YouSaid · the spoken record

William Ury

lines on the record: 99
first: 2024-02-13
most recent: 2024-02-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Your own difficult conflicts, and you'll see that if you can go to the balcony, you can do that inside job, that self-mastery, that stoic philosophy, and if you can then build the other side of Golden Bridge, something that works for both sides, and if you can take the third side, engage the larger community for the benefit of the community, if we can do those three things, balcony, bridge, third side, those are our human, I believe, innate superpowers. If we can awaken them, then I think we can kind of create the world that we want for ourselves and the people that we love.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, this has been a huge pleasure to speak with you, Tim. And I'm a big fan of your podcast and of your, I believe that this possibilist mindset and my humble request to your listeners is take this possibilist mindset, this belief that I think infuses this podcast of this belief in human potential and being curious and being creative and being collaborative and apply it.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This podcast, you're a possibilist. You believe in human potential. My hope, my dream is that there's a worldwide league of possibilists who are tackling the world's toughest problems, and that could be your personal issues. It could be issues with yourself, issues with your partner, it could be professional work-life issues, it could be in the community, or can be in the larger world, the political world. using, harnessing our full human potential for what you have here in this podcast, which is our full human potential for curiosity, our full human potential for creativity, and our full human potential for collaboration to transform these conflicts. Because if we can transform these conflicts, we can transform our lives, we can transform our world. That's my dream.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here's my dream. My dream is if I was a Martian anthropologist right now looking at humanity and I look at us and say, wow, we live in this time of paradox because we have so much abundance, so much potential, so much opportunity to make the world better. You know, we've got the technology, we've got AI, we've got all this stuff. At the same time, what's in our way, there's no limit to what we could do. There's no opportunity we can't realize. There's no problem we can't solve if only we can learn to work together. And what's in the way are these conflicts that seem impossible, that seem polarizing and paralyzing. And the reason I wrote possible was to indicate from my own experience of spending 45 years wandering around the world as a negotiator and an anthropologist trying to understand these things, seeing where people took impossible situations and found possibilities. And my hope is that we're all possibilists. I mean, anyone listening.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Getting yes, we tell the story about these two sisters quarreling about an orange. They quarrel about the orange and finally they cut the orange in half and one sister takes her half and peels it and uses half of peel for baking a cake and the other sister takes her half peels it and eats the half of the fruit and they end up with half a peel for one and a half a fruit for the other win because their position was the orange. But if they looked behind what their interests were which were in cooking and eating, they could have ended up with a whole peel for one and a half fruit for the other.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Without even giving up your aspiration for independence. And, you know, is there any way you can meet your interests in autonomy and control over natural resources and so on? And that began a whole conversation with them. They went back into their movement for a couple years. And lo and behold, a few years later, after that tsunami, they came back and they negotiated an agreement with the Indonesian government, which gave them autonomy, control of their natural resources. Kids can go to school in their own language. They could practice their own religion. You know, everything. And there was an election and the governor and the vice governor came from this independence movement. They advanced their interests without surrendering their ultimate aspiration. They moved it forward. And that to me just showed just the enormous value of always digging behind positions because we're like that. We've got our position to become self-evident. But oftentimes we know our position, but we don't know what our interests are. We missed a chance to advance our interests.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They struggled with it for a long time. And I finally said, okay, so is it you want your own place in the UN? Is it because you want political autonomy, the ability to have your own parliament and run things? Is it economic? Do you want control over your natural resources? Is it cultural? Do you want your kids to go to school in your own language? And we started to unpack it. And the reason why it was so important, it's just struck me. Here they've been fighting for 25 years, thousands of people dead, and they knew what their position was, but they hadn't really thought through what their strategic interests were and prioritize them. And the reason why that was so important was because of Batna. Their best alternative to a negotiated agreement was to continue the war. And I said to them, are you going to win this war? They said, oh, the Indonesian army is much stronger, you know. 10 years will still be fighting this war. And I said, is there any way that you can pursue your interests?”