The Art of Manliness - Life Lessons From the World's Greatest Negotiator

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast in 1981 time

00:00:12.240 magazine stated if you're ever in a crucial life-changing negotiation the person you want

00:00:16.400 on your side of the table is herb cohen cohen was then known as the world's best negotiator

00:00:20.960 and had worked with fortune 500 companies professional athletes and u.s presidents and

00:00:25.440 also penned the best-selling book you can negotiate anything fast forward to today and his son rich

00:00:30.840 cohen has written a memoir of his father's life and life philosophy called the adventures of herbie

00:00:35.600 cohen world's greatest negotiator today on the show rich shares stories of herbie's life from his

00:00:40.340 colorful childhood on the streets of brooklyn where he paled around in a gang with future famous figures

00:00:44.600 like larry king and sandy koufax to coaching basketball in the army to becoming a sought-after

00:00:49.020 strategist and deal maker along the way rich shares life lessons that grew out of these stories

00:00:53.620 including how power is perception and why you need to care but not that much after the show

00:00:58.180 is over check out our show notes at aom.is slash herbie rich cohen welcome to the show yeah thanks

00:01:19.960 thanks for having me so you have written a memoir about your father herbie cohen younger listeners

00:01:26.040 probably haven't heard of your father but you know people who grew up during the 1980s they probably

00:01:31.640 heard of him he's a big deal he was a pop culture phenomenon what was your dad famous for he was just

00:01:37.580 he's from bensonhurst brooklyn and he's a negotiator a job that did not exist that i believe he

00:01:44.520 invented and he ultimately at the you know top of his career he would he worked for seemed like every

00:01:51.800 fortune 500 company either representing the company in their deals or training their executives how to

00:01:58.240 negotiate and he did other things like he trained all the swat teams and i've been hearing from the

00:02:03.580 guys who he trained how to negotiate with terrorists he worked in several presidential administrations

00:02:10.300 including he was brought in by jimmy carter during the iran hostage crisis and he worked for reagan and

00:02:16.240 then he was on the start talks which means he negotiated nuclear proliferation with the russians

00:02:21.560 he also worked for the nfl players and the major league umpires and a lot of other unions so

00:02:27.160 he sort of did everything and what always interested me about him was he kind of made up his career i mean

00:02:32.880 that thing that didn't exist and then the big thing was when i was 12 years old he announced he was

00:02:38.720 going to write a book went down to our basement and came up with this manuscript handwritten in long

00:02:44.220 hand and uh was rejected by like 22 publishers before one nut finally accepted it and it was called

00:02:51.800 you can negotiate anything how to get what you want it was published in 1980 and i think i've written

00:02:57.900 like 13 books his book alone still outsells everything i've written every year so his book became kind of a

00:03:05.840 classic they read it at harvard business school yale business school which is funny to me because

00:03:10.560 he's just sort of a street kid from brooklyn and he's now the expert yeah it's funny you said that

00:03:15.220 he made up his career and it seems like he just sort of he basically used principles and ideas that he

00:03:20.640 he got while just living growing up in brooklyn being the army and codified it and made a job for

00:03:27.420 himself yeah he really believed his parents are immigrants and he believed first generation american

00:03:33.640 and his whole thing is about power and institution he learned that what became his sort of motto in

00:03:41.620 life which is that power is based on perception if you think you got it you got it even if you don't

00:03:46.800 got it and to make that point he actually began his book with a story about me in a restaurant as a

00:03:53.880 nine-year-old freaking out showing that i was able to use my limited power as a kid to get what i wanted

00:03:59.840 which was not to eat in that restaurant and they dragged me out of there so his point was that he

00:04:05.520 kind of wanted to demystify the idea of negotiating which people were intimidated by and show that it

00:04:11.880 was something that people are you're engaged in all the time with your family at your job even if you

00:04:17.520 don't realize it but if you do realize it then you can actually become much better at it and turn it

00:04:23.060 into a game and have fun at it so this is all stuff he learned as a kid and he that's why his book i

00:04:31.020 think connects so much with people because it isn't written like an academic book it's like stand-up

00:04:35.960 comedy and that's why it was important for me that my book be funny that you actually hopefully laugh

00:04:40.940 out loud when reading it because to me it's like you know the it's like the old you know the bible

00:04:46.540 story which is there's the life of jesus then there's a teaching of jesus i'm not comparing my father to

00:04:52.500 jesus but his life was very funny and he you know did good things and bad things and out of his life

00:04:59.040 came his philosophy so i wanted to sort of share both well yeah it was hilarious i mean as i read

00:05:04.900 it i was laughing out loud my wife was like is that book really i was like this is hilarious it's just

00:05:08.500 it's so funny and so this idea that that power was based on perception that he learned this really

00:05:14.920 viscerally like he understood this as a as a nine-year-old him as a nine-year-old and it happened when

00:05:19.720 he was deputized as a school crossing guard tell us about that experience like how did he learn that

00:05:24.300 power is based on perception being a school crossing guard well the key to his whole thing is your

00:05:31.400 enemy in life and in negotiating is kind of a narcissism which is people tend to think especially

00:05:37.800 under stress that they're the only players that they're the only ones with anything at stake and

00:05:42.380 they don't realize that who the people they're dealing with are under stress too and they're also

00:05:46.920 have a tough situation now the story you're talking about is when my father was nine years old he got

00:05:52.660 in trouble at school and as a punishment he had to work as a crossing guard at kind of a crosswalk

00:05:59.560 that didn't really need a crossing guard and he met another kid larry zeiger who later became larry

00:06:05.320 king who was his best friend through his whole life who had this was also in trouble and he was also put

00:06:11.320 on this duty and they put these crossing guard belts on him and they sent him out to the corner

00:06:15.420 and larry was complaining that this was busy work and crap and my father said i know this is a nine-year-old

00:06:22.800 i think you misunderstand this position we have a lot of power they've given us a lot of power and larry

00:06:29.740 disagreed and they they made a bet and to prove it and win the bet my father took a stop sign and went

00:06:35.320 out and just stopped traffic for five minutes and quickly you had wall-to-wall traffic in bensonhurst

00:06:41.560 brooklyn people honking screaming swearing getting out of their cars and getting into fights until a

00:06:46.720 teacher had to finally come and drag them out of there and they ripped off my father was it was

00:06:51.400 like when in a movie when they rip off a guy's you know sergeant stripes they ripped off their crossing

00:06:56.940 guard belt and kicked them back to class but the lesson was proven which is if you think you got power

00:07:01.740 you got power well he had another experience later on in life when he was an adult and also involved

00:07:07.060 larry king where this idea that power is based on perception i think larry was at a democratic

00:07:11.720 national convention and oh yeah and and your dad was like i'm gonna be there on the stage with you

00:07:17.140 and larry's like bullcrap not gonna happen well you're missing i don't know if i'm just gonna go

00:07:20.960 to it now you're missing the the crucial story which is the famous mappo story which i grew up when

00:07:26.560 larry was on the radio he used to well it sets up the other story it sets up their whole relationship

00:07:30.420 and this is a story larry would tell on his radio show and it became kind of a cult story

00:07:35.340 larry told it not long before he died again on jimmy kimmel you can look it up but he says this

00:07:40.860 is what made my father a negotiator which is when they were 14 years old going into ninth grade which

00:07:46.960 then was the last year of junior high school in that part of brooklyn they would walk to school

00:07:51.860 every day with a kid named gill mermelstein who they called mappo because he had like a big mop of

00:07:57.160 hair on his head and they went to pick him up and his house is all closed down and his cousin was

00:08:02.140 there and they said where's gill where's mappo and they said mappo has tuberculosis and he's been sent

00:08:08.360 to arizona for the cure and i am here to close up the house disconnect the phone and go to the school

00:08:15.240 and get his records sent out there so he can go to school out there and my father said you know

00:08:20.720 your life's busy enough you don't have to go to the school we'll go we'll tell the school what

00:08:25.340 happened and it was my dad larry and another guy named brazi abadi and the three of them were

00:08:30.920 walking to school and my father said according to this is larry's version my father's version

00:08:34.320 slightly different he said uh you know i got a great way to make 20 bucks so we can go to

00:08:40.440 coney island and have like a party and larry said what he said instead of saying mappo's sick

00:08:46.840 and in arizona we're going to say mappo died and raise money for a funeral wreath and we'll take

00:08:54.420 that money and go to coney island so my dad talked these two other kids into it and they went to the

00:09:00.040 front office at the school and they said mappo's died and the front office uh called mappo's house

00:09:06.020 and they got a disconnect and they wrote deceased on mappo's card and then my dad and larry went around

00:09:11.800 to all these classes and raised i think it was just over 20 and you know the larry and brazi were

00:09:19.100 freaked out about it they're going to get caught they're going to get in big trouble my father said

00:09:22.000 by the time mappo comes back we're going to be in high school and we're like in a totally different

00:09:26.640 jurisdiction they won't be able to do anything about it even if they find out so the year went on

00:09:31.100 and they got a call to go to the principal's office near the end of the year and they thought

00:09:34.200 they found out we're in big trouble and larry and brazi were freaking out the principal

00:09:37.980 rather than big trouble said listen we're starting a new thing for our junior high

00:09:42.300 public service award called the gill mermelstein memorial award and the first winners are going to

00:09:49.780 be you three for raising money for the funeral wreath for your friend and remembering your friend

00:09:54.740 so larry and brazi are freaking out again we're going to definitely get caught there's a huge assembly

00:09:59.660 schedule there's going to be an award there's going to be newspaper reporters there my father said no

00:10:04.020 this is you know even better same deal except now we're going to get an award and uh by the time

00:10:10.200 mappo comes back we'll be in high school so the way they tell the story is they they're at this

00:10:15.380 assembly there's a big banner over the top over the top of the theater that says gill mermelstein

00:10:22.260 memorial award there's a big trophy up on the stage my dad larry and brazi are there there's a

00:10:27.180 new york times reporter there the principal's there and as larry tells it in the most amazing

00:10:33.200 recovery in a tubercular medicine the history of tubercular medicine mappo returns to school that

00:10:41.280 day and he goes into the school and school's empty and he's confused and he goes to the office they

00:10:46.740 don't recognize him he says where is everybody they say they're in the auditorium for an assembly

00:10:51.220 and he goes into the auditorium through these big doors that clank and he's standing at the back of

00:10:56.360 an auditorium my father would always say mappo wasn't that smart but he knew what the word memorial

00:11:02.780 meant and he knew if your name was next to it it meant you were dead and the kids in the back of

00:11:08.000 the auditorium looked around they recognized mappo and they immediately understood what my father and

00:11:12.960 larry had done because they were always doing crap like that and laughter spread from the back to the

00:11:18.240 front and the principal looks up he doesn't even doesn't even recognize mappo and my father's standing

00:11:24.040 there he sees mappo and he jumps up and he yells through cupped hands go home mappo you're dead you're

00:11:29.540 dead and mappo turns and runs and the principal understands what happens he destroys the trophy

00:11:34.760 sends everyone back to class he's going nuts he calls him into his office and he's screaming at them

00:11:42.000 that they're never going to graduate their academic career's done they're never going to go to high

00:11:47.000 school they're going to get it need to get a gre they need to go to trade school forget about college

