We love PhD dropouts and we love decision making science, so, naturally, we had to have Sam Liu on the podcast (Episode: YouTube | Spotify | Apple).

Sam is the founder of an AI company called Fergana Labs. Before that, he was doing a PhD at Stanford studying decision making.

We were curious what someone who studied decision making at that level actually learned, how they apply it to their negotiations, and how they apply it to their personal lives.

The surprising part was that many of Sam’s insights had less to do with elegant frameworks and more to do with how messy real decisions are.

The conversation ended up touching on startup risk, taxi negotiations in Thailand, poker, game theory, and why many people struggle to hold their ground in negotiations.

Listen to the full episode here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), and here are a few ideas from Sam that stuck with us.

1. Big decisions rarely happen in a neat, rational moment

One of the things we asked Sam was how he decided to leave his PhD.

Did he sit down and run a structured decision analysis? A matrix? A pros and cons list?

He described something that will probably feel familiar to anyone who has made a big life decision.

“Things changed slowly, and then all at once.”

From the outside, dropping out of a PhD program or leaving a stable career can look sudden.

From the inside, it often builds quietly for a long time. You notice small signals. You feel a growing mismatch. Then one day the decision becomes obvious.

Looking back, he said, “I probably should have dropped out sooner.”

That line captures something many people experience. The signal is there long before the action.

2. Many risks are actually social risks

Sam shared a framework he learned from a mentor when thinking about starting a company.

Instead of asking “What if I fail?”, the mentor asked a different question.

“If the startup fails, what is the actual downside?”

Would anyone starve?
Would anyone become homeless?

For him, the answer was no.

The real downside was smaller. Maybe you earn less money than your friends. Maybe your house or car is not as impressive. Maybe people question your choices.

In other words, the risk was largely social.

Sam put it this way: “The moment you realize the only risk is social, you’re much more free to do the things you actually want to do.”

That framing applies to many career decisions, including negotiations. People often hold back not because the practical downside is catastrophic, but because they fear how they will be perceived.

3. Negotiation often becomes an emotional game

One of Sam’s examples came from something much simpler than salary negotiations: taxi rides in Thailand.

Unlike in the US, where prices are fixed, many rides involve negotiating the price directly with the driver.

Sam described how he approaches it using something similar to a binary search.

You start with a number. You see how the other person reacts. You adjust based on the signals you get.

But the interesting part is what happens emotionally.

The moment you push back on a price, the interaction changes. The other person may resist or push back. Now the challenge is not mathematical; it’s emotional.

Sam explained: “It’s not a rational game. It’s ‘can you hold the tension’.”

In many negotiations, the hardest part is not calculating the right ask. It’s staying steady while the other side reacts. That’s why we often joke with each other that half our job advising clients is to act as therapists: offering reassurance, lending a listening ear, sitting with our client’s discomfort.

4. Sometimes negotiations really are zero sum

A lot of negotiation advice emphasizes collaboration and mutual gains. Those ideas matter.

But Sam also made an important point about situations where value really is being divided.

Startup equity is one of them.

If one person gets more equity, someone else necessarily gets less.

In those cases, Sam believes people often soften too quickly.

“I feel like most people need to be more hard-lined,” he said. “More aggressive. They need to hold that tension and hold their ground.”

He was not dismissing collaboration. He was pointing out that some aspects of negotiation involve real tradeoffs.

When that’s true, clarity and conviction become important.

5. The person with conviction often shapes the outcome

One of the most interesting ideas Sam shared was about how people think about “fair value.”

Many negotiators look outward. They want to know the correct benchmark, the objective number, the market rate.

Sam sees negotiations differently.

He said many people approach negotiations by asking:

“What’s the fair price for what I’m offering?”

But in his mind, the question can also be framed differently.

“How can I conform the world to my vision?”

That doesn’t mean you’ll always get exactly what you want.

But it does mean that the outcome is not purely discovered. It’s also influenced by how firmly someone is willing to stand behind their claim.

6. Winning every negotiation is not the goal

Toward the end of the conversation, Sam brought up a famous concept from game theory: the prisoner’s dilemma.

In repeated versions of that game, the strategy that consistently performs best is called “tit for tat”.

You start by cooperating. If the other side cooperates, you continue cooperating. If they betray you, you respond in kind.

But the most interesting part of the strategy is this:

“You can never win against your counterparty,” Sam explained. “The best you can do is be at parity with them.”

That sounds counterintuitive at first. Why would the winning strategy avoid beating the other side?

Because the game is repeated.

In long-term relationships, cooperation tends to outperform strategies focused on maximizing short-term wins.

Sam extended that idea to life and relationships more broadly.

“What that says about life, if things in life are like this game, which a lot of things in life are, one of them being romantic relationships… you see so many people say, ‘I want to win the breakup’. But the best thing for you to do is be willing to lose and not care about winning.”

That’s one of the most beautiful hot takes we have heard on our podcast to-date.

This was one of our favorite conversations we’ve had thus far on Gentle Power! Listen to the full episode here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple.

And connect with Sam on LinkedIn and learn more about his company here: Fergana Labs website​

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

We get the following questions a lot:

• “Have you trained an AI on your negotiation framework?”

• “Can I just follow a template?”

This week on the Gentle Power Podcast (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), Gerta and I recorded a solo episode where we dove deep into why negotiations is not as straightforward as memorizing scripts on how to push back or ask for more.

We get the appeal. Clean template language would be easier for everyone involved, more scalable for us, and probably more efficient for you.

The problem is that negotiations don't really work that way.

Of course there are fundamental principles and patterns. But every real negotiation is unique in its own way: different people, different incentives, different timing, pressure points, cultures, and so on.

