Lessons - How to Win Against Toxic People | Rebecca Zung - High-Conflict Negotiation Expert

In this lessons episode, explore how to negotiate effectively with narcissistic personalities when traditional tactics fail. Discover why mindset and preparation determine leverage before any conversation begins, understand how strategy and anticipation prevent manipulation and prolonged conflict and uncover practical methods for protecting outcomes while ethically countering aggressive behavior. So what do you do when you're negotiating with the narcissist? How do you get the best possible outcome? Just like from the ground up, starting from scratch, how do you approach that person? Because I'm sure that negotiation, it's a lot more than just the actual conversation. I'm sure there's steps to it too. Yeah. So slay is my methodology. And slay stands for strategy, leverage, anticipating and focusing on you. And you have to work through all of those steps or you're not going to get anywhere. And you know, I just literally was doing a one on one with a client like a week ago. And she first started off with, well, I don't want to be aggressive. And I thought, well, I mean, I literally said right to or well, then you're totally going to be taken advantage of. You know, because when you're dealing with a narcissist, the very first thing is that, you know, they they going back to what I said at the very beginning of this, you have to understand the concept of narcissistic supply. It all goes back to that concept of narcissistic supply. Everything revolves around understanding that they're in this world of survival, this world of that. And so you have to you, you can't listen to a regular class on negotiation that you're dealing with to normal people. And everybody is going to, you know, come out with some fair outcome. That's not who you're dealing with when you're dealing with a narcissist. You're dealing with the person who literally is in this world of survival. So you have to understand that, you know, that this person is going to need to feel like that they're that they're going to have to survive in order to have some sort of outcome with this thing. And so you have to have a strategy around that. Number one, and number two, you have to understand that you are dealing with a person who is in survival mode. So they are going to be aggressive against you. I mean, you know, so you can't go, well, I don't want to be aggressive because they are going to be aggressive. They're going to be. And so you have to have an understanding about all of that. So, you know, you start off by going, okay, you know, first of all, when you're dealing with a narcissist, it's either you're either for them or against them. And when they realize that you're no longer for them, that means you're against them. You can't just go, okay, hey, listen, this isn't working out. Let's just nicely come to a resolution. Let's just, hey, I try to do that myself. By the way, when I was dealing with one in a business situation, I was like, we're going to go in different directions. And, you know, let's just come to a nice conclusion here. And it doesn't, they don't, their mind does not work that way. You're either for them or against them. And if you're against them, then you're public enemy number one. And that means that they have to start lining up all their flying monkeys. And they've got to have their army on their side. And it's got to be against you. And, you know, like this is how they think. And they've got to take you down before they're going to take, you're going to take them down. And so all of that's going to start happening right away. And you're just, if you think, oh, it's all going to be nicey nice, you're just like naked over there. Because, and by the way, if you, if you start off with giving all kinds of stuff early on, and they're going to see how nice you are, because you gave up all this stuff at the beginning, they don't care. They'll just take all of that. And that just is in the wind. It's taken and gone. So don't give up a whole bunch of stuff at the beginning. That's like just leverage. Don't assume you're going to win them over. Don't assume that's going to gain you any favor. It's not, it's just, it's naive. So if you've identified this person, you got to, you got to get your mind right. So you got to go into the situation. It will be combative, I guess, situation. It's like it isn't us versus them. You versus them, which is unfortunate, but it's not like the normal person. You mentioned before it. Okay. Okay. So you have your mindset proper. What's the next step in this negotiation? So you create a strategy. And the first thing you have to do is have a vision as to where you want to go. And so many times people are like, oh, they're focusing on is the other person's bad behavior. Look what they did. Look what they did. And they did that. And they did this. And they did this. And they did that. And I want people to understand that that is just a defense, defense, defense, defense defense. And I always say the best football teams, if all you have is a good defense, no one's going any points. You have to have a good offense as well. So figure out where it is that you want to go. What's your outcome? So okay, where's your vision? And then create steps on how you're going to get there. That's your strategy. All right. So vision steps on how you're going to