00:11:51.300 and larry and brazi are crying and this one larry says my father's first negotiation he says hey

00:11:58.680 principal you're making a big mistake which is like shocking to the principal he's like why am i

00:12:05.020 making a mistake he goes think about it this is my father's whole thing which is he always says to

00:12:09.040 understand the price you have to understand the player other guy has something at stake too and if

00:12:14.400 you can see through the world through his eyes you can understand what that is figure this out all

00:12:19.240 intuitively because he was a kid but he said yeah we're going to get expelled and yeah we're probably

00:12:23.720 not going to get to go to a normal high school but what's going to happen to you i mean two three

00:12:28.320 bad kids come in and tell you another kid died you call his house you write the C stunts card and then

00:12:32.720 you give him an award i mean yeah we're never going to high school but you're never working in this city

00:12:38.100 again and larry said the principal just leaned back in his chair and just sighed he was whipped and he said

00:12:44.640 let's just forget the whole thing and he sent him back to class and they graduated on time and

00:12:49.240 everything and it became this running gag the mopo story but that set up this idea for larry that my

00:12:55.240 father can kind of get him out of any jam that there was so larry if you know larry's history he was often

00:13:00.440 getting in trouble and a big part of my childhood was larry calling my father asking my father to figure

00:13:05.540 out how to get him out of that trouble and another thing with my father is use the same ability

00:13:10.360 ability to get in anywhere because he believed that if you act like you know what you're doing

00:13:14.660 people just believe you when i was a kid he said 98 of the people in the world are schmucks they're

00:13:19.540 morons you just act like you know what you're doing even if you don't you're ahead of everybody

00:13:23.420 that's if you think you got power you got it and one of the things you could do with my father if you

00:13:28.560 wanted the tickets to something you'd say you can't get tickets it's sold out or you'll never get in

00:13:33.860 and he'd get in sense and he'd go i'll never get in you'll never get in i'll get in so the story is

00:13:40.360 larry was in new york for the democratic convention the one that nominated bill clinton at madison square

00:13:45.760 garden and my father and larry and me and some of the others having dinner my father said larry i'll

00:13:51.340 meet you tonight you know at the garden to see al gore's speech and larry said no you'll never get in

00:13:58.320 i don't have credentials for you and the place is there's tons of security you'll never get in my

00:14:03.800 father said i'll never get in i'll see you tonight and larry writes about in his book and right before

00:14:08.640 he interviews gore there's my father standing next to him on stage and he was like larry was mystified

00:14:13.680 like how the hell did he get in i know how he got in because i have a reporter who saw him do it

00:14:18.740 which is he walked up to the guy running security with a notepad and he started asking him all these

00:14:24.580 questions about when's your shift end how many people are working here is there anything going

00:14:28.860 on at door number seven what's going on on seventh avenue and the guy just assumed my father was his

00:14:34.100 boss answered all these questions my father wrote it all down and said you know what you're doing a

00:14:40.540 great job congratulations patted him on the back and walked right through and that was a win-win because

00:14:46.160 my father got in and the guy ended up feeling very happy all right so there are two principles of

00:14:50.440 negotiation that you can apply right there we don't know it's power is based on perception so if

00:14:54.460 you act like you know what you're doing people typically are going to treat you like that and

00:14:58.260 then also the other one with the principle understand the motives of the other person

00:15:02.100 involved like they've got goals as well and if you understand that that can unlock a lot of things

00:15:06.700 right and think about as if everybody had a different kind of money and when most people

00:15:12.680 go into negotiation they're assuming my dollar and your dollar are the same so i'll offer to trade my

00:15:17.920 dollars for your dollars the other person has completely different money so you have to figure out

00:15:22.840 what that money is to figure out what's going to move them and that money is any kind of different

00:15:26.500 motivation in the case of the principal his career was his money yeah well it's so uh you're you're

00:15:33.360 no that makes perfect sense so your your dad grew up in brooklyn i know i thought it was really

00:15:37.800 interesting i didn't know about this that you kind of give people a uh a look into the world of

00:15:43.180 brooklyn like in the 1950s there's these things called social athletic clubs but basically gangs

00:15:48.620 yeah and your your dad and larry king belonged on one called the the warriors they yeah i grew up

00:15:53.820 with stories so he was very romantic and exciting for me because i grew up in outside of chicago very

00:15:58.600 suburban and when i talked about my friends on my block they were todd mark dennis jamie chris when my

00:16:08.880 father talked about his friends on his block they were inky shepo hoo-ha gutter rat who was called that

00:16:15.280 even by his own mother which i always found amazing as in gunner rat come in it's time for dinner

00:16:19.740 my father insisted he'd been called hans somo and uh because he was so good looking that's what he'd say

00:16:26.300 and they had this club room in a kid's basement and they were called the warriors mainly because there was

00:16:32.400 a pontiac dealer in their neighborhood and the the logo for the pontiac dealer was it was a giant

00:16:39.660 indian head and they could basically swipe stuff from the pontiac dealership and have grade a insignia

00:16:45.420 they had jackets which i have a picture of my father and it was a blue jacket with a white w i think

00:16:52.980 but it was reversible for formal occasions and mostly what they did is they hung around on the

00:16:57.780 corner of 86th street and bay parkway they went on adventures all over brooklyn and they sat around

00:17:02.840 their clubhouse just kind of bullshitting and it was called the sac social athletic club and one time

00:17:11.040 one of their members complained that all they do is athletics there's no social part and they explained

00:17:16.500 that well we're socializing when we're playing basketball so there's the social part of the social

00:17:21.420 athletic club and that was mostly mostly they played basketball softball baseball and roller hockey

00:17:27.220 and uh they also went on this adventure to new haven connecticut yeah because some guy was selling

