fbpx

Episode 66: Mastering Difficult Conversations and Negotiation with Kwame Christian

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you!

Are you considering how to make sure that you’re optimizing your career change opportunities to be paid what you’re worth? This is a crucial topic to consider in the middle of a pandemic. 

On today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, we are joined by Kwame Christian, expert in the field of all things negotiation and conflict resolution. 

We’re talking unique and interesting career pivots and finding ways to extend your skills and tons of new cool directions. Kwame gives us his top tips for thinking about negotiations differently. We are going to be covering it all today in this fabulous new episode. 

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

SHOW NOTES:

Subscribe to The Career Clarity Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and Google Play.

And, follow The Career Clarity Show on Facebook and Instagram — and sign up below to receive emails when new episodes come out!

 

Transcript:

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04  

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host. And each week, we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career.

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:34  

You’re listening to the Career Clarity Show. Hello, and welcome clarity seekers. I am your host, career change expert and the creator of the Career Clarity Method, Lisa Lewis Miller. And today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about all things negotiation strategy, and playing by your own rules when it comes to your career. I’m so excited about today’s guest, we’re going to be talking about making unique and interesting career pivots of your own finding ways to extend your skills and tons of new cool directions. And then we’re going to talk about some of the things that you might be facing right now. Thinking about making a potential career change, considering how to make sure that you’re optimizing your opportunity to be paid what you’re worth thinking about considerations in the middle of a pandemic. We are going to be covering it all today in this juicy, fabulous episode. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  1:24  

Now one more thing before I begin and introduce our guest today to you is that we are in the final week before that Career Clarity book is alive and launched and out there in the world. So if you have not picked up your pre order bonuses, and already pre ordered your copy, what are you doing your time is limited and I would love to be able to give you some extra goodies to support you and your career clarity journey. So if that sounds good to you get your cute butt over to getcareerclarity.com/book to learn more about where you can pick up your copy and how you can get access to all kinds of additional bonus materials to help you learn how to use this and apply it in your life. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  2:02  

Now, let me tell you about today’s guest. Kwame Christian is a best selling author and speaker and the director of the American negotiation Institute and a subject matter expert in the field of all things negotiation and conflict resolution. He is the host of the world’s most popular negotiation podcast negotiated anything. And he is also a TEDx speaker, doing finding confidence in conflict, which was the most popular TEDx talk on the topic of conflict in 2017. In addition to his role at AI, he is working as counsel at Carlisle, patchin and Murphy. And he also serves as a professor for Otterbein University’s MBA program, as well as the Ohio State University’s Mertz College of Law. So in short, we are talking to one capable qualified awesome human today. So, Kwame, welcome to the Career Clarity Show.

Kwame Christian  2:59  

Lisa, thanks for having me. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  3:00  

It is a delight to get to have you on today to be dropping some knowledge for folks about thinking about strategic career pathing. Thinking about how to understand what you’re worth, and how to get what you’re worth, especially in a crazy economy like this. Definitely. Now I would love to start people with a little bit about you and your background and your bio, because obviously, you have done a lot, you’ve accomplished a lot. But where does your career story begin? How do you end up as the person who runs a podcast and a business and also is working with multiple universities? 

Kwame Christian  3:34  

Yeah, it’s a it’s a fun journey, fun journey. And so I think really, what it comes down to is psychology. That’s where it all starts, and my desire to help people. And so once we have that understanding, everything else starts to make sense down the road. And so for me, I wanted to be a psychologist, originally, either psychology or psychiatry would either one, that was the idea. And then I started to get into politics, because I said, Oh, well, if my goal is to help people, if I am able to understand policy and affect change through policy, then I can help more people. That just is more efficient. So let’s do that. So I finished up with my psychology degree and then transitioned into law. So that’s what a law degree comes from and the Master of Public Policy. But as I went through school and started to learn more about politics, I started to realize that’s not the lifestyle I want to live. So I was that guy who graduated from law school passed the bar exam was getting sworn in by the Supreme Court, asking himself what he wanted to be when he grew up. And so that’s really where I was and how I started my career and, and finding that answer has been my my goal. And right now I’m very, very happy with where I am.

