We hosted a live Q&A a few weeks ago for people recently laid off from several large tech companies, but we ran way over time and couldn't get to all the questions. So we brought our lawyer friend, Alex Daniels, back to the podcast to finish the convo around all things severance agreements.

Alex Daniels is a corporate attorney who spent years at Cooley, one of Silicon Valley's top law firms. Joining us as co-host was Grace Ling, creator and community builder, who had just finished her guest interview with us and stayed to help field questions. Together, we all discuss some important things that laid-off employees need to know: what protected class status actually means in a negotiation, how discrimination gets established, and what it takes for a situation to be worth pursuing with an attorney.

Important legal disclaimer: Alex Daniels is a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer. Everything shared in this episode is general guidance, and employment law has a lot of edge cases that depend on your specific situation and location. We're also neither advocating for nor recommending that you take legal action against your employer. Speak directly with an employment attorney in your state if you'd like to explore your options.

• What at-will employment means and how protected class status changes your leverage in a layoff

• The difference between express and tacit discrimination, and why patterns matter even without direct evidence

• Why most employment disputes settle before reaching court, and what that means for how companies structure severance offers

• How to think about whether your situation is worth a consultation with an employment litigator

• Why state law governs most employment situations, and how different the landscape looks from state to state

• A simple rule of thumb for remote workers on which state's laws actually apply to them

To connect with Alex Daniels:

• Add him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamueldaniels

• Visit his website: https://www.decryptedlaw.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with us: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Angela Liao has spent her career on both sides of billion-dollar manufacturing negotiations. She built her foundation on the supplier side in Asia, negotiating contracts on behalf of manufacturing companies with some of the world’s biggest tech companies as her customers. She later joined Tesla and then Google, where she now leads device strategy and supply chain partnerships, negotiating manufacturing deals for the Google Pixel phone. She also built and launched an internal negotiation training program at Google, which started as a physical card deck and is now becoming an AI-powered negotiation practice tool used broadly across many Google.

Angela shares her deep industry knowledge in what negotiations look like in high-stakes business deals and why leverage is rarely as one-sided as it looks, even if one side is seemingly more powerful and better resourced than the other.

• Why suppliers to much larger companies often hold more leverage than people assume, and how they use it

• The asker versus guesser culture of communication

• How Angela’s team resolved a months-long stalemate with a business partner that wanted 100% of the value on the table

• What every negotiator should clarify about their own priorities before walking into any negotiation

Connect with Angela Liao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaliaomba

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Arben Malaj has had one of the most consequential economic careers in Albanian history. In the late 1990s, he served as Albania's Minister of Finance during the country's worst financial crisis: a wave of Ponzi schemes that wiped out the savings of roughly 60% of the population overnight. He later served as Minister of Economy, where he negotiated more than 30 free trade agreements. He's been a decades-long public servant, board member of the Central Bank of Albania, a professor, a consultant, a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and one of the sharper minds we've had on Gentle Power. He also happens to be Gerta's father, which made this conversation different in ways we didn't fully anticipate.

We had so much positive feedback to our first interview series with Arben (Parts 1 and 2 in links below) that we invited him back to the pod when Gerta's parents were visiting us in San Francisco. We go even deeper into his journey from relatively unknown local politician to being considered for the country's prime ministership, and all the lessons on negotiations and power he learned along the way.

• Why first impressions and presentation aren't vanity; they're the starting point of every negotiation

• How Arben kept getting pulled into government roles he didn't seek, and what that reveals about leadership

• What he did on Day 1 as minister to build trust with his team, and why it mattered

• His reputation with the IMF: hard to move, reliable once committed

• The regret he carries about a political offer he turned down, and what it says about high-stakes decisions

For more:

• Book a free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.com/newsletter

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Paula Schwarz grew up as part of the Schwarz Pharma family, one of the largest pharmaceutical dynasties in Germany. She walked us through her background that led to her leaving all of that behind, spending years running technology platforms in refugee camps on the Greek island of Samos, building a co-living home network called Angel House now spanning Greece and San Francisco, and making the final round of the Miss Germany competition. She's also building MaharCar, a rideshare platform for refugees she originally launched with Uber's support, and MayaCode, an AI agent that helps refugees and government workers navigate bureaucratic forms in 300 languages.

This episode covers:

• Why knowing your priorities is the actual starting point of any negotiation

• How to sequence your asks: in the first meeting, sell the next step in the conversation, not the final ask

• Understanding what's in it for the other side, and leading with that instead

• Why women often negotiate better for others than for themselves, and how to make use of that as a woman

• Staying true to your values when the system keeps rewarding different behavior

Learn more about Paula and her work:

• Website: https://www.paula-schwarz.com

• MaharCar (rideshare for vulnerable populations): https://marhacar.org

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Priyanka Upadhyay, aka Coach Pri, spent 18 years in tech (Google, Salesforce, ServiceNow) before founding Product With Pri, a coaching and training business for product managers navigating job searches, transitions, and high-stakes career conversations. She's also an ICF-certified coach who's taught PM programs at Stanford and Product School, and now runs intimate small group cohorts for PMs looking to level up in their careers.

In this episode, we got into the negotiation mindset traps that costs product managers money, why companies aren't actually optimizing for the cheapest hire, and how Pri negotiated her way through various situations in her life, from a grade dispute when she was attending Columbia Business School and a divorce mediation. Our conversation touches on the immigrant experience, the psychology of leverage, the importance of knowing what you're actually negotiating for, and the role of creative thinking when you think you have no options.

• Why negotiation is underrated, and why most candidates don't use the support they already have

• The "beggars can't be choosers" mindset and how exhaustion from a long job search quietly erodes your leverage

• Why companies aren't optimizing for the cheapest hire, and what signaling strong self-advocacy actually communicates

• Information gathering as the core of negotiation: understanding urgency, goals, and what the other side needs before you make any ask

• Showing enthusiasm alongside your ask, and why that positioning matters for both top-choice and backup candidates• Getting clear on what you're actually negotiating for (base, flexibility, speed, impact) and why that has to come first

Connect with Coach Pri:

• Pri’s website: https://www.coachpri.com

• PM Skills Quiz - https://www.coachpri.com/pm-quiz

• Pri’s newsletter: https://productwithpri.beehiiv.com (for experienced PMs who want to grow their career & amplify their impact)

• Book free 15-min career strategy session with Coach Pri: https://www.coachpri.com/career-brainstorm-call

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Jim Lose is a Marine Corps veteran and the CEO of The Military Veteran, a firm that places veteran executives into high-growth companies. Before moving into recruiting, Jim was a Marine Corps intelligence officer, including a tour at the Pentagon where, at 25, he regularly briefed the Commandant of the Marine Corps and had authorization to contact the White House Situation Room. After the military, Jim spent over 20 years in executive search, placing thousands of veterans transitioning into the private sector into corporate roles.

In this episode, Jim joins Alex and Gerta to talk about what the military gives and takes away from you when it's time to negotiate your next career move, why veterans tend to undersell themselves, and what's actually happening behind the scenes when a recruiter facilitates your offer conversation with a prospective employer.

• Why veterans struggle to advocate for themselves, and why military culture is specifically designed to work against you in compensation conversations

• How the public pay structure of the military leaves veterans without the instincts to price themselves in the private sector

• Jim's approach to coaching candidates: interview widely first, get selective when offers are in hand

• What's actually happening when a recruiter asks how you'd feel if the offer disappeared

• Gentle power in practice: how to signal competing options without damaging the relationship

Connect with Jim Lose on LinkedIn, and learn more about this work here:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslose

• https://www.themilvet.org

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

This week, Alex and Gerta react live to a short viral video from Alex Hormozi about a discount negotiation tactic. No guest, just the two of them watching the clip and breaking it down in real time. This episode is honest, funny (Alex shares his most embarrassing moment), and gets into something that comes up a lot in our negotiation work: why memorized tactics tend to backfire when it actually matters.

Here's what the episode covers:

• The Hormozi tactic itself: responding to a discount request, “can you do it for less” with "I could do it for more," and the anchoring logic behind it

• The hidden assumption in the clip that quietly undermines the whole tactic• Why short-form negotiation advice tends to reward gimmicks over judgment

• How memorizing scripts makes you less present, and why that costs you in live negotiations

• What Alex and Gerta actually coach clients to do instead: principles with real logic, not lines to recite

• Alex's mortifying elevator pitch story from college that illustrates all of this perfectly

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Tallulah Le Merle spent nearly seven years negotiating deals as a management consultant at Kearney, worked as a fractional COO and advisor for AI scale-ups, and is now a partner at Fifth Era, a conscious-tech investment firm. She's also a writer and speaker working on her upcoming book, The Case for Hope in the Age of AI. And she has a lot to say about negotiations.

In this episode, we get into how power reads differently across cultures, why authenticity isn't just an ethical position but a tactical one, the StrengthsFinder concept of WOO (Winning Others Over) and what it actually looks like in practice, and how to hold your ground without turning a negotiation into a standoff.

• How British and American corporate cultures handle power differently, and what that means for how you negotiate depending on the culture

• WOO (Winning Others Over) as a negotiation skill: reading the other side, mirroring their language, and walking into their world instead of asking them to come to yours

• The Rule of Three in consulting: why letting a client ask multiple times before treating it as a real ask protects both the relationship and the scope

• Why lying about competing offers backfires, and what authenticity actually buys you at the table• The difference between being firm and being rigid, and how the clearest negotiators are often the calmest ones

• Why vulnerability is a marker of power, not weakness, whether you're negotiating a salary or a relationship

Connect with Tallulah Le Merle: https://www.tallulahlemerle.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with us: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

In this episode, we invited Surina Diddi, who spent nearly a decade in finance, from equity research at UBS to investment banking at Lazard and Scotiabank to private equity in the renewable energy and energy storage space.

We talk through Surina’s experience negotiating an additional $50K on top of her MBA scholarship at Chicago Booth School of Business. We get into how scholarship pools actually work, why the admissions officer relationship matters more than most people realize, and how she used a real job offer pipeline as leverage. We also talk about what she'd do differently: applying earlier and to more schools.

We Cover:

• How MBA scholarship funds are actually allocated and who controls them

• Why pitching your credentials alone isn't enough, and what actually moved the needle

• The role of persistence after a flat no

• How a real job offer pipeline became negotiation leverage against a business school

• Why Surina deliberately avoided naming a specific dollar amount

• The Forte Foundation and other pre-MBA fellowship programs worth knowing about

Connect with Surina Diddi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/surina-diddi-28824219

• Over many years, Surina has mentored lots of people pursuing careers in finance and admission to top MBA programs, often helping them secure scholarships. Feel free to reach out to her on LinkedIn if you think she can support you.

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

What if negotiation isn’t just about tactics, scripts, and numbers? In this episode, we sit down with Julia Martin and Melanie Bettis to explore the intersection most people ignore: mindset and strategy.

Julia comes from the world of manifestation and intentionality. Melanie brings deep experience in job search strategy, interviewing, and salary negotiation. Together, they make a compelling case for something we’ve seen with our own clients: It’s rarely just tactics or mindset. It’s both.

We get into how your internal state shapes negotiation outcomes, why most people start negotiating too late, and how to expand what you believe is possible when the numbers feel out of reach.

If you found this helpful, share it with someone who’s about to negotiate an offer or make a big career move.

What we cover

• The question Julia uses to shift into a confident mindset

• Why negotiation actually starts before the interview

• How recruiters use early salary questions to anchor you

• The “ladder of believability” and how to ask for more than you’ve ever made

• How to identify and reframe limiting beliefs before a negotiation

• Why visualization is used by athletes, the military, and top performers

• How to mentally rehearse a negotiation or interview

• Why likability and genuine curiosity create leverage

• The small language shifts that make negotiation collaborative

• What most people misunderstand about persistence in negotiation

Key ideas from the episode

1. Visualization is practical, not just abstract. From athletes to military training, mental rehearsal is used to improve performance. The same applies to interviews and compensation conversations.

2. Negotiation starts earlier than you think. That “casual” salary question from a recruiter is not casual. It’s part of the negotiation.

3. Most people are anchored to their past. If you’ve been making a certain number for years, it can feel uncomfortable to ask for a lot more. The solution is expanding belief step by step, not forcing it all at once.

4. Your internal stories shape your outcomes. Limiting beliefs often drive hesitation in negotiations. Writing them down and reframing them can change how you show up.

5. Likability is a real advantage. “Be interested to be interesting.” Genuine connection makes people more willing to advocate for you.

6. Ask, then follow up thoughtfully/ Negotiation is not about being aggressive. It’s about being clear, collaborative, and persistent when it matters.

Learn more about Julia and Melanie’s work:

https://wearedreambuilders.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: ⁠https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: ⁠https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki