An FBI Hostage Negotiator Reveals the Secret to Getting What You Want
Dr. Mark Goulston knows how to get through to virtually anyone - he’s a master communicator. As an FBI hostage-negotiation trainer, psychiatrist, and author of the book, "Just Listen,” he’s the ultimate expert in the art of managing the most resistant people. In this interview, Dr. Goulston talks about his incredible career and reveals his secrets for how you can negotiate successfully with anyone too. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
And one person said to the other, you know, the only thing I hate more than you right now is hating you.
I hate hating you because I know down deep, I love you, I like you.
And then the woman was saying this.
she started to cry and she said what scares me is i can't find my warmth anymore hey everyone i'm dr oz and this is the dr oz podcast
We are joined by Mark Golston, written a book called Just Listen, Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone.
You may ask yourself, that's a topic that comes up quite frequently, why would Mark Golston be the one to tell me the answer?
He's a psychiatrist, a business consultant, executive coach, and what Lisa loved the most, he's a hostage negotiator trainer for the FBI. So he teaches the FBI how to get you out of a pickle if someone's taking control of your life without your desire.
He's a best-selling author.
His books have included Get Out of Your Own Way, which I tell my kids do all the time, and Get Out of Your Own Way at Work, which a lot of folks ought to be taking advantage of.
He's been a leader in many different areas.
Thank you so much for joining us.
My pleasure.
Alright, so let's talk about Just Listen, discovering the secret to getting through to absolutely anybody.
I love the idea that there's actually a toolkit we could use that can help us achieve this goal.
And you argue that it is actually possible to reach anyone, even the most impossible or quote-unquote unreachable of types.
What do you think makes your approach so irresistible to folks who are generally resistant?
Well, it's interesting.
I learned my listening skills as a suicide interventionist, and then I went on to do hostage negotiation training.
And one of the things I realized in dealing with suicidal people and speaking about it is they feel despair.
And if you break down the word despair into D-E-S-N-T-A-I-R... What they feel is unpaired in a world in which it feels everyone else is paired with hope, intelligence, future, good books.
And I realize that when you talk to them sort of in a didactic way, they feel even more estranged.
What they feel like is, oh, here's another person who has it all together and I have nothing.
And I made some breakthroughs with highly, highly suicidal people when When I was able to listen and feel their pain next to them, and the breakthrough, and none of them killed themselves, is that when I could feel their pain next to them so strongly that alleviating their pain was more important to me than whether they killed themselves or not, they chose life.
So I think what I learned is that when people feel felt, They don't feel alone in pain.
To me, suffering is being alone in pain.
Pain most people can tolerate, but when you're alone in pain, it becomes much worse.
And if you can help people to feel less alone in pain, suffering they can't live with becomes pain that they can.
And so from that, it just changed my whole frame of reference.
It's interesting, when I wrote Just Listen, I wanted to call it Just Care, but my publishers at the American Management Association said, Mark, this book will teach people how to care, but if you use the title Just Care, it'll turn off people.
Everyone knows they need to listen better, and I think they were absolutely right.
So I think it came from listening with a desire to get next to someone and care about them.
and not push your agenda on them is lifesaving.
You know, there are some people, though, who will manipulate that.
I mean, I've dealt with a lot of people who have issues and really all they want to do is talk about them and waste your four hours because they're not going to change.
They're not going to do anything differently.
They'll go back to their hideous marriages or their abusive relationships or their alcoholism, whatever it is.
It's completely counterproductive and they're so self-absorbed.
They just want you to listen to them.
That's true, and I think what you want to do is identify people who have no desire to change, who have a victim mentality, who only want to manipulate you into taking their side against the world.
It's interesting.
I'm sure you'll recognize this kind of person, and this is one of the problems with the psychotherapeutic profession, is with the kind of person that you're describing, when you go, They feel you're agreeing with them when really what you're just saying is, I'm listening, keep talking, you have my attention.
And then what will happen is these people will take your aha and then go home and say, well, even my therapist thinks I'm right.
So what do you do with those kinds of people?
Well, at this stage of my life, I only work with people who are Committed to changing.
And what I say to them is, if you'd rather be right than get better, I can't help you.
And then there's a part of me that I think I've just become brazen in my old age, and I'll add to it, if you'd rather be right instead of getting better or making the situation better, I can't help you.
I won't want to help you.
And I think what I would come to do is root against you, and I don't think you need a therapist like that.
You make the argument that you have to get your own emotions under control, even when you're provoked.