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can't tell you how many stories I've heard like that, you know, like where it just turns out to be something simple. You know, I go back to, I give you an example from years ago, I was invited in as a mediator between a separatist group in Indonesia that had been fighting for 25 years for their independence from Indonesia, thousands of people dead. And I was meeting the head of the guerrilla group and the leaders and so on in Geneva. We were about to meet with the foreign minister of Indonesia the next day, but I began by asking them, so I understand your position, it's independence, but if I may, why do you want independence? What's your interest? And there is this long silence like I struggled with it. What do you mean? Independence, it's self evident. We want independence. I said, but why do you want independence?”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's true. You know, by walking bipedal, that's what allowed our brains to expand. So walking made us human. You're absolutely right.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a reason why negotiation, you know, especially in rational negotiations, they talk about walks in the woods. Oftentimes that's where breakthroughs come is when the negotiators go for a walk in the woods.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a crazy idea 20 years ago of who walks why they fight. So I had an idea of like creating a walking trail through the Middle East. And it's 20 years that it's been a lifelong hobby passion, but it's called the Abraham Bath, and it's a long distance path where we've developed maybe about at this point about 1,500 miles of trails. And to walk because long, I said this is 100 year project, but it's kind of just to get people walking. Because when you walk, you talk. you talk differently you know you can work out conflicts while you walk because you know what's interesting you're walking your you're side by side facing a common direction and that's the direction you want to go in negotiation side by side trying to solve a problem you've got a horizon there”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, I'm curious. I go for a walk whenever I can, but I usually walk first thing in the morning if I can. I like to go for a hike. I have my favorite hikes. Especially ones that kind of get me out alone and where people aren't around, you know, I always find my favorite hike of like a canyon, the stream, or just something that's like a little Zen rock garden effect just lends itself to more creativity. I also walk with friends later on. I try to do my meetings. If someone wants to meet with me, let's go for a walk. I live a lake, we walk around the lake. So for me, you know, a three-walk day would be great. So I walk between, I would say an hour and a half and maybe could be sometimes as much as three hours a day or whatever it is. Or it could be even longer. You know, speaking of the Middle East.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do record. I do record. I used to have little post-its. I used to write on those things. But now I just record. Yeah, I just record because things come. It's quite amazing. This creativity is like you listen, you tune in, you're relaxed, beauty inspires. I find beauty, especially, you know, I work in a lot of difficult, heart-wrenching conflicts. Beauty is kind of like a balm. It's just kind of like it regulates the nervous system. And then, you know, the last thing, of course, it does is it has a spiritual level, which is like beauty. It's like wonder, awe. And so, but I find us walking actually covers the basis. And so that's my foundation. And then, of course, I do some little weights and I do some yoga or some stretching. And those I've added on and I realize and I experiment with those over the years. But the foundation of it, I hope to walk to the day that I die. That's my dream.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It helps me go to the balcony. It calms me down. It lowers the stress level. Intellectually, mentally, it leads to creativity. It's where I do my best ideas. I walk all my books. That's where the ideas often come from.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first thing of which I've already indicated is walking. You know, I'm an anthropologist by training. And walking is what made us human. Our ancestors walked all the time. I mean, we were nomadic, you know, hunters and gatherers for 99% of our time. So I love to walk and I love to live in a beautiful place, nature, if I can, but if I'm in a city, you know, I walk in a park or whatever. There's something about, or even just walk down the street, but I love walking and I love hiking, climbing mountains. And so I do that every single day, religiously. And it doesn't even have to be, it's like ingrained. It's not even, doesn't even take a lot of discipline because walking, hiking, you know, I think of the satisfaction that it brings immediately. It not only obviously brings physical fitness because it's really good for you, just as a thing. But emotionally.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, for example, right now, I'm thinking of taking a sabbatical. So, you know, I like to think, okay, so what would I do on a sabbatical creative? Like, should I learn something new? Should I learn a new language? Should I go off on a hike, a pilgrimage walking somewhere? I take out a piece of paper and I try to write down things, but even better, what I love to do for creativity is I go for walks or hikes because in nature somehow when you see beauty and particularly you get these vistas, I find it enhances creativity. And then I ask friends, what would you do and just investigate it? So come up with the essential thing of creativity is come up with a lot of possibilities and then start to winnow it down. But don't just hone in on one because the best way to make decisions is to have a lot of options and then you could start to introduce criteria to try and figure out.