Negotiation is both a science and art. The art part is where most people get tripped up because it requires a level of intuition that's hard to learn by memorizing lines. That’s why we offer our clients unlimited support at all hours of the day, all days of the week, so we can be your human advisor, responding in real-time and steering the negotiation quickly and efficiently.

Listen to the full episode here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), where we also went on a few side quests talking about unique and quirky aspects of the employee experience at Instagram/Meta, how different cultures negotiate (from American and Asian to Albanian and Dutch), and more.

KEY IDEAS

1. Principles will guide you, but context decides.

Take one of the most common rules we teach:

Do not give a preferred salary number.

There is a clear logic behind this. Every role has a budget ceiling, which we can pretty much never know (unless you have insider information you shouldn’t have). If you give a number below that ceiling, the best case scenario is that they might say yes, but now you’ve left money on the table. If you give a number above the budget ceiling, you risk pushing the company away or signaling that you'll be unhappy there even if you end up accepting a lower number.

So our default advice is simple:

Do not share a number.

But then the real world shows up, and there could be exceptions.

Imagine this situation: you have offers from Google and Meta, but you prefer Meta. Meta tells you the offer they gave you is their best and final.

Now your calculus changes.

If Google’s offer is much higher and Meta truly is your first choice, sharing a specific number with Google at this stage can sometimes make sense. Otherwise it could be hard for the conversation to move forward.

But the right move still depends on context. If there have only been a few rounds of back and forth with Meta, you may still want to avoid sharing a number.

And there are still many variations of this situation where the answer changes. This is where judgment matters.

​

2. Let company culture guide your tone.

Another variable people underestimate is company culture.

Some companies communicate very directly. Think Netflix or Amazon. Their style tends to be blunt and efficient. You can respond in a similar tone.

If they ask for a preferred salary, you might simply say:

“I don’t have a preferred number.”

Other companies operate with a softer communication style. Companies like Meta and Google fall into this category. The messaging tends to be more collaborative and indirect.

In those environments, you might soften your phrasing, something closer to:

“Let me think about that and come back to you.”

The underlying strategy is the same, but delivery changes.

Though these are generalizations about corporate cultures, they can be directionally useful.

Many people assume negotiation is purely logical. In practice it's also social where tone matters.

​

3. Leverage is highly dependent on your timing.

People love compensation data.

• “I know someone in that role and they make X.”

• “The market range says Y.”

Those data points can be interesting but not as useful as people think. As Gerta’s favorite quote on data goes, “If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything”.

One of the biggest drivers of compensation is the company’s urgency to fill that role at the time that you're applying.

Let's say a role usually pays between $150K to $400K in total compensation. But now imagine the company has been trying to fill that role for six months and a major product launch is two months away.

If the right candidate appears, the company might stretch beyond its usual range to fill that seat before the product launch.

The opposite can also happen too: budgets shrink, headcount freezes, leadership priorities shift.

Two people in the same role at the same company can end up with very different comp packages simply because the context was different. Timing alone can move the entire negotiation.

This is why we advise that job seekers always apply to multiple roles at once, because even if you're the perfect candidate for a specific job, your timing may influence how much higher you can negotiate the offer.

​

Our Perspective

Negotiations can’t really be reduced to formulas or a list of tactics. That’s why when people ask if we recommend a book on negotiations, we're unable to name one that we fully stand behind.

This is one reason our work looks the way it does. When we support a client, we stay with them through the entire process, no matter how long it takes to sign a final offer. Calls any time of the day and night, private chats, voice memos, live prep before recruiter calls.

From the outside it might seem excessive. And believe us, it’s a lot of work.

But this is how we ensure the best possible results, with an average comp increase of nearly $100K. A negotiation can turn on how one ask is positioned, or even the phrasing of a single sentence.

This is also why fully productizing negotiation advice with AI is harder than people expect.

Templates help. Principles help. But someone still needs to read the room and read between the lines.

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

Not sure if you've seen this too, but we keep getting this ad on Instagram (screenshot below), probably because we post a lot about negotiations.

Don't fall for this ad

It's tempting to go down this rabbit hole, but don't let curiosity waste valuable time you could spend elsewhere. Here's why, but first:

​

FREE Negotiations Q&A on Thursday, March 5th

Quick PSA: we're hosting a live Q&A this week! Join us Thursday, March 5th at 3pm PT / 6pm ET to get live input and real-time feedback from us on all your negotiation questions. We'll also send everyone who RSVPs a free template doc that will come in handy for your career ;)

RSVP here, and feel free to forward this to anyone who you know is job searching: https://luma.com/wvg8iavq​

​

​
​Why this ad about salary benchmark data is flawed

🔥 Hot take: While market data is interesting, it’s not that useful.
​
Companies always have canned responses prepared to dismiss any compensation research you bring to the conversation, no matter how accurate your data is. They can simply respond that they have their own philosophy on how they pay for the role, and all that research you did was for nothing.
​
Use that time instead to learn how to negotiate both strategically and respectfully. Here's a batch of helpful tips to keep in mind.

We dove deeper into what you should do instead of spending a lot of time gathering salary data: Salary Market Research is a Waste of Your Time​

Hope to see many of you at our negotiation Q&A this Thursday!

Warmly,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

You walk away from an offer because you assume something better is coming. You tell yourself you’re being “disciplined.”

Then nothing comes. The sushi belt keeps moving. You’re just sitting there watching empty plates.

In this week’s episode of Gentle Power, we invited Yehong Zhu, cofounder and CEO of Zette AI, which licenses premium news data from trusted publishers to AI companies. Yehong left us with a few metaphors that describe a real problem in tech culture, and honestly in modern life too:

Too many people are optimizing for options and forgetting to use any of them.

Listen to the full episode here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), and as always, sharing a few key points below.