And although it's difficult to do, you give some tips for doing it.
And you mentioned this a little bit in a sort of sideways fashion.
You talk about people who are trying to commit suicide and needing to feel paired, so you have to feel that you cared more about them feeling connected emotionally to people in their lives than committing suicide.
Because if you didn't shift into that gear, then you couldn't shift them either.
Talk to us about how you do that.
Because the first thing that so many of us feel when we're in a situation where we're riled up is anger.
And what's the worst thing to tell someone who's angry?
You know, calm down.
It doesn't work.
It's not effective.
And for a lot of folks listening out there to us, if they're going to take advantage of Just Listen, which is Mark Goulston's new book, they're going to have to learn how to control their own emotions.
Absolutely.
I think one of the keys is to realize ahead of time, you can make a list of the people.
I think you might get a check out of this because I think it helps people to stay on a diet or exercise better.
What I suggest to people is take out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle of it, and on the left side, Write down a list of all the people that give you energy and when you're with them, you just feel a new lease on life.
And on the right side, write down all the people that suck the life out of you.
The ones that when you're with them, you're exhausted because very often people slip off a diet or their exercise regimen after they've had a close encounter of the worst kind.
And so know ahead of time those people who are likely To be what I call high maintenance, meaning they're difficult to please, easy to upset.
And so, know that when you're dealing with them, to hold a little bit of yourself back, because if you go toe-to-toe with them, What will happen is they will trigger your lower brain, your middle and lower brain, and there's something in your middle brain called an amygdala, and when it gets overloaded,
it does something called an amygdala hijack, and it really pulls you away from being able to think rationally, and then you're using all your energy to keep a lid on, wanting to just smack the other person.
And so know that ahead of time, and Hold that part of you back when they're either firing bullets between your eyes, the aggressive ones, or they're exasperating you because they're just whining and they're just pulling all the energy out of you.
Let the bullet go over your shoulder with the aggressive person.
Just sort of stay seated and centered when they're exasperating you, and then What's most potent with those people is after they've done something that usually manipulates people into appeasing them, and why appease them?
Because you want to kill them, and you're not a killer.
And what happens is after they've done that, one of the most powerful things you can do is pause.
One of my favorite interventions is after they think they've hit you with their best shot.
And you're not budging.
I tilt my head slightly to the left or right, and I have a puzzled look, and I go, huh?
And what happens is, you begin to win, because you'll see, if they didn't provoke you into the irrational part of your mind, where you feel out of control, they don't have a backup plan.
One of my favorite interventions...
I did this once with my wife, so I wouldn't recommend it at home.
But one time we were having one of our spirited discussions.
I'll leave that to your imagination.
And she was asking or telling me to do such and such and such and such.
And I said, oh, I paused.
And she said, well, what are you pausing for?
I said, well, I was just wanting...
I was just trying to figure out...
If what you're asking me to do is fair and reasonable, because if it's fair and reasonable, I am happy to do it.
But if it's not fair and reasonable, and you can see why they're sending me up on the couch that night, I said, if it's not fair and reasonable, then I might do it.
But then, of course, it's a favor and I get to ask you one.
Did not go over well, but you get the principle.
You think that would work for me, Lisa?
I never ask anything that's not fair or reasonable.
She's very fair, very reasonable.
But I think a lot of times these people that we deal with, if we can't get them out of our lives and choose not to associate with them, and the ones who are either the aggressive ones or the, I call them cheese suckers because they just suck the life out of you, they're completely unaware of what they're doing.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so when you go, hmm, I don't know that it would register.
Well, no, but what would register, first of all, is that they didn't get through to you, and they often don't have a backup plan.
One of the other things, that's a little bit passive-aggressive, and as I said, as I did, and hopefully I'll outgrow that, but having had the energy sucked out of me for decades, I'm going through a period of applying my new directive is never start a fight, but if someone else does, get even plus 10%.
I'm trying that too.
It doesn't always work.
I know.
So I'm trying to outgrow that.
But, you know, look, this keeps me able to understand and deal with the millennials because they have it big time.
Yeah, yeah.
Because it's funny because, and you talk about this in your book, by understanding who you're dealing with, you can listen to them more effectively.
Absolutely.
There's one of my favorite quotes of all time.
It comes from the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, and he said, the purest form of listening, and maybe even caring, is to listen without memory or desire.
Because when you listen with memory, you have an old agenda that you're trying to plug people into, and when you listen with desire, you have a new agenda that you're trying to plug them into.
But you're not listening to them, which segues into a less passive-aggressive reaction than huh, which you were trying to help me grow up, and I wish you luck in that area.
And one of the things that a lot of high-maintenance people feel is that the world has not treated them as important enough, and they're going to get even with whoever they can.
And so one of the things that's also very disarming is if you let the ranter or you let the whiner, you know, say whatever they're saying, if you were to say to them, this is much too important for me to have misunderstood anything you said.
So the most important thing for me to get from what you just said is, and then have them fill in the blanks.
And by the way, filling in the blanks is one of the favorite tools or tips in Just Listen because when you ask someone a question, like if I were to ask someone about their, let's say, their plan for better health, if I were to say, what's your plan to eat healthier?
Or exercise more?
That's a perfectly good question.
The problem is it triggers flashbacks of having been put on the spot in grade school, and it feels adversarial.
But if you were to say to the person, your plan for improving your health through exercise and eating is, and then if with your hand you invite them into the sentence, you're in it with them.
So that's one of the tips.
It's called fill-in-the-blanks.
And what will happen is, as they fill in the blank, you will actually feel them coming towards you, whereas if you ask them a question, you might get an answer, but you won't get cooperation.
Love talking about this stuff.
that we just got started, so stay with us right after the break. - Here's another technique that I'd love you to explain in that you help other people exhale.
And exhale, I guess, could be a form of venting.
But I'd love to understand how you can guide someone stressed out to exhale and allow not just their brain to empty out, but emotions to come out as well.
Well, there's something...
I feel blessed because...
I'm a vice chairman of a company called Steele Partners, S-T-E-E-L-E Partners, and you can go to steelpartners.com.
And our chairman and founder is Lieutenant General Marty Steele, who ran the Marines for 15 years, and we're dedicated.
Our heart and soul is reviving a transition program for soldiers that we had up that was very successful between 2006 and 2008. But what I love about General Steele And what those soldiers who went through the program loved about him is he listened to them in a way that enabled them to exhale.
And I'll give you an example, and this is what you can use.
If you come from a position of really wanting to ease pain as opposed to give people a solution when they don't want to hear one, all it takes is three questions.
Tell me what happened.
So people describe what happened.
And then after people tell you what happened, they are usually expecting you to come back and debate them, push back, tell them they're wrong, or give them a solution when they don't want a solution.
So if after they finish telling you what happened, if you can pick the most emotional words that they said and say, tell me more about that, When you say, tell me what, I can do this because you're a medical doctor, it's like picking a scab off and it starts to bleed.
When you say, tell me more about that, it's draining the pus.
And this is what General Steele would do with soldiers.
He'd do that.
And then the third question is, you look into the person's eyes with a dedication to alleviating whatever pain they're in, and then you look at them and you say, what's really going on?
When General Steele does this with soldiers, what he shared with me is, you know, tell me what.
I'm having some difficulty transitioning.
It's really different from being in the service.
You know, tell me more.
Well, my wife and I were arguing.
You know, it's tough knowing what to do with my file.
And then he'd say, what's really going on?
And what some of them are saying is, sir...
I saw and did bad things, and when I close my eyes, I see them more vividly, so I don't close my eyes much.
And he forgives them.
He gives them a direct order.
He says, war isn't pretty, but it's necessary, and you owe it to yourself, family, and what you've sacrificed to let that go.
So he's loved.
I mean, I love the guy.
Can you see how that would lead into exhaling?
Yeah, it's so elegantly told.
It's interesting, as you talk to folks, and you learn to speak to them in medicine, but also in all these other things that I do these days, the first thing you want to do is collect information, because that's your ammo.
That's what you can use to have a conversation.
But you're very, and I was going to underline this for our listeners, you're picking the most emotional bit of information they shared with you voluntarily, and using that to probe a little deeper, to drain the pus, as you said.
And then, of course, the action steps is where the brilliance is.
And that's General Steele's insight and yours about asking what's really going on.
But that can take many different forms depending on who you are and where you are.
That's fabulous.
Mark's last credential that really got my attention was that he's a hostage negotiator trainer for the FBI. So thanks for all you do there.
Let's talk to folks a little bit about what you do with these different personality types.
You've given us some wonderful insights about listening without memory and desire.
You taught us to fill in the blanks by instead of asking a direct question to put people on the spot, asking them the plan, your plan to lose weight, our plan to lose weight is And you just went through a beautiful three-question scenario where you ask, what happened?
And then you ask folks to talk a little bit more about the most emotional thing they spoke of when they answered that first question.
And then you ask them, what is really going on?
Let's get to the five tips you share to get through.
These are really artistic moves.
And after this, we'll talk about dealing with toxic people.
So all of you out there who think you're surrounded by toxic people, we've got tips for you as well.
So tip number one, Mark, do you really believe that?
You're challenging their belief system.
Walk us through that.
Often, difficult people use hyperbole.
And the reason they use hyperbole is because they have felt rejected by the world, so they're anticipating rejection.
And so when they use hyperbole, you're actually dying for the sins of people that maybe have hurt these people.
And so when they say that, I think, again, the key is recognizing these people ahead of time, staying centered.
And again, if you pause and you look at them and say, do you really believe that?
Again, tone is essential.
If you say it in a sarcastic way, like, do you believe that?
You'll provoke them, but if you can lean in and say, do you really believe that?
What will often happen is they will see that you're not being condescending or controlling, and they will pull back And they may be able to center themselves.
And so they might say, well, no, it's not never and always.
I mean, this happens in a lot of couples' conversations.
One or the other will say, you never do this, you always do that.
And again, if you can keep yourself from feeling hurt or too angry and say...
Do you really believe what you said?
No, the only thing is, you know, if you're a therapist and you're counseling these couples and they, and again, someone can, if let's pretend someone hypothetical that doesn't actually exist, a husband comes home late 99.9% of a husband comes home late 99.9% of the time.
But if the wife hypothetically says you always come home late, she's not actually accurate because it's not every single time.
It's just only the vast majority of the time.
But let's pretend as a counselor, you can get away with saying, do you really believe that?
And, and it's not going to be seen as a challenge when couples who are in, or even any kind of relationship, you know, work relationship, when you're in a, in a conflict conversation, If one of them drags out the therapist talk...
Or even starts to use that kind of sincere or pseudo-sincere approach.
This is infuriating.
You don't want to share with them.
You feel condescended to, not happier to open up.
I'm so glad you brought this up because one of the observations I've made, and I'm going to check with the two of you, and I think it has really destroyed the fabric of relatedness.
Is that people do not know how to feel hurt and speak from the hurt.
People do not bare their necks when they've had their feelings hurt.
They bare their teeth.
And then when the other person comes back at them with a reaction, The person who is feeling hurt underneath their bared teeth looks at the other person, well, how can you say that to me when you've hurt me so much?
Well, because the tone is protective.
And I will tell you, some of the most powerful breakthroughs that can happen in any relationship is the pause.
Identify your immediate reaction.
And then ask yourself, what are you feeling underneath?
If what happens is the person comes home 99% of the time, the immediate reaction is frustration and anger.
But underneath, there's a hurt.
And if you really lean into it, underneath the hurt, there's often even a fear that if this continues, the fabric...
Of our relatedness, we're going to turn into an arrangement instead of a relationship.
And then if we turn into an arrangement, we're going to be like so many other people that we swore we would never be like.
We're going to be like that couple next to us in the restaurant who has to drink two bottles of wine just to have a civil conversation instead of the one next to us who looks adoringly into each other's eyes and they like each other that we swore we would be like.
And so if you can pause and speak from the hurt underneath the anger, You know, then the other person is more likely to sort of see it and recognize it, whereas if you're speaking from the frustration, they're often going to get defensive.
And it pains me because I see very few people talking from the hurt.
I mean, it's so sad.
Yeah, no, I agree.
That's a very useful insight.
I think when you're feeling hurt, you don't want to make yourself more vulnerable for most people.
It's the most powerful thing you can do because the other person, down deep, people love each other and they like each other.
I remember one couple I saw, they were getting frustrated with each other and one person said to the other, You know, the only thing I hate more than you right now is hating you.
I hate hating you because I know down deep, I love you, I like you, and then the woman was saying this.
She started to cry and she said, what scares me is I can't find my warmth anymore.
I've become a project manager for the kids.
Often I get excuses from you.
And if you're a woman and you can't find your warmth, you're not a woman, I don't know where it is.
And she just started to weep.
And I don't know if you can follow that, but it was transformational.
And I can see that.
And I think it speaks to so much of the discomfort, the pain, that you can't even be verbalized, which I think affects a lot of men, and they can't say it.
She was articulate enough, insightful enough to be able to even see it in herself.
Got a lot more questions to go, but first, let's take a quick break.
These are wonderfully soulful insights, but they have powerful action plans linked to them.
And if I can go through these, I think they're so essential.
I want folks to write these down.
So the first is, do you really believe that?
We just talked about that.
The power of, you alluded to this in the earlier segment, but explain to folks how you actually take that deep breath and say, which is very different from saying, calm down.
When you say, hmm, I know we're having some pronunciation here, but it's H-M-M-M. And what hmm means when someone is speaking to you is they experience you as, first of all, listening to them, taking it in, considering it, and again, if you say it in an inviting way, like, hmm...
What they're feeling is they're not being foolish, they're not being stupid, they're saying something that you value, and you're actually liking it.
You know, it's interesting, we're talking about couples, and when I ask couples, if you had a choice of liking the other person or feeling liked by them, if you had a choice of Seeing a grin on their face when they see you,
or you having a grin on your face when you see them, the majority of couples I see, they say, no, no, if I could put a smile on my spouse's face, clouds go away, and I can feel the pain go off my chest.
And so what hmm does is it helps people feel Feel valued and that what they're saying is worth hearing.
It's interesting.
One of the tips that I give couples often, one of the tips that I will give men for one of the best five conversations you'll ever have in your life is if you can say to your spouse, have I ever made you feel that you're not worth listening to?
Most women have felt that and they felt it often.
And if you've been married for less than 10 years, the woman will often show the hurt at not feeling listened to it, feeling solved and feeling transacted with.
If you've been married over 10 years, what's happened is the hurt has crossed over to anger.
And you'll stick your chin out, now your eyes, and you'll look at your husband and say, you're one of the worst listeners.
I don't even know how you make a living.
She is mouthing these things to me as you say them.
Like, just before you say the words, she's mouthing them to me.
He's reading my mind.
But the key is, if that man, again, it's different when she's saying you're a terrible listener, but when you bring it up and say, have I ever made you feel that you're not worth listening to?
And then when you see this, even if she shows you the anger, if you look at her and say, look, just because I don't know how to listen, even in the right key, when I think I'm doing it well because I'm giving you solutions you don't want, doesn't mean that you're not worth listening to.
And don't you ever let anyone make you feel that way.
And I am sorry.
When I give talks where there's spouses in the room, and I'll ask a woman in the room, I'll say, how would you feel if your husband said that?
And there's always some funny woman in the room who says, you might get lucky.
I'm an equal gender offender, so I'll tell you what women need to say to men.
This is like, hmm, on steroids.
If a woman says to a man, Have I ever made you feel that I don't admire and respect you more today than when we first met?
Most men's jaws will drop.
And if the woman can then say, look, I know we have our friction, and just because I take out my stress on you instead of the children, just because I take out my stress on you instead of work, just because I take it out on you because I can and because you're safe, Doesn't mean that I don't feel that you're the best man I've ever met, and I feel blessed.
And if I haven't made you feel that way, I am sorry.
Now, when I ask the man in the audience in these big talks I give, invariably, I get two responses.
One man will say, it's like I died and went to heaven.
And there's another guy in the audience who'll say, it'll never happen.
And the third one says maybe she'll get lucky.
That's right, that's right, that's right.
I want to get to the next three real quick.
The stipulation gambit.
Say this real quickly.
The stipulation gambit is to be able to put out something ahead of time that people are thinking negatively about you.
So what that would look like is...
I'm giving a talk to 150 doctors in about three hours, and I know shrinks are their least favorite specialists.
And so if I were to say, I know that many of you send your spouse and kids to people like me, and you haven't seen any results yet.
However, I think if you can put that aside, today we're talking about close encounters of the worst kind.
And I'd love to help you get through to any of the difficult people in your life.
So that would be a stipulation gambit there.
We're not stipulating to something that they're already thinking negatively about, but haven't expressed, and we put it to the side.
A real soulful power thank you is one point, but I'm going to go to the last one, the impossibility question.
What's that?
And the third one says maybe she'll get lucky.
The impossibility question is a way of what I call kicking butt, or kicking yes butt.
When you say to someone, what is something that would be impossible for us to do, say as a couple, but if we could do it, would Take our relationship, not only to the next step, but cause it to be the best relationship we've ever had in our life.
And so one person might say, well, I guess this would be impossible, but I think if we really did schedule that special time and gave each other our undivided attention, it would transform us.
But neither of us are capable of giving undivided attention because our minds are so filled with so much stuff.
Amazing.
Mark, a superb summary in such a wonderful way.
Soulfully delivered.
I appreciate all your work.
Just listen.
Discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone.