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't get very far, so you can do that. Like, for example, if I go back, you said an example from the negotiation world. If I go back to my friend Abelio, and that particular conflict, it was freedom and dignity. For dignity, we had to figure out a way in which no one could really tell who won. Because, you know, like, for example, three or non-compete. You know, they were tangling around, is it going to be two years, half a year, whatever it is, how much it would be for each thing? And we had to just have no numbers. So I said, no, look, freedom means zero non-compete, you know, because that's what freedom means. But it's just like there's no numbers. And it's just, it just disappeared. Or, for example, the stock, what was the discount? No, it was going to be one voting stock for one other stock. So that analysts could not tell who.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or they walk away just taking away part of the gold. So the question is, how do you get all the gold? And the answer is by using our creativity, tapping into our innate potential for creativity. There's a part of our brain that judges and evaluates. We've all been in meetings where you get these killer phrases like, you know, you raise an idea and they say, oh, we've done that before, or we've never done that before, or that won't work, or that's the craziest idea, whatever it is. After that, no more creative ideas come out of that meeting. Our ability to invent means separating the cognitive process from evaluating, which is really important, from the cognitive process of inventing, of creating. That's the whole essence of brainstorming, which is you have one golden rule, which is no criticism was allowed. So you try to come up with as many ideas as possible. And then after you get all the ideas out, then you can start to criticize and develop and improve them. But if you try to do both at the same time, you find yourself.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In any situation, I always think about it, you're negotiating. Imagine you're negotiating something with someone. There's a pile of gold on the table. And that gold represents the amount of gain, potential gain that lies in whatever deal you can make or whatever relationship you can create. so often what you find is that people walk away from the table either without a deal they leave all that gold on the table”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“which is a surrounding community, the people around were affected by it. And that's a great power if you can harness it. So taking the third side to the side of the whole, and I think that's our most ancestral, our oldest human heritage for dealing with conflict is using the third side. I've seen it in so many indigenous cultures. And we have to reinvent it today. So my sentence was the path the possible is to go to the balcony, build a golden bridge, and take the third side. Influence yourself, influence the other, influence the whole.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Easy as possible for the other side to do what you want them to do by listening, by being creative, by being attracting, by writing their victory speech. All of those things go into building a golden bridge. It actually is a phrase that comes from Sun Tzu, the art of war, which is leave them away out. I frame it positively as where's the way forward? You've got to be audacious. It's not just an ordinary bridge, it's a golden bridge. It's attractive. It's persuasive. You've thought through what really they want, what are their fears are, and so on. So you've really built them that golden bridge. So influence yourself to influence the other. And then the third part of the whole is influence the whole, which is take the third side, which is, remember, in negotiation, in conflict, we always tend to reduce everything to two sides. It's labor against management. It's sales against manufacturing. It's husband against wife. It's Arabs against Israelis. There's always a third.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the sentence was taking these impossible conflicts that we're facing now. I mean, the world's getting so disrupted, whether you mention the Middle East, Ukraine, the US polarization, whatever it is in business, there are so many conflicts going on. It's like seems to be polarizing, paralyzing us, poisoning us. So I was trying to think of, so the first thing, I said the path to possible, the first thing is go to the balcony. It all starts with us. You got to influence yourself first. You got to go to the balcony. so you can see the larger picture you know and we were hiking up i said you know it's that balcony view that you can see as you're looking down at the valley it's an inside job it's self-mastery that's where it begins so go to the balcony was number one and then once you've influenced yourself then you can influence the other and then i thought about going back to getting past no building a golden bridge which is making it as”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On page 30 of the origin of species, where he sums up the entire theory of evolution. And I love challenges. I love simplicity. I'm always trying to like, how do you synthesize something down? So I took his challenge and I went back and thought about it. And our next height, I talked it through. I said, you know, if I had to do it in one sense, I went back. You know, I've always loved the Latin phrase omnitrium perfectum, which means everything that's in threes is perfect. There's something about threes. So I was trying to think of what are the three things that I would pass on for these difficult times of the things that I've learned. The three most basic things that hang together as one. And so I tried it out on him. And then he said, okay, now you've got the sentence, write the book.