2. how to negotiate
with the world but also yourself
"In business as in life, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate."
- Chester Karrass
What do you deserve?
I don’t “deserve” many of the good outcomes that are (i) characteristic of and (ii) most important in my life today:
(i) Characteristic of (my life):
Where I live: It took me 10 years, 4 visas, and 3 employers to land a green card that now allows me to live in the U.S.
What I do: As an unlikely candidate for this, I forged a path into a career in the hedge fund industry at a $50B+ AUM institution
How much I make: My annual income has 10x-ed over the last 7 years and my hours are down 30%
(ii) Most important in (my life):
My life partner: If I hadn’t double-texted her 7 years ago, we would have never gone on a first date
My parents: We’ve lived over 2,000 miles apart for the better part of a decade, but we’re very close and see each other often
My health: A more recent focus I’ll admit, but you’re either maintaining it or losing it
My interests that have nothing to do with work: This goes hand-in-hand with health, but keeping up effort-requiring interests like playing music and basketball have been non-negotiable
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I “earned” these things. Some of this is good luck, I give some credence to that. But to attribute the good things that happen to you to good luck, I find too simple a heuristic. It’s actually very annoying when people do this.
Even the “good effort creates good luck” frame, doesn’t accurately account for the much longer list of things that didn’t make the bullets above, where effort had zero correlation to desired outcome.
So how can I fit a mind trick here, to make sense of what’s gone right (and why), and make me feel somewhat in control of what could go right next?
The common denominator to the list above is that in some shape or form, all of these things went very against the grain of what would naturally or most probably occur. In some ways, they were all things that otherwise would not have happened, unless I negotiated for them.
(i) Characteristic of (my life):
Where I live: Moved to a country where I had no friends, family, or citizenship = significantly worse odds of gaining employment (given you need to convince your employer to sponsor your visa)
What I do: Among the highest barrier-to-entry industries in which I had zero connections
How much I make: No one pays you more to be nice to you
(ii) Most important in (my life):
My life partner: Years of cross-country flights and long-distance
My parents: I’ve found a lot of friends in their 20s and 30s naturally grow distant from their parents without concerted effort
My health: I was burning out from 120-hour weeks averaging 3-4 hours a night, and realized I would just never recover the health debt without radical changes
My interests that have nothing to do with work: When you are on the “I’m busy” hamster wheel (which deserves a dedicated post), it’s easy to let hobbies depreciate
Negotiation feels like the right frame because it grants maximum agency to you as the shaper of the outcome.
It overlaps with “do hard things,” but it’s not quite that. “Do hard things” is about increasing your tolerance for adversity, whereas I’m urging competency at getting what you want.
How to negotiate with the world
Understand the game:
Is this a one-time or repeat game?
Is this a zero-sum or positive-sum game?
Understand your advantage:
What is your significant advantage (capital, speed, endurance, obsession, flexibility, network, what you know, what you don’t know)
Quantify the risk benefit:
Just in case you’ve never heard of BATNA [read this] = Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement
Helps you avoid (i) accepting a bad deal, (ii) rejecting a good deal
Helps you pick your battles (don’t waste time on things that don’t have significant potential upside to your BATNA)
Price your elasticity:
People price things differently
What can you give on, vs. what is non-negotiable?
And on the non-negotiables, be obsessed and irrational
Anchor high:
So you have room to dance, give on some things (that you were going to give anyway)
If they open first, counter higher than that
Never accept the first offer (or at least pretend to struggle with it)
This is the art of letting them have it your way
Be cool:
The person who pretends better that they don’t care will probably win
Be silent, strategically
How to negotiate with yourself
Identify your opponent:
You know what is going to work on you
Now pretend you are future you, or rational you, and exploit that
Agree to a fake compromise:
Instead of committing to a two-hour workout, say fine I’ll go for 5 minutes (and you will probably stay a little longer
Instead of resolving to deep-clean the entire apartment, just pick up two things
Instead of quitting your job to do something creative, start an anon substack
Leave things partially finished:
This one really works on me because I hate half-completed tasks
I’ll get partially through a project and leave it unfinished, so that I’ll want to go back to it faster
It helps me start with easier things that are “almost done” and lowers initial activation energy
Tell people about it:
Create social accountability by telling friends you will do something on a specific timeline
It makes intentions public and forces third-party visibility
Reward “future you”:
The less abstract your relationship with “future you”, the better you will be at trading present value for future value
https://www.nerdwallet.com/calculator/compound-interest-calculator
