It’s negotiation season
“Omg, this is the best session.”
It was my childhood friend, texting me while she sat in a session during Goldman Sachs’ small-business program for entrepreneurs.
After quickly asking who, what, when, and where, she told me she had just taken copious notes from instructor Mori Taheripour, a negotiation expert who’s also an award-winning professor at Wharton. Instead of waiting for her to clean up her notes, she advised me to read Taheripour’s book, “Bring Yourself: How to Harness the Power of Connection to Negotiate Fearlessly.”
I didn’t hesitate. I clicked into the audiobook immediately and became enraptured. The book, released in 2020, isn’t just a how-to on negotiating. It’s also not about being the smartest, fastest, or closing the deal. Taheripour teaches how a good negotiator truly knows themselves first. She also breaks down other useful life tactics, like how to sit comfortably in silence and how to emotionally regulate.
What I loved about “Bring Yourself” was realizing that the art of negotiation is critical to my everyday life. In fact, like many high-functioning people, I’m negotiating daily — sometimes with my 6-year-old about how to eat a healthier breakfast, and sometimes with my team about which stories to tell that day on Business Insider.
Taheripour makes it clear to the reader that this book is more about self than strategy.
“It is self-esteem, self-awareness, and battling of imposter syndrome all rolled into one,” she writes. “If self-doubt drives our negotiations, we start determining the outcomes of a negotiation before we even begin.”
“And the more confident you are about what your story is, the less vulnerable you are to those who would question it. The stories we tell ourselves can make the difference between a great outcome and a bad one, between going onstage and going home,” she continues.
Taheripour’s “Bring Yourself” reminded me that sometimes the toughest negotiations aren’t with other people; they’re with ourselves.
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