144. Negotiate like a pro

If you want to be a skilled negotiator and handle tough conversations like a pro, this is the episode for you. Trevor Clark is one of the world's best negotiators.

He's spent 15+ years with the UN working in remote parts of the world, negotiating in extremely dangerous situations. For example, in this episode he shares an incredible story about being ambushed by rebel gangs suspected of training child soldiers.

The best part is the practical tips Trevor shares about: What words to use (and avoid) during a negotiation; the critical role of voice in negotiation, and how to control yours; what to do if your emotions overcome you in the situation; how you can turn an ambush into an opportunity. and the key to becoming a master negotiator. This is one of the most captivating interviews I've ever done for That Voice Podcast, and I know you'll be as enthralled by Trevor as I was!

TRANSCRIPT

Hello. Hello. Have I got an episode for you today? I was captivated in the interview. I was captivated while editing this, and I'm sure you will be captivated listening to it. My guest today is Trevor Clark. I met him on LinkedIn actually, where his bio reads: I negotiate to save lives in some of the toughest places on the planet.

What a bio, right? And he uses that expertise to help entrepreneurs compete in business. Now, if you are in business, of course, negotiation skills are essential. Think sales calls, pitching for work, complaints. So many areas. And if you're not in business, this is still so valuable because so many conversations are negotiations with your partner, with your kids, with your colleagues, with customers, et cetera. And being able to control your voice, hold your boundaries, and deescalate a situation.

Whoa, superpower unlocked right there. And Trevor Clark is the perfect person to talk to about this. From a young age, he knew he wanted to be a peace. He was very clear on his dharma, his purpose, and that led him to a career with the UN working in remote parts of the world. He's been based in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, Vietnam, so many places.

Trevor's depth of experience in high stakes, high pressure situations is amazing. And in this episode, he shares with us a few, really compelling stories. And also he shares what exact words to use and avoid during negotiations. The critical role of your voice in negotiation and how you can control yours, what you can do if emotions overcome you in the situation. He talks about how you can turn an ambush into an opportunity, and drops the gold on what is the key to becoming a master negotiator. Get your pen and paper out for this one. This is training people pay a lot of money for. And speaking of investing, if you are ready to invest in your voice and speaking confidence, doors are now open to Speak From Your Soul.

You know, it won't matter what tips you learn about negotiation. For example, if you don't feel connected to your voice, if you don't work through those fears and insecurities that stop you from speaking out and showing up. If you don't know how to access the full range of your beautiful voice. Speak From Your Soul is a six week course that will bring you home to your voice.

And through the recordings, the meditations and our live circles, you will leave this course feeling healed, feeling confident, and wondering why the hell you didn't work through these blocks sooner. Because when you can, Speak from your soul in an aligned, authentic way, speaking stops being this thing you fear or even this thing you do right, and it becomes a gift you give and a channel through which you express.

We start on Feb 19th. I will link the details in the show notes and I will be there to celebrate you on the other side of the checkout. Okay? Are you ready to negotiate like a pro? Let's dive in.

Sally: Trevor Clark, welcome to that Voice podcast. So great to have you here. How are you?

Trevor: I'm doing really well, Sally. It's a real honor to be here with you.

Sally: Oh, I'm so excited about this conversation. My first question is, how did you get in to negotiation at the level that you have for so many years?

Trevor: Well, that's a really good clarifier. Um, if the question was, how did you get started in negotiation? You could say, you know, we've always negotiated, right?

Um, but of course the, my negotiation of my skills evolved over many, many years. Right? And there was that decision I made. I think about maybe 10, 15 years ago that I saw this as something that could be transformative to have as a, as a skill, as a, even a set, a set of tools. And so I think about 15 years ago, that's when I started to become a lot more dedicated to this.

Yeah. And I started focusing on how I could learn more, how could enroll in some courses, how could I find mentors to coach me, to help me, uh, in a one-on-one setting even. And so I just got, uh, hooked up with a few people that were at the time associated with some of the big negotiation programs globally.

Uh, I was working in the private sector and I came out of that thinking that I wanted to do also more in the world. I wanted to do something more that had impact. And I always had this dream of being a, a peacemaker, uh, a peacebuilder even, right? And so I, I got into a master's degree and then just because you get a master's degree, it doesn't really mean anything to be honest.

It doesn't improve your chances to really do anything. And so I had to find a way that I could really get into this extreme environment, negotiate. And so what that meant is I started doing, uh, low paid and no paid work, uh, with non-governmental organizations. I started in the Philippines, uh, and then eventually I, I started to get a bit of traction.

I, I got hooked up with a former professor who was doing community-based mediations and peace building in places like Kosovo and Southern Serbia, which were struggling at the time with a number of different dynamics resulting from a long, drawn out, uh, civil war. I eventually, I got picked up by the UN, word of mouth, got around and I was offered a post within the United Nations and you know, and then that's when kind of my career, un career took off. I, I, I don't know if there's any one point where I could say I was at that level, if you will, right? It was just, you know, maybe I am now, and maybe that's the culmination of being in this for, for many, many years. Uh, but a lot of self-reflection, a lot of learning, and a lot of, you know, practicing as well along the way.

Sally: Absolutely. And I've, um, been following your content online and doing a bit of reading. Ask a little bit of an idea of the kinds of extreme negotiation situations that you find yourself in.

Trevor: So, Because of my, my work in the UN over the, over the last many years, I've always been a person within the UN.

There's different types of people in the UN, people who work in the headquarter positions in New York, Geneva, wherever it is, right? I've always been somebody who's been more geared towards deep level deep field operations. And so in the humanitarian environment, which is the bulk of my work or emergency work. I'm, I'm what's called deep field.

I'm a deep field UN official, so I'm not in the capital cities of where UN has a presence, where it's Ethiopia or Philippines or Sudan. I'm in the field offices that are oftentimes so remote that you have internet challenges and phone challenges. It's, it's very, very remote and so being on the front lines, that's also where all the action is as well.

So I often found myself dealing with, you know, rebel groups, um, military operation groups, uh, government officials, um, uh, that range from really nice people to not really nice people. I think some of the more extreme stuff that I've done is trying to negotiate the release of, say, child soldiers, uh, that were in the grips of particular rebel groups or armed groups who would recruit children at a very young age to be involved in their efforts, uh, which is completely horrible and completely destructive.

Uh, so I think that would probably be the more extreme, the more, uh, difficult, uh, negotiations that I've been involved in over the years.

Sally: Wow. So, you know, high danger, high stakes in situations like that, take us through how important it is to be able to be in control of your voice.

Trevor: Being in control of your voice is one of the most critical things that you can have at your disposal. But it takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of care, uh, and it takes complete awareness of your voice in the situation you are at that particular point. Yeah. There is a dynamic where if you're negotiating with somebody and they're somewhat aggressive, you wanna make sure that you do lower your voice.

It doesn't matter if you're male or female. You uh, lower your voice because that does two things for me. It slows me down automatically. It makes me sound a little bit more authentic as well. Uh, and it allows me time to process some things as well. So having the ability to, um, control my voice, be aware of my voice has helped me out of numerous tight spots, Sally, so I can't stress enough at having that control over your voice and really practicing that and being aware of that.

It's, you know, is one of those aspects that has gotten me out of some really tight spots where it could have been, you know, I, I don't want to be dramatic about it, but lay for death.

Sally: Mm. And is there a particular tight spot that comes to mind?

Trevor: Oh my goodness. Uh, yeah. I think, um, I, I, I don't, I want to stay away from naming the countries that I was in, and I want to stay away from the, I don't, crazy controversy, but there was, it was one country, I think it was about my fourth or fifth country that I was with the UN.

We were, had just signed a, an agreement, with one of the armed groups that was well known for recruiting children and part of the agreement was that without any notice, we can show up to their base or their operational area and do a check. And do and see if in fact are there children there? Are they still training?