00:17:33.620 three scoops of ice cream for 15 cents and for some reason this was worth driving in a blizzard to go

00:17:40.480 check out and for this to verify this was true this is another story that larry told on the radio all the

00:17:46.140 time called the carvel story and it was like the b side of the if the mapo story was the a side this was the

00:17:53.240 b side and carvel story was great because the person who set the whole thing in motion was sandy

00:17:58.360 koufax because they had these guys in their neighborhood like just sandy koufax who didn't

00:18:02.300 play baseball at the time he played basketball and he was hanging around on the corner and he started

00:18:06.520 talking about a vacation his family had just gone to new haven where they you can get three scoops at

00:18:12.060 carvel three scoops of ice cream for a dime i think it was a dime anyway they didn't believe this

00:18:18.240 because in brooklyn it was two scoops for a dime so they started arguing about profit ratios and if

00:18:24.580 it was even possible and finally they made a bet and the only way the bet could be solved was by

00:18:28.720 actually going to new haven my father had a car he got his car they picked up their friend hoo-ha and

00:18:34.500 to me the always the funniest part is hoo-ha tells his parents he's going to carvel and there's a carvel

00:18:39.040 like on the same block where they live and his parents say okay and they leave they they drive past

00:18:44.720 that carvel and they get on the basically the belt parkway and they head into the city and it's not

00:18:49.700 until they've gone all the way up into westchester county which is like a 30 minute drive that hoo-ha

00:18:54.620 finally says where the hell are we going and they say oh we're going to carvel he goes carvel's way

00:18:59.220 back there and they explained to him about new haven and the three scoops and he says it's impossible you

00:19:03.260 can't get three scoops for 10 cents and he immediately forgets his family and is in involved in the action

00:19:08.080 and they go up to new haven and it starts snowing there's carvel closing up and they bang on the

00:19:14.540 door and the guy lets him in and they they have a whole argument about how they're going to do it

00:19:18.240 and basically they just put a dime on the counter and say give me what that's worth because they

00:19:21.860 don't anybody signaling anybody and the guy serves three scoops and they can't believe it sandy wins

00:19:26.720 the bet they eat all this ice cream and they come out and also the guy realizes now why he's kind of

00:19:32.020 going out of business he's giving away a free scoop every time he serves ice cream and they come out and

00:19:36.560 there's like a blizzard and it's a whole crazy story where there's a parade in the middle of the

00:19:40.460 night and it's a parade for the mayor of new haven and they wind up going to the parade and my father

00:19:46.360 starts going around the crowd at a party that follows the parade of campaign workers and talks about how

00:19:51.700 larry's done more campaign work for anybody and then larry starts saying how my father's done more

00:19:56.400 campaign work and the mayor gets up and he says i've been hearing about these two young men they

00:20:02.580 should get up because they've done more campaign work and larry gets up and he introduces my father

00:20:08.100 my father does like a 10 minute speech about democracy and america and the greatness of america

00:20:13.660 he's like everybody's crying by the end and as they leave the mayor pulls him aside and says i'm very

00:20:19.020 embarrassed because you've done all this work and i don't even know who you are and they explain that

00:20:23.760 of course he would know they came from brooklyn and they explain about the three scoops and he can't

00:20:28.120 believe it and what's funny is years later that mayor ended up becoming a senator i think or

00:20:34.320 representative from connecticut and he was on larry's radio show and he remembered the whole

00:20:39.400 thing and they wind up getting back to brooklyn at four in the morning where who has parents are

00:20:44.600 waiting outside in the snow and i always think of this because who has father goes down the row and

00:20:49.200 pokes them each in the chest and goes bum bum bum you're a bum you're a bum you're a bum

00:20:57.560 and then he asked what what the hell happened and they say well sandy said in new haven you can get

00:21:02.400 a car value get three scoops for a dime and he says three scoops for a dime that's impossible

00:21:07.100 that's the kicker of the story well another example there of uh power is based on perception like they

00:21:13.880 went into this party for this mayor and sort of yeah larry's a great and like they believed him

00:21:18.540 because they everyone thought that they they sounded confident and that's it must be true yeah we're

00:21:24.780 gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show well so your

00:21:31.380 father graduates high school he goes to college for a bit kind of flounders and he decides the

00:21:35.660 korean war is going on i'm probably going to get drafted anyway so i'll just sign up and join the army

00:21:40.760 right and he gets shipped off to to germany kind of on the front line between russia and the rest of

00:21:47.780 western europe but he ends up becoming this basketball coach for this army intramural league

00:21:54.660 in europe and again there's some like he there's like lessons that he learned being a basketball

00:21:59.560 coach that he later applied into his career as a negotiator so what are some of those lessons that

00:22:04.580 he picked up as a basketball coach in the army well i should say that my father believed that

00:22:08.900 any game properly understood becomes a metaphor for life so for him everything that you needed to know

00:22:14.640 about how to get by in life you could see on the basketball court and in his neighborhood basketball

00:22:19.000 was king so when he got it was a crazy story but he ends up in on in the bad kissingen germany which

00:22:25.880 is the folder gap which is where the russian tanks will roll through in world war ii and and he was

00:22:31.620 riding on the back of a half track with a big gun basically pointing at the russians across the line

00:22:37.660 and his unit was all trained in behind the lines guerrilla tactics because if there was a war

00:22:43.640 then they would instantly most of them would be killed right away and the ones who survived were

00:22:47.860 behind the lines and they had to basically be trained in guerrilla tactics so there was a basketball

00:22:52.420 court everyone's playing basketball and there was a three-on-three tournament and he took a team of

00:22:58.460 sort of mediocre players and got all the way to the championship of that tournament and the guy who

00:23:04.480 ran the base was a colonel i think or a general saw what he did and called him in and said you know

00:23:10.300 how did you do that and he has a whole philosophy about how good can be great mediocre can be good

00:23:16.280 if you have a strategy so he made him the head of the bases team which played in this division

00:23:21.740 second division of the european league now the european league had a lot of college basketball

00:23:26.280 players a lot of nba players and future nba players was very high level these were guys that

00:23:31.780 had been drafted you know that were going to go on and play pro ball and uh he was in the second

00:23:37.180 division and he had a his unit his base had a pretty mediocre team so his whole thing about

00:23:44.060 anything in life is control the tempo take away the other side's strength so he knew the teams they

00:23:50.400 were playing were much more talented and much faster so he designed an offense that intentionally

00:23:55.620 slowed down and frustrated the other team was kind of winning ugly and then he took this kind of

00:24:00.920 mediocre team playing this very slow plotting style of basketball that would ultimately cause

00:24:07.560 the other team to become frustrated and to screw up and he brought them all the way to the championship

00:24:12.720 and then that was noticed by the guy he played against and a team that had a lot of skill it was

00:24:17.600 underperforming in the first division made asked him if he would take over a team and coach it and he

00:24:23.640 went and he just watched that team and that team was very talented and very fast and he built a

00:24:28.180 completely different strategy for that team which was all about using speed because he would say

00:24:33.220 i can teach you how to shoot i can teach you how to dribble but i can't teach you how to be fast

00:24:37.220 basically he took that team with a totally different style and they won first division of the all

00:24:42.200 european championship now it was for me as a kid he told me these stories i didn't really believe them

00:24:48.240 but then i found the scrapbook that somebody put together that had articles that chronicled this whole

00:24:52.840 thing in stars and strikes some of those pictures are in the book and um one of he said he has

00:24:57.980 this thing it's a tip for negotiation time information power the first thing he did when

00:25:03.420 he took you over any one of these teams or anything is gather as much information as he could he wanted

00:25:08.360 to know the truth about his team and the truth about the other side if they were better he wanted

00:25:12.980 to know that he didn't want any kind of bullshit you know he wanted to know the truth and then he

00:25:17.820 designed his strategy around that and the other thing is you can if you control the clock that's time

00:25:24.440 you control everything and one thing he said that goes with this he used to say as long as you get

00:25:28.760 there before the meeting's over you're never late so basically all that came through in basketball

00:25:34.080 no that the whole idea of controlling tempo that's actually like from like warfare strategy too um

00:25:39.300 john boyd he's this guy that developed this thing called the ooda loop like observe orient decide act

00:25:44.820 kind of changed battlefield tactics in the latter half of the 20th century and the whole this whole

00:25:50.300 things you got to control the tempo if you control the tempo you control the battle that's exact and

00:25:56.160 you put the other side off rhythm no matter how good they are they're off so the passes miss and

00:26:01.580 then they become frustrated and once you get them frustrated they'll start beating themselves by

00:26:05.600 making mistakes and it goes to this bigger idea which is you know he always says this thing which

00:26:10.660 is a nose that can hear is worth two that can smell which basically means being different and being

00:26:15.840 weird is good you always want to wrong foot the other side they think you're going to do

00:26:19.880 this you do that you know this way you go that way and that's all in basketball you know so and

00:26:25.660 it's all in life so i i've never really talked to him about war tactics but i'm sure that he would

00:26:31.620 say it like i said it applies to everything and sports is the closest sort of you know he ended up

00:26:36.540 working studying and being involved in game theory my father when i was a kid he taught at

00:26:40.420 the university of michigan he was never an academic but they bring him in to teach these seminars

00:26:44.820 in these classes and there he became introduced to the game theory and the idea of there being four

00:26:51.540 possibilities in a game which is lose lose that's nuclear war both sides lose lose win you lose they

00:26:58.700 win win lose you win they lose or win win and he's the guy who's sort of popularized that phrase he took

00:27:06.100 it from academia and brought it out into the world as his idea being that not only like a lot of people

00:27:13.220 would prefer win lose to win win believe it or not and they have a sense that there's a zero sum game

00:27:19.220 if they win i by definition lose but his belief came to be that in a negotiation the only way to

00:27:25.620 really win in the long term is win win and he used to say or he still says people will support that which

00:27:32.200 they create so if you allow somebody to help create a solution then they'll be invested in making the

00:27:38.700 solution into a long-term success whereas by if you stuff their head down in it make them eat dirt

00:27:44.640 because you beat them so badly you're just sowing the seeds for the next conflict and the war example

00:27:50.500 this is world war one world war one france wins germany loses but is that really what happened because

00:27:56.500 it set up the conditions in germany the meat the peace was so harsh on the germans that it set up the

00:28:02.620 basically seeds and the animosity that resulted in world war ii were kind of everybody lost

00:28:08.000 so it turned a win a win lose into a lose lose right okay so your father he he does this stint in

00:28:15.840 europe comes back he gets involved in the insurance industry and he he kills it there because he just

00:28:20.640 he's applying these principles that he's been using since he was a kid in the insurance industry and

00:28:25.420 then he finally realized i could be doing this on my own i could be my own boss and do what i'm doing

00:28:29.580 this is how he becomes the negotiation group this is when he starts making his transition to

00:28:33.540 freelance negotiation insurance thing was really important which is it happened kind of by accident

00:28:37.920 he was didn't have any money now he has two kids living in a little tiny apartment and he was going to

00:28:43.980 law school at night and that was paid for by the gi bill but he needed money for his family so he took

00:28:49.720 this job at all state just as a temporary thing and they made him a claims adjuster and quickly he

00:28:56.200 started outperforming everybody as a as a claims adjuster claims adjustments and negotiation so

00:29:00.900 then they made him head of his whole branchy to train everybody else and then he just kept rising

00:29:05.560 until he was running sort of the claims adjusting and all in all the northeast and then eventually

00:29:13.120 they wanted him to train everybody and they moved him to chicago and then they moved him into the

00:29:19.020 executive suite at sears which was like amazon at the time was a huge company so he went from sort of

00:29:25.140 claims adjuster to the like an executive vice president at sears and very simply all his big

00:29:30.880 realization that claims adjusting was is better to overpay and settle these things quickly than to get

00:29:36.720 bogged down in little fights that ended up costing you more money even if you won that was just one of

00:29:42.380 it was like a big picture thing and he his big thing was always people lose the forest for the trees

00:29:47.340 they lose the tree for the knot hole and you know they lose the tree itself for the knot hole in the

00:29:52.740 tree so and um and then sears started having him negotiate their deals train their executives and

00:29:59.700 then hire him out to all their affiliates to teach their people to negotiate because they owned a lot

00:30:03.720 of companies and at some point he decided listen i can just hire myself out i can take the jobs i want

00:30:10.020 and i can you know cut out the middleman and he wound up he started out by running negotiating

00:30:16.120 programs for other companies around the midwest like he worked for montgomery ward then he worked for

00:30:21.540 the chicago police department and it went on and on and bigger and bigger until finally he was asked

00:30:27.640 to come in and train the guys at the fbi and then the fbi started using him in negotiations and one of

00:30:33.720 the kind of coolest things he did is with this guy named walter syrene he helped set up the fbi's

00:30:39.420 behavioral science unit and there's all these famous shows like mind hunter which are kind of based on

00:30:45.580 behavioral sciences unit and how they put together sort of portrayals of like serial killers and stuff

00:30:50.500 but it went back to all back to the thing with the principle which is you have to know the other

00:30:55.420 side you have to know the player to know the cost so basically they were developing you know portraits

00:31:02.980 of people they would negotiate with so they can know what to offer what not to offer where to put

00:31:07.160 pressure and where to give rewards so ultimately that just turned into the whole rest of his career

00:31:12.560 where he worked for the cia and the state department but it happened just all very organically by a job

00:31:17.880 he almost took by accident you know never a job he planned to stay at after he got out of law school

00:31:22.920 he ended up never practicing law he's a lawyer that never practiced law and this goes to another

00:31:28.260 principle of his which is don't get fixed on a particular outcome you know he had this plan for

00:31:34.500 all state which is he was going to work there for a few years until he got a job in a law firm but his

00:31:39.540 plans changed and you have to be ready for your plans to change every step of the way because sometimes

00:31:44.420 you get something better than you went for well it related this idea of don't get stuck to particular

00:31:49.280 outcome one of your your father's foundational principles is to care but not that much like what

00:31:55.540 did that look like in action for your father i always thought of him like when i got to college

00:31:59.860 and started studying eastern religion i the guy's a buddhist man but doesn't even know it which is he

00:32:05.320 believes in detachment in approaching life like a game in realizing that none of this really matters

00:32:11.620 he would always say to me in this world we're renters all of us no one owns you're going to

00:32:17.420 turn it all back in at the desk when it's over you know so basically if you look at it that way

00:32:22.980 then you don't become emotionally detached and you play loose and easy and you're much more effective

00:32:27.260 what that looked like was being able to walk away from a deal giving a little bit more than maybe you

00:32:32.640 wanted because in the long term it was better to give a little bit more you know changing your plan

00:32:36.940 not being bogged down by losses because none of it really mattered it was a game and this is why

00:32:43.340 he'd say you can never negotiate for yourself because when you negotiate for yourself by definition

00:32:48.180 you're going to care too much or with your family you care too much and when you care too much you

00:32:52.420 screw it up every single time well but your father you know he he was able to do this professionally

00:32:57.860 but then he had an instance in his life where he started to care too much because he was negotiating

00:33:03.780 for himself and this happened it was a a legal battle over his really popular book that he wrote

00:33:09.080 yeah what lessons did you take from that from your father's experience with that well looking at my

00:33:14.640 father you know since my father's book was a self-help book and but it was a business book and a memoir

00:33:20.120 but it was a self-help book and it helped a lot of people but i realized watching my father and knowing

00:33:24.640 the story of other people who wrote books the people who write self-help books are pretty much the people

00:33:28.880 most in need of self-help they're really talking to themselves because my father would care too much

00:33:34.660 he'd get overly invested in battles that he thought concerned principles or justice so the great thing

00:33:40.400 about him but also caused him to make mistakes so with his book his book came out and was this massive

00:33:46.400 bestseller it sold like a million copies in a year or something and back then that was even more because

00:33:51.860 there were fewer people in the country and he got sued for plagiarism and and which i knew was

00:33:58.540 bullshit okay because the stories he was sued for a bunch of them were things that actually happened to

00:34:04.900 me and everybody else knew it wasn't true okay but his publisher came and said look when you have a book

00:34:10.620 that's this successful people come out of the woodwork and they sue you and they're nuisance lawsuits

00:34:16.080 and they expect you just to pay them off and it's like the claims adjuster thing at all state which is

00:34:21.060 it's cheaper just to pay them off and move on pay the ticket and move on then get bogged down in a

00:34:27.160 legal battle that that'll take you money time blah blah blah blah blah but he was convinced that if he

00:34:33.040 paid these people off he was admitting in some way or confessing to having taken their ideas which

00:34:40.320 wasn't true and he refused to do that he refused to give in to these people and instead what he did is he

00:34:46.900 said my work predates your work because he'd already been doing this for 25 years when his book came out

00:34:52.140 and if you think ideas are the same it means you stole them from me and he countersued and four years

00:34:59.520 five years he spent more money on those lawsuits because there was that one was there was two one

00:35:04.400 was in new york one was in la so he needed three sets of lawyers because we were in chicago he spent

00:35:09.480 more money on that than he ever made on the book and he spent years of time when he should have been

00:35:13.560 writing a second book and in the end the other side figured well he's been saying he's been teaching

00:35:19.620 these ideas since he was at all state when he was a kid so all we have to do is find somebody who had

00:35:24.560 been at all state with him he won't remember any of this and will prove that he didn't have those

00:35:28.700 ideas then and they found this guy and they asked him these the other side lawyers if if he remembers my

00:35:34.140 father having these ideas he goes yes in fact i still have his booklet and he they said what booklet

00:35:40.120 and he said i'll show you and it was a workbook he'd created for to for training at all state and

00:35:45.900 it had like a lot of the stories in his book from 20 years earlier he'd just been recycling a lot of

00:35:51.480 these stories that he'd written way back then and the other side was sort of astonished so ultimately as

00:35:56.560 soon as they found that book they moved to settle and they had to pay my father and they paid him i don't

00:36:02.640 know like fifty thousand dollars and there was a big giant check but in the end he it was a pyrrhic

00:36:07.920 victory which is you win in that you win but you lose in that you spent 10 times more money than it would

00:36:14.960 have cost to settle and you spend a lot of your life a lot of time a lot of anxiety fighting this

00:36:22.160 thing but this was again another old brooklyn thing which is about bullies he thought these people

00:36:27.140 were bullies and they were trying to get his lunch money basically and his attitude was if you give

00:36:32.520 into this bully then other bullies will appear out of the woodwork and want everything else so you have

00:36:36.720 to fight to the death and then nobody will mess with you again because they'll think this guy's nuts

00:36:40.640 you know so i it was like two principles of him came into contact and he went with the how to deal

00:36:46.260 with bullies principle which i think in retrospect was probably a mistake well you also experienced

00:36:51.220 this you know you kind of became captain ahab for justice when you were in college you had this

00:36:55.500 creative writing teacher there's just kind of a this is a big jerk yeah and you told him about it and

00:37:00.520 then he made this your dad made this i'm gonna i gotta take care of that i gotta stand up to this guy

00:37:04.500 because again it went to his idea of bullies and justice so i had this teacher in college that

00:37:12.140 his philosophy was it was i didn't get a degree in any kind of creative writing i just took a creative

00:37:18.300 writing class and the teacher's philosophy was i have to leave blood on the floor i have to destroy

00:37:24.540 all the ego of all these students and and i got personally involved in hating this guy

00:37:30.040 and he hated me and i wrote a poem that cursed him out and he sort of went after me and it was a

00:37:38.900 whole ugly thing and at the end of the year the guy gave me a b in the class because he knew if he

00:37:44.320 gave me a b i couldn't really complain because i thought what he was doing was horrible the way he

00:37:50.500 was treating these kids in this class and when i came home during christmas because it was first

00:37:54.760 semester of my senior year in college i was telling everybody about this thing and my father did not

00:38:00.020 care i could not even engage him and finally he said listen if i sit down for 10 minutes and listen

00:38:05.800 to you finally will you then shut up and leave me alone and i said yes and i within three minutes i

00:38:11.640 could see this eyes light up i could see him get angry and i'm like oh i made a mistake it's like i

00:38:17.860 summoned beetlejuice and by the end he was so infuriated at this teacher that he made this his cause

00:38:24.360 and he went after went to war with the school and this teacher to the point where i said to him would

00:38:30.240 you stop i moved on man i'm now a second semester senior i'm looking for a job he said you might have

00:38:35.480 moved on but i haven't i'm like what's the point of this he goes it's not for you it's for the next

00:38:39.740 kid who's going to be destroyed by this person i'm protecting the next kid and what and so he had

00:38:46.260 all these demands and actually i found out later that he was still going down to new orleans i went to

00:38:52.380 tulane to fight with the english department three years after i graduated and later on he was in the

00:38:58.840 hospital he had to have a heart he had a heart incident he wouldn't call it a heart attack but

00:39:02.980 is basically his heart stopped working and he had very long surgery thought he was going to die and i

00:39:08.260 sort of thought i wonder if the stress from this stupid tulane thing that i got him into

00:39:12.120 is causing this and i said to him you know you got to drop this now and he said i will never drop it

00:39:21.600 and your older brother has been briefed and if i should fall in this battle he will pick up the

00:39:27.540 standard and continue the fight with nuts and finally when the whole thing was finally settled

00:39:32.320 and it was again it was like he got he won but he didn't get anything it didn't amount to anything

00:39:37.660 and i said so do you see now that it was like a big mistake and it was a waste of time you basically

00:39:44.900 lost and he said no i won and i said how do you figure that he goes because the next time that

00:39:49.840 teacher's about to destroy a kid suddenly the doubt will pop into his head maybe this one has

00:39:55.360 a crazy father too and as a result that kid will be saved from being crushed so he didn't like the

00:40:01.800 idea of people's creativity being crushed by authority and that's what he saw in the school

00:40:06.060 but that was again another instance of over caring but he was playing some game theory there right like

00:40:11.420 he was thinking like that's the whole thing i want the person to think that i'm crazy or there could

00:40:15.220 be another crazy person this is going to cause him to think twice but it was like to me a really

00:40:19.240 great battle to play with the russians but this was like you pick your battles this was a small

00:40:24.320 thing ultimately but who knows i mean maybe it did save a bunch of kids from having this terrible

00:40:29.820 experience and you know never wanting to open their mouths or say anything again because they were

00:40:35.180 afraid of what how it would be received okay so i think the takeaways from these stories are one you

00:40:41.640 know choose your battles is the big one but then also try not to negotiate for yourself because

00:40:46.800 that'll get just get into trouble and if you have to negotiate for yourself you know you gotta try to

00:40:51.220 be detached you know pretend i mean one tip i've heard is pretend like you're negotiating for someone

00:40:55.840 else when you're negotiating for yourself and this principle of caring but not caring i think about this a

00:41:02.500 lot and i've been trying to figure it out and strike that balance and uh i haven't figured it out i'm

00:41:07.760 constantly striving for it but it's a good reminder to care but not not too much so another another one

00:41:13.780 of your father's principles was it's not the what but the how so what did he mean by that and uh how

00:41:21.700 did you see that play out well it's not just he would always use a restaurant as an example which

00:41:26.980 is it's not what the food that they're serving that you're that is bringing you in it's how they're

00:41:32.160 delivering and how they're treating you what the experience is like and he was very big about

00:41:37.480 treating people with like a lot of dignity so here's a trick he taught me recently this is this

00:41:43.160 is after the book he said if you're running late to a meeting all right and you're no fault of your

00:41:48.940 own traffic whatever you're late people receive that as great disrespect you know because you don't care

00:41:54.840 about their time he said if you walk in 10 minutes late apologize profusely and say i'm sorry i i got

00:42:00.020 stuck in traffic i'm 30 minutes late and they'll go oh no no you're only 10 minutes late and

00:42:04.060 instantly change the dynamic of them being mad at you them sort of bucking you up and apologizing

00:42:09.540 another little thing he taught me this is unrelated but i always think it's so funny is he off he meets

00:42:14.100 all these people and he doesn't remember a lot of people you know he's met so many people and when

00:42:18.300 they come up and they talk to him he explained this to me once like they know him he says are you still

00:42:23.320 living in the same place he's like if you ask about their wife maybe their wife die if you ask about

00:42:28.080 their husband maybe they got divorced if you ask about their job maybe they got fired but if you ask if

00:42:32.700 they're still living in the same place well either they are and they're so glad you remembered their

00:42:37.480 place or they've moved and that's a story they can tell you so it's a little trick of human interaction

00:42:42.640 and a good example of what versus the how is we used to always go to this really bad restaurant in

00:42:49.100 our town and finally i said why do we go to this bad restaurant even though we all hate the food he said

00:42:54.940 because they always give us the booth so that was the how over the what so he was very you know he

00:43:00.700 really talked about how you treated people and creating the experience of how you were treating

00:43:04.520 them as opposed to just what you were offering well you also learned this when you're buying your

00:43:09.400 first car like you figured out that okay the perfect car for you is like this honda civic 70 000 miles

00:43:14.660 and then you found it and you go to go to look at it and your dad's like no because it's not the what

00:43:20.620 but the how well the story is so we went we finally find this car that i didn't want that car

00:43:25.360 specifically he made a long list this is his information where he rated each possible car i

00:43:30.480 could buy with like in 20 categories and based on that score because i needed a used car that was a

00:43:38.260 certain price uh i needed to get a honda civic with like less than 70 000 miles and we found it and i was

00:43:46.460 excited that we found it and uh he's like i don't think you should get this car i'm like what this is

00:43:52.420 your car how can you say that this is meets every criteria he said did you see all that writing and

00:43:57.600 it's the previous owner on the on the door it said barry on the passenger side door it said chuck

00:44:02.820 like in you know calligraphy writing and on the hood no on the door it said barry on the other door

00:44:08.300 it said bobby and on the hood it said chuck and he said did you see all that writing and i said so what

00:44:14.200 we'll have it painted over he goes you missing the point a schmuck own this car and to me that was

00:44:21.320 like the what versus the how which is it's not just what the car is but it was how the car was

00:44:25.360 treated who was driving it blah blah blah blah but it really made an impression of me and as most

00:44:30.060 things he did it was you know very funny to the point that i remembered it all my life and look i

00:44:35.460 ended up with a dodge daytona that probably wasn't any better he also made a big list like that to get

00:44:41.300 the best perfect dog for a family and after we filled out like 50 different check marks we ended up

00:44:47.160 with a beagle the most average generic dog you can get so his system did have its limits so you

00:44:53.080 know when you look we talk about these principles that your dad extracted from his life that he applied

00:44:56.920 to his career as a negotiator when you look back at your father's life like what do you think was

00:45:01.340 like what was the big idea that was guiding him the big idea is approach life like a game because

00:45:08.540 that's what it is and that in the end nothing none of this stuff will matter in the end okay

00:45:15.360 in the end all that will matter is your relationships and how you treated people

00:45:19.080 and you'd always say when i came to him with the problem that i was obsessed about it's just

00:45:25.920 a walnut in the batter of life it's just a blip on the radar screen of eternity and that was his

00:45:33.100 message which is it just doesn't matter that much and that knowledge well it could scare you

00:45:40.440 should also give you the kind of freedom to act and do what you want you know and what you can

00:45:45.960 in the game of life well rich this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn

00:45:50.800 more about the book and your work um i have a website author rich cohen.com and i'm on twitter

00:45:56.580 rich cohen 2003 2003 because that's the year i peaked and you know those are probably the best places

00:46:03.920 also the the publisher mcmillan has a site for me and amazon for the book fantastic well rich cohen

00:46:10.800 thanks for your time it's been a pleasure yeah really fun thank you my guest today was rich cohen

00:46:15.780 he's the author of the book the adventures of herbie cohen world's greatest negotiator it's

00:46:19.820 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about rich's work at

00:46:23.520 his website author rich cohen.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash herbie where you find

00:46:28.980 links to resources we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the

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00:47:10.620 this is brett mckay remind you to not listen to aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

Life Lessons From the World's Greatest Negotiator

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