get there. So that's your strategy. Next is leverage. What is your leverage? Leverage is kind of two parts. First of all, what is the diamond source of supply that is really, really matters to this narcissist? What is the thing that they, you know, what matters most to them as far as how they look? Okay, because for every narcissist, there's this thing that matters the most to them as far as how they look. How they perceive, like physical or just how they perceive. Like who, you know, is it their new source of supply? Is it their employees? Is it their, you know, what world do they live in that they don't want to be exposed to? You know, is it, you know, for example, I had a guy that I represented who was a CEO of a fortune 10 company and he had been married a long time. He had a pension for, you know, hiring a very high end as courts. He ended up getting her piece. He ended up giving it to his, his wife. She didn't even know that he had been ever cheating ever until she ended up going to the OBGYN because she had, she didn't know why she was like developing sores and all the sudden here she has her piece. How did I get her piece when I've never cheated on my husband? And so now all the sudden, you know, she's got this major leverage against him because by the way, I can tell the world that, you know, look at what you did. That's a huge source of leverage. Like she does not, he did not want the world to know about that, right? So that's something that she could potentially, you know, have filed a civil battery action against him. I mean, she could have filed something in the courts that said, hey, I want, you know, extra damages for pain and suffering. I want, you know, these were things that he could have potentially been exposed about, right? And instead of doing that, she said, hey, I could do this, but instead of doing this, I want you to just pay me, you know, this amount of money and, you know, we'll do this quietly. And so that was a way that she could kind of use her leverage against the diamond level supply. You understand what I mean by that? I do. It's, it's, it's an uncomfortable thought because it's so aggressive, right? Like it's uncomfortable to think about having to find that piece of leverage against somebody because for most people, no one goes out of their way to try and hurt somebody like at that level, right? Like that's like, that's an incredible exposure. So you're saying that this is what you mean when you say mindset and you say, be prepared to be aggressive, you're not negotiating with normal people. So you have to come, you know, come to the table with extra ammo. Well, I call it ethically manipulating the manipulator. You have to look to see what is a source of supply that's going to be more important for them to keep, protect or maintain that is going to be, you know, more important for them to protect than the supply that they get from jerking you around. Yeah. Because that, that coal level supply, which is jerking you around, they're going to want to keep that too. And that's why those cases never settle because they also enjoy jerking you around. And, and they, you know, so part of the jerking you around process is constantly moving the goalposts using the court system as a sword, not giving you the documents, filing unnecessary pleadings, you know, so they they drag you through the, the mud in the court system because they get supply from doing that. And so as long as they can continuously get supply from manipulating you in the court system, they will do that. And that's a source of coal level supply for them. And so if you don't want those cases to last three, four, and five years, and you spend two, three, four hundred thousand dollars in, in attorneys fees, the only way you're going to be able to put an end to that is to find a source of diamond level supply, move it. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Next one is anticipating. So in the slave formula, you're talking about anticipating anticipating what exactly because it seems like with leverage, you're already anticipating that they're going to act a certain way. So what else could you be anticipating in that particular negotiation? Well, I mean, you're anticipating throughout the entire case, right? So, you know, anticipating how they're going to behave, anticipating what they're going to be doing, you know, you want to be two steps ahead of them throughout the entire case. And, and, and, you know, part of that also is going to be, you know, using, and understanding how they think and their mindset, you know, sometimes I tell people to use something that I call bartering, which is, you know, understanding that they need a certain amount of adulation. So if you want to get them to do something for you, go ahead and give them a certain amount of adulation. Hey, you know, can you, you know, you know, if it's a business situation, you know, can you work on the QuickBooks today? You're so much better at it than I am. You're way faster at the program. You know, you know, you know, the program so much better than I do. It'll be done so much, you know, more efficiently if you do it than if I do it, you know, something like that. You know, if, if you want them to do something for you, be prepared to give them some adulation in, in return, you know, use it to your advantage sometimes. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.