Are they still using, uh, children and children mean anybody under the age of 18. So me, I'm a bit of a, I can be a bit of a jerk in, in these ways. I want to be, I want to make sure that we are holding people accountable, especially when we're talking about fairly terrible things like this. You can imagine the trauma that happens to a child going through years and years of training they should not be a part of, and then that training usually involves having to undertake the most terrible acts that they have to which their masters make them do, in order for them to get ingrained in there right. To almost make them it's a very horrible loyalty that these masters sort of practice. And I want to make sure that I'm doing everything that I can to save those children and make sure that those people are held accountable.

So me and my team is me and a couple of my local colleagues. We rock up about 7:00 AM in the morning. Deep field. Again, it's desert all around us as well. Um, we rock up to this, this gate, and we knock on the, the main gate. All of a sudden, both the doors swing open. Um, about 10 guys with the automatic weapons.

They must have gotten where we were coming anyways somehow, right? Uh, of course, when we're riding around and rolling around in, you know, these big white Toyota Land cruisers, it's, it's not easy to hide, if you will. So these guys surround us and you hear the, the cocking of the weapons, and some of 'em are like a semi-automatic or whatever it is, and they surround us. They surround the vehicle, they have their guns pointed at us and my team goes, Oh crap. Um, but they said it in their own language. But I understood the, the notion of it when you can understand those environments. And so my first message to the team was just be cool. Take comfort that we're in a armored vehicle. So those weapons would take several efforts to get through our vehicle.

So then of course I'm saying to myself, Okay, no problem. The worst thing you can do, Trevor, is to get excited. To get angry or to, to get scared, right? I practice recognizing that stuff cuz I also don't wanna neglect those things, right?

Sally: Mm-hmm. So in this moment, are you breathing? Like how are you, are you stopping those emotions taking?

Trevor: I don't know if this is right, but I read in a book and I can't remember the author one, uh, where, where I read this. Um, I, when I'm in these situations, I also to get my voice ready, but to also cool me down Also, there's a technique I use word I'm breathing in, but I'm pushing my stomach out.

And somehow that air pushes down on the diaphragm. And, and the next thing you know, I'm doing that, I do that about, you know, and I hold my breath in a little bit. So I push it out, push down, and that does something. It changes the tone of my voice and just, I get calmer. I take the, the nerve somewhat go away.

Right? I'm not afraid of my nerves to be to, that should be said, Sally, because nerves also make me aware. They also show how much I care about something as well. Right. But what it does, when I breathe like that and I push down it, it helps cool me down. So that's a great thanks for asking that question, Sally. That's really important.

So the commander eventually walks out cuz I'm, I lower the window just so much. Unfortunately, some armored vehicles, you can't lower the windows. This one you could, but I'm also gesturing, Get your commander. Get your commander. We're with the un right? So eventually the commander comes out, um, and it, my, my play is always the same.

Get your people to lower their weapons. We're not here for any other reason, but to work with you . And so that was what I was saying to this person. Uh, and fortunately this guy spoke a good enough level of English that I could engage with him directly. The toughest part is when you have to go through translators, uh, because then some of, some of the, the words, uh, get lost, right?

So fortunately he was a fairly well educated person and he spoke a good enough level of English. And in that moment, and we went back, back and forth for a little while. I used the, you know, I used the, the scales of deep empathy. Uh, open-ended questions and a lot of what I what are that sounds like, it sounds like it seems to do that.

So I'm, I'm never using, I, I'm never using the word Why ? Because psychologically that takes people back to their childhood and their parents yelling at them why they didn't clean their room, and you'd be amazed at how that impacts somebody later on in life. So I'm always using What , or How , questions open-ended, but feeding them the idea that it seems like you want to do this peacefully.

It sounds like you're willing to, uh, and you use that approach and eventually over a period of, you know, 15, 20 minutes, things cool down a bit. People lower their weapons. and then we actually were able to negotiate ourselves into the compound and, and do sort of the assessments that we need to do to make sure that in fact, there are no children in this camp.

