Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

conciliator, enforcer, savior, confessor, instigator, and
peacemaker—and that’s just a few of the parts.
I thought I was cut out for every one of them.
A few weeks after I got to Manhattan, I showed up at the
desk of Amy Bonderow, who ran the FBI’s Crisis
Negotiation Team in New York. I didn’t know beans about
negotiating, so I went for the direct approach.
“I want be a hostage negotiator,” I said.
“Everyone does—got any training?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Any credentials?”
“Nope.” I answered.
“Any experience?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Do you have a degree in psychology, sociology,
anything at all related to negotiation?”
“No.”
“Looks like you answered your own question,” she said.
“No. Now go away.”
“Go away?” I protested. “Really?”
“Yep. As in, ‘Leave me alone.’ Everybody wants to be a
hostage negotiator, and you have no résumé, experience, or
skills. So what would you say in my position? You got it:
‘No.’”
I paused in front of her, thinking, This is not how my
negotiating career ends. I had stared down terrorists; I
wasn’t going to just leave.
“Come on,” I said. “There has to be something I can