Chris Voss is the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, CEO of Black Swan Group Ltd., and a former lead negotiator for the FBI.

Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the FBI's hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council's Hostage Working Group. During his government career, he also represented the U.S. Government at two (2) international conferences sponsored by the G-8 as an expert in kidnapping. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. Christopher was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years. He was the case agent on such cases as TERRSTOP (the Blind Sheikh Case – Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan bank robbery hostage taking.

During Chris's 24 year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service.

Chris has taught business negotiation in the MBA program as an adjunct professor at University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. He has taught business negotiation at Harvard University, guest lectured at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and The Goethe School of Business in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2009 Christopher has also worked with Insite Security as their Managing Director of the Kidnapping Resolution Practice.

In today's episode, we discuss:

• Is real life FBI negotiating like what we see in the movies
• How we can use negotiating skills in our every day lives
• Strategies for dealing with customer service representatives
• How to be the smartest and most interesting person in the room

Website: BlackSwanLtd.com/

Twitter: @VossNegotiation

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlackSwanLTD

Click here for Black Swan Group's and Chris' YouTube page.

Text "FBIempathy" to 22828 to get Chris' free newsletter. Highly recommend this weekly newsletter.

Check out Chris' book "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It."

Articles of interest ...

• "Ask a Hostage Negotiator: What's the Best Way to Get a Raise?" (The Atlantic)
• "5 Tactics to Win a Negotiation" (Time.com)
• "3 Keys to Bargaining with Anyone" (Inc.com)

Past "Success is a Choice" podcast episodes of interest . . .

• Brad Lea (CEO of Lightspeed VT & Sales Expert) - Episode 066
• Larry Winget (The Pitbull of Personal Development) - Episode 054
• Ed Decosta (John Maxwell Faculty Member & Sales Expert) - Episode 050
• Lolly Daskal (Fortune 500 Business Coach)- Episode 044
• Micheal Burt (Creator of the "Monster Producer" program) - Episode 022
• Betsy Butterick (Communication Specialist) - Episode 013

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