​

FREE Negotiations Q&A on Thursday, March 5th

We're hosting a live Q&A next week! Join us next Thursday, March 5th at 3pm PT / 6pm ET to get live input and real-time feedback from us on all your negotiation questions. We'll also send everyone who RSVPs a free template doc that will come in very handy for your career ;)

RSVP here, and feel free to forward this to anyone who you know is job searching: https://luma.com/wvg8iavq​

​

​
​The worst alternative matters too

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) is a term that comes up in negotiations all the time.

But Yehong added the missing twin: the worst alternative to a negotiated agreement.

Her example was around fundraising, but the pattern shows up everywhere. You think walking away is safe because you have other options. Then the first party gets offended, the next party gets spooked, the other option disappears, and suddenly you’re staring at outcomes you never modeled.

The line that landed for us, “Your plan B can evaporate.”

Or like Alex’s mom’s perfume story. She saved her favorite perfume for later, barely using it to reserve it for special occasions only, and one day she took out the bottle from the cabinet to find that all of it had literally evaporated.

When you’re negotiating, it’s good to keep in mind both your next best option if you turn down an offer or walk away from a deal as well as the worst potential outcomes. You don’t want to catastrophize or scare yourself into accepting a less-than-ideal outcome, but having the whole picture in mind will give you clarity on where you can ultimately end up.

A smart way of shielding yourself from bad outcomes is to have multiple strong options to choose from. If you’re job seeking, always apply to multiple roles! However, do be mindful of the complexities of those other options, for example needing to align timelines, not over communicating, etc.

​

The sushi conveyor belt problem

Yehong has a sushi conveyor belt theory: you get a brief window to choose a particular dish, and if you pass it, it might not come back.

People behave like the belt is infinite. It isn’t.

This is where optionality gets weird. In San Francisco especially, optionality is treated like a virtue on its own. More choices, more leverage, more “keeping doors open.”

But if you never pick anything, all you’re left with is expired options.

Yehong pointed out that you can “spend your energetic capital, your intellectual capital, your social financial capital on acquiring so many options,” then never exercise them.

​

Poker as a decision model

Yehong is also a talented poker player, and she framed decision-making in the context of the game. “What hand have you been dealt?” Then decide whether to play, and how much to invest.

Your energy is a stack. If you play every hand, you bleed chips. Then when the one hand that matters shows up, you don’t have leverage left.

That maps well to job searching and recruiting processes. Apply to multiple roles, but strategically and within reason. Having several interview processes going at once is manageable, but you don’t need a dozen live opportunities to maximize your leverage when it comes to negotiating your offers.

​

The common but logically flawed tactic of “resulting”

We talked about another well-known poker player and PhD dropout, Annie Duke, and her lesson around the concept of “resulting” and how it can make you a flawed decision-maker.

The idea is that people tend to judge decisions by outcomes.

Good outcome? We call it a good decision.

Bad outcome? We call it a mistake.

However, that’s flawed reasoning.

In poker, you can make the statistically correct move and still lose. In negotiations, you can make a principled, well-timed ask and still hear no. The outcome doesn’t retroactively define the quality of your reasoning.

If you assessed your leverage, made a thoughtful ask, and preserved the relationship, it was a good decision. A rejection doesn't mean it was the wrong decision.

Separating process from outcome keeps you from becoming timid after losses or overconfident after wins.

​

We had a blast in our convo with Yehong, where we covered even more ground, from the shifting startup climate of Silicon Valley, the negotiation similarities in business and dating, reversible versus irreversible decisions, and more.

Listen to the full episode here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple)

To learn more about Yehong and her work, connect with her on LinkedIn and check out her company’s website: https://zette.ai

​

Warmly,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

With the market uncertainty these days and many recent layoffs, we've received a lot of questions about severance packages, sign-on bonus clawback clauses, what can be negotiated, and more. Here are some things to think about:
​
1️⃣ The new California clawback law
​
(Even if you’re outside California, it’s worth keeping an eye on since other states often follow California’s lead.)
​
California recently passed a new law called Assembly Bill (AB 692) tightening the rules around sign-on bonuses and repayment clauses (sometimes called “clawbacks”).
​
It’s meant to ensure that these clauses are fair, clearly written, and not overly punitive if an employee leaves a company. For example, repayment cannot drag out for years, and if you’re let go involuntarily, companies generally cannot demand the money back.
​
The law took effect January 1 of this year and applies only to new agreements signed after that date.
​
California wants employees to feel free to move, not trapped by repayment clauses. This law puts clearer boundaries around what's reasonable.
​
2️⃣ Severance and layoffs
​
Severance packages are not one-size-fits-all. They depend on your role, seniority, and the company’s circumstances.
​
It’s always worth asking whether there's flexibility, especially if you’ve been with the company for a while or hold a leadership role.
​
Certain factors can change how much leverage you have. If you were part of a mass layoff, you likely don’t have much leverage. If it was a one-off firing though, especially if you’re part of a protected class and you believe that you could have been discriminated against, it’s worth clarifying your options.
​
💡Remember, the two times you have the most leverage are when you're getting the job and when you're leaving the job. That’s why we help negotiate job offers, and rarely take promotion cases anymore.
​
3️⃣ Non-competes and NDAs
​
Whether or not non-competes are enforceable varies by state, but in California, not only are they not enforceable, you can actually report the company even for simply having the clause in the employment agreement. ‼️
​
NDAs are typically valid when used to protect genuine company information, but not if they’re used to silence or restrict someone’s future work.
​
Remember: do NOT sign anything you don't understand, and if a clause feels overly broad or confusing, it’s worth asking questions before signing.
​
💡Ultimately, it's not about what clauses or the fine print are called, it’s about what they actually do.
​

Warmly,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

• “Thrilled to announce we raised $50M”

• AI-written posts that somehow say nothing in 900 words.

And yet… it still works.

This week on Gentle Power (Youtube | Spotify | Apple), we talked to Morgan Snyder, who helps CEOs and exec teams build a real content engine. The part we found most useful was not his tactics. It was the underlying negotiation happening before any “sales call” even starts.

​
​Key frameworks or ideas

1) Long-form builds trust, a key pillar in negotiations

Morgan’s main point: short-form content is a doorway, long-form is where trust actually builds.

He explained: “There’s only so much context […] you can put inside of these little windows in the social media feed.” So he ultimately directs people to his newsletter which has much longer content.

His best clients show up after they've spent time with him.

“I’ve read like five newsletters,” one CEO told him, then started quoting Morgan’s frameworks back to him.

Now he doesn’t even need to sell them. They went to him proactively.

2) “Surface area” beats persuasion

He uses the phrase “increase your surface area,” which we love because it’s mathematical and true.

It’s less “how do I convince them” and more “how do I give them enough real contact with me that the decision becomes easy.”

In negotiation terms, this is pre-framing, before price, before scope, before any pitch decks. Similar to the Japanese negotiation concept, nemawashi, which we discussed with our guest on this previous episode.

3) Expert content beats personality content

Morgan gave a surprisingly grounded take for someone who posts satire:

“Don’t feel the need to be a clown… Don’t do things that are super personal if you don’t want to.”

But he also added: “You only have to be known for a couple things that you do better than anyone else.”

This is a clean strategy. Also a relief, for anyone who hates posting “here’s what my toddler taught me about enterprise SaaS.”

4) The best “secret sauce” is implementation

When Alex asked Morgan about sharing “the how” (his secret sauces) broadly or keeping them behind a paywall, Morgan had a strong take: "I share everything because the real value is the orchestration."

He said CEOs should not be spending “15, 20, 25 hours a month” trying to be content machines. They should hand it off.

That maps well to negotiation too. Most people can learn principles. Fewer can execute cleanly under pressure.

Overall takeaways

Long-form builds trust in a way short-form can’t.

People can lurk on LinkedIn forever and still feel like they don't know you. A newsletter changes that. It’s a quieter room. Less noise, fewer notifications, more real attention.

Morgan’s point that you feel bored before your audience does is relatably accurate.

You're the one living inside your topic day in and day out, but they're probably it for the first time.
​

Warmly,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

Before you get on that call with a recruiter where you just know they’ll ask you for your preferred salary, something physical may show up first: that pit in your stomach anticipating an uncomfortable moment, maybe a faster heartbeat, that quiet urge to just get the conversation done with.

Negotiations don’t begin on paper. They start in your body.

We were listening to a recent episode of Diary of a CEO with Harvard behavioral scientist Alison Wood Brooks, and she touched on a concept that had us skip back multiple times to relisten.

That familiar rush before a high-stakes conversation isn’t random. It’s your nervous system responding to uncertainty.

And that response shapes how you negotiate more than most people realize.

​

How anxiety subtly steers your decisions

Uncertainty tends to bring anxiety along for the ride. Once it shows up, many of us instinctively look for ways to ease the discomfort often in small, barely noticeable ways.

It can look like:

• conceding earlier than planned

• adjusting your ask downward in real time

• wrapping up the conversation quickly just to feel relief

You may walk in feeling prepared and confident, only to find yourself prioritizing speed over outcome minutes later.

That is your body trying to keep you safe.

​

Say this before you negotiate

In 2013, Allison Brooks conducted a research study that’s now become famous for its findings.

Participants were asked to sing karaoke in front of a live audience. Before going on stage, they were surveyed on how they felt (most felt nervous). They were then split into two groups, with one group instructed to tell themselves, “I feel anxious”, and the other group instructed to say “I feel excited.”

The group that framed their feeling as excitement performed objectively better, with stronger pitch and rhythm.

Physically, those emotions are almost identical. The difference lies in how the brain interprets the feeling. When it reads it as excitement rather than threat, people lean forward instead of pulling back.

(There’s an important caveat: this applies in everyday high-pressure moments, not situations involving real danger or overwhelming fear.)

Salary conversations tend to fall squarely in that energized middle zone.

So next time you’re about to enter an interview or get on that verbal offer call, first tell yourself that you’re excited about it!

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

His hot take: Preparation is overrated.

Which is a bold thing to say when he literally teaches preparation for a living.

But he’s not saying wing it. He’s saying people hide behind preparation because it feels safe. You can sit with your spreadsheet. You can rehearse your lines. You can tweak your BATNA notes for the fifth time.

Then you get in the room and you forget where to begin as you’re holding all that math in your head.

​

You forget how to actually talk to another human.

You leak confidence. It’s a mess.

His thesis is: Preparation matters, but communication is where you make your money.

And we agree!

There’s a different topic we disagree on, further down.

​

The CAR framework: Clear, Assertive, Respectful

Mark’s golden rule for negotiation is three words.

Clear. Assertive. Respectful.

Clear means you say what you actually want. No vague hints. No hoping they read between the lines.

Assertive means you have a spine. You are not apologizing for having goals.

Respectful means you do not turn into a different person just because the stakes are high.

He said something we love. “Be nice twice.”

Assume they might have had a bad day. Reset once. Then hold your boundary.

This is where so many people get it wrong. They think negotiation requires aggression. Or they swing too far and become overly accommodating.

You can be warm and firm at the same time. Those are not opposites.

​

Negotiation is not a one-time event

Negotiation is not some loaded conversation that begins when you ask for more money and ends when someone signs a contract.

It is how you communicate throughout. Which means you are negotiating all the time!

With your team. With your partner. With your landlord. With yourself.

If you treat negotiation like a rare, high drama moment, you will panic. If you treat it like a daily skill, you relax. You get reps. You refine.

​

Diagnose the deal before you begin: the four types of negotiation

One key framework Mark teaches is his breakdown of four types of negotiation. His point is simple. Before you react, diagnose the type of deal you are in.

Different dynamics require different mindsets.

1. Bargaining

Bargaining is what most people picture when they think of negotiation.

Mark defines it this way:

“Bargaining negotiations are about hunting for as much value as possible when value is finite.”

He is very direct about the structure:

“It's zero sum. What I get, you are likely losing.”

These negotiations are typically quantitative and often price driven. He described them as focusing on:

“price, volume, delivery time.”

They are usually transactional, one off, and characterized by many alternatives in the market. When value is finite and the relationship horizon is short, you are hunting for value.

2. Trading

Trading is still largely finite in value, but the relationship carries more weight.

As he put it, the shift is in mindset:

“If a bargaining negotiation is, I'm out there to hunt for value, a trading negotiation is, I wanna optimize value and tilt it in my favor…”

But there is a constraint:

“If I'm too heavy handed… they're not gonna look at me credibly.”

In trading negotiations, you are optimizing and tilting the deal in your favor while preserving credibility and long term viability. Many B2B contracts, renewals, and structured vendor relationships fall into this category.

3. Creating

Creating negotiations move beyond the assumption of a fixed pie.

Mark described it this way:

“We've now removed the shackles of finite value. We can create more value than there was before.”

These negotiations involve:

“balancing plenty of terms, both quantitative and qualitative.”

He also emphasized being:

“open to unconventional deal design.”

This is where you expand the range of terms, challenge default structures, and look for complementary interests that allow both sides to increase total value. These are typically more strategic, longer horizon relationships with fewer alternatives and greater interdependence.

4. Partnering

Partnering negotiations are high complexity and long term, but not necessarily high trust.

Using the example of corporations and unions, he explained:

“You're interdependent on success…”

Yet at the same time:

“More often than not, the union doesn't trust the company. The company doesn't trust the union…”

He described these as:

“long, arduous, stressful negotiations that will stretch you.”

Partnering negotiations involve deep interdependence, multiple stakeholders, extended timelines, and often significant tension. You cannot easily walk away, and you cannot navigate them alone.

What I appreciate about this framework is that it forces intentionality. Before you anchor, concede, or escalate, consider what type of negotiation you are actually in.

​
​

Preparing is still important. So how to prepare?

When I asked Mark how someone should prepare, he did not start with tactics. He started with goals.

What do you want. Rank it.

What do they want. Rank it.

Where might you be aligned. Where might you collide.

This sounds obvious. It is not.

Most clients come to us obsessed with one variable they say they care about, usually cash.

Then we start pulling the thread.

Is title important?
Is scope important?
Is autonomy important?
Is career trajectory important?
Is equity actually the upside you care about?

So often the thing they thought was their top priority turns out to be priority #3.

When you clarify priorities, you start negotiating strategically.

Also, we are both allergic to scripting. If you sound like you memorized lines, you lose credibility. Understand the intention and main idea you’re going for, then say it in your own words.

​

What to do when it starts going sideways?

One of my favorite parts of the conversation was his advice on what to do when a negotiation feels like it is slipping.

Pause.

Say you need time to think. Move to another topic.

People think powering through shows strength. Sometimes the strongest move is to slow the pace.

Confidence is controlled tempo. You do not have to answer everything instantly.

​

We disagreed on an important topic: anchoring

Mark had another spicy take: Play your cards. Go first. Anchor.

This is common negotiation advice.

The reasoning is psychological. The first number creates gravity. Most people unconsciously adjust toward it. If you anchor high and credibly, you shape the conversation.

This is where we disagree. In many of our negotiations, especially job offers and investor conversations, the other side often has more information. If you anchor first, you risk capping your upside without realizing it.

What I like about this debate is not who is right. It is that there is no universal rule. Do not default to what you may have heard or read about negotiations. Diagnose the information dynamics. Then decide based on first principles - that’s our true anchor at YourNegotiations.com.

​

The quote he hates and so do we

“You know it was a good negotiation when both sides leave a little unhappy.”

No.

Mutual dissatisfaction is not a badge of honor.

We believe a good negotiation is when both sides leave *happier* than before.

You can and should leave most negotiations energized.

You can leave thinking, that was professional, that was clean, that was clear.

That is not naïve. That is skill.

​

PS: yes, she pavlov’d her husband

Mark told us a story that’s only tangentially related to negotiations (by way of behavioral sciences) that we cannot not share.

He once trained research scientists in the pet food industry. One scientist conducted a little experiment at home. She used a clicker before dinner for several weeks with her husband.

Click before meals. Repeat consistently.

Then one day she clicked it in a random context.

He started salivating and asking where lunch was.

Which means you obviously need to figure out what your manager’s favorite snack is, bring it to all your meetings, and become their favorite employee (who gets promoted quickly).

All jokes aside, humans are more programmable than we think. Patterns, cues, tone, timing. They all matter.

Which is exactly why communication, not just preparation, wins negotiations.

If you want to go deeper on this one, the full episode is out now.

​
Warmly,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

One of the best negotiation tactics is right in front of you:

Watch how recruiters negotiate with you!

​

Many recruiters are proficient at the art of gentle power:

→ They frame questions strategically
→ They use battle-tested responses that protect their leverage
→ They stay professional under pressure
→ They follow up consistently
→ They often make the relationship feel close and positive

​

Do the same with them and all the other interviewers!

→ When you’re negotiating, be mindful of how you frame your questions and asks
→ Always stay professional
→ Keep the relationship positive
→ Be gentle and respectful with negotiations

​

One caveat: this is not about simply mirroring recruiters.

Certainly learn from what they do well.

​

But also stay true to your values no matter what:

Stay cordial and professional.

Don’t overshare even if encouraged or pressured to do so.

And don’t take things personally.

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone interested in negotiations?

Send them our way and we’ll thank you with $500 for each person who becomes a client. No cap.

A quick intro or an email to alex@yournegotiations.com works.

​

This week on Gentle Power (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), we sat down with Kenko Ueyama, cofounder of Tsubasa AI, an AI advisory agency that helps enterprise companies figure out their AI strategy and then helps them build it. Kenko is also a senior advisor at Harvard’s Applied AI Institute, helping create AI course material and run workshops that trains executives on how to lead companies in the age of AI.

Our conversation spanned Kenko’s long career, from his early days working at Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan to the AI consulting he does today, and touched on the negotiation lessons he learned throughout.

Listen to the full conversation here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), and see below for a few of the standout takeaways.

​

1. Your pricing signals your value

Kenko shared a lesson most founders learn the hard way: early on in his business, he priced a consulting project at about half of what he thought it should have been.

The obvious downside is on your end: you’re doing hard work while quietly thinking, why did we agree to this?

The less obvious downside is on the client’s end. When the project is cheap, it becomes a low priority for them. It gets less attention and resources, slower decisions, and less momentum. In other words, underpricing can undermine the work for both parties and leave all stakeholders feeling worse off about the engagement.

This matches something we see all the time in our work helping negotiate business deals. Your price signals perceived value, and perceived value changes behavior. People staff projects and prioritize based on how much they think the work matters.

This also reminded Alex of a case study about the eyewear company, Warby Parker, when he was studying at Wharton Business School. When the Warby Parker founders were just starting their company while they were Wharton MBA students and showed their business plan to their professor, the professor said everything looked sound except one thing: their eyeglasses were too cheap. “You’ve priced them at $45. As a consumer, it’s hard to believe that truly high-quality eyeglasses would only cost $45. Double your price.” So the founders priced their glasses at $90 and their sales skyrocketed.

It’s not the only contributing factor to scoring a deal, but your price plays a big role in communicating the quality of your product and work. Price yourself too cheaply, and people may perceive your work as cheap.

2. Find your resentment number

We touched on a really important concept during our conversation: your “resentment number.” We first heard about this concept from Simone Grace Soel, host of the “I Am Your Korean Mom” business podcast.

The resentment number is the number at which if you’re paid any less than that, you’ll start feeling resentment and contempt for the work and effort you’re putting in.

It’s the lowest price where you can still show up generously, even when the work gets messy, the client becomes tougher to work with, or the scope gets annoying. If you price below that number, resentment will creep in.

Your resentment number is a useful internal check because market rates can be fuzzy, especially in emerging spaces. Even when you have data, you still have to live inside the deal you made.

3. Some cultures negotiate before the negotiation

Kenko shared with us a Japanese concept called “nemawashi”, which roughly translates to “spreading the roots”. The idea is simple: you do all the alignment before the meeting, one conversation at a time, with each of the stakeholders. Then the actual meeting is mostly a formality where you confirm what’s already been agreed to.

This concept has parallels to what we often recommend. You almost never want to conduct negotiations live over a call. Instead, negotiate in writing over email before and after calls so that you can present your case after having put time and thought into what you want to say. This also gives the opportunity for your emails to be additional representation of your candidacy, as emails are often forwarded amongst recruiters and hiring teams.

​

Listen to our full conversation with Kenko, where we covered more concepts and fun negotiations stories from Kenko’s career: YouTube | Spotify | Apple​

To learn more about Kenko and his work, connect with him on LinkedIn here, or visit his website: tsubasa-ai.com​

Talk soon,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

In one of our recent podcast episodes (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), I (Alex) pointed something out that Gerta does frequently.

When we were chatting on the podcast about negotiating rent, hotels, or flights, we were recounting Gerta’s call with a hotel’s customer service rep while I was sitting nearby overhearing the conversation. I then noticed a small move that Gerta does almost every time on these calls.

At some point during her calls with customer support, Gerta will ask the person for their name. She does this casually, almost absentmindedly, and even she didn’t realize she does this until I pointed it out.

Asking for someone’s name often will shift the “feel” of the conversation. The exchange feels less like a request being handled and more like two people talking. For someone who spends their day dealing with back-to-back issues, that moment of being acknowledged seems to matter.

What usually follows is genuine appreciation. Gerta will thank them, mention something specific that was helpful, and often ask if there’s a way to leave positive feedback or fill out a survey to share about her positive experience.

Sure this can be a useful tactic, but just a few extra minutes to show appreciation can go a long way for the person on the other end of the line. That feedback can help someone get recognized at work, earn a raise, or simply have a better day.

Why do names matter so much? Names carry identity, culture, and background. Sometimes they reveal an unexpected connection, like a shared background, language, region of origin. Gerta speaks seven languages, and I've seen countless times when Gerta has connected deeply with a stranger in a matter of minutes after surprising them by speaking in their native tongue.

These shared moments build rapport, and starting with someone’s name can open the door to making it easier to find a win-win.

Customer support roles rarely come with that kind of acknowledgment. When people ask for a name, it’s often because something has gone wrong. But asking for their name with respect and intention to provide value, that changes the tone entirely.

We see this play out again and again in everyday negotiations. Politeness, patience, and small kind gestures will go a long way.

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

Most negotiation advice focuses on how to get to a deal. But a big part of negotiating well is knowing when you have a “no deal.”

In this week’s episode (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), we talk about “no deal” scenarios as a normal and sometimes necessary part of negotiating, one that people often misunderstand or avoid thinking about until it’s too late.

Highlighting a few ideas from our conversation.

​

1. No deal usually comes down to priorities that don’t overlap

In any negotiation, both sides walk in with priorities and non-negotiables. The problem is that most people are not actually clear on theirs.

We see this often with clients. Someone will say cash is their top priority. Then we pressure test it and suddenly title matters more than they realized. Or flexibility, or working remotely, or a specific benefit they had not fully named until it was challenged.

That clarity matters, because if your true non-negotiables and the other side’s non-negotiables don’t overlap, there is no deal. Simply because the Venn diagram never intersected.

A lot of frustration in negotiations comes from discovering this too late or never articulating it at all.

2. A good process doesn’t guarantee outcomes

People often have an assumption that if they do everything “right,” a specific result should be guaranteed.

That’s not how this works.

A good negotiation process helps you gather information, surface constraints, push toward the edges of what’s possible, and explore creative alternatives. It increases the odds of a strong outcome, but it doesn’t override reality.

If the company doesn’t have the budget, the headcount approval, or the internal flexibility, no amount of clever framing will magically create it. That doesn’t mean the process failed; you just hit a constraint that wasn’t movable.

3. Sometimes the win isn’t what you asked for, but what you actually needed

One of the more interesting examples we discussed was a client of ours who was super focused on getting a very specific and nontraditional parental benefit, as she was expecting a baby.

It wasn’t a standard benefit, but mattered deeply to them. But it also wasn’t something the company was well equipped to offer directly.

Instead of depleting “negotiation capital” (i.e. how many times or how hard you ask for something) by forcing that one point, we zoomed out to the underlying need and realized that this benefit would cost just roughly $4K per year.

So we focus on negotiating her cash compensation, ultimately achieving a $40K increase to her base salary. At this point, the original benefit became irrelevant. She could now pay for 10 years of this parental benefit if she really wanted to!

From the outside, it might look like they “didn’t get what they wanted.” But they actually got something much better by letting go of the exact shape of the original ask.

4. You’re trying to win the whole game, not every hand

We also talked about negotiation through the lens of poker.

Sometimes the best move is to fold, because trying to win every hand is how you lose the overall game.

The same applies to job offers and business deals. If you treat every opportunity as the one that must work out, you over invest, burn energy, and lose leverage. When you zoom out and play the long game, a no deal in one spot can be the least bad and sometimes best outcome available.

This is also why we strongly encourage people to apply to several roles at a time to keep multiple options in play. Optionality changes how no deal feels. Not getting that one offer stops being a failure and starts being a strategic decision.

​

“No deal” is uncomfortable. It triggers second guessing, frustration, and the feeling that maybe you should have pushed harder or been more creative. But sometimes no deal is simply the cleanest signal that this wasn’t the right hand to play.

The mistake isn’t folding, it’s assuming every hand should be played to the end.

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

Below is a collection of screenshots of questions that people actually asked us in our live negotiation Q&As. Sharing our responses below for those who couldn't join our recent ones.

But for those who are free tomorrow at 12pm PT... 👇

​

Kick Off 2026 Strong: Live Q&A (+ free gift for attendees)

Tomorrow, January 28th at 12pm PT, we’re hosting our first negotiation Q&A of 2026! This is your chance to get live input and real-time feedback from us on all your negotiation questions as we kick off the new year.

We’ll also be sharing a special gift with everyone who attends 😉

RSVP here, and feel free to forward this to anyone who could benefit: https://luma.com/tgz36527​​

​

​

FAQ #1: What should I negotiate first?

​

What you ask for first should be based on your own personal priorities. Typically, you want to negotiate your nonnegotiables or top priorities first.

Do you care about maximizing cash because you need short-term liquidity, or do you want to maximize equity because you truly believe in the company's future? Do you care about work/life balance and in-person/remote/hybrid work arrangements? Are there benefits that really matter to you, like wellness perks, specific parental leave benefits, transportation reimbursements, relocation bonus, others?

The first thing we do with our clients is a rigorous priorities exercise to uncover what truly matters to them. A lot of people think they already know their priorities, but whenever we pressure test their initial assumptions, they almost always end up discovering something new.

For what this looks like in action, we wrote this past case study of a client we helped. This client was very intent on getting this one specific paternal leave benefit. After we examined her priorities, we ended up redirecting her negotiation strategy to favor cash and increased her base salary by $40K instead: Don't Waste Your Negotiation Capital​

​

FAQ #2: How should I use salary data in my negotiations?

​

One of our hottest takes: researching salaries and market data is largely a waste of time for many reasons, namely:

1. Employers almost always have more accurate data than you. If you cite inaccurate numbers, you risk looking like you don't know what you're talking about (a potential client who passed on working with us did this, and he ended up never getting the offer because the vibes turned bad after he did. Read the full case study here: This is How the Candidate Lost His Job Offer)

2. Even if you have the perfect data and bring that into the conversation, every company has canned responses prepared to just dismiss what you say. So that time you spent researching salaries didn't matter anyway.

The leverage that actually works comes from your competing opportunities (Do you have other offers? Are you interviewing with multiple companies?) and you strategically bringing up those opportunities in your negotiations.

Our past newsletter on what you should do instead of researching salaries here: Salary Market Research is a Waste of Your Time​

​

FAQ #3: Should I even negotiate?

​

Absolutely yes. Negotiating is a common business practice, especially for people with multiple job offers or facing limitations like needing to work fully remotely. Companies often account for this by offering initial offers that are less than what they can ultimately afford. As a result, not negotiating almost certainly guarantees you’re leaving money on the table.

We wrote in depth about this in this past newsletter: The First Offer is Almost Never the Final​

​

FAQ #4: How many times should I negotiate?

​

There is no magic number - it can be just one round of back and forth, or up to a dozen rounds! In our experience with our clients, at least 2-3 rounds of back and forth is typical, but it's often more.

A company of course doesn't want too many rounds of negotiations because it makes their lives easier, but almost always at your expense. It's in their best interest to wrap up the negotiations quickly so they can move on to spending their time and resources to filling other open roles. Many companies also have an internal recruiting metric called "time to close" - they're incentivized to close a candidate as quickly as possible after entering the interview pipeline, and this metric factors into many HR and recruiting employees' bonuses.

The norms around the recruiting and negotiation process naturally favor employers because job applicants assume that the companies hold all the cards. But remember, you as a competitive candidate have leverage too with your qualifications and optionality (i.e. by applying to multiple roles and getting other offers).

We covered how to actually get to the best and final offer in this past newsletter: “Best and Final Offer?” Not Necessarily True​

​

Again, if you have your own questions you'd like to ask us, join us tomorrow at 12pm PT, RSVP link here: https://luma.com/tgz36527​​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

On this week’s episode of the Gentle Power podcast (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), we covered how to handle something that everyone in the job search encounters sooner or later:

When you’re treated disrespectfully.

We’ve all been there: You’re deep in the process with multiple companies. You’ve invested hours of time and energy into prepping for interviews. You’re tired and can’t wait to reach the end of the process.

Then someone on the other side says something that lands wrong. A recruiter sounds dismissive. An email response feels curt. A comment comes across as aggressive or disrespectful.

When that happens, it feels personal. You instinctively (and probably angrily) start wondering: Don’t they realize how much time I’ve put into these interviews? Can’t they see the value I bring to the table? I don’t have time to put up with this.

These reactions are understandable. They’re also where negotiations can quietly go sideways.

How should you approach dealing with disrespect? Listen to our full conversation here (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), and as always, sharing some takeaways below.

Kick Off 2026 Strong: Live Q&A (+ free gift for attendees)

Quick PSA: We’re hosting our first negotiation Q&A of 2026 next Wednesday, January 28th at 12pm PT. This is your chance to get live input and real-time feedback from us on all your negotiation questions as we kick off the new year.

We’ll also be sharing a special gift with everyone who attends 😉

RSVP here, and feel free to forward this to anyone who could benefit: https://luma.com/tgz36527

Treat early disrespect as a data point, not a verdict.

When someone comes off rude or dismissive, our instinct is to immediately label it as a pattern. We default to, “This recruiter is terrible, this company treats others poorly, this will be my experience if I work at this company.”

But early interactions are often noisy. People are human, recruiters are under pressure, hiring processes are messy. Sometimes someone is just having an off day.

From a negotiation standpoint, assuming bad intent too early shuts down optionality. It changes how you show up, often without you realizing it.

The stronger move is to mentally log the interaction and keep going. One interaction is not a pattern. It’s just an initial data point.

Especially if you’re applying to large companies, like Meta, Amazon, or (insert any publicly traded company), remember that these companies have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of recruiters. Are you going to let a single employee color your perception of an entire organization?

Staying calm retains your leverage

We’re not suggesting you smile through anything or tolerate poor treatment indefinitely. The point is more tactical.

When someone is curt or abrasive, most people will feel a fight or fawn response. They may feel a push to fight fire with fire and respond in kind. Or they may shrink into themselves and acquiesce to the aggressiveness of the other party.

But when you don’t fight or fawn, and instead respond in a cool and collected manner, it creates contrast. You signal composure, confidence, and unshakeability. You also keep the interaction from escalating in ways that can hurt you later.

Especially in job negotiations, the person you’re speaking with (typically the recruiter or hiring manager) is often in a position to advocate for you behind closed doors. They relay their impressions and color how you’re perceived by the decision makers. Even small moments of defensiveness or irritation can get amplified in that retelling.

Keeping your side of the interaction polite and professional is less about being agreeable, and more about protecting how you’re represented when you’re not in the room.

Your tone reveals your competence

Not every sharp interaction is intentional, but some are revealing. Pressure has a way of surfacing how people actually operate. When things feel tense or awkward, how you respond signals how you’ll handle pressure in the actual role.

We’ve seen many cases where someone holds their ground calmly, without getting reactive, and the other side recognizes it. Sometimes they even acknowledge it directly. There’s a meta layer in negotiations where people notice how you play the game, not just what you ask for.

This is similar to moments where a recruiter repeatedly pressures someone to give a salary number. The pressure itself isn’t the point, the response is. When you stay steady and tactfully deflect, people often realize you know what you’re doing.

One employee’s behavior is not always the whole company

As mentioned above, it’s tempting to let one poor interaction define how you see an entire organization. Sometimes that’s fair. Often, it’s not.

In large companies, you may never work with that recruiter again. They’re not your manager, your peer, or your stakeholder. Even in smaller companies, recruiting processes are sometimes under-resourced or rushed in ways that don’t reflect the actual team you would join.

It’s usually more useful to zoom out and look at the full set of data points. How were the hiring manager conversations? The peer interviews? The work itself? One awkward or frustrating interaction should be weighed, but not over-weighted.

Disrespect in negotiations feels personal, but responding to it effectively is mostly about discipline. Assume best intent at first, log early negative interactions as data points but not patterns, and remain steady. Let patterns reveal themselves over the whole process before you draw conclusions.

Listen to our full convo about this here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple

Best,

Gerta & Alex
Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

If you've followed our newsletter for a while now, you're probably familiar with one of our top negotiation tips:

Always show enthusiasm for the role, team, and company at all stages of the interview process.

This tip also tends to get the most pushback, so we wanted to dive deeper into it today.

​

Kick off 2026 strong: live negotiations Q&A on Wed, Jan 28 @ 12pm PT (+ free gift for attendees)

Quick PSA: We’re hosting our first negotiation Q&A of 2026 on Wednesday, January 28th at 12pm PT. This is your chance to get live input and real-time feedback from us on all your negotiation questions as we kick off the new year.

We’ll also be sharing a special gift with everyone who attends 😉

RSVP here, and feel free to forward this to anyone who could benefit: https://luma.com/tgz36527​

​

​

Is there ever such thing as "too much excitement"?

People often ask us:

• "If I show too much excitement during the interviews, wouldn't that make me look desperate?”

• "Shouldn't I play