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Aggressive rock climber. He is. He is. You think you could sum up everything you've learned in your life in one sentence, everything you've learned about negotiation in one sentence that could be of use to us in these tumultuous times. And I looked at him and he said to me with a twinkle in his eye, he said, well, you know, Darwin could, you know, and I can give you the exact sentence”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, yeah. All right. Say more, please. So, what happened was five years ago, I went for a hike with Jim, a mountain hike, lion's lair was the name of it. I was going to say that that could be.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love you to your brother so that the last note is not no. It's yes, but it could just be a yes to the relationship. How about I wish you much success with the fundraiser? It's just, you don't have to come up with a contingency plan for everyone. No, don't even think about that. But if a coworker asks you for help, you could say, Look, I've got an important work priority boss has asked me to do, so I can't help you. But so-and-so might be able to help you, or I can't help you now, but in three weeks I could help you. And we've got to be careful. That's got to be absolutely right if you're true. Right, right. Got to be really careful About that, you don't want to leave a door open that you're going to regret later. But in some cases, it's just like a pleasant relationship affirming, wishing you success, Godspeed.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One is you want to make sure that the no is not taken personally because oftentimes people don't like to hear the word no and that makes it hard to deliver for us. So you can say, look, my policy is I don't do this. I'm taking us about it. You know, you put a very strong yes in the ground that they understand that the no is nothing personal, right? And then the yes on the other side might just be”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Matter of fact, strong, no, no means no. What makes it easier for people to hear it is the yes that precedes it so they take it not as a personal challenge to the boss's authority. They understand why you're saying no. And then it's followed by a yes on the other side, which might be, you know, I look forward to doing business with you next time, whatever it is, but it's a positive note that you end on.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You to work over the weekend. You might say thank you. I actually, I'm going to a wedding this weekend, long promised, whatever it is. I'm not able to work this weekend. So it starts with a yes to what's important to you. Therefore, I'm not able to work with the weekend. And then it doesn't end there. It immediately goes to a yes on the other side. And this is what I can do to try and solve the boss's problem. I can work more during the week. I can get Juan and Maria to work with me to try to get it done. But the yes on the other side is some kind of either referral solution relationship, some kind of way to address the other side that is not a way of backing away from, doesn't undermine the no, it's just offers them another thing. So it's a yes, no, yes. The no in between is calm. It's not an angry no. It's calm.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I did some real deep dive into it, and in the end I came up with what I felt was an effective way to say no, which is what I call a positive no. And it's like a sandwich. A positive no starts with a yes. It's a yes, no, yes. No is the meat in the middle. And it starts with a yes. And the yes is to what is that deep, your deep interest, your deep strategy, you're saying no, not just to say no, but to say yes to something deeper. And that's what Buffett was saying to me. He was saying that in order to land on the right deal, that yes to the right deal, I have to say no to a thousand deals that are not quite right. And that's how I make my fortune. So it all starts with the yes, actually, the effective no starts with a yes. It's like the roots of a tree. If your boss asked,”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it really stayed with me. It stayed with me. And then I wrote, you know, getting past now because people asked about getting yes. Yeah, but what if the other side says no? But then I thought there's a trilogy here. There's a third book here, which is really to do justice to no because no is a really important word. Buffett is absolutely right. It's almost like we have a right arm and a left arm. The two most basic words in the language are yes and no. You know, Pythagoras said, you know, the two words that are the simplest words in the language, yes and no, are the most complicated. They deserve the most study. And that's true. My whole life has been in some ways a study of the words yes and no. And also I noticed that I had some difficulty sometimes saying no. So I thought I always liked to write about what I'm trying to learn, you know, because that's the best way to learn about it.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back to that breakfast meeting with Warren Buffett because Roger Fisher and I and Bruce Batten had just worked on getting DS. And he said, yo, yes is really a good word. He said, but in my line of business, you don't know is much more important.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And says, like, he made a speech the next week, which is something the opposition asked him to do, saying to the people, do not physically assault or harass the media when they're covering rallies, you know, those kinds of things. And he did it. So then they did one thing that he had asked for on his list. And then he did one thing. It's like little signals. You send one signal, the other person sends another signal, send one signal, another signal. These are prearranged, pre-orchestrated, and they're ways of beginning to rebuild trust or confidence that you can actually depend on the other such that you might then be willing to sit down together.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I said, okay, I know you don't want to meet with him, but maybe we can build a trust menu. So the next night he delegated his right hand person who was his minister of interior to meet with me, who couldn't afford to be seen to meet with the opposition, so I was just staying in a villa, in a kind of a bed and breakfast of Posada in the middle of Caracas. And there was a garden at 11 o'clock at night, the minister shows up. I put him on my balcony. And then in the garden, I had a couple of the opposition figures. And my colleague Francisco and I shuttled back and forth all night trying to construct a trust menu. In other words, a prearranged set of signals, steps that each side could take that were small enough. And it's like each side, these are the kinds of things that would send us a signal of respect that you know we can be trusted. And then one person like Chavez picks one thing off that.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the question is how do you get out of distrust, at least establish some working trust. You might not be the closest of friends or whatever it is, but because it's best to work with people with whom you can have high trust. But oftentimes that's not the case. Going back to just the example with Chavez, when he told me, for example, that they could stop calling me a monkey on national television.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now it turned out that it was a very good deal for both sides ABC was later sold to Disney. But the trick was, or the secret was, both men trusted each other such that they knew that it didn't matter who proposed the thing. They knew that it would be fair for both sides. They knew they had that degree of trust. And so they could operate at the speed of trust. Now that high degree of efficiency, otherwise it might take six months or it might never happen. So that's the coin of the realm in negotiation. Question is, what do you do if you don't have trust? And that's where a trust menu comes in.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, trust is one of those things which is so important in negotiation. I mean, you know, you're always looking, I know on the show for efficiency, you know, like, how do you can you do something more efficiently? Well, negotiation, what creates the greatest efficiency in negotiation is trust. Warren Buffett, whom I had the pleasure of knowing a little bit. He once had a negotiation with a partner, a business partner, Charlie Murphy, over the buying ABC, the television network. This was many years ago. And Buffett was going to put up 500 million dollars, looked like the deal was going through. So Murphy called up Cap City's USA, called up Buffett, and said, warn the deal's going through, what are the terms? This is on the phone. And Buffett said, well, Murphy, you probably thought about it more than I have. What do you think the terms should be? And Murphy just set out the terms. Buffett said, fine. End of negotiation. 30 seconds, 500 million dollar negotiation.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And even the other guy was very happy too. So that's the amazing thing that it seems like it's an impossible situation. But by treating it as a win-lose situation, there is no way out. But then looking for those possibilities, there was a way in which both sides could win, could benefit, that could get their freedom and their dignity. And the community, the third side, actually the families and the company could also benefit. So it was a win-win-win, a win for everybody.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They ended it. Had a joint statement where they wished each other well accompanied both men to talk to the leaders of the company to explain to them executives of why they'd done this. There was a press conference and it was over. And I asked Abelio later, I said, how do you feel? He said, well, I got everything I wanted. You even got, you know, the things he wanted. He said, but the most important thing is I got my life back.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talk about our friends, and if we can give them both freedom and dignity, then maybe there's a chance. And he looked at me and we had a very nice lunch, French meal, and then about an hour later, I got a call. I gave him my number. He said, when are you going back to America? I said, I'm going back tomorrow morning. I got a call about an hour later. He said, do you think you could stay tomorrow so that we could meet? And I said, sure. And so I went to see him in his office and we spent 45 minutes in his office trying to figure out this very complicated deal what it would mean to give each man freedom and dignity so that no one could be seen to lose. In 45 minutes, we came up with a little formula on the, it was just very simple on the page there. That was a Tuesday. By Friday, we had both men in a law office in Sao Paulo, Brazil signing an agreement.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's it That's it. The third side turns out to be key. You know, it's like the people around the conflict who have a stake who are being affected by it want to find some way to transform it.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was a company that had been founded by Abelio, my friend and client with his father, it was Latin America's largest retailer, was a supermarket chain.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The French entrepreneur was the principal shareholder and there'd been an agreement that at some point control would shift to him and they were fighting over control over this.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everybody loses. I mean, these guys are losing their time, their families are suffering, the employees are suffering from divided loyalties. Just think of all the losses here besides all the money going to lawyers and everything. And so he said, so what would you do? And I said, well, if we could just agree for both of our friends, it wasn't like we were adversaries. It's most like, let's help our friends settle this, you know, you just reframe the situation. Both of our friends want their freedom to go on with their lives, you know, freedom from this dispute. And they both want their dignity. They can't afford to be seen as losing.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The lawyers, I've been at. And I said to him, using his language French, I said, Pascula Vi Trocour, because life is too short. Wasn't what he was expecting, and I said, Yeah, because that's to kind of help everyone go to the balcony. I said, Life's too short for these conflicts in which.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was a really good point, Tim. So in this case, I think it's both. It both strengthened his sense of confidence that, you know, he could do it. And at one point, he said to me, you know, maybe I'm going to have to fight this for the rest of my life. And this conflict was going to go on for at least another seven years because that's how long he was going to be chairman of the board. But I think in the end, it was the second thing, which is he relaxed on it. And I had to keep on reminding him because he was very reactive. And I'd say, remember what you told me you really wanted is your freedom. Because we get so attached. She was so attached to these things. In the end, I met with the representative of his business enemy. I went to Paris and over a restaurant. I met him. He said, you know, come and meet me. We went to lunch at his restaurant. And this fellow who was a French banker, a very distinguished French banker, asked me, so why are you here? Because this thing hasn't been settled in two and a half years.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Imagine that you can't reach agreement with your business rival who's now your bitter enemy. Imagine you can't. We don't reach agreement. There anything you can do to advance your interest, which in this case is spend more time with your family and make more deals. And there was an aha for him because he had assumed that he couldn't advance his interest without settling this first. And he had to fight this. He was a fighter and he was going to fight this. But then, no, then he realized that, okay, yeah, I'm not dependent on the other side for the interest that matter most to me. And when you realize that, again, it goes back to the wisdom of the Stoics. When you realize it's you actually have control over the things that matter most to you, not the other side. You know, he went on a vacation with his family, opened up an office, started to do deals. That actually allowed him to relax so that in the end we were able to make a deal.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I knew I'd kind of struck gold because it was like deep. It was really deep inside of him. And I had read his little bit of his biography and he had been kidnapped 20 years earlier and held in a coffin by a group of urban guerrillas for like a week. He thought he was not going to make it. You know, they had little air holes and they played this loud rock music. And it was only by a miracle that he was freed. But freedom really meant something to him because that's often the case where hostages of these difficult conflicts. And he was hostage of this conflict. And he said, I want freedom. And then I said to him, what does freedom mean to you specifically then? And that's the thing you want to do once you get that interest. You want to ask, okay, operationally specifically, what does it mean? And he said, well, it's freedom to spend time with my family, which is the most meaningful thing in my life. And it's freedom to make the deals I love to make. I love to make deals. And then I asked him the Batna question. I said, okay, Abelia.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Three or non compete clause, and I want the company sports team, and I want the company headquarters, and he had his list, a really intelligent businessman. Then I said to him, Belio, I understand that, but tell me, what do you really want? And he looked at me as surprised. He said, what do you mean? I said, no, I mean, you're a man who seems to have everything. What do you really want in life? What's really at stake here for you? And I don't think he'd been asked that question before. It was a chance for him to go to the balcony. And he paused for a while. There's some silence. That's the power of silence. And then finally he said to me, You know what I want? I want Liberdagi, which in Portuguese means freedom. I want my freedom. And the way he said freedom of it, and that's what you want to do is listen for the tone. It's not just the words, but what's the tone?”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was helping a client who became a very good friend of mine, who was a Brazilian, who was in a battle royal with his business partner over control of the company. And this was rather a large company, $150,000 employees, to be precise. And they'd been fighting tooth and nail for like two and a half years. Every board meeting was just a battle. And there were lawsuits and there was, it got into the press, the character assassinations. I mean, it was the worst. And everyone thought it was absolutely impossible. And so this fellow asked me if I would come see him. And I went to see him. I went to his home and I began by asking him the first question before you get to the bat, which is, what do you want? What are your interests? Because your batten is your best course of action for satisfying your interests. So I said, Abelio, what do you want? And he said, well, I want a whole bunch of stock here and I want an elimination of.”
2024-02-13 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT