation table.

If you really believed in yourself and did not rely on other people to tell you that you are valuable, you would be unstoppable when it comes to claiming value for yourself, when it comes to asking for what you want and requesting what you want because not only are you feeling confident from the inside out, you’re not relying on other people’s responses to make you feel good.

Even when they don’t follow through, even when they don’t say yes, you have the choice to decide what that means.

Again, this puts power right back in your hands instead of disempowering you. Instead of losing the negotiation, you can reframe your thinking and you can come back and try again and again, right?

The best negotiators are persistent negotiators because they can generate their own confidence. They can generate their own self-approval. They can generate their own self-recognition.

So this requires breaking the habit of thinking on default or thinking the way society or patriarchy trained us to thing, which is again relying on external validation, relying on other people to make us feel good and giving them a long list - and sometimes we don’t even give them a long list - of manuals, by which I mean a long list of instructions for how they can make us feel good.

Instead of doing that, we make honest requests, we make bold asks, and we don’t get disappointed, we don’t interpret it as a personal failure when people don’t follow through.

And when people don’t follow through, we can still move on.

And when we have this mastery over our thinking and therefore our own emotions, we create negotiation mastery. We become unstoppable. I really believe that.

And that is because when you lose the need for other people to make you feel comfortable, when you lose the need for other people to make you feel liked, or you lose the need to make you feel valuable, what could you not ask for?

There’s nothing that you couldn’t ask for.

We have full authority 100% of the time over how we feel, over how we think about ourselves, about other people and about the value we bring to the negotiation table.

We don’t have to wait for other people to give us acceptance, to give us recognition, to place a tiara on our head so that we can feel certain of our value, so that we don’t feel afraid of claiming value for ourselves.

We can generate that feeling of certainty within ourselves.

It’s not easy. It takes practice. It takes consistent effort. But it is possible.

We also don’t need to worry about what other people think.

Now, I know when people hear this, they will object and say “But, you know, it does matter because what other people think will impact how I rise or don’t rise through the ranks of this organization.”

But, ultimately, we are not what people think.

We are never limited by other people’s thoughts or judgments about us unless we believe them to be true.

And we are more than what people think of us. We are more than what we think of us.

And, in fact, one of the most powerful things that I do as a coach is I work with a client and I ask her to list all of her accomplishments and when I just play it back to her, the list of accomplishments that she has made, it’s always like, wow, you’ve done all of this. That’s amazing, right?

For a lot of us, it’s hard to feel that what we have done is worthwhile, worth the value that we’re asking for because we tend to be perfectionists, because we tend to wait for other people to give us validation.

But when we drop that need, we realize that what we have done is really valuable.

Who we are is uniquely valuable.

So, we have the power to decide who we are.

We have the power to decide who we will become in the future and that will give you a really powerful focus, a future focus, that will make you influential and make people inspired to change the status quo, which is basically the endgame of negotiation, right?

So, from this place of real and authentic power, we can generate self-acceptance. We can generate self-approval. We can generate real self-confidence.

And I just want to end this by sharing with you that this is the outcome I coach my clients to create for themselves so that they can lead, so that they can influence, so that they can negotiate, so that they can thrive on their own terms.

And I think that is a really beautiful outcome that is possible for everyone at any time because, again, we are 100% responsible for our feelings and we are capable of it.

So I hope that helps you think through why it feels gross to claim value for ourselves. I hope it helps you to put that power back in your hands.

I would love to hear from you: jamieleecoach.com/podcast. If you would leave a review, that would be fabulous.

Thank you so much and I will talk to you next week.

Interview with Vivian Giang: Six Common Negotiation Mistakes

If you're a pragmatic negotiation geek like me, or if you want to improve your negotiation skills so that you can thrive, you won't want to miss this interview with Vivian Giang. 

Vivian is a business writer covering how the changing workplace has impacted the way we work and live, in areas related to automation, robotics, team dynamics, executive leadership, and management. She asks, "How do you navigate these waters while also creating credibility and relevance?" She writes about these topics for business publications, like Fast Company, Fortune, Quartz, Dealbreaker, and Marie Claire.

In this value-packed conversation, Vivian and I addressed each of the six common negotiation mistakes as highlighted in this Fast Company article: www.fastcompany.com/90225908/all-the-things-youre-doing-wrong-in-negotiations 

We discussed: 
- Why it's important to start with your why before asking for the what
- The impact of anchoring effect on the bargaining range
- How making assumptions creates negotiation pitfalls 
- Why you may not want to accept the first offer 
- How to differentiate between short-term and long-term wins
- How negotiators can prepare strategically to avoid these mistakes 

You can find Vivian on Twitter at @vivian_giang.
You can learn more about my negotiation coaching and training services here www.jamieleecoach.com

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 40 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills and that through negotiation we can collaborate, unlock more value, and contribute in a bigger way.

And so, when we negotiate effectively, we can lead, we can influence, and we can thrive.

And if you’d like to learn more about who I am, what I do, and how you can work with me, come check out jamieleecoach.com.

I am launching a small group mastermind at the end of this year and into early 2019 to help you set some powerful intentions, goals, and build the negotiation skills to make those goals come true.

And thank you to those of you who have rated my podcast on iTunes. I want to say every single one of those ratings counts and they mean a lot to me.

Today, I have a must-listen episode. I consider myself a pragmatic negotiation geek. I love studying, I love reading about negotiation and thinking about how I can apply it to my life and how I can help my clients negotiate so that they can thrive.

And I read this wonderful article on Fast Company. It’s titled All the Things You’re Doing Wrong in Negotiations and each of the six points that the author brought up resonated with me and it’s something that I teach whenever I talk about and hold negotiation workshops for working women.

And so I reached out to the author, Vivian Giang, and she graciously agreed to come onto the podcast and expound, tell us a little bit more about each of these six common mistakes and how we can avoid them.

Vivian Giang is a business writer and journalist covering how the changing workplace has impacted the way we work and live. And she covers areas related to automation, robotics, team dynamics, executive leadership, and management. She asks the question: How do you navigate these waters while also creating credibility and relevance?

That’s a really good question.

She writes about these topics for business publications like Fast Company, Fortune, Quartz, Dealbreaker, and Marie Claire and I think you would really find a lot of value in this conversation. What I took away is that a lot of the common mistakes that we make are in our minds, in our assumptions. So, without further ado, please enjoy this podcast interview with Vivian Giang.

Jamie: Hello, Vivian?

Vivian: Hi, Jamie. Can you hear me?

Jamie: I can hear you now. How are you?

Vivian: I’m doing well, how are you?

Jamie: Third time’s the charm.

Vivian: Yes, that’s what they say.

Jamie: Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining the podcast.

Vivian: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Jamie: I’m really excited for this conversation.

Vivian: Yeah, me too.

Jamie: And this is a question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast: Would you tell me about a negotiation in your life or career that had the biggest impact on you? And I want to preface that by saying I define negotiation simply as a conversation, not a confrontation, where you’re trying to reach agreement where everyone has the right to say no. So, it doesn’t matter what the outcome was as long as everyone had the right to say no and there was intention to reach an agreement, I would say that’s a negotiation. So, what do you think?

Vivian: Yes, so negotiations…I’ve been thinking about negotiations before I even knew that what I was thinking about was negotiations, I think. I graduated during the economic recession and I was trying to navigate the job market, trying to do something that I love, journalism - already a very low-paying profession. So, trying to convince someone to hire me at the time and pay me a living wage, that was something that I thought about in my first job, I believe. I just didn’t know that it was called negotiations at the time.

But I think, as dubious as this sounds, the negotiation that has impacted my life the most is probably the one that I have with myself. I think that we try to think about what the other party wants from a negotiation so often but we often forget to do that with ourselves because we think we know what we want and I have woken up unhappy before by the fence because I assumed that I knew what I wanted, I assumed I knew myself and what I valued but that’s not always the case.

So, one thing that I do - and I’ll give you an example - that is something that I learned from a professor of management at Stern at New York University, Batia Wiesenfeld, she told me this and it really stuck with me. It’s that you should always search for the why and ask yourself why you’re doing something and it allows you to see information from various different angles. It allows you to readily adjust when you need to. So, asking yourself when you make a decision, when you make a choice, why am I doing this? Which helps bring you closer to your goal.

So, let’s say you are teaching a workshop, right? If you asked yourself, “Why am I teaching this workshop?” and the answer is “To get paid,” then you ask yourself, “Why do I want higher pay?” And if the answer is so that you can have a better life, then you ask yourself a third time, “Why do I want a better life?” and if the answer here is “To be happy,” then maybe teaching that workshop isn’t going to lead you to happiness, maybe there’s something else that leads you to happiness.

So, I try to think about that often in the choices that I make and try to be thoughtful about the decisions that bring me the most value in my life and who else it affects - my decisions - who else it affects other than me.

Jamie: Beautiful and I’d also say that that’s an example of self-coaching because, as a coach myself, I ask my clients why all the time and, as a negotiator, not only do you ask that question to yourself, why and why and why, right? You asked it three times in a row. I think it is beneficial to ask of your negotiation counterpart. You might want to use different words because not everyone likes to be asked why. Ultimately, I think what your professor and what you’re trying to say is get clear on the ultimate interest, the why behind the what.

Vivian: Yes because, if you think about it, we go through life whenever we meet our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues, we always ask them about their lives and why they did certain things, right? Like, we push them to think about their actions and how it impacts their lives so that they can be better because we care about them. But we often don’t do that with ourselves because, like I mentioned earlier, we think that we know ourselves but we all change and sometimes we assume we know what we want and what we value but oftentimes we don’t.

Jamie: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Here’s another thing I learned from coaching, is that we have different aspects in ourselves, right? We have the sort of animal brain or I like to call it the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee that’s pushing you to stay safe and small, not to take any sort of risk. Anything that is a change can be a threat to its identity. And then there’s the so-called higher self where that enables us to have a vision and take action and be courageous and show up, regardless of what that Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee says. So, yeah, that’s a great example. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I just want to reiterate, I asked you to come on the podcast, I’d love for you to share your insights from this wonderful article that you wrote for Fast Company. It’s called All the Things You’re Doing Wrong in Negotiations.

Vivian: Yes.

Jamie: Yeah, and that’s catchy and it definitely caught my attention because I think a lot of us worry that we’ve done something wrong. In any case, the article hits on so many of the key points that I teach in my workshops and so I’d love for you to take us point by point and share what did you really take away from capturing the six key things that people often do incorrectly. So, the first thing in your article is: Not making the first offer when it’s beneficial to do so.

Vivian: Yes, so the common mistakes in this article is from a course that I took. It’s a two-day negotiation course at MIT taught by Jared Curhan which is amazing and the knowledge that I gained from the class just completely blew my mind, so I figured I needed to share. But, yes, the first point is not making the first offer when it’s beneficial to do so.

I think we’ve all been at this place, right? Where we enter the negotiation room and I’m sure a lot of us have heard the piece of advice not to make the first offer, right? It puts you in a vulnerable position. You need to hear what the other person is coming from, where their head is at and, really, giving the first offer is providing information that you’re offering them information but you haven’t received any information in return so, ultimately, that’s giving someone else the leg up, right? However, there’s research that tells us, there’s actually numerous research that tells us that providing the first offer can actually greatly influence the rest of the negotiation so it’s a principle called the anchoring principle.

Jamie: Yep!

Vivian: And it shows that there’s a strong correlation between the first offer, what the other party counteroffers, and also the final results. And in this class, Jared Curhan mentioned that you should only make the first offer if you have a lot of market information, you have a lot of market research, you’ve done the preparation, so introducing that information makes a lot of sense, right? Otherwise, it’s really unwise to do so.

There’s a particular study that he had mentioned in the course from the University of Arizona that tested this anchoring principle on real estate agents who are trained to know property values and also trained not to be influenced by this anchoring principle but the research shows that every single one of them were impacted and this listed price in this study had an effect on all of their final decisions.

So we see that the anchoring principle is very powerful and you can definitely use it to your advantage and you can even do so without tying it to your offer. For instance, if you’re trying to sell something, you can bring up that number without...So, if you’re trying to sell a home, you can differentiate the anchor from the offer by saying, “Hey, there’s another home that I saw with a similar value,” without actually saying that, you know, that’s the offer on your home.

Jamie: So, for example, you could say, “Hey, you know, I know that a home like this will sell for $10 million.”

Vivian: Yes, exactly.

Jamie: “However, you get to buy it for $750,000. It’s a great deal!”

Vivian: Right, right. Or you can just, you know, let the other person infer what they want to infer after you’ve introduced that number. You can do this in a job negotiation by being similar salaries to the position that you’re interviewing for or just about anything. So, it’s introducing and using that anchoring principle but not actually tying into your offer, not saying that it’s your offer.

Jamie: Absolutely. So, you could say...I actually had a client who was responsible for about $13 million in digital sales for her company and so she prefaced her ask by saying, “I brought in $13 million in revenue and in comparison, my salary is less than 1% of that and all I’m asking is to be compensated according to the value I’m bringing.” And that was a very powerful anchoring effect that she had created by mentioning the amount of money that she had brought in for the company.

Vivian: Right, right. Yes. That’s smart.

Jamie: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. This is something that is so often overlooked because I think people kind of worry that if they anchor, they’ll encounter pushback and so the strategy that I advise is yes, in fact, prepare for the pushback. Know what you’re gonna say when the say, “Oh, it’s too much.”

So, tell us about point number two. The second mistake people make is: Focusing too much on ideal outcomes. What does that mean?

Vivian: Yeah, so, this actually goes back to the anchoring principle that we just mentioned. Since 90% of negotiations is in the planning, so, if you’re doing a good job of planning, of doing your research, of coming up with everything that you need to come up with to prepare you for this negotiation, oftentimes you’ll have specific anchors in your own brain before you walk in there. So, one of those numbers could be a walkaway point or what’s called the reservation value or number and the other one is what’s called your BATNO or your best alternative to negotiate offer. So, basically, your second choice, right? Your runner up.

But because we have those values so implemented into our brains, sometimes they end up affecting our negotiations because we’re so focused on them we can’t see outside of them. We have no peripheral vision anymore and often we end up rejecting even more profitable offers that could come in the process because we’re so deeply ingrained, we’re committed to these numbers. So, the second point is just to say don’t focus too much on what you consider your ideal outcome because you never know what the other person’s gonna bring to the table.

Jamie: Yeah. I guess, put another way, it’s don’t fixate on the dollar values.

Vivian: Right, right. Mm-hmm.

Jamie: The way a deal can become more profitable is that you expand the scope of agreement to include non-monetary items, things that really satisfy the deeper whys that you addressed at the top of this interview.

Vivian: Exactly. That’s exactly what I was gonna say, Jamie, actually, is it goes back to the why, right?

Jamie: Yeah.

Vivian: Like, if you have these numbers in your head, or they might not be number, they might be something else. Whatever value it is, if you have them there then why do you have them there? And tracing that back and making sure that you are getting the most value as well as giving the other person value, too [inaudible] at the bargaining table.

Jamie: Yeah. So, money is important. Absolutely. Money is awesome and at the same time we have to be clear on what this money means for us and what we want to accomplish with the money so that we don’t just fixate on this dollar value. This is a great point, thank you so much.

Number three is: Accepting the other party’s first offer too quickly. I’ve seen a lot of my clients make this mistake, so tell us more.

Vivian: Yes. As frustrating as this sounds, when someone else accepts your offer too quickly, and when you accept someone else’s offer too quickly, that will decrease the satisfaction. So…

Jamie: That’s counterintuitive, isn’t it?

Vivian: Yes, definitely. I think that happens because negotiation is not something that comes natural to a lot of us. Once we think that we’re getting a good deal or getting something that we want, we immediately agree because we want it to end, right? But research actually tells us that if we accept too quickly, it does not make the other party feel great about what just happened and research also tells us that how we feel, which is a subjective value, actually is worth much more than the objective or economic value that we get from the negotiation.

Jamie: That is so fascinating to me and I know that Professor Curhan also said the four most important factors in a negotiation is how people feel about themselves, about their counterpart, about the process, about the outcome. So, that’s really fascinating and I’ve heard that there needs to be about one or two...going back and forth in a negotiation in order for people to feel like, okay, this is probably the best deal.

Vivian: Yes. It almost feels kind of like a game, right? But, you know, it’s just how you feel that you fared after you walk away from something is going to make a more lasting impression and research also tells us that it actually keeps someone more satisfied if they’re entering a new job, a new position, that economic value is not going to be something that really ties them, right? It’s going to be how they feel. How they feel they fared, how they feel that they are getting the most value for themselves. That’s the most important part, that’s the satisfaction that’s gonna last.

Jamie: I just saw somebody ask this question this morning: I already got an offer. It’s already at the high end of the market range. It’s already more than I was making before. Should I just accept it or should I ask for more? And the advice from career experts is to yeah, ask for more, because it signals to the hiring people that this person is very confident and that...the hiring people would also have the satisfaction that, oh, we really did the utmost we could to get this best talent. And for the talent, it’s also satisfying to know that she did the best that she could and got the most value.

Vivian: Exactly. Because at the end of the day, we all want to feel appreciated and respected when we walk away from that interaction.

Jamie: Yeah and I worked briefly in HR for these little tech startups in New York and people would intentionally create wiggle room because they anticipated candidates to ask for more.

Vivian: Right. Mm-hmm.

Jamie: Right, so this is a really great point that you’re making. I absolutely love it. So, number four is: Using the same tactics in both short-term and long-term negotiations. This is really interesting. Tell us more about that.

Vivian: Right. So, this idea comes from when we’re thinking about how we’re dealing with something in the short term and the long term, there are two different tactics to that, right? And so often we leave that at the door when we’re going into a negotiation room because we think that we should just follow all the same rules but in reality, rational behavior in the short term is not so rational in the long term. This goes back to the prisoner’s dilemma which is a game theory that says it doesn’t make sense for people to act against their self-interest, right? So, the faster they act in their self-interest then the better off they’ll be and whoever acts first has the greatest advantage, right?

Jamie: In the short-term.

Vivian: In the short term, yes. But that doesn’t always work in the long term. So, for instance, if in the short term your best interest is always to choose Option A and it always hurts your opponent to choose Option A, that’s the game theory, right? That’s the Prisoner's’ Dilemma. That might work in the short term, but if in the long term your strategy is to prevent your opponent from choosing Option A because if you choose Option A it hurts them, if they choose Option A, it hurts you. So, if your strategy is to prevent them from choosing Option A, then maybe the best way to encourage that behavior is not to choose Option A for yourself so you might want to choose another option to prevent them from choosing something that will hurt you if that makes sense.

Jamie: In the long term or in the short term?

Vivian: In the long term.

Jamie: In the long term. So, in the long term, even though you’re acting not in your best self-interest, for the long-term picture it actually makes more sense, even if you don’t choose Option A, you’re going to gain more value over the long term. Is that what you’re saying?

Vivian: Yes. Kind of think about it like, I hate this word, but winning, right? In the short term, winning means something different than winning in the long term.

Jamie: Oh, right.

Vivian: So, winning in the long term could mean that you’re all faring well off  compared to everyone else, right? So that’s not you winning by yourself, right? You need people around you to help you do that. So, maybe an option is more beneficial for you in the short term but in the long term, that same option isn’t going to be beneficial for you because you’re just burning everyone else along the way.

Jamie: I think for...again, this is a really beautiful example of people who want to grow their careers in a conscious way and there is the conflict in the short term of oh, I need to make money! I need to make a lot of money! I need to pay off my student loans! And in the long term you also want to be creating a body of work, a reputation, a really strong and healthy network and in the long term you may actually want to, for the benefit of the long-term growth, you may want to take a pay cut.

Vivian: Right, right. Or you want to be creating value, right?

Jamie: Right. You want to be focused on creating value instead of gaining value for yourself immediately. So, yeah, I think that’s the dilemma that a lot of people would experience in their lives. I mean, I have, too. I once took an unpaid internship after leaving a hedge fund because I wanted, in the long term, to make a career pivot out of finance and into entrepreneurship and even though I wasn’t gonna be paid, but in the long term I gained a lot of value because I made some really valuable connections in this new industry.

Vivian: Exactly, yes. What’s the saying? If you want to go fast you go alone, if you want to go far, you go with others, right?

Jamie: Mm-hmm.

Vivian: So, yes, so it’s thinking about how to choose and negotiate and being thoughtful about those tactics depending on the negotiation terms.

Jamie: Right, and where you are in your career as well.

Vivian: Exactly. I mean what you want out of the negotiation, right? If the negotiation is so that both of you leave feeling very respected, high subjective value, then that might mean that you’re using specific tactics that you wouldn’t be using for a one-off type of interaction.

Jamie: Yeah. I’m thinking about the book Give and Take by Adam Grant and he talks about how very successful people are givers and at the same time, very unsuccessful people can also be givers. So, givers who are very successful, they know how to give in a way that is strategic and also mindful, they’re not always just blindly giving away resources and information and contacts. They’re able to set boundaries around that mindfully, so yeah, I think that’s a really important point for a lot of people as well as me. Thank you. So, number five: Judging others based on their actions. This is a big one! How is this a pitfall?

Vivian: Right. So, this often happens because, and I feel like we’ve all dealt with this situation at one time or another, where we’ve asked someone for something and they say no, right? And, in turn, we come up with a dialogue in our head as to why they said no, right? And so, for instance, if you asked your boss for a raise and she says no, despite the fact that you prepared, despite the fact that you brough tin market research, despite the fact that you’re very persuasive, you’ve been working really hard, you know you deserve this raise. You might automatically think that her action makes her a jerk.

Jamie: Yeah. Yup.

Vivian: And, you know, you can go on with your day and never think about that again. But instead, if you dig into why this person said no or what could have led her to say no, the situation that she might be in that might result in her no, that could actually help you get what you want. So, for instance, if your boss is saying no to you, could it be budget restraints? Could it be your boss answering to her boss? If you are able to identify all the potential parties that are involved in that no, even the ones that weren’t there in the negotiation room, right, then you can get to the yes. So, not always judging others based on their actions that you can see but trying to link it back, farther back, as to how they came to that answer.

Jamie: I love this so much. I think it’s one of the most important things in negotiation because we are so easily clouded by our judgment of other people and don’t always make the best kinds of decisions in a negotiation and the trigger word, no, is involved and that is why in all of my workshops, I have people practice hearing no and doing exactly as you say. Not getting defensive but just getting more curious and asking an open-ended question: Okay, tell me more about that. What’s behind your no? Who else do we need to have involved in this conversation? And from there, you can take that information and reframe and re-ask and you can come up with creative solutions that really satisfy their reasons as well as your why.

Another thing that I love about this is I really appreciate how you pointed out we really shouldn’t judge people based on their actions because we don’t know why they’re behaving that way. We don’t know how they really, really feel and what are they thinking that makes them do that?

Vivian: Right, right. Exactly, Jamie. They say that we judge others based on their actions but we judge ourselves based on our situation. So when you are explaining to a friend or a colleague why you made a specific decision, you can say, “Well, I did that because of this. I took that job because I really needed to pay off that student loan,” or whatever it is. But we don’t think about that when it comes to others. So if we’re able to do that, if we’re able to just push ourselves a little bit to be a little bit more thoughtful, we can actually help people help us. We can help people get to that yes by thinking about all of these other factors that come into play when they are sitting right in front of you.

Jamie: Beautiful. So good. This is so good. So the last point is assuming you know what’s most valuable to the other party.

Vivian: Right.

Jamie: So this is tied to number five where we judge people by their actions and then we also assume we know what’s most important to the other people. Tell us more about that.

Vivian: When I learned this, it just blew my mind, like, my mind just exploded. I feel like I can never explain it well enough but it’s...what happens to all of us when we are coming to a negotiation table with someone, we think that in order to get something it comes at the expense of someone else, right? It’s this win-lose mentality. If I win, you lose.

But thinking about it from a different lens - a win-win - so, you can’t assume you know what’s valuable to the other party. You can only assume, when you assume this, then it actually affects what you’re also giving, so it can affect...you might think that if you accept a lower offer that your boss will be happier, right? Or walk away with a higher subjective value, they don’t like pushing back with you. You think that you’re giving them something but you actually don’t know what’s most valuable to them.

Jamie: That’s true.

Vivian: So assuming that isn’t going to help you get anywhere, really. So, for instance, if you want to...you might assume that, in a job offer negotiation, your boss doesn’t want to give you flexibility, right? Or your boss or the other party doesn’t want to give you a higher salary. It’s only through clear and trustworthy communication can you actually determine what the other party’s preferences really are. So, one way to do that is ask open-ended questions. You mentioned earlier trying to really figure out what the other party values. If you ask a few questions based on their responses, you can determine what the patterns are, right? You can sort of guess what they may value most out of the negotiation but assuming you know actually is sort of a lose-lose type of situation because you have no idea what the other party wants coming into negotiations.

Jamie: This is so good because can we ever really know what is going through someone else’s head? And I think the answer is no.

Vivian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Jamie: The art of communication, it’s almost like we’re trying to do magic right? We have something that we want to say inside of us. We say it. People hear it. But people don’t always hear everything we say. Often they mishear what we say.

Vivian: Well, yes!

Jamie: And then they interpret that to mean something and what they interpret that to be can be something so different from what you originally intended. Yeah, so for you to assume that you know what’s going through other people’s head is such a fundamental mistake, I think, that we often make, pretty much on a constant basis, on default. I think about my most common miscommunication defaults that I have with my partner, right? And I always think I know what’s going through his head it’s like, “Does he mean to make me feel bad?” Of course, he never intends to make me feel bad and so this is such a good one.

Vivian: Yes and they say that if ten different people walk away from the same conversation, they all have different interpretations as to what was communicated, what was the message of the conversation takeaway, right?

Jamie: Yeah. Ten different interpretations.

Vivian: Exactly, right? So, when we assume that someone wants something before we even get there, we assume that we know what’s most valuable to them, that actually affects the way that we approach the negotiation with them, right? We go, we bee-line in, we think that we know exactly what’s going to be most valuable to them, what’s going to be most valuable to us and this actually hurts in the end. Especially if it’s negotiating for more a long-term relationship or something that’s a little bit more complex than choosing Option A, B, or C.

Jamie: Yeah. This is so good. The way I help my clients to get clear is that often we make assumptions, we don’t even realize we’re making assumptions because we feel that what we think is true.

Vivian: Mm-hmm.

Jamie: But the facts of the situation are usually very simple and facts are something that everyone will agree to be true. It can be proven in the court of law. But our thoughts, our opinions, our judgments, our assumptions are what is most often in our heads and cloud our judgment and how we perceive the situation. So, usually I have my clients just write down their thoughts on paper and then separate the facts and something really funny happens. It’s like they have a long list of thoughts. Oh, this person thinks I’m this. I am not good enough. Or It’s gonna all not go well, blah blah blah. You know, all the thoughts that we have so often and then we just write down the facts and the facts are like, there was a conversation. This person said x. I said y.

Vivian: Exactly, Jamie. Yeah, it happens so often. It really does and I think if we just think about negotiations as more of having both parties walk away feeling like they got the most value out of the conversation, out of the negotiation, I think that’s really important. Especially today, when it seems like we’re gridlocked over everything, right? Whether that’s business or social, political, whatever. I think it’s really important to think about how we approach these conversations and to ask open-ended questions so that we can have a better idea of how we can come out of it, both of us coming out of it feeling like we’re appreciated and valued and respected.

Jamie: I am so appreciative of this article. I’m appreciative of the research, the length you went to to gather this valuable information and how you made it succinct, relatable, useful to the audience. So thank you so much, Vivian. Where can people go to learn more about what you do?

Vivian: People can go...and thanks so much for saying that, I’m really happy that the article resonated with you. I had a lot of fun putting it together. So, People can learn more about me by either following me on Twitter. I’m @vivian_giang. Or they can read my stuff on Fast Company.

Jamie: Excellent! Well, thanks again, Vivian, for your valuable time and for this great article. I will be sharing it in the podcast notes as well as with my newsletter audience. Have a wonderful day!

Vivian: You too. Thanks so much for having me Jamie.

Jamie: Bye bye!

Vivian: Bye bye!