Two Simple Reminders That Improve Negotiation Outcomes: Dr. Julia Bear

According to research, women's monetary negotiation outcomes improved when they did two things before negotiating: 

1. Recalling the last three times they were assertive 

2. Imagining that they are negotiating for a friend. 

In this episode, I interview one of the co-authors of this research, Julia Bear. 

We explored this research, why what and how we think impact our negotiation results, and how we can apply research like this to improve our negotiation outcomes. 

Julia Bear is an Associate Professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University. Dr. Bear’s research focuses on the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes, as well as conflict management in organizations. In her research, she investigates what factors, both individual and situational, influence the gender gap typically seen in negotiation outcomes, and how an understanding of these factors can help to reduce this gender gap in both initiation of negotiation and negotiation performance. 

Link to the research: Negotiating Femininity

Other resources mentioned include:

HBR article: 10 Myths about Negotiating Your First Salary

Book: Women Don't Ask

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 60 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach - now a certified coach, thank you very much! - Jamie Lee.

And today, I have a really special episode for you. I have an interview with Dr. Julia Bear of Stony Brook University, who published fascinating research along with Dr. Linda Babcock - the famous Dr. Linda Babcock who co-wrote Women Don’t Ask. And Dr. Julia and Dr. Linda - all these doctors. I love it - they found that it helps women to recall two particular things before they negotiate. And when women recall these two particular things, it helps their negotiation outcomes, literally, in terms of monetary outcomes.

The first is that you recall the last three times you’ve been assertive and the second is that you imagine that you are negotiating for a friend. And I think this research is so fascinating, I think it’s so helpful because it gives us practical tools that we can implement in our negotiations.

This helps us because a lot of us have this limiting belief that women are not good negotiators and that holds us back from becoming bolder, braver, and better paid. We also have the limiting belief that, oh, I don’t really need to prepare mentally for negotiation, so I really love this research.

So, without further ado, here is the interview with Dr. Julia Bear of Stoneybrook University.

Jamie: Yeah, we have Dr. Julia Bear on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast!

Julia: Thank you!

Jamie: Do you prefer that I call you Dr. Bear?

Julia: You can just call me Julia, that’s fine.

Jamie: Okay. Alright, Julia. Well, for those who don’t you, you’re an associate professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University and Julia’s research focuses on the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes as well as conflict management in organizations. In her research, she investigates what factors, both individual and situational, influence the gender gap typically seen in negotiation outcomes and how an understanding of these factors can help to reduce this gender gap in both initiation of negotiation and negotiation performance, which we’re all about because this podcast is about helping ambitious people become bolder, braver, and better paid.

So, Julia, I’d love to hear what sparked your interest in the topic of gender and negotiation in the first place?

Julia: Yes, well, you know I’ve always been fascinated by gender issues and gender differences. I just think it’s a fascinating phenomenon, generally. And when I arrived at Carnegie Mellon University to start my PhD in Organizational Behavior, there was a professor there named Linda Babcock who had just published a book which some of your listeners may even be familiar with called Women Don’t Ask.

Jamie: Yeah.

Julia: And so that literally had just come out and that was really, in many ways, the blossoming and the beginning of research on gender and negotiation and I just found it fascinating, this notion that negotiation, which is a very specific type of behavior and interaction, really serves as an underlying mechanism for so many of the gender gaps that we see, whether we think of gender gaps in salaries, career advancement, etc.

So once I got there and met her and she had just published the book and given my interest in gender, it was really just a natural progression from there to start really digging into this work on gender and negotiation, which, again, was really in the very initial phases at that point.

Jamie: I remember reading Women Don’t Ask in 2013 and it changed my life.

Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s a wonderful book. I would encourage your listeners if they’re...well, obviously they’re interested in this topic if they’re listening to the podcast. It’s a very well done book and it also couples...Linda wrote the book, actually, with a journalist, so it’s nice in the sense that it covers research on gender but it’s also written in a very engaging manner. It also incorporates really interesting stories from women’s lives as well.

Jamie: Yeah and they wrote a follow-up, which is Ask for It.

Julia: Yeah, mm-hmm. And Ask for It’s very nice too. It’s more of a how-to book but full of really, really good tips, many of which I actually teach in my classes in terms of how to go about negotiating, particularly if you find it anxiety-provoking or uncomfortable, etc. So, yeah, that was a nice follow-up as well. Mm-hmm.

Jamie: Nice, nice. And I know you co-wrote this article: Negotiating Femininity: Gender-Relevant Primes Improve Women’s Economic Performance in Gender Role Incongruent Situations.

Julia: Quite a mouthful, yeah.

Jamie: And you wrote that with Linda Babcock.

Julia: Yes, that’s right. Since then, we’ve co-authored papers. Of course I’ve also written many on my own or with other co-authors. But yes, Linda and I co-authored that paper and that was published, I believe, in 2017, yeah.

Jamie: Yeah, so I will link the pdf of this article in the show notes. I’d love for you to give a bit of background about how you and Linda Babcock got the idea for doing this particular article.

Julia: Sure, so yes, there is some background to that article. So, when I started working in this area of gender negotiation, there were plenty of studies showing that if you look in sort of a very narrow landscape of negotiation, let’s say negotiating starting salary or negotiating price in a financial transaction, we tend to see that men, on average, tend to negotiate better outcomes than women.

And I want to be very clear here that all of this social science research is based on averages. I mean, of course there are plenty of women who love to negotiate; there are plenty of men who hate to negotiate, so gender can be a blunt variable, in a sense, to investigate. But on average, we do see men outperforming women

But I started to question the narrowness of the issues that we were investigating, right? And I started to say, if we think theoretically about gender, given men and women’s gender role, men are socialized and expected to be breadwinners, assertive. Women are typically socialized, expected to be communal, helpful, caring. I started to think, you know, maybe it’s no surprise that we see men outperforming women when negotiating over, you know, let’s say, financial issues or types of negotiation issues that map very well onto their gender role.

So, I started to investigate a variety of different issues, not just, let’s say, starting salary or price. But I tried to really test this notion that context should influence whether we see these gender differences. And, indeed, that’s what we found. So I published several papers showing that finding that, gender differences do depend on the context, the negotiation context.

And so I offer that as background to this particular paper because, once we had those findings, we then subsequently said okay, well if we know that there are certain contexts in which we don’t have gender differences, then how can we use that knowledge to actually help people to negotiate better and help women to negotiate better?

And thus the idea for that paper was born, in a sense, because we said, you know, is there some way where we can basically prime women psychologically to make the context feel like it’s a better fit? And that’s what we did in that paper. So, in other words, we said, okay, yes, there are a variety of contexts in which gender differences disappear and that’s all well and good but the fact is many people are negotiating things like salary or financial transactions. We know those are less of a good fit for women, so how can we perhaps psychologically prime them and make it a better fit?

So that’s sort of the background, this notion that there’s always this person-situation fit and for women, especially, competitive negotiations about money may be a poorer fit for women and we found that empirically in our older papers.

And so then that was the motivation for the 2017 paper was basically to say can we make - we called them gender-relevant primes. Because we said okay, wonderful, for women to make it fit better, we either need to remind them, sort of give them almost like a reminder, yes, you can be assertive, you can do this or try to make the situation fit their gender role better.

So that’s why we had two primes. We had one prime in which women recalled being assertive in the past right before negotiating and then we had one prime in which women actually imagined that they were gonna be negotiating for someone else. But both of those primes, the idea was to make the women’s fit with the negotiation situation better, so that it would improve their performance and indeed it did. That’s actually what we found.

Jamie: Cool! So that explains the title Gender-Relevant Primes.

Julia: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jamie: You know, helping women to see the negotiation as a better fit to how they see themselves.

Julia: Exactly. Exactly! So if you recall that you were assertive in the past, it’s kind of like, you know, a reminder that yes, the situation, this fits you, you’ve done this, so trying to make it fit that way. Or, again, the other prime we tested was okay, let’s reframe the situation psychologically. Imagine you’re doing it for a close friend. Advocating for other people has been shown empirically as a situation in which women negotiate just as well as men and so, by priming that way, it’s to sort of, you know, have women reframe the situation in a way that’s a better fit. Yeah.

Jamie: I really appreciate that in the title it says Negotiating Femininity, so it implies that femininity itself is negotiable. It’s a concept, really, and we can always reframe how we see our femininity so that we can see ourselves as a better fit to any situation, including a negotiation.

Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jamie: Yeah. And I also appreciate the premise of the study and I’d love for you to tell us a bit more about that. And the premise is that what we think and how we think ahead of negotiating, particularly for money, impacts how we behave in the negotiation and, therefore, how we behave has an impact on our negotiating results.

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Jamie: And this fits perfectly to what I call the model, which is that even though circumstances are neutral, what we think about the circumstance is optional and what we think creates our feelings, therefore it creates our behavior, therefore it creates results.

So, tell us a little bit more about the behavioral impact that you observed. You discuss three different studies in this particular article so, tell us about the behavioral impact that you observed there.

Julia: Yeah, so basically, what we found is that across the three studies, when we compared women’s and men’s negotiation performance without the primes, men indeed outperformed women. Not a surprise. That’s what extent research has shown and, again, I just want to be clear on the effects, what we call the effect sizes in social science means sort of the magnitudes of the difference. It’s not huge, right? It’s not that men are incredible at negotiations and women are terrible but, on average, men were outperforming women.

But again, when we had women use one of the primes… so in the first study we studied the assertiveness prime and in the second study we tested the imagine it’s your close friend prime and then in the third study, we tested them both together and they actually worked equally well.

But, in any case, when women used these primes, in that case, their performance significantly improved in the negotiation and there was no gender difference. So, basically, men’s performance essentially stayed the same but women’s performance significantly improved and the gender difference was eliminated in negotiation performance.

Jamie: Yeah. And what I read from the article was the negotiation study participants had to do a mock negotiation where they were negotiating for the price of..was it an auto part? Engine?

Julia: Yes, yes. And we specifically chose that negotiation because in prior work - and that was the work I mentioned a few moments ago - in prior work, we have actually evaluated that particular negotiation and found that people generally rated this negotiation situation over the price of, actually, it’s the price of motorcycle headlights, people tended to evaluate this as a very masculine negotiation.

Jamie: Motorcycle headlights, yeah.

Julia: Yes. Well, it’s funny, is I have to tell you that negotiation exercise is widely used in negotiation training, which I actually find interesting and I wonder how that influences women in their training but that’s another issue. But in any case, yes, so we specifically chose that exercise to use in our study because we wanted to be sure that we were testing our primes in a situation, again, that was a poor fit for women. I mean that was the whole point of testing these primes, yeah.

Jamie: Yeah. So, my understanding of that prime was you were suggesting that women remember the last time they had to assert themselves and be forceful in defending…

Julia: Yes, exactly. Right. I believe it was recall three incidents, yes, and actually those characteristics that we chose, they actually are directly from an instrument called the Bem Sex Role Inventory and it’s directly from the measure of masculinity. So we actually chose those very intentionally from a theoretical perspective basically saying okay, let’s really test this notion that if we can, again, prime this masculinity for women, that will help mitigate the lack of fit and really help them improve their performance.

Jamie: Wow, fascinating! I didn’t know that there was a textbook about masculinity.

Julia: Oh, absolutely. There is very, very, very rich work on gender theory and this paper really was directly based off of that work. Yes.

Jamie: So it’s really theoretical. It doesn’t mean that, you know, men are this and women are that. It’s our concepts about gender.

Julia: Yeah, the concepts about gender that we tend to see in terms of the way boys and girls are socialized, the expectations for men and women’s behavior. And, again, it’s not that we’re saying all women are like this or all men are like that. Of course that would be sort of silly and simplistic but rather, from a big picture [indecipherable] perspective, we know that there are norms and expectations for behavior and we know that they differ for men and women. Yeah.

Jamie: Hmm. Okay. And I would like to just call out the distinction that it’s what we think about gender that impacts our behavior, so when we think that this is, you know, masculine behavior and because I am a woman I can’t behave that way, it hinders our willingness to participate in this sort of transactional conversation. That’s what I’m hearing. And so, I’m curious to know why do you think that recalling this perceived masculine behavior in the past had women improve their negotiation results in these mock negotiations?

Julia: You know, that’s a great question and I don’t have a good answer to that in the sense that we didn’t actually measure that. So, again, the question is what is the mechanism that’s explaining in the primes and we really didn’t get a good measure of that, so I can’t speak to that empirically so well.

You know, I do think, psychologically, it gives a sense, a greater sense, perhaps, of self-advocacy or a sense of feeling like, you know, yes, I’ve been in these situations before. I’ve done this. There’s also a great deal of research - and I see this in my research as well - that women do find negotiations much more aversive than men. They report much greater anxiety than men about negotiating, so it could also just be helpful in terms of quelling anxiety. It’s, you know, this is not a novel situation, so to speak, you know, reminding oneself I’ve done this before, I can do this again. You know, those are potential mechanisms. Yeah.

Jamie: Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that, when women recall being assertive and being forceful in their communication, they feel confidence from having remembered that they’ve done it before.

Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I think women have fewer opportunities as they grow up for social learning when it comes to negotiation, right? Social learning meaning learning through observing others’ behavior, similar others behavior. So I do think that having that reminder can be very helpful.

Jamie: Mmm, yeah. And that was one of the biggest takeaways for me from reading Women Don’t Ask about how men, young men, are often coached from an older male about how to play contact sports and that could be...and that sort of situation also plays out in negotiations because they get coached by other people and so I guess, long story short, when women are encouraged to recall the past behavior when they did defend and assert themselves, it’s kind of like you’re coaching yourself.

Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Jamie: Great! So, the second prime was that women were encouraged to prepare as if they’re preparing for this negotiation on behalf of a friend.

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Jamie: This is so fascinating and you call this gender-complementary, is that right?

Julia: That’s right. That’s right. It’s funny, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at this paper, that’s right. So we called the assertive one that we were just talking about, we called it the supplementary prime, meaning it’s for supplementing and then this is the complementary, right, meaning that it’s trying to reinforce this notion that negotiation may in fact be complementary to aspects of women’s gender role.

Jamie: Yeah and so many of my clients and people that I’ve taught in workshops, they all have said...many and many of them say that they feel so comfortable negotiating on behalf of other people.

Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah and this has definitely been shown empirically, that women in fact, when they negotiate for somebody else, they do significantly better than when they negotiate for themselves and they negotiate just as well as men do. And so this prime was really based off of those findings, right? It was saying okay, how can we harness, so to speak, the positive effects that we know happen for women when they negotiate for other people.

Jamie: Yeah. So what do you think was behind the psychological, you know, the underpinnings of that? When women negotiate as if they’re negotiating for a friend they actually get a better deal.

Julia: Yeah. I think, again, a really good question and we don’t have the data to speak to that. You know I think that it may...you know, there are two potential mechanisms. I think similar to the other prime, the supplementary prime or the assertiveness prime, I think, you know, it may serve as sort of a psychological....the word is escaping me right now...sort of a psychological cue to basically reframe the situation a more positive way, kind of break through that anxiety or discomfort, right? And, you know, make people realize that they can, in fact, mentally reframe the negotiation as a more positive situation in which they can feel free to be more assertive.

Jamie: Yeah, and what I notice as a coach is that a lot of people, including myself, we have difficulty seeing ourselves from the most objective perspective. We’re often our own harshest critics.

Julia: Yes, yes.

Jamie: And it’s hard for...it’s really easy to give praise to other people and extremely hard to accept praise for ourselves, especially if you are ambitious, overachieving. I think that that tendency kind of is congruent to, correlates to how driven you are because you think you drive yourself by not saying the kindest things to yourself instead of being as kind and loving to yourself. And so when you think about negotiating for a friend, as opposed to for you, I think it kind of switches on this more compassionate, even kinder aspect of ourselves and it’s very powerful because it actually improves the results.

Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. It was interesting that, because, again, you know, we went into this paper with a very empirical perspective, of course, and it was interesting that both frames...both primes, excuse me, they did indeed work and if I remember the data correctly, I believe that they worked...I believe that the results were pretty comparable for both primes, which was also interesting in and of itself. They both sort of served as these cues for women to really reframe the situation and negotiate more assertively, yeah.

Jamie: And when you say that, do you mean that the results were comparable, meaning the impact on the actual…?

Julia: Yes, on the actual outcome, yes. I’d have to double check that but I believe, if memory serves, it wasn’t like oh, one prime worked so much better than the other. In fact they both worked pretty comparably, if memory serves.

Jamie: Well I’m of course not coming from an empirical perspective, I’m coming from a coaching perspective, but I love this. This is really fascinating and also it’s the kind of work that I do with my clients. I help them on an individual basis, you know, recall how they were confident and assertive for themselves and how...This is really great. I appreciate this.

So, if we may, I’d like to switch gears a bit and I want to ask you a personal question.

Julia: Sure! Mm-hmm.

Jamie: This is a question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. What was a negotiation - and I want to tell you that I define negotiation simply as a conversation with the intention of reaching agreement where everyone has the right to say no, so a very broad definition of negotiation - what was a negotiation in your life or career that had the biggest impact on you? And I’d love to hear, you know, what had happened and what you learned.

Julia: Ummm….yeah, that’s a good question. So, there really is not one specific negotiation that stands out. I can say, on a personal level, that - and perhaps that’s why I was interested in this research - that I think it was really when I started working in this area that I, first of all, A) realized that things were negotiable and B) realized that I should start negotiating them, right?

So, I don’t think...so for me, negotiation is not particularly intuitive but I think that working in this area has made me more likely to negotiate and I have had several negotiations at work that I realized in retrospect had I not been working in this area, I might not have negotiated them or even considered the issues negotiable, so to speak, over, you know, a variety of issues.

Jamie: Could you give us an example?

Julia: You know, there’s not sort of a really specific example that comes to mind but certainly there were issues that came up when I was relocating from...I had been living in Israel and I was relocating to the US and there were just a variety of issues that came up in that relocation and starting a job here that, in the past, I think I would have just taken them as a given, you know, like oh well of course the moving expenses aren’t going to cover an actual relocation, right? Or well, of course there are health insurance issues moving from another country that I actually thought twice about and thought well, wait a second, why can’t...you know, this is an exceptional situation, why don’t I try negotiating some of these issues, right?

It is a different move than the organization is used to accommodating but why not ask for some...you know, clearly moving from a different country there are different needs. So, things like that that I think in the past I would have just not...it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to negotiate. Many issues I didn’t even consider were even negotiable. And today, I just very much view...actually I like your definition of negotiation, I agree. I also view it as a conversation that, ideally, people can find a win-win solution and reach an agreement but as you said I like that very much as well, everybody has a right to disagree, to say no and you know, you try, you make your best attempt and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, you know?

But there’s no harm in asking, there’s no harm in trying and going in with a very collaborative and mindset of trying to solve a problem together. I think that’s a great conceptualization of negotiation.

Jamie: Thank you! And so, I’m curious, have you ever used one of these two primes yourself?

Julia: Yes, I have. I have definitely used some version of the assertiveness prime, absolutely. When I’m going into a new situation or a situation that I find intimidating for whatever reason, I’ve absolutely used that sort of reminder prime because I find it puts things in perspective. And sort of reminding myself, well, wait a second, you’ve done x, y, z, a, b, c, d, so, you know, you can do this, too.

You know the other thing I find really helpful as well to get better with using that prime is also just reframing the situation as learning experiences. So, rather than being sort of so nervous about something new or something daunting, reframing it as well, this is gonna be a learning experience. It’s something new I’m here to learn and yes, in fact, I’ve done a, b, c, d, e, f in my life and so we’ll just go in there and do it, you know, so that’s...I do find that helpful actually, yeah.

Jamie: Love it! So, three very actionable tips you’ve shared: First, before you engage in a negotiation, remind yourself of three times in the past where you did defend yourself, assert yourself, prove yourself. And two is you can also think about the situation as if you’re preparing for a very good friend. I’ve done a version of this, a variation of this, where I ask my client to think about how their best friend would describe them, the three words they would use, right? So it’s not you describing you, it’s your best friend or mentor describing you.

Julia: Yeah.

Jamie: Great. And then number three is just to think of the situation as a learning opportunity. So, you know, what can you learn? What is the lesson here? I think that’s a great, great tip.

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Jamie: So, finally, I think people would love to learn more about the kind of research that you do. Where can people go to learn more about you and your research?

Julia: So, that’s a great question and so...I’m laughing at your question because I think it’s a great question, unfortunately in academia, many of the journals that we all publish in are not always easy to access, which is unfortunate. They sort of sit in libraries and they’re often read by other academics as opposed to the general public, which is why I think it’s wonderful also your efforts to really translate this research to a wider audience.

But to answer your question, in terms of learning more about the research, they can certainly Google my website at Stony Brook, Julia Bear at Stony Brook. They can certainly email me through my website. I’m happy to share articles or anything else that is not accessible because it is, again, copyrighted and in journals.

And I also have a fun piece actually written with Linda Babcock on the Harvard Business Review website. It’s hbr.org and it is about the myth and reality of negotiating one’s salary. And so that’s a fun piece as well if people want to look at that and that’s not published in a journal that doesn’t like to...they should just be able to get access to that.

Jamie: Great. I will look it up and I will link it into the show notes.

Julia: That would be fantastic.

Jamie: Julia, this has been such a pleasure and there’s so much value here for all of us. Thank you so much for your time and for your expertise.

Julia: Thank you! And good luck to all your listeners with their future negotiations.

Jamie: Alright, great.

Interview with Jay Fields: How to Use the Brain in Your Body to Overcome Anxiety and Building Confidence and Strength

Jay Fields is a somatic educator and therapeutic coach who teaches women how to regulate their nervous systems -- or "the brain the body" -- so they can manage anxiety and difficult emotions with empathy and connection. 

In this impactful interview, Jay walks me through exactly what happens in our bodies, our brains, our nervous systems, and in our behavior when we encounter negative emotions like anxiety in the moment of a high-stakes conversation. 

We explored: 
- How to deal with anxiety in the moment of negotiating without freezing, fleeing or fighting
- How to manage negative emotions so they don't sabotage your outcomes
- What it means to have your own back and the power it gives you to name the "elephant" in a negotiation
- How to get better at setting boundaries and saying no with confidence and strength

Learn more about Jay here: jay-fields.com

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 31 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

My mission is to help ambitious people like you become bolder, braver, and better paid. I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills and that good negotiators lead the conversation and that good leaders negotiate.

And today I have a really powerful conversation that I’m really happy to share with you. It’s an interview I did with Jay Fields, and in this interview, we talked about The Big F.

Yes.

Feelings.

We talked about the power of emotions. The impact emotions have on our bodies, our brains, on our nervous system and in our reactions or in our behaviors. I think it’s so important to acknowledge, to accept, and to manage emotions in order to become a better negotiator and in order to become a better leader.

And so, I hope you find this conversation useful and you use the tools that Jay shares with us, because I certainly have, and I have used them to do better in my public speaking, I’ve used them to improve my coaching, I’ve used these tools to improve my negotiation, and I’ve used these tools even at home to deal with conversations, sticky situations in my interpersonal relationships.

To learn more about me and my services, please visit jamieleecoach.com and I hope you enjoy this interview.

Jay Fields is a somatic educator, therapeutic coach, and author of the book Teaching People, Not Poses. Jay is unique in that she teaches women how to regulate their nervous systems and have empathy for themselves so that they can manage anxiety and difficult emotions and stay connected, engaged with the people and projects they work with.

So, without further ado, here’s the interview with Jay Fields.

Jamie: Hi, Jay!

Jay: Hey, Jamie.

Jamie: Thanks, again. I want to say. This is our second time trying this recording. Thanks for making the time.

Jay: Of course!

Jamie: And I’m really excited to talk to you about how to deal with the anxiety that arises in the moment of negotiation. Because I think that’s the really tough part. Preparing, coming up with a script, it’s not so hard, but actually dealing with that negative emotion in the face of pushback or the first sign of pushback.

And so, I want to ask you, what do you have in terms of strategies that you can advise our listeners, how to communicate with clarity and conviction that makes it easy for people to connect with the other side?

Jay: Right, yeah. I hear you. Even if you have the script it doesn’t necessarily make it easy. So, before I answer that question, let me put what I’m going to say into some context. So, anxiety and emotions, other emotions, are felt sensations that we have in our body that then our brain in our skull interprets, okay? And so, that means, for example, you get a tightness in your chest and you interpret that as I’m scared.

And what happens then is that, if you’re unaccustomed to being in tune with your body, and/or you’re not willing to have an emotion in the time that it’s coming up, such as in a negotiation, it will affect the nervous system. So, your nervous system is the brain in your body, right? And what usually happens is either there’s the fight/flight response that revs up the nervous system and you get that amped feeling in your body or there’s the freeze, or sometimes called collapse response, where your body just kind of flatlines, your energy flatlines, you numb out. And either way, it feels hard to gather your thoughts, it’s hard to say a sentence clearly, to make sense.

And so I bring that up because when we talking about managing anxiety or managing emotions, especially in the workplace, I think it’s really, really important to understand that on the first, primary level, it really is about managing sensation in the body. And that, I think, people can go oh, okay, maybe I could do that.

And so, the way to do that is...I mean, there’s multiple ways to do it. One of the ways that I feel is really great to do that is through practicing what’s called a felt resource, and a felt resource is something that is inside your body that you can go to to bring yourself back to your best self. And there’s three. One is grounding, one is centering, and one is orienting.

And I’ll unpack them a little bit, and as I do, I’m going to encourage you and your listeners to just get a sense, to go through it with me and see what happens.

Jamie: So, should I try it now? As you talk me through it?

Jay: Yeah! Because the felt resource, what I think is so great about them is, it isn’t something that you necessarily need to sit down, eyes closed, back straight, fifteen minutes, practice this. These are the sort of things that they’re best used in the moment and come back and come back and even if it’s three or four seconds, just see what happens, okay?

So, the first one is grounding, and that’s literally just putting your feet on the floor or imagining that you can feel the connection to the earth. You feel the 6,000 miles of earth underneath you, or if you’re sitting in a chair, you feel your butt in the chair, you feel your weight supported. And so, just notice, as you do that, as you feel your weight in your chair, or you feel a more intentional connection to the ground if something happens to your energy level or to your breath.

Jamie: Yeah, I feel like I kind of slowed down my breathing a little bit.

Jay: [Breathes out] Yeah, so there’s kind of like a [exhales].

Jamie: Yeah, like I’ve calmed down a bit.

Jay: Yeah, so that’s one. Another felt resource would be to center. And by centering, what I mean is to imagine you could gather all of your strength or all of your power into the center of you, wherever it is you experience that. So it might be your belly, it might be your heart, and this is one of the things that, when we have the fight/flight response, often what happens is it feels like our energy dissipates. It just kind of goes bleh in every direction.

So, I’d like you to see what it feels like to imagine that you could kind of pull yourself back to your center. Bring all your focus there and just see if that makes sense in the way of, does something happen on a sensational level in your body that lets you know it’s working?

Jamie: Yeah, well, I just notice I took some sugar and caffeine to power through the day and so I’m feeling the blood pumping through my veins right now.

Jay: Okay.

Jamie: And I have a question for you. So, what happens if you’re doing the centering exercise and you don’t like it? You don’t like what comes up.

Jay: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So, let me come back to that and tell you the third felt resource before I forget, because I probably will, and then I’ll come back to that question, okay?

So, the third felt resource - there’s grounding, there’s centering - the third one is orienting. That one is looking around the space that you’re in and taking in the familiar objects, the colors, the textures. It’s kind of like the YOU ARE HERE sticker at a trailhead, you know? Where you’re just kind of looking around and reminding yourself, okay this is what’s happening, you’re expanding your awareness. Because the other thing that’s happening when your nervous system goes into fight or flight is we get tunnel vision. We get beady eyes, right? And all of a sudden all you can focus on is the thing that’s freaking you out. So, to just look around the room, and you don’t have to do it in a big way that makes you look like you’re crazy, but just to kind of take in okay, there’s the couch, there’s the desk, this is happening, I’m here.

So, back to your question. It’s a really, really great question. What happens if you check in with one of these felt resources, it brings you back into your body and what’s happening and you don’t like it?

Jamie: Yeah.

Jay: First off, you’re a human being. That’s what happens for most of us, which is part of why this is hard for people, is, for the most part, our internal experience, for many of us, isn’t comfortable. It isn’t welcoming. It can even be painful or full of anxiety and so part of what the felt resource is for is not just to bring you back, but to then also be a container for what’s happening, meaning you will experience discomfort, or you might experience discomfort, and if you do, it will not kill you. And, here’s the thing, because the nervous system responds to discomfort as a threat, it feels like it will kill you.

Jamie: Yeah.

Jay: It feels awful. Nobody likes it. And it won’t [kill you]. And so, what if you don’t like the experience? Well, one, acknowledging this is the experience I’m having, I don’t like it, and it won’t kill me.

Jamie: You know, can I add to that?

Jay: Please.

Jamie: Yeah, I love that it’s not gonna kill you, but it feels like it might. I think about my early career experiences and I’d think, “Oh, I can speak up and mention this,” or “I can speak up and ask for this,” and then immediately my mind goes to oh, but then they’ll think I’m blah blah blah, or they’ll push back and it’ll be so embarrassing and that future projection of how things might go wrong for me was so frightening!

Jay: Right, and you spin out, and I think what you just said is super important, Jamie, the future projection. Because that’s the thing about the felt resources, is they bring you into the present moment. And in the present moment you might be having a sensation that is uncomfortable, however, you are not in danger. In a physical sense, you’re not in danger.

But the other piece that’s really important, so you’ve got the felt resources, and then you have the other piece that I call having your own back. So, in order to have your own back, first is you need to be able to feel what’s happening in your body.

Jamie: Literally.

Jay: Literally! Like what’s happening? Do I have a heaviness in my stomach? Do I have a tightness in my chest? Are my hands sweaty? You know, do I feel like I’m just dissipating energetically and I’ve got no skin left anymore? Am I disappearing? You need to be able to feel those things first, but the second piece, and this is the most important piece, especially when it’s something you don’t like feeling, is meeting yourself with your presence.

So, that’s what the grounding, centering, orienting helps you to do. So, meeting yourself with your presence and then adding empathy and kindness. Meaning, the easiest way that I’ve found to do this, because this is really, really, really hard for most people, because most of us are used to meeting a sensation that’s uncomfortable with well, you shouldn’t feel that way! or buck up! or get your shit together! We kind of try to snap ourselves out of it.

Jamie: Yeah, you might go to your center and start thinking, oh, I need to some more ab exercises, which is a thought I did have.

Jay: Yeah, totally! That happens too, like oh, what’s happening here, right? So the adding empathy piece, so there’s the use the felt resource, get present with what’s happening in my body and then there’s the second piece of use that presence to essentially say to yourself, of course you feel that way.

So, you’re in the negotiation. You’re already anxious because you’re asking for something that’s a really big ask for you. The person that you’re speaking with goes, “Oh, really? Because I don’t think we can do that.” And they push back and all of a sudden the anxiety increases, the rev in your body increases, and if there is a part of you that can go, oh, this is happening, I don’t like that it’s happening, and of course it’s happening. Right? You affirm the thing that’s happening, and if we scan back out, this is what all good relationships are built upon, right, is empathy and understanding. Being able to say, “Oh, Jamie, as your friend, of course you feel that way, you know, I understand that.” If you came to me and said, “I’m super anxious right now,” I wouldn’t say, “Well, figure it out because this is high stakes, come on!”

Jamie: “Buck up!”

Jay: Exactly! I’d say, “Of course you feel that way, this is a big deal.”

Jamie: Yeah, or “I’ve never done it before.” or “You haven’t had so many opportunities to negotiate on behalf of yourself. You were always expected to negotiate on behalf of other people, so it feels foreign.” Yeah, and I love that you’re, I guess you’re talking about compassion for yourself, ultimately, yeah? Because it’s like having empathy for yourself as if you’re your own friend.

Jay: Yeah. Kindness! Like this novel idea that you could offer kindness to yourself.

Jamie: Yeah, I think it’s so powerful to be kind to yourself in a negotiation.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

Jamie: It probably is the last thing people think of. Oh, I need to have the right words and the power and the leverage, but yeah, what about kindness to yourself?

Jay: Yeah, and I want to acknowledge for a lot of us it’s really, really hard. It’s not how we were wired, especially in a high stakes situation, we were, a lot of us taught that the harder you are on yourself, the better you will be.

Jamie: Right, and there is the gendered stereotype that women are emotional, therefore they are not rational decision-makers, therefore they’re not good negotiators. And so, what you’re saying, sort of just subverts all of that. What you’re saying is acknowledging your emotions, allowing for emotions to come up and be present is actually a power, not a deficit.

So, I want to ask you a follow-up question about that, because I think a lot of us, even some of my clients tell me this, they think, oh, I just need to buck up! I just need to put emotion out of this and just power through! So they want to pretend that they don’t experience the anxiety, the fear, and the doubt. So, what’s the problem with that?

Jay: Okay, yeah, so you can do that. The problem is it disconnects you from yourself. There’s a way that you can’t be present to yourself, with what’s happening, and deny what’s happening. And when you do that, it means that you also can’t be present to the other person.

Jamie: Oh.

Jay: And it means that you can’t be present to your inner resources, like all the amazing stuff that you have on your resume that got you to this point where you’re negotiating for a higher salary. You don’t actually have access to those things if you are trying to deny your own experience in the moment. Does that make sense?

Jamie: Yeah, so when you deny yourself and you deny your own experience in the moment, you’re not present to yourself and therefore you’re also not present to the other side.

Jay: Exactly, and so it’s not about like, you have to tell the person I’m freaking out right now. Nor is that if you’re scared you need to curl up in a ball and manage that that way. It really does work to simply feel the feeling. Like, the sensation is I’m tight all over. I interpret that as I’m scared. And then just naming it and then on some level, even if it’s just like a hand on your heart or a hand on your leg, of course you feel that way and I’m here. Right? Being able to say to yourself, “And I’m here.”

Jamie: I’d love to add to that. I think it’s so powerful what you’re suggesting because our mutual friend and my mentor, Lisa Gates, she always talks about the power of naming the elephant in the room.

Jay: Right.

Jamie: And sometimes the elephant, you know, it’s not visible, it’s not something that we can perceive with our eyes, but it’s something we feel with our intuition. And so, being able to name that feeling, let’s say you’re negotiating with a bully and they’re implying some very nasty things but not making it explicit, right? So there’s an elephant in the room. You feel the feeling of having been, I guess, put down, right? And being able to tap into that feeling and naming that. Saying, “Hey, you know, I’m surprised you would say something like that and not realize that would really hurt my feelings.”

Jay: Right.

Jamie: That’s a kind of naming the elephant.

Jay: That’s so great. Naming the elephant, when it comes to it being your own experience is a way of really standing for yourself. Having your back.

Jamie: Right.

Jay: And that’s what the negotiation process is in the first place, right? This is just the second layer to that.

Jamie: Right, yeah. And it just deepens it and makes you more present. The more present you are, the better questions you can ask, the more information you can gather, and that way you gain more leverage.

Jay: Yeah, and the less your nervous system is hijacking your brain, the more you can have access to all your best qualities.

Jamie: Yeah, beautiful. It’s so true. So that you’re fully present. Yeah, so another follow-up question is, for a lot of my clients and this audience, we tend to defer to other people’s comfort for happiness. I am a recovering, extreme people pleaser.

Jay: Me too!

Jamie: Yeah, and we do this by overdoing, not setting boundaries, not asking for what you’re worth, not saying no when you don’t want to, saying yes instead of no. So, it seems that becoming more aware of your feelings would just make you vulnerable and disempowered and I think that’s a misconception, so I’d love to hear from you, why is that not true?

Jay: Yeah, it is a widely held misconception because we just don’t know a better way and so this has kind of been spread as this is true. So, to answer that, I’m going to also step back again and put it in context. So, every human being has three needs. They need to feel like they’re safe, they need to feel like they belong, and they need to feel like they matter. So safety, belonging and mattering. All of us need these. And we get these needs met, or don’t, through relationship with others. And how we got them met or didn’t, growing up greatly influences how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about the fact that we have feelings.

So, we’re relational beings, right? So, we get safety, belonging, mattering from other people, and that’s great, but it’s also really important to be able to give it to yourself. To be able to feel that you can offer yourself safety, belonging and mattering. Because, to the extent that you can’t offer that to yourself, that’s when, like you said, you try to either please others or control them, because that’s the opposite. You either please or control others. You don’t have any boundaries or you have too many and you keep people at bay. Or this is where addictive behaviors come in or where just self-criticism and self-hatred come in. So, why am I saying all of this in relation to your question? That is because when you acknowledge how you feel, when you can say the sensation is this, the emotion is this, of course I feel that way, that is a way of offering yourself a felt sense of I am safe, I belong and I matter.

Jamie: Wow!

Jay: Does that make sense? Literally, in your body, if you were to say to yourself, “Of course you’re scared, Jamie.” There’s a way that you’re there with yourself so you feel safe. You’re acknowledging and affirming how you feel, so you feel like you matter. And putting that together there’s this sense of I’m okay, I belong. Regardless of whether this bully or this not-bully who’s pushing back is giving me what I want in terms of feeling safe, belonging or mattering, I can do it for myself. And what happens is, when you get that for yourself, you don’t do all the weird, strategic behaviors that we do to try to get them from someone.

Jamie: Right. I just really love how profound and simple that was.

Jay: Yeah!

Jamie: Simply acknowledging yourself and that is the secret. Simply acknowledge how you feel in that moment and I guess what you’re saying is allow yourself to feel all the feels. Right?

Jay: Yeah, well, and in the moment, this is what makes, part of what makes this challenging. If you’re in the moment, you’re in the office with your boss and you’re negotiating, you can’t actually drop in and feel the feels entirely. But you can affirm them. You can affirm that they’re there and they’re real. And then it’s gonna still be in your system, right? And you walk out of the room and maybe you go into the bathroom and you get into a stall and you just kind of shake a little bit. Or you have a cry. Or you punch at the air. Whatever you need to do to start running the emotions through your body as opposed to just acknowledging that they’re there.

Jamie: I see. So, there is a process. It’s not just like, in the moment, split-second, saying oh, I feel these things. There you go, I’m done! You allow yourself to have the full process of the experience of the body sensations.

Jay: Yeah, and the thing is is it might be done in the moment, right? But if it’s an intense sensation, if it’s an intense experience, it’s gonna still be there when you leave the room. That’s why you leave the room and then you go back to your desk and you feel all jacked up and you can’t quite concentrate and you’re a little fidgety, right, is because all that energy, all that anxiety is still in your body. So, that’s an opportunity, maybe now that you’re not in the heat of the moment with someone there with you, you just, again, ground or center or one of them will work for you. For most people, one of them is easier than the others. So, pick the one that helps you to go, “I’m here in my body,” maybe a hand on your chest and just go, “I am anxious and of course I feel that way.” And just kind of let yourself feel it as a feeling, as emotion.

Jamie: Yeah.

Jay: But it all comes back to a relationship with yourself, really. That empathic and warm and kind and it isn’t, it’s something that’s felt, not cerebral.

Jamie: Got it. It’s literally a sensation in your body.

Jay: Yeah. It’s like, what if your best friend came and sat down next to you and put her hand on your leg and said, “Of course you feel that way.” You feel it. That’s what we’re trying to offer ourselves.

Jamie: Is there a way for people to cope with that resistance? We’ve been trained from such a young age to repress certain emotions, right? I’m Asian, so in the Asian culture there’s a lot of that emotion suppression, right? And also, we’re conditioned to say certain things in certain situations. All different ways of sort of pushing down your emotions and so, do you have a suggestion for people who are so accustomed to pushing down anger?

Jay: Yeah, oh my gosh, this is one of my favorite questions, I’m so happy you asked this! Because most of us in some form of resistance most of the time. Most of us have been conditioned culturally and in our family to believe that emotions are just not the greatest things ever and we should probably not have them.

So most of us are in resistance, and what I’ve found, the best way to work with that is first, acknowledge you’re there. So, typically, most of us at this point in our life know what we do to try and avoid feeling, right? We work long hours or we watch long hours of Netflix or we eat chocolate or we go grab a drink, or we do drugs. Most of us know what our thing is that we do to try and manage. And so, if you can catch yourself if one of those behaviors or you can catch yourself in that feeling of, “I feel nothing,” right? Where you go to look in your body and you go to see what you feel and you feel nothing. Or all you feel is just pure tightness everywhere. The way to work with that is to say to yourself, “I don’t want to feel this.” And what that does is it brings you back to being aligned with what’s true in your body’s experience, which is, in your body, you are currently in resistance. You are in fight, flight or shut-down. And if you can name, “No. NO. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to feel this.” You don’t even have to know what it is that you don’t want to feel. All you need to know is that your nervous system right now is telling you “No! I don’t want this.”

Jamie: So, acknowledge the resistance.

Jay: Acknowledge it! And what happens is one of two things: either you all of a sudden become aware of the thing you didn’t want to feel and you’re there with yourself feeling it, because it kind of sneaks up on you, right? Or you’re there feeling the no. But either way, you haven’t abandoned yourself, you haven’t left your resources. You can be angry and present. The same way that you can be resistant and present. And we’re just used to resistance looking like I’m not gonna be present.

Jamie: What might that look like? You’re angry and you’re present to it.

Jay: Good question. So, anger, typically in our bodies feels like heat. It feels like energy coursing through us. It feels like tightness, and so to be present to that is to acknowledge, I’m hot, my hands are gripping and I’ve got a lot of energy in me and I’m angry. And to allow that sensation to happen in your body. And you’re present with it.

So, I often talk with my clients about this in terms of, especially when it comes to anger, I talk about it in terms of wattage. If you think of yourself as a light bulb who’s typically a 60-watt light bulb and then somebody pokes the bear, and you get angry, and then all of a sudden, the sensations in your body feel like they’re 120 watts. And what we want to do is get out of there. That’s the nervous system response: fight, flight, freeze, this is too much wattage, I can’t handle this.

But you can actually, through using the felt resources and learning to be present with yourself, learn that wattage is just wattage. The same way that discomfort is just discomfort. It will not blow your circuitry. You can stand heat. You can stand tension. And then the interpretation of that is anger, and yes, you might have to acknowledge and feel the anger when you’re outside of this and outside of the situation,  but in the situation, if you’re with a boss and they’ve said something that puts you down and you get fired up right away, you can be with the sensation of I’m fired up and not have it come out your mouth as something you wish you wouldn’t say.

Jamie: Yeah. That reminds me of something you said earlier about how we’re containers of emotion, so it’s kind of like taking yourself from inside that boiling pot into realizing, no, I’m the pot that holds this boiling water.

Jay: Right. And the big thing is is that none of this is about making the emotion go away, and I think so much of the new age or holistic kind of approaches to things is like you shouldn’t feel emotion or there’s negative emotions. And I don’t like to think of emotions as negative or positive, I like to think of them as uncomfortable or pleasant, right?

And you don’t have to get rid of the ones that are uncomfortable. You just use your presence, that felt sense of yourself, to help you regulate how much of that is in your awareness, versus how much of I’m grounded, I’m centered, I’m here in this space, I have resources, I belong here, I matter, I’m safe, right? The emotion doesn’t go away, but the other things, you just turn the volume up on them.

Jamie: Mmm, well this is really tremendous. I think this is very important because I do causal coaching and I help people deal with their mindsets and improve upon them and when you work with what’s in your mind, that always generates emotion and some of them are very uncomfortable, like doubt, anxiety fear. So, I think the felt resources that you shared with us and reminding ourselves that we are safe, that we do belong to ourselves and that we matter to ourselves, it’s so powerful. I think it changes everything.

Jay: It really, really does. I say that all the time.

Jamie: Yeah, thank you. So, where can our audience learn more about what you do and your services?

Jay: I have a website, and it is jay-fields.com and on there you can learn about the individual coaching I do and the trainings that I do at organizations and there’s a recorded guided meditation for the felt resources if you want to go back through them and there’s a bunch of writing and articles about different aspects of having your own back.

Jamie: Awesome, and Jay, I am a huge fan of your writing. I love the book Teaching People, Not Poses. I found it very relevant for me even though I don’t teach yoga, I teach negotiation. Being yourself is a great lesson to be reminded of. So, thank you so much for your time again and I will talk with you soon!

Jay: Great, thank you so much. I’m so grateful for this. Have a great day!

Jamie: Alright, you too.

Jay: Bye!

Why We Need to Talk About the "F" Word in Negotiation

“How you feel doesn’t matter.” “Women are emotional and therefore make terrible negotiators.” “Your feelings are a weakness.” These are all myths that undermine our humanity and undermine our potential for negotiation success.

To feel is to be human. To have emotional intelligence is to have a secret weapon in a negotiation.

I explain the importance of feelings in negotiation and invite you to join me for a free teleclass on using advanced emotional intelligence for negotiation success. 

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Full Episode Transcript: 

Hello, welcome to episode seventeen. This is Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host Jamie Lee. I work as a leadership and negotiation coach for women on the rise. I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills and that we need to talk about the "F" word in negotiation. 

No, I'm not talking about the four-letter "F" word. I'm talking about feelings. Yes. 

You all have heard this... 
"How you feel doesn't matter. Be strong, and don't back down. No matter what." 
"Whatever you do at the negotiation, don't get emotional. Just focus on the numbers." 
Here's another one: "Women are emotional. Men are rational thinkers and make better negotiators." 
Or how about this one: "Your feelings are a weakness." 

These are all false. Every single one of them. 

Pushing feelings away is like trying to swim underwater without taking breaths. You’ll go five minutes before drowning or popping out of the water, gasping for air. 

Likewise, how you feel can make or break your negotiation. That's why, on Thursday April 26, I'm hosting a free tele-class on how to use advanced emotional intelligence for negotiation success. To register, go to this link. 

Don’t take my word for it. Take MIT professor Jared R. Curhan’s. 

In their research, he and his colleagues at MIT Sloan School of Management and UC Berkeley found that four things are most important to negotiators: 

• Their feelings about potential outcomes
• Their feelings about themselves in the negotiation 
• Their feelings about the negotiation process
• Their feelings about their relationship with the other negotiator 

When you feel optimistic about outcomes, confident about yourself, happy about the process, and connected with the other negotiator, negotiating is like a walk in the park. 

When you feel resentful that you don’t have more, insecure about your ability to negotiate, fearful of the process, or angry at the other negotiator, negotiating can be like chewing glass. 

It can be painful. 

It can feel like things are out of control. 

It can be tempting to react by making demands, running out, or starting a fight, which I promise you will backfire. 

Here’s what I want to offer. 

Feelings are not irrational or irrelevant. 

Feelings are generated by your thoughts. 

You have the power to generate new thoughts. 

That means you have the power to deal with negative emotions and generate positive emotions, so you can bring your full capacity for problem-solving, creativity, and leadership to the table. 

So when it comes to negotiating, you have the choice. You can either chew glass or take a walk in the park. 

So my question to you is: Which do you prefer? 

In conclusion, contrary to popular misconception, emotions rule in negotiation.

Smart negotiators prepare a logical case. Masterful negotiators use advanced emotional intelligence to connect with their counterparts in a meaningful way to create durable agreements that unlock benefit for both sides of the table. 

If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to join the free tele-class on Thursday, April 26. Click here to register. 
 

Ding! 5 Minute Exercise for Negotiation Anxiety

Does the thought of negotiating for yourself make your hands go clammy, your throat dry and your heart beating fast?

I share the good news about negotiation anxiety, the tough news (not bad, just tough) and a five minute exercise for overcoming anxiety so you can take confident action towards your goals.

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Full Episode Transcript:

Hello! Welcome to the eleventh episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. We’ve been talking about the key practices for negotiation success on this podcast, and I shared my free script on how to ask for a big pay raise.

I got unexpected feedback that some people thought it doesn’t apply to them. That this wouldn’t work for them because they haven’t contributed as much value as Karina did in the example that I give in this book. That clued me into the fact that I’ve overlooked one of the most important negotiations that we ever have. It’s the one we have with ourselves. 

What am I talking about? I’m talking about negotiation anxiety. I’m talking about that clammy feeling in your hands, when your mouth goes dry and your heart starts beating really fast before you negotiate, and for some, it’s so bad they just don’t negotiate.

They let that anxiety hold them back from initiating a conversation, engaging and asking for what they want. How do we overcome this? I have for you, the good news, the tough news - it’s not bad news, it’s just tough news that we can process - and then a quick, five-minute exercise for overcoming negotiation anxiety so that you can articulate your value, advocate for your value, ask and get what you want.

So, what’s the good news? The good news about negotiation anxiety is that really, when you boil it down to the essentials, it’s basically just a thought. A stressful thought that causes a vibration in your body.

That’s the good news, because number two: it’s true that you’re not your thoughts. You can have the thoughts. What you feel, what you experience when you have that thought, it’s not really you, it’s just the thought.

And then finally, the third good news is that you can have new thoughts. You can generate new thoughts. This is basically not unlike reframing, when you create new perspectives, new ideas in a negotiation. Just like that, you can have new thoughts in your head.

So, what’s the tough news?

Three key news. The first is that no one teaches us how to do this, really. I’ve read many, many negotiation books, but no one talks about how to overcome your negotiation anxiety so that you can show up with real confidence. They just tell you, don’t be emotional. It doesn’t really help, because emotions drive our actions and our decision-making process.

And number two: the tough news is that without overcoming negotiation anxiety, we’ll never actually feel good, even when we get what we want. In other words, without overcoming negotiation anxiety, we never feel successful, so that’s kind of tough.

The third news is that generating new thoughts and feeling successful, it takes practice.

So, what do we do? What are the four key steps? Think about a stressful conversation or a negotiation that’s causing you anxiety. I want you to hear a bell go off in your head when you feel that dread and anxiety. The clammy hands, the heart palpitating, your shoulders stiffening up, and you feel that negative emotion and the vibration in your body. Feel a DING go off. What is DING? It’s basically an acronym, D-I-N-G.

D - Deep breath. Relax. Try to relax. And you can do it by taking a deep breath in and a full breath out. I learned that when you are feeling anxious, you actually don’t exhale fully. You’re trying to take a breath in, you’re feeling anxious, and you’re going like this (hyperventilating), but you don’t ahhhhhh, exhale fully. So, breathe in for four, exhale for six. Something I learned in elementary school that still works. Take a deep breath. (I do this as part of my morning meditation every day)

I - Identify your feeling. What is that vibration? Where is it in your body? Do you feel it in your neck? In your shoulder? In your solar plexus? In your hands? Just feel it. Identify it. Be with it. Observe it. Own it, so that you can release it. And now, the N.

N - Name that thought. What is that sentence in your head that’s causing the vibration? Ask yourself: what am I thinking? What is the stressful thought? And for many people it’s a variation on: I’m not good enough. I haven’t done enough. I’m a hack. I’m not good enough. There’s something wrong with me.  Okay, so once you have identified your emotions and have named that thought or that sentence, it’s the G.

G - Go change the thought. Now, if you’re thinking oh, she’s gonna be like oh, just turn it around, make it all positive, happy-go-lucky, you’re thriving! No. Actually, no. Don’t turn it around to the positive just yet. And that’s because we want to train our brain to think in a new way, and when we try to give it new, positive thoughts, it just does this reverse thing.

It’s just like: Ugh, it’s too positive, I can’t believe it. In fact, it’s so positive that it turns me off, and I’m just gonna go more negative because I feel I can’t believe it.

So we want to train our brains to have new thoughts by training it to think in increments or baby steps. And so, from having that thought I’m not good enough, go to a neutral place.

A positive change to that thought I’m not good enough might be something like, I’m amazing! I’m thriving! I’m so happy! But when you try to believe that thought, you just feel kind of more turned down, not turned up, so go neutral.

What’s in between the thought I’m not good enough and I am amazing? Completely neutral might be something like: I exist. I do the work that I have.

So from there, go find evidence to support that neutral thought. I do the work that I have. Did you have a task item on your list that you crossed off today? Do you carry the function that you’re assigned to do? What is the evidence that you do the work that you have? What is the evidence that you simply exist? And now that you have a neutral thought, and you have evidence to support this new thought, can you believe it? And how does it feel? 

It might sound a little self-help-y. It might sound something like: Wait, why aren’t you giving me negotiation tips and tricks and strategies? I just want to make the money, I just want to go close my wage gap.

But the thing is, in order for us to close our wage gaps, in order for us to show up as leaders, the kind of leaders that we want to be in the world, we have to have confidence, right? And confidence comes from taking action, but we feel so much anxiety that we’re frozen and can’t take action, we don’t get confident. And where does action come from? Confident action comes from a feeling that you have. The conviction in your body. And the feeling comes from a thought that you have in your head, the belief inside of you that you are worth it. That there is something to take action for. That there is something worth taking a risk for. 

So, I really want to encourage you to take time to feel the anxiety that you feel when you have a negotiation coming up, when you have a difficult conversation coming up. The good news is that you can turn it around, and you can start with neutral thoughts. When you have neutral thoughts you are feeling something different and taking a different action.

So, I hope that this podcast was helpful for you. I hope that I have helped you see negotiation anxiety in a different light, and that you take action on the things that you want, you take action on becoming the leader that you want to be.

Thank you, and talk to you soon!
 

What are the 5 Key Practices for Negotiation Success?

Negotiation skills are leadership skills.

Conscious leadership and value-creating negotiation both require self-awareness, learning agility, communication and influence.

I share my definition of negotiation and five key practices for negotiation success.

Enjoy!

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Full Episode Transcript:

Hello! Welcome to the eighth episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. I work as a negotiation and leadership coach for ambitious women. I believe that we are all born to thrive.

I looked up the definition of the word thrive in the dictionary, and it said it means to grow with vigor. I looked up the word vigor, and vigor means vitality, life force, energy.

The word thrive kind of makes you think of something really happy and joyful, but for some reason I keep confusing the word vigor with rigor. It might be because English is my second language, I don’t know, but I got curious and I looked up rigor, too.

Rigor is harshness. Something difficult. Constraints. It kind of makes sense to me that to thrive requires both vigor and rigor. Yes, you need life force. Yes, you need energy. But you also need to overcome something difficult. You need rigor in order to truly thrive. 

I say that because negotiation is difficult for a lot of people. We’d rather not do it. We’d rather avoid it. We’d rather resist it. Or we’d rather approach it with this attitude of defensiveness, anger, righteousness. We put up a fight.

I don’t think this is really constructive. I also don’t think that negotiation is a fight. Negotiation is not about manipulation, confrontation. It’s simply a conversation. A conversation where everyone has the right to say no. A conversation where we try to come to an agreement. That is it. That is my definition of negotiation. That means we negotiate all the time, for little things, big things.

Who’s gonna do the dishes? What are we gonna do for dinner? How are we going to resolve peace, how are we going to come to peace in the Korean peninsula? These are all negotiations, and we have been engaging in these conversations ever since we were able to say the word “No,” ever since we were able to express our desire for autonomy, for self-expression, when we were either one and a half or two years old or for some people three years old.

So, whatever your age is, subtract two from it and that’s how long you have been practicing, that’s how long you have been negotiating for what you want. 

I believe that negotiation is a leadership skill, and so every time I teach negotiation, I start with, “What kind of leader do you want to be?” Next Monday, I have the great privilege of leading a hands-on, interactive negotiation workshop for Smith alums in Philadelphia, and for that workshop, I prepared a one-sheet with five key practices for negotiation success, and I thought, “You know, why not share it with my podcast audience?”

So, a quick preamble here. There’s a wonderful book called The Fifteen Commitments of Conscious Leadership, and it says there are four core competencies of conscious leadership, and I find that these four core competencies are also the core competencies of value-creating, problem-solving negotiation. I learned this from Lisa Gates at She Negotiates, my business mentor, and I think it’s phenomenal, because it really teaches you what you need to bring in order to have problem-solving, value-creating, negotiation conversations. 

So the four competencies are: 

Number one: Self-awareness. Are you aware of your skills, your strengths, your qualities, your tendencies, your conflict style, your communication style? The more you know, the better you will handle, the better you will manage yourself in and throughout the negotiation process.

Number two: Learning agility. The goal of negotiation is to 1) gather information, and 2) influence the behavior of others. So, throughout the conversation, you want to be learning and learning in different ways. So, improving your learning agility will really help you negotiate with success.

Number three: Communication. Negotiation is simply a communication discipline. It’s a communication with a goal, right? So, how do you communicate? You listen. You express yourself. You reflect on what you’ve heard and you try to express your desires so that it is receptive to the listener. Much earlier in this podcast series, I think it was Episode 3, when I talked about the traps of perfectionism, I talked about how there are four elements within communication: What you want to say, how you say it, what people hear, and what they make it mean. So, that’s communication.

Number four: Influence. You want to influence the other’s behavior in a negotiation, right? You want them to say yes* (In the podcast, I say "no," but I mean "yes." Mea Culpa.) or you want them to change their minds if they’re saying no. The thing about influence is it’s not about telling people what to do and in negotiation it’s not always a debate where you want to prove yourself right and prove the other person wrong. Real influence doesn’t work like that, because real influence is when you have an indirect impact on the other person’s perception, decision making process, and in which they feel that they have come to the decision on their own. So, it’s not about telling people what to do. That’s not negotiation, that’s making demands. It’s not about proving the other side wrong. That’s debate, right? It’s really about influencing. In order to influence, you really need to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the other, see their perspective, and of course that requires empathy.

So, I will wrap this up with, as I mentioned earlier, the five key practices of negotiation success, and what I would like to do in the subsequent episodes is go a little bit deeper into each of the key practices. 

So, number one: the first key practice of negotiation success is to articulate your value so that they see the value of you as a benefit to them. 

Number two: build your alliance. Lisa Gates calls it building your influence posse. I love that. Reaching out to your network. Identifying who are champions who can advocate for you, allies who will go to bat for you, and influencers who will create inroads with the key decision-maker in this negotiation. 

Number three: dig and listen deeply. I know there are a lot of combative negotiators who feel like the point of negotiation is simply to get more than the other side, and it’s all about me, just let me make my point, and I am right. No. Real negotiation happens when you listen and dig deeper into the hidden interests of the other side. 

Number four: anchor first and anchor high. Really good, masterful negotiators understand the magic of telling people what you want and dropping that anchor. It’s a cognitive bias that can work towards your favor.

Number five: get genuine buy-in. That’s what I was talking about earlier when I explained influence. It’s not about telling people what to do, that’s making demands. It’s not about proving other people wrong, that’s debating. Negotiation and true influence is when the other side come to see your point of view, and the other side come to decide for themselves to go along with your proposal. So that’s real, genuine buy-in. It’s how you really get through to people and connect.

I’m really excited about going deeper into these key practices with you in the subsequent episodes, and I hope that you have a wonderful day where you thrive. Talk to you soon!
 

Overcoming the Fear: She Brags Too Much

“But I don’t want them to think I’m bragging.” I hear this a LOT as a negotiation coach for women.

In this episode, I share concrete tips for overcoming the fear of judgment that holds us back from speaking up, advocating for our value and confidently negotiating for what we want.

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Transcript:

Here's a question I often ask my clients who are challenged with advocating for their value, with negotiating at work, and with stepping up and speaking out for what they want. 

That question is, "What will you do if you weren't afraid of what other people think?" 

This is in response to the fear that says, "They will think I'm bragging, that I'm being too aggressive by promoting myself." 

This, my friends, is a battle of identity. 

Identity is a vulnerable thing. It changes constantly, who you are, how you see yourself, how you frame your identity, how you express that identity. It changes every day, sometimes by moment. And I think that's a beautiful thing. 

It's a battle of identity because if you are giving into that fear, "What will people think?" you're listening to the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee (discussed in episode three). It's the voice that tells you to stay quiet, stay small, and stay safe.

It says, "Don't take that risk."

It asks, "Who do you think you are?" 

It warns, "People will judge you. Don't take that risk. Don't grow. Don't thrive." 

We sometimes mistake this voice as our identity. We think this is us. The danger here is that we become victims of our story. 

I remember vividly how when I worked as a manager, I would always blame other people. My life was miserable because of my manager. My life was miserable because things were unjust. 

The questions in my head were, "When will they fix this? When will things get better? When will the other shoe drop? Why does this always happen to me?" All questions of victimhood. 

The trap is in mistaking our identity with the story whispered in our heads by the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee, and this happens subconsciously. It gets comfortable thinking like this. It gets comfortable and familiar being in the place of victimhood, anger, shame and blame. 

It's kind of like having an old pair of jeans that you absolutely love but you've been wearing them for years and years. They're long past their expiration date, but you keep wearing them because you're a creature of habit and they're so comfortable. 

To step into a new pair of jeans, to go out there and to buy a new pair of jeans is...oh my gosh, so much hassle, right? 

It's kind of like stepping into a new identity. I'm speaking as someone who has a tendency to wear jeans long past their expiration date, so for me, stepping into a new pair of jeans can feel like..."Ugh, do I have to?"

Reluctance. 

I hear that reluctance in the voices of my clients who think, "Oh, I can't advocate for myself. I can't brag. It's not nice. It's not ladylike." 

Why not you?

Why not you in those fancy, trendy, stylish pair of jeans that's going to make you look good AND feel good about yourself? 

Yes, it's a risk to promote yourself.

Yes, it's a hassle to step out into the world in a new identity.

The new identity as someone who is bold, who is brave, who does step up, who does speak out, who cares a little less about what other people think, who cares a little more about making her dream a reality, about making her future self happy, and about investing in the growth of her career. 

It's not unlike stepping into a new pair of jeans and feeling a little vulnerable, wondering, "What will people think?" 

So to combat this, I have three concrete tips for you. 

1. Try self-promotion with a small group of supportive friends.

In the lady network called Get Bullish (Bullish women are ambitious feminists) founded by Jen Dziura, she promotes the culture of bragging.

She's encouraging women to grow our bragging muscles, so we can own our success and not be ashamed sharing with the world what we have accomplished. We should be proud, and we should be telling people, so that people do know our value and pay us accordingly. 

Find your own network if you're not part of the Bullish Network. And give each other permission to brag shamelessly. 

It's like showing off your new jeans to a small group of friends before stepping out for a big party. 

2. Let people know that you're trying this out. 

To be more specific, you can say, "I'm trying this new thing, where I'm more forthcoming about my accomplishments. What I have accomplished are...X, Y and Z." 

In other words, open with vulnerability. 

3. Be compassionate with yourself. 

The old jeans or the old identity served you well so far, but it's time to step into the new you. 

Don't be afraid of letting go of old, comfortable habits. Be brave and speak up. It's a bit like stepping into new jeans, because it's about exploring a new you. You are always growing into a new you, a version of you that thrives.