CHRISTOPHER VOSS

There's great power in deference. You ask somebody 'what' or 'how' questions. People love to be asked how to do something. They feel powerful, and from a deferential position, you've actually granted that power, and you're the one that now actually has the upper hand in the conversation.

Consider this: Whenever someone is bothering you, and they just won't let up, and they won't listen to anything you have to say, what do you tell them to get them to shut up and go away? 'You're right.' It works every time. But you haven't agreed to their position. You have used 'you're right' to get them to quit bothering you.

There is great power in deference. Deference works with everybody.

There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no.' When yes is commitment, no is protection.

Price doesn't make deals, and salary doesn't control your career.

Mirroring is simply repeating what someone just said. It creates more reception from the other side, it focuses attention, and it gives them an opportunity to dial in more with you and you to dial in more with them. It causes an almost completely unconscious response for the person to want to go on.

Salary negotiations shouldn't be limited to just salary. Salary pays your mortgage, but terms build your career.

The best messages in any given negotiation are really implied indirectly, come to the other person based on thinking that you're getting them to do - getting them to get some really solid thought behind their answers. And so a great thing to send someone in an email is, 'Have you given up on this project?'

The sooner you cut off negotiations with someone you shouldn't be dealing with, it gives you the chance to move on to a more profitable deal.

Emotions aren't the obstacles to a successful negotiation; they are the means.

Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window.

The 'that's right' breakthrough usually doesn't come at the beginning of a negotiation. It's invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you've said. To them, it's a subtle epiphany.

People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money.

Once you understand what a messy, emotional, and destructive dynamic 'fairness' can be, you can see why 'fair' is a tremendously powerful word that you need to use with care.

What drives you? What's your motivation? That's not emotion. That's passion. It's a different word.

Most people offer obvious telltale signs when they're lying.

Since retiring from the FBI in 2007, I've traveled the world and worked with everyone from CEOs to their managers and everyday workers on how to apply techniques from hundreds of high-stakes, life-or-death negotiations to business negotiations.

When it comes to salary negotiation, don't forget that salary is only one term of employment. What else is on the table - vacation time, benefits, bonuses, flex days? Before determining that these terms are 'must-haves' or 'giveaways' to get a bigger salary, find out what the counterpart has to offer.

In Syria, for some time, they have been trading hostages for a number of things: for weapons, for money, for political influence, and for favors.

Remember Robin Williams's great work as the voice of the genie in Disney's 'Aladdin'? Because he wanted to leave something wonderful behind for his kids, he said, he did the voice for a cut-rate fee of $75,000, far below his usual $8 million payday. But then something happened: The movie became a huge hit, raking in $504 million.

The 'Rule of Three' is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation, it's really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.

The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually, 'That's right.' Before you convince them to see what you're trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, 'That's right.'

You're supposed to have a passionate purpose as a CEO.

What you want to do is put people in a position where they feel connected enough to you that they're willing to collaborate with you; they're willing to show you the things that they were scared to tell you about before.

'No' is a dynamic that you've got to master before you can ever master 'yes.'