Lisa Lewis Miller  4:49  

Well, let’s connect a couple of those dots between getting sworn in and where you are today because I think there are probably a lot of people both in the world of being attentive.are having their JD, who felt a similar way when they graduated. But probably a lot of people who have never thought about going to law school, but who have a similar passion around helping people and understanding the way that the brain ticks, who are trying to figure out if not this, then what? So how did you go from being the person who was getting sworn in, and also having a little bit of an existential career crisis, to all the different ways that you serve and support people today? 

Kwame Christian  5:29  

Yeah, so when I was in law school, I discovered negotiation, it just fit in my schedule. So I took the class. And I was really excited about it, because it was the first time I saw psychology utilized in this type of way. And so I became obsessed with it. And so they had negotiation competitions. And my friend and I competed in it and we won the competition at Ohio State. And that gave us the opportunity to represent the school at regionals in Ottawa, Ontario. And we won that competition as well. And then we made it to the semi finals of the American Bar Association, competition in New Orleans. And so I was hooked. After that, I said, no matter what I do, this needs to be a main part of it, because I saw the psychology. And for me as a recovering people pleaser, recognizing that the ability to handle yourself in a difficult conversation is a skill, not a talent that was life changing for me. So for me, I wanted to find a way to share that message. Because my motto is that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And so for me, if I can help people to make these difficult conversations a little bit easier, we’re putting them in a position for them to live their best life.

Lisa Lewis Miller  6:37  

I love that. And I think that a lot of people who are listening will probably have a deep feeling of connection with being recovering people pleasers, and trying to understand how to hold their ground and be powerful in difficult and tricky conversations. And I know that one of the biggest things that potential career changers have some nervousness around is this question of in my existing career path, I have known how to position myself, I’ve known how to get raises, I’ve known how to get opportunities to advance and grow. You know, the world that I’ve been in, has validated who I am and what I can bring to the table. But I’m not feeling fulfilled, and I want to make a move, but it feels like the risk of moving into a place where they don’t already naturally see my value. They don’t understand who I am and what I bring to the table, that that risk is huge, and potentially insurmountable. So how do you view something like that?

Kwame Christian  7:38  

Yeah, it’s legitimate, and it is legitimate. And this is what I say, I this is where I start. And the question is this, if everything in the world was free, so no money was necessary to accomplish what I need to be happy in terms of securing My, my, my family, with with food, shelter, all those all those essential save everything in the world was free, what would I do with my time? And the answer to that question is really what is going to put you in the right direction? Because most people at the beginning when they’re not thinking too deeply about it, they’ll say, Oh, I want to travel, I’ll do this, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff. I said, Okay. 

Kwame Christian  8:16  

Eventually you’ll that will cease to be fulfilling. What will you do to find fulfillment Now that everything in the world is free, and now you start to see that there’s something different that you would do, when you don’t have those restrictions, those realistic restrictions, that’s who you are. That’s the life you want to live. And so my goal has been to try to figure out a way to live that life. And so when I first asked myself that question, I was doing public policy work, civil rights work, doing health equity and criminal justice that was emotionally draining. I knew that wasn’t it. And so I said, Well, I’m a bit. I’m a lawyer. I like business, I want to start my own business. The fastest way between, for me to get to entrepreneurship is to start a law firm. And then I could work with businesses, that’d be fun. So I started my own practice, and what 25 and started serving small businesses, but again, actually practicing law wasn’t as been wasn’t as fulfilling because I liked working with my clients. I liked negotiating contracts. But I didn’t like drafting the contracts. All the admin work fell on me. 

Kwame Christian  9:18  

And so I said, Alright, that’s what I asked myself that question. And it made, I figured it out. Because the thing that I liked the most about what I was doing was that in order to get more clients, I was going around the city doing negotiation trainings, just for free for business owners, because they didn’t know how to negotiate. And that was the most fun I was having. I said, Yeah, if I would just do that all day. That’s what I would do. So I said, well, that’s what we’re going to do. And so I created another company, the American negotiation Institute, started the podcast, and it’s grown since then that was four years later. And we have a team of staff, we service a lot of big companies, small companies, and government organizations. It’s a lot of fun, and we’re helping people to make those difficult conversations easier.

Lisa Lewis Miller  10:05  

Well, let’s dive into the mechanics of a difficult conversation. Because I think part of that fear of making a transition into something new comes from, how on earth am I going to prove my value and prove my worth to a new employer that’s potentially in a brand new industry. And so when you’re working with somebody and teaching them about the fundamentals of negotiation, and how to get what you’re worth, and they’re starting from a position of saying, I don’t even know where to begin, I don’t even know what my assets are what I bring to the table. What’s the way that you use somebody into starting to strategize for a conversation like that? 

Kwame Christian  10:45  

Well, first, we need to get clarity on the goal. I don’t know, I feel like clarity is an important word for you. So let’s go ahead with that. So we need to get clear on what the goal is. a strategy that I like to use is the five why’s technique. And so you just ask yourself, why five times, usually it goes from something that’s kind of surface level and materialistic to something that’s really deep and personal. Getting close to that, that kind of deep connection will help you to be a lot more assertive when it comes to the actual conversation. And then during the conversation, we’re asking for what we want very clearly. But there’s a framework that we use, that can make anything any difficult conversation easier. So this is a framework I use at work at home negotiating with opposing counsel negotiator with my four year old, it’s all the same, all the same. And I think the the clarity, the simplicity is what people really like. And it’s called the compassionate curiosity framework. 

Kwame Christian  11:37  

So I mentioned that in my TED talk, and my book, both with the title of finding confidence in conflict. And so it’s three steps. Number one, acknowledge and validate emotions. Step two, get curious with compassion, and step three, joint problem solving. And so that’s really it. Because really, when with these difficult conversations, the biggest barrier you’re going to have is emotion. How can you handle the emotions of the other side, and then it goes down to curiosity with a tone that is not going to be perceived as threatening, we’re going to ask open ended questions to learn more about the situation. And then we’re going to work together to find a solution in the third step, which is joint problem solving?

Lisa Lewis Miller  12:19  

Well, the emotional management piece is a huge factor. And it’s arguably the linchpin that either means you’re going to be able to do this successfully, or it’s going to go totally off the rails. But I almost feel like before we get into the compassionate curiosity framework, that we’ve got to start with the emotional management of oneself and the emotional, most agility and emotional fitness training you need to go through to be in a position to be able to successfully execute on the framework. 

Kwame Christian  12:51  

Absolutely. And Lisa, this is my favorite part of the framework, because it was designed to not only help you to win the external negotiations, but also to win the internal negotiations. That’s where people often don’t start, they just they choose not to do it, they don’t recognize that that’s a conversation they need to have with themselves. And so you can use it as an introspective process that helps to diminish the emotional barriers that you’re feeling. So again, same three steps, but directed internally, acknowledge and validate your own emotions get curious with compassion, joint problem solving. 

So with the first step, we’re just recognizing, okay, I feel I feel afraid. I feel afraid, well, what is what is causing this fear? All right, so I’m going to get dig deeply into it. Well, I’m afraid that if I ask I might, they might take this poorly, well, then what might happen? Well, I’m afraid that if they if they take it poorly, then I might lose my position, or I might lose favor with my boss, something like that. So we’re figuring those things out. And so then we can start to test those realities. Let’s figure out what the worst possible thing is that could happen. And then do a thought experiment, experiment to see how bad it really is. Most of the time, it’s not as bad as we think it is. And then we move on to the next step joint problem solving. This is where we’re reconciling the differences between our heart and mind. What do I need emotionally to feel secure right now? What do I need substantively in order to accomplish my goals? And how can I blend these two things together? So I have that clarity when I go into the actual conversation. And the thing is, a lot of times people don’t do this internal work beforehand. So people say things to them, and they don’t, they don’t know what to do or say because they haven’t thought it through. And then it comes in, it turns into a really awkward conversation, your your confidence diminishes, and the conversation goes poorly.

Lisa Lewis Miller  14:37  

I love that. And one of the things that I think about is when I see that nervousness and fear come up when somebody is considering a career change and starting to apply for new jobs in a new sector. One of the biggest things that will often come up when they engage in that kind of a curious process is that they’ll recognize I’m afraid somebody is going to think that I’m an imposter because I haven’t done this work before. And if you get curious about that belief and start peeling away the layers, you will either find option number one, this person is incredibly talented and capable and actually has a lot of transferable capabilities and experiences that they just hadn’t been consciously thinking about and consciously valuing. So actually, they’re going to be just fine. But we’ve helped them to surface some of the great argument points and talking points for why they’re going to be a high value hire.

Lisa Lewis Miller  15:30  

Or, option number two comes up, when we dig into the imposter syndrome of actually, you’ve got a skill gap there. And there’s, there’s a capability that this organization is going to be needing from you that they may not necessarily be willing to train you from zero to 100 on. So it may also reveal some opportunities to do a lot of the work that here at career clarity we talked about as part of the phase two of our process of test driving your potential future direction, which could be taking a class doing a freelance project, you know, Kwame, like you’re talking about going and doing trainings for free just to get the experience and to generate the interest to then be able to bridge whatever skill or capability gap there is to then, again, be ready to walk into one of those negotiation conversations and be confident and sure know, and grounded to your core, that you can do the work and that you’re worth what you’re asking for. 

Kwame Christian  16:30  

Exactly, yeah. And again, that’s, that’s why the name of the book is finding confidence in conflict. Because a lot of times we’re giving recipes to people who are afraid to get in the kitchen, if you don’t do the internal work, it doesn’t matter if you know how to have the conversation, because you’re just not going to do it really well. And the imposter syndrome is real, that is a real thing. And I really like the fact that you added the substantive component to it. Because a lot of times, people inappropriately just say, Oh, it’s all in your head all in your head. Well, I mean, sometimes you just might not have the skill, you might actually be an imposter. Most of the time you’re not most of the time is just your brain playing games with you. And you actually have what it takes to do what you need to do. But then sometimes it’s okay to recognize I have a gap. And so I’ll give an example. So I remember I was talking to a friend who was teaching a sports psychology class. And he said, I don’t know why they gave me this class, because I know nothing about psychology, a teacher sports history. And so they’re just like, oh, you could teach this too. And so he asked me about personality, psychology. And I was really surprised I didn’t know much about it. It was the recognition of a bizarre kind of gap. In my understanding of psychology. I said, that’s very strange. I have a degree I read books all the time. And yeah, just I’m not confident in my skills when it comes to personality, because I just, for some reason, I haven’t gone over that. And so this is what I did. Lisa, you love this. 

Kwame Christian  17:56  

So this conversation happened in early February. And so then I was in talks with a company to do a negotiation training. And they’re like, Okay, what type of topic would you like us to cover? I said, I’d like to teach personality based persuasion. And so she said, Oh, that is fantastic. We’ll do this. And so it was scheduled for June. I’m like, Well, there you go. Kwame, you got to figure this out. And so I started eating all of these books on personality based psychology. And now I have a deal with LinkedIn to do a course on leading and managing different different personalities. That’s a core competency now, but it was because I recognized that gap. And I created a sense of urgency that forced me to get a deep level of understanding in the topic. So then I could perform, but again, it was actually a real gap. I was legitimately an imposter there. Okay, let’s figure that out. Now I can solve it. And now we can move forward. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  18:55  

Hmm, there are two things I love about that story. Thing number one is that when you created that time bound opportunity for yourself, you didn’t come in doing something that’s completely out of your wheelhouse, you used a foundation of the stuff you do know persuasion, and then layered on a new layer to it. So it was not full throttle imposter syndrome, right? You are not showing up in the ER with scrubs on pretending like you are a brain surgeon. This was just upping the ante on an area that you already had capability. But I love the knowing your own psychology piece of understanding that a really great way to learn this is to put yourself in a position where there’s a deadline and where there’s some pressure to make sure that it happens and understanding how you perform and setting that up. Because I’m sure it’s something that you dive into a lot and got to read a ton about in your your prep for this is that different personalities respond differently to pressure deadlines, internal expectations versus external expectations. So hacking your own psychology well enough to know what kind of incentive structure is going to get your butt in gear is an awesome strategy to use. 

Kwame Christian  20:09  

Yeah, yeah, I’m very, very competitive, and I hate being embarrassed. And that sparked both of those two things. So I said, Kwame, we’re gonna have to go really deep in this. And so I understood that when I did that, I’d have a lot of time to consume a lot of materials. And since I was teaching at Ohio State in the law school, I would have an opportunity to beta test it at a really high level with a captive audience. And I got the feedback that I needed in order to tweet the presentation and do really well, people really enjoy it. And it’s a key part of my online course, it’s a key part of a lot of the presentations that I do now. And like I said, LinkedIn, we the courses already produced, but COVID had other ideas. So we need to record it at a later date. But it’s really fun, I think, I think if you can recognize those gaps there, they’re very clear ways to improve. And you have to, like you said, you have to know yourself and what works for you, and then just be really aggressive and ensuring up those potential issues.

Lisa Lewis Miller  21:09  

And what that also does is it gives you a real quick litmus test of are you actually interested in this? Do you actually care enough to do the work to shore that up to become an expert to double down on it? Because if you don’t, if you’re not even interested in learning it in a somewhat abstract environment, why on earth would you think that you’re going to enjoy doing that as your full time nine to five job? 

Kwame Christian  21:32  

Exactly. And also think about this, too, I think a lot of times people have an understanding of the word expertise and expert that is a little bit limiting. And so for me, expertise is relative. That’s it. So if I know slightly more than you, then relative to you, I’m an expert. And so for instance, my son, he’s four, he’s been alive for a while. But I wouldn’t compare it. I wouldn’t say he’s like an expert runner, or Walker, but, but to a baby. He is an expert. And so he could competently teach a baby how to walk, the baby would look up and guy and say, Wow, you can walk, that’s incredible. And so Kai would be a legitimate expert. Now, Kai is not going to then teach Usain Bolt, how to run, that would be inappropriate. And so you have to recognize what it takes to be that expert that your company needs. You don’t need to be like a scholar whose teaching it at the highest highest level, that might not be what’s necessary. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t shoot for that level of expertise. But recognize that what you have is enough. That’s really what we’re going for. Are you good enough to do it? Then you can do it. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  22:40  

Such a mic drop moment, Kwame, I love it. I really like this idea of local expertise is so undervalued, but has such incredible untapped potential. Because there’s a certain level at which you can ascend to in a skill or in knowledge, where you actually become a crappy teacher to people who are a certain level below you. Right, I’m noticing this in my own coaching work is that there’s some things that people need to learn that I am not a good teacher, for, I’m not a good coach for anymore, because I’m too far down the road in that journey. And I have a difficult time really putting myself back in the shoes, to totally empathize with and appreciate the experience of somebody who’s at a certain stage in their beginner journey. 

Kwame Christian  23:30  

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Earlier this week, I was trying to teach Kai how to read. And I was saying this is I cannot, I cannot do this. I just said, Man, kudos to teachers, they have patients that I just don’t have. And again, you’re absolutely right, I can read. But teaching Chi how to read, the gap was too great.

Lisa Lewis Miller  23:54  

Well, and the other thing that is important about this more, sort of local, I’m calling it local expertise, but it’s essentially being in a space where relative to the person you’re trying to help or trying to serve or trying to teach, you’re just enough ahead of them to be able to be really valuable. And, you know, the other thing that that can be really compelling, and I hope, I hope are really encouraging about what you just said Kwame is that there are a lot of people and women who are listening to this or people who identify as women, I’m speaking directly to you on this, who have a belief that you have to be qualified in some sort of capital Q way to be able to do anything that you want to do. And that capital Q qualification typically is associated with something that I kind of think of as academic martyrdom or educational martyrdom of nobody should trust me, nobody should value me. Nobody should pay me for my expertise until I have this degree this certification.

Lisa Lewis Miller  25:00  

I’ve worked for this many years, I have partnered with this different type of person. And there’s such a pervasive belief that you’re only valuable when you know, you check the box, you get the new tassel on your graduation cap, whatever it is, that it can honestly really prohibit you or prevent you from being able to give more and be compensated more in the short term.

Kwame Christian  25:26  

Absolutely. And I will, I will say this too. I am always I’m often asked to talk about gender dynamics in negotiations. And I always give the disclaimer, I’m not trying to mansplain I’m trying to respond to the question that’s been asked to me. And I always cite people who are smarter than me in this. So book references that I suggest women don’t ask Bice, Linda Babcock and Sara lash we’re on negotiation dynamics in gender dynamics and negotiation. And then more broadly speaking, the confidence code by Katie Kay, and Claire Shipman, that’s a great book that dives into the psychology of confidence and how it’s different for men and women based on how they’re socialized. And in that book, one of the things that I mentioned was that, really, there are two ways to fail, you can compete and lose, or you can choose not to compete and lose by default. And a lot of times women are choosing not to compete. And what they found is that if a man feels as though he is at least 70% qualified for a job description, they’re like, yeah, I’ll take a shot. And, and a woman, oftentimes, similarly situated would say, I’m only going to apply for jobs where I’m 100% qualified, where I meet every single specification in the job description. And that holds people back. So you’re spot on, you’re spot on, a lot of times, we hold ourselves back and appropriately.

Lisa Lewis Miller  26:57  

So let me ask you this, if somebody is listening to this, and they are on the cusp of wanting to make a career change, and they feel like they’ve got the capabilities, but there’s just, there’s some kind of inner competence hurdle of, I feel like my skills are transferable and valuable, and they would absolutely help at this organization. But I’m afraid that they won’t feel the same way. And then I’ll get low balled. What are some of the things that you tell somebody who’s trying to prepare to make sure that they are going to receive at least an initial offer that’s as competitive as possible, and then put themselves in a position to be able to negotiate it up to something even better? 

Kwame Christian  27:36  

Yeah, so first thing you need to do is buy the book pre order the book by Lisa Lewis. So you need to get that book. Alright. So that’s the first thing if that doesn’t work, you could get my book, finding confidence in conflict, the first 50 to 60% is all about confidence. And let’s say you don’t want to do either of those things, or you want something else, what I would suggest doing is reaching out to a friend that you know, love and trust, and ask them to tell you what you’re good at. Talk to a colleague at work, ask them to tell you what you’re good at. Sometimes we are too close to ourselves, and we can’t see how good we really are. And then we get that from other people. And then we say oh, wow, I didn’t, huh, okay, I did. Yeah, I forgot about that. When it’s really funny. 

Kwame Christian  28:26  

People forget about wins. I have a friend that has a an app called pep talk her. And it’s really just a digital brag box. As you as you get this, these wins, you go and you put in your wins. So you don’t forget, because she teaches women how to negotiate effectively Meggie Palmer she’s going to be a guest on on the negotiate anything podcasts coming up shortly. And so she says, Yeah, make sure you write down your wins. So it puts you in a better mindset when you’re going into those negotiations. The thing is, when it comes to confidence, confidence has two main impacts. So first, it is an emotion, a feeling that leads you to take committed action. That’s number one. And so number two, people see that confidence, and it changes the way that the world responds to you. And so when it comes to negotiation, people are going to respond differently if you ask for what you deserve confidently, versus if you ask for what you deserve. tepidly. And so if you are tepid in the way that you ask, then people see that and they say, you know what, I know. I’m going to push you. I’m going to push you Yeah, she seems like she’s pushable. And so then they will push you. But if you say it with confidence, then they say yeah, I’m not going in. Yeah, she seems pretty, pretty secure in this. And so what’s interesting is that your level of confidence oftentimes dictates the amount of resistance you get when you’re making requests. And if you leave this this interview, this podcast interview, the listeners listening to this, and you just feel more confident. 

Kwame Christian  29:59  

Let’s say you don’t get any more skills or expertise or anything like that, or you just are more confident, you’re going to be more successful in your negotiations too. And so one last thing too, I have a gift for your audience. If they go to American negotiation Institute comm slash guide, they can get a free negotiation guide 15 of them, in fact, one of which is a salary negotiation guide that can help you to prep. Because competence breeds confidence, the more prepared you are, the more confident you will feel in the negotiation.

Lisa Lewis Miller  30:32  

Love that. And you know, one of the things that we talked about here, and that, as you teed up beautifully is in the book is that confidence? Yes, it’s an emotional state. But it typically is easier to access and to tap into when you have put yourself in a position to be courageous and be committed to taking action, to prove to yourself that you can handle whatever is coming your way. So there’s a beautiful sort of flow there of courage and commitment leading to competence, competence, and having people deal with you and respond to you in totally new and different ways. So I love that. Now, Kwame, before we wrap things up. I one more question for you, since you happened to mention that you now are an expert in persuasion by personality type. If somebody is really intrigued by that idea, and they don’t even understand how to start thinking about persuasion and playing to different audiences differently. What’s the way that you help people just start to open their eyes to thinking in that new way? 

Kwame Christian  31:38  

Yeah, the the approach that I like is, we use the the Big Five personality traits. And it’s something that’s been tested in research for a long time. The reason that I like that is because it doesn’t require a test. You can of course, you can, I’m sure there are tests out there. But you can collect some data points, and start to make educated guesses based on your life, and based on what you see in other people. But when you are trying to make an assessment, if somebody else recognize that you need a lot of data points, so I can’t just meet you one time and come to that conclusion, you might be having a good day, you might be having a bad day. So it might be an outlier. So just keep that in mind. 

Kwame Christian  32:17  

And so with the big five personality traits, the acronym that’s used is ocean. So we have openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, those are the big five. And so it’s not an either or type of thing. When it comes to this, either you are extroverted, or nut, it’s where you fall on the spectrum. And so usually it is it’s a spectrum of one to five in each of those. So you’re either high or low, or somewhere in the middle, when it comes to this. And so based on your understanding of your personality style, that’s going to dictate which negotiation approaches work really well for you. That’s the first thing and then based on somebody else’s, it helps us to anticipate where and how they’re going to be resistance, and then what approaches you should do in order to avoid that resistance and, and make it more likely for you to succeed. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  33:09  

I love that I imagine all of our psychology nerds and learning junkies who are listening to this are already going to your website to go grab some of your materials. So Kwame, thank you so much for coming on the show today. And it sounds like you’ve you’ve shared at least one place for people to go to find out more about you and the work that you do. But if people want to stay in touch across any other platforms or any other locations, where are the best places for them to go? 

Kwame Christian  33:34  

Yeah. So if you’re interested in negotiation and conflict resolution training for yourself, for your company, the American negotiation Institute, LinkedIn, I am constantly posting on LinkedIn, we just started LinkedIn newsletter. And actually the topic was, can you negotiate during a pandemic? Spoiler alert? Yes, you can. And it walks out. Walk outlines how you can actually do that. LinkedIn is the best way to get in touch with me. I’m going to keep this promise as long as I can. Anybody who connects with me gets a personal message. And I share some resources in the message too. It’s I don’t know when you’ll get that message.

Kwame Christian  34:12  

Earlier like earlier this month, I was three months behind but I said I’ve kept I’m keeping this promise I’m going to do it. So my inbox is a mess. But I really like connecting with people and sharing value in that way. I understand at this point, the majority of people who are following me on instagram really are just following ky so if you want to see pictures of my son, me on Instagram @Kwamenegotiates. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  34:38  

I love it. Well, Kwame, thank you again for coming on the Career Clarity Show today and dropping so many good knowledge bombs for our listeners. 

Kwame Christian  34:50  

My pleasure. Oh, and I forgot Yeah, I’m a lawyer at Carlisle pageant and Murphy. So if you need to have a legal needs in Ohio, I can help with that too. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:00  

Man who does it all I love it. That is Kwame Christian, everybody.

We’d love to hear your feedback on what you thought of today’s episode, feel free to send it to me as a direct email you can reach me at Lisa at get career clarity, comm or leave it as a review on Apple podcasts to help tell others what they can expect when they tune into the show. We are trying to give you all the tools and resources that you need to build a happier, healthier relationship to your work. So any feedback you can give us on what else you’re needing is incredibly valuable. Now to make sure that you get all the goodies that Kwame was telling you about Don’t forget to go to get career clarity, comm slash podcast to download all the show notes and all the goodies that we were talking about. And remember, if you are listening to this and realizing that you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:58  

And that’s a wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book career clarity finally find the work that fits your values and lifestyle for the link to order it go to get career clarity comm slash book and don’t forget to get your other tools resources and helpful goodies at get career clarity comm slash podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the career clarity show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.

About the Author Lisa Lewis

Lisa is a career change coach helping individuals feeling stuck to find work that fits. She helps people clarify who they are, what they want most, and what a great job for them looks like so they can make their transition as easily as possible. Lisa completed coaching training in Jenny Blake’s Pivot Method, Danielle LaPorte’s Fire Starter Sessions, Kate Swoboda's Courageous Living Coaching Certification, and the World Coaches Institute. In addition to that, she apprenticed with the top career coaches in the country so she can do the best possible work with — and for — you. She's helped more than 500 individuals move into more fulfilling, yummy careers and would be honored to get to serve you next!

follow me on: