Let's talk about how to get to a win-win. Win-win is just great collaboration. I mean, in point of fact, it should be win-win, which might only be emotional win-win. Now, the phraseology win-win, I know that if someone opens a negotiation with me and they say right off the bat, look, I want to do a win-win deal with you, that correlates extremely highly with someone who's trying to pick my pocket.

So if you use that phrase in the first five minutes, I already know where you're coming from. You're trying to get me to drop my guard. It's you win, I lose. And this came up on an Instagram post I put up recently, which is essentially watch out for the person that says win-win.

Now, I didn't say win-win is bad. I said watch out for the person that says it. Also, you got to be cautious if you like some of the win-win mindset, then people set themselves up to just get slaughtered by the person who's expressing a desire for win-win and looking to pick their pocket.

Like if I feel win-win in my heart, you go, let's do a win-win deal. If I don't watch it, I'm like, OK, what do you want? And then I find myself giving away the store. So there's a lot behind the win-win phraseology that you have to have a complete understanding of.

In point of fact, both sides should feel good about the outcome. And isn't that the definition of win-win? Well, kind of, sort of. But it's how they feel about it more than really what they got. So in a benevolent negotiation among friends, where are we going to go to eat?

Where are we going on vacation? What route are we going to take? People really just want to be heard out more than anything else, which operationally seems to be-- I don't understand how it's going to make any difference. Makes all the difference in the world. And what's the best way for somebody to feel heard out?

Well, I'm going to start out by telling you-- describing to you, not telling you, but describing to you what my best guess is on your perspective. Because it's really calibrating me, actually finding out where your position is. And the only way I can find out where your position actually is, I'm going to increase you telling me if I start taking a guess at it first.

Because you're immediately, right away, you're immediately going to tell me either I'm right or I'm wrong. You're going to correct me. Correction is a satisfying thing to do. And you're going to be much more candid with me. If you're correcting me than if I'm asking you. And you'll feel good about correcting me.

So it's going to-- there's all these great emotional lubricants to me getting you to correct me. So I'm going to start out by saying like, here's what I think you're thinking. Here's how I think you're approaching this. Here's what I think you're wanting out of this. Not what you should be, but what you probably are based on your perspective.

And that's going to accelerate the conversation exponentially. Like it's ridiculous how much faster things are going to go. And then it becomes both an information gathering and a rapport building process simultaneously instead of separately, which is what makes this approach faster, even though it seems more indirect. So if we're getting ready to-- let's say you and I are going to take a car trip to San Francisco from here.

And I'm going to say, all right, so my guess is you want to take the most direct route because you hate wasting time. And you're probably going to say to me, no, no, no, no, I want to go up the Pacific Coast Highway because it's a beautiful stretch of country.

Like I realize it's going to be a waste of time if we go up the Pacific Coast because we've got to jump off it at some point, but I really want to see the scenery. You would have-- I've taken a guess of what you want, and you're going to come back real quick and correct me.

And then maybe I'm thinking time on the trip, but I've forgotten how beautiful it is to roll up the coast. And so when you throw that out, I'll be like, oh, yeah, it is a beautiful ride, and we might not get another shot. Who knows what's going to happen?

So yeah, now that we're having a conversation, I'd rather run up the Pacific Coast Highway before we go inland and make the trip. And that's how we get to-- we collaborate for a better outcome, maybe a better idea than what I had in mind in the first place. I love that because what you just described is hypothesis testing.

It's the way scientists are trained. Many people don't know this, but they teach us in science not to ask questions, but to start with a question like how does the brain develop or something. And then you say a hypothesis, and you test hypotheses, and then you figure out if they're right or wrong.

And that takes you through a set of decision trees, and you eventually get at what you hope is some core truth, and then hopefully others arrive there as well, and you get a consensus. So I love the idea of hypothesis testing. In fact, when you said take the most direct route from where we are now in Los Angeles to San Francisco, I like to take 101, not the 5.

The 5 is faster, so I immediately think-- but I like 101. First of all, there are a couple of really great taco and hamburger spots along the way that I used to stop with my bulldog and get. Also, you get to see the coast, and it makes those extra two hours completely worth it.

And so you're exactly right in that working through the decision tree doesn't necessarily mean presuming that the hypothesis is right. It sounds like you'd be equally OK with the hypothesis being wrong, because really what you're trying to do is just learn. And in learning, set up this collaboration. I love that.

It's one of those cool things. First of all, when you talk about hypothesis, when my son Brandon was involved in a company, he's out on his own now, but he used to always say hypothesis, test your hypothesis. He always used that term. And then even now, if we were talking about it, and you just said you knew some hot dog and hamburger places, I'd be like, holy cow, I didn't even know that.

Yeah, I want to check those places out. So that's how you discover new stuff in a conversation. I love it. And also, I'm sure people are noting to not say the words win-win when approaching any kind of negotiation. What do you think it is about those little catchphrases that signal lack of authenticity or trustworthiness?

Because you could imagine that somebody-- I come to you and say, hey, Chris, let's do some collaborative thing for social media, for podcast, and this is going to be a win-win for both of us. Now I know to never say that with you. But you could imagine that somebody really means that.

But for you, it sounds like it's a flag that they're trying to pull one over. It correlates really strongly with the people that are definitely trying to cut your throat. And I've had them admit that to me candidly. I've experienced it. Like if somebody throws win-win out early to me, I'll say, all right, I think I know where this is going, but let me explore it.

And they'll say, yeah, this is a great opportunity for you. It's another top. And we're going to put you in a room with all these billionaires, and there's going to be all this opportunity for you if you just come in and speak. And we don't have a budget. Well, I've gotten that one before.

The famous the world will just work out in your favor because it's going to work out in my favor. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. I've been on the receiving end of those offers many a time. Fascinating. Conversely, what sorts of openers do you think establish the best rapport and benevolent discovery of a topic?

Well, what I'm saying correlates real strongly with people I want to do business with. If they figured out something that they know is valuable for me and they've just done it, and they've just offered it, like right off the bat, no strings attached. They found a way to drop something on me that's valuable.

They didn't approach me with their hand out. They approached me with some sort of generosity, like a friend of mine, Joe Polish, runs this outfit called Genius Network. Joe says, "Life gives to the giver." Joe did a bunch of favors for me before I ever joined. And he was trying to help me out and get my book sold, and he asked me to come in and speak and he'd emphasized my book on his podcast and in different conversations.

And I finally paid the fee to join, because he had done so much for me. There's not much Joe could ask me for right now, because he's done so much for me that he gets a blanket pretty much, "Yes, right away. What do you want? What do you need?" Because he's just generous.

And the generosity approach universally, I'm seeing a lot of really successful people that lead by generosity. And so if you start out, if you give me a five-star review of the book on Amazon, no strings attached, or anything like that goes a long, long way to somebody who wants to establish a long-term relationship, collaboration.

When I first opened my laboratory in 2011, I had a technician at the time who had been a technician for a lot of years. And there's this culture in science of people borrowing things from laboratories and not giving them back or breaking them. These can be little things like a small instrument or a forceps.

But as a student or postdoc, these are the things that you covet, like a really nice pair of forceps. It's like a great thing. You drop them once, they're not good anymore, by the way. You have to treat them with respect. Surgical tools have to be treated with respect.

These are very fine instruments. And people used to come by our lab all the time and borrow stuff from us. And he'd always lend it out. And I was like, "What are you doing?" But any time I went to go borrow something, he'd say, "Do not borrow anything from anybody else because then we're going to owe them." Right now, everybody owes us everything.

And I was like, "You're running up our budget giving away these instruments. They come back with the forceps, dented and stuff." And he said, "Just trust me. This is the way to do it." And I don't recall ever "cashing in" on any of that, but he was exactly right.

When I eventually decided to move institutions, we'd given away so much and we had asked for so very little, maybe nothing, that when you leave a place, typically there can be a little bad blood. And all we got was, "Sorry to see you go," kind of stuff. Had it been me, I would have been in a kind of an exchange of, "Oh, we ask for things.

We give things." It's kind of a neighborhood. I grew up in a neighborhood where you'd borrow eggs or milk from the neighbor. Remember those days? I don't know if people do that any longer. But I think it falls well into what you're describing, that when you just do things for people out of goodness, then sure, you sort of have a history where you could return to that they owe you.

But there's also just something good about just doing things out of goodness and also not asking for so much and expecting people to provide that. So I love that. And I actually-- I love providing good reviews for things I like. On the phone, when the airline-- we don't do this anymore.

We book our own flights. But anytime I get help on the phone, and if it's really great help, I'll say, "How can I help?" And they'll say, "Oh, it would mean a lot if you would send an email to my business just saying I did a great job," or something like that.

And I actually really enjoy doing that. So I love the points you're making, because they're very actionable.