Now, obviously, they were probably using this as a tactic to give themselves some time if they had children under the age of 18, to do something about that, to hide them, get them out or, or what have you. But that's one that really sticks in my mind. where you go through that quick process and, but it's that ability to draw on those things quite quickly, that many times you don't have the opportunity to do that.

Sally: Wow. What a story. So it's the, the deep breathing down into the diaphragm. It's lowering your voice, lowering the pitch, lowering the volume, using words like What, and How , and it instead I and you and Why.

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Sally: So, great. Are there any other general tips that you could share? And I say what we could do, of course not many people would find themselves in the extreme level of negotiations that you do.

However, just the other day a client was sharing with me, uh, very similar feelings when she was about to have a quite a confrontation with her boss about something, you know, so I was sharing the same thing. Deep breathing, lower the voice, stay calm. So what else can people do with their voice in these situations?

Trevor: I think you, I mean, you obviously got it right. I think a lot of times, um, when I'm sort of coaching or engaging with people in, in similar situations, when they, and just to preface, you know, I've been in extreme environments, but when you're, when you're somebody who is in your own environment, sometimes your extreme environment is very extreme for.

It's very powerful for you. So it's also about context. I can imagine that your client who had to go into their boss , they were probably very fearful, very scared, very nervous as well. And so for them that could be a very extreme situation. And that's, and that's because we shouldn't take away people's perception of how they think and feel about things, right?

So my advice in situations like that is, as you just. Get your breathing as you walk into the room, get your breathing sorted. Right. Just before you go in 10, 15 seconds of that, of that breathing to get yourself sorted. Right. And then I also get, get people to, to say to them very quickly, You're gonna speak slow, you're gonna speak lower, and you're gonna speak clearly.

Yeah. But you're not gonna do that until you start listening as well, right. What I found that there's a, there's a connection between the deep empathy approach that I take and the voice that I use as well. If I say to myself that I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be deep in my understanding or my deep empathy approach, that also signifies in me that I'm gonna speak a bit.

I'm gonna speak much more clearly because my natural tendency, Sally, is to speak very fast. And even in this interview, it, once I, if I hear it again, there'll be bits of words that I, I still can't control very well, and I speed up and then it jumbles, right? But I find that when I

Sally: Trevor, you are incredibly articulate.

Trevor: Thank you, thank you. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way. So when I make that connection between what I say to myself and what I'm gonna do, And that what happens to my voice when I get like that? So it's essentially what you said, Sally and I wouldn't really offer much more advice than that.

Sally: So, Trevor, what happens if the best laid plans don't go well and you find your breathing goes to pieces and the voice gets up and a bit of anger or hatred or whatever it is starts to build and you are, you are losing it. How do you bring it back from a situation like that? Have you ever been in a situation where that has happened?

Trevor: Absolutely. Um, and it happens more often than not, and the first thing you have to be aware of, it's gonna happen.

Full stop. I don't care how experienced you are, I don't care how good you think you are, it's gonna happen when you loose a level of yourself in that control. Um, I can give an example that happened a few weeks ago actually, and that was in a really, uh, tense discussion with a colleague and they said something that hurt.

They said something that they didn't know it hurt, but it, and I don't like to use the word trigger, but it was that, it just, there was a level of breakage between what I know to do and what I was actually doing, and I started cutting them off. I started raising my voice and then, and this is why I really emphasize being able to draw on those skills immediately.

But in order to do that, you have to be able to, practice and practice and practice. You have to take the approach of anything new that you want to do that's as critical, even as your voice or negotiation. You have to take the approach of what professional athletes do, right? Professional athletes don't rely just because they're gifted genetically, right?

Most of them aren't, but because they practice and practice and practice. They run through different variations, and that's the only way that you're able to call in these things, right? And so luckily for me, because I had done that for many years, I could dial myself back a little bit. I could in that moment, I could recenter myself.

I could say a few quick things to myself, and I could start listening to them again, practicing deep empathy. Listening for the message, they're still yelling. They're not stopping either. Their aggression is, is not stopped. But that practice, the ability to practice that. And even if somebody's coming hard at you, you, if you have that ability just to hear their message, what are they saying to you?

Right in that moment? You can draw yourself back, have a bit of reflection, say a few things to. Do your breathing right then and there. Nobody can know that you're breathing Sally, right? Uh, unless you're like, then of course they can. But there's that way that you can do it, which is a bit more subtle. I found.

It's not preferred, but I can do that, and that's what I just have to do. And that's why if you're in that situation, just get quiet again. Get yourself centered in the way that you have to, and then just start listening again. And that's what I really try to coach and and train people to do. The one thing that stops us from doing that is we think, Oh , well we're in it right now. There's no turning back. We might as well just keep going and tear each other apart. That's what most people do. Cuz you can't pull yourself back, right? Cuz you're going, I'm already in this. I can't stop myself. , you can stop yourself, pull yourself back, reframe, center, say those things, get your voice. You can do that in a period of like 10 seconds, Sally , if you learn those film and you practice it,

Sally: You're absolutely right. It's never too late. It's the same thing with speeches. You know, I hear people say, oh, well, it just kind of like just started badly. So I thought, oh, well, let's just get through it. It is never too late to turn it around, to stop, to breathe, to recenter.

And I also love what you said about the listening, because often what a person is saying is not the true question or the the real motivation behind their words. And so when you are doing that listening, it's listening for that question beneath the question, or how would you describe it.

Trevor: Absolutely. That's the meaning you're looking for, right?

The person is saying all of these words, and in that it's the meaning's wrapped in anger or fear or sadness. But if you listen for the, for that meaning, what are they, what are they saying? Then you are getting behind. That's what it is about being deep, deeply empathetic. If you're hearing what they're saying, and then you use things like it seems like, or it sounds like even if you don't hit it right on the spot, what their meaning is.

What it does is it actually opens the avenue for them to start clarifying more with you. They start, and then your tone of voice is important cuz your tone of voice contributes them to slowing down to them thinking more clearly, having the opportunity. So if you are combining your voice with it sounds like, it seems like, or repeating the last one, three words, what they say, it allows them to clarify further, they naturally start slowing down. And then next thing you know, you're having that conversation where you both can move forward once again.

But again, just to, because we're talking about voice, Sally, That voice lowering the voice sounds like you're in this, it sounds, seems like you're feeling this. And then, you know, once that carries on, just things start rolling back to being something a little bit more freer, open.

Sally: Yes. Such fantastic advice that's applicable in so many situations.

So when you are in the desert surrounded by armed personnel, you probably can't just say, okay, time out. Let me just go back for a little bit and I'll, and I'll return to this. However, in the corporate setting, there might be more of an opportunity to do that. Do you ever recommend that if things are getting a bit too heated, you, you can say something to.

I don't know, take a timeout or to come back to it when you're more prepared, especially in situations where people may feel ambushed.

Trevor: Absolutely. Um, my guidance to people is always, again, if somebody comes at you and they gets heated or whatever it is, use those skills that we just talked about, Sally.

Make sure that you know, you have that moment to send to yourself that they come at you. And if you're practicing and they have those skills, you can st even if they're yelling at you, even if you're not ready to provide a solution or to really go down the route, you can still use that opportunity to get some information, right?

So you're still, you know, the same, you know, Trevor, this did not work out the way it's supposed to. Didn't work out the way it's supposed to, then they start saying, yeah, this, the other day when this X, y, Z was happening, and, and they start you, you do that again. Oh, the other day this X, y, Z was happening. Then they start clarifying more and more.

So while they're still angry, you're getting information about why they're angry, why they're coming at you, and then you're still, well, sounds like this is really something that, uh, that upset you, you know? Absolutely. And then they go off and off and off. And then once you get to that point, you feel that you've got some information, but you don't know what to do or you don't know how to respond further, that at that point you can say, Listen , um, I, I want to, I want to talk to you further about this, um, but I need some time to sort of digest what we were just talking about.

Uh, gimme some time. Let's schedule something for either later today or tomorrow, whatever. It's once you, you have to try to engage a little bit with them. And again, if your voice is okay, you're trying to get some information from them with those scales that we talk about, then at that point they're a little bit cooler.

Then you can propose, Hey, listen, I do want to take this forward with you, you know? But let's, let's reschedule this at a, at a different time. I need to talk to my people. I need to investigate this a bit and see what happened, and then let's talk tomorrow or even later today. Gimme some time. Then no matter how anger they are in my experience, they're like, okay.

Or they're like, okay. Then they march off, right? Yeah, but that's, but don't, don't just immediately say, no, I need more time. Right, because then. Don't give them the chance to.

Sally: I've lost that opportunity.

Trevor: Because they often wanna unload because they wanna unload. And if you're, uh, skilled enough and you're practiced enough, you know that sometimes, and you said this earlier, Sally, it's not about you, sometimes. It's not about what you did, it's about how they felt in that particular time that now they want to, they want to get it off their chest, they want to talk about. Yeah.

Sally: Yeah. Not about what you did, but how they felt at that particular time. Amazing. So do you believe that anybody can learn to be a great negotiator?

Trevor: Oh, absolutely. You can be taught, and if you're open enough and you're willing to put the effort in and to be critical of yourself in a kind way, of course, and to practice, practice, practice. , you can summon those skills and you can, it can help you in many different ways, not just in business, in your personal life.

It can help you, it can even help you therapeutically as well, uh, to be better with yourself, kinder to yourself as well. So yeah, absolutely. Anybody can, you have to get the right coach, the right mentor, that's for them. You have to get in the right course, read the right book, et cetera, et cetera. Be with the right people around them as well.

Sally: I love that it's a lot to do with, uh, inner confidence and self-love as well, I feel, because if you can stand up and you feel like you can hold your own in a negotiation like that has gotta be great for your self-esteem. So if people are listening and they want to learn more about how to negotiate or potentially to, for their team, how can they get in touch with you?

Trevor: So, best way is on, is on LinkedIn. Um, that's, I do a lot of communication with people a lot. That's the best way to get the most immediate support from me if they need it to get in touch with me. I'm right now is, uh, winding down sort of a, a longer career to really ramp up. Um, my negotiation stuff so that I can have a bit more freedom as well.

So I'll be doing some, you know, online courses. Um, I'll be doing some, uh, training events as well and things like that. Uh, but the best way, touch base on LinkedIn. You know, I've been doing this a long time and you know, if you're really struggling right now or you just want some general information, I'm happy to support.

So touch base cuz I have a soft spot for people who wanna, who wanna do better and who are in those really tough spots. And if I can help you now, just reach out. I'm there for you. No, no worries.

Sally: Oh Trevor, you are such an amazing human. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Are there any final thoughts you'd like to leave our listeners?

Trevor: I think there was one that I, I thought about just as, as in our last bit there, um, about if anybody can be a great negotiator. Um, and that is absolutely true and you follow the things that I said. And, um, a lot of it though, is about taking a risk. It's taking a risk in here and sometimes in here that you might fail.

You might not be good at it in the beginning, but you keep going. You take that risk cuz it's scary stuff. Taking those risks inside. When you put yourself out there, when you decide that first time that you're gonna stand up and you're gonna engage your boss, you're gonna engage that, employ that colleague who is particularly aggressive, but that's a risky.

But you gotta take that risk and you gotta take that leap of faith that no matter what it's gonna be okay cuz you're gonna get better and better and better. I'll leave it there. Sally, thank you so much.

Sally: Oh, what a fantastic way to end. Trevor Clark, thank you for coming on That Voice Podcast

Trevor: My pleasure, Sally. It's, it's a real honor and I look forward to connecting with you more on LinkedIn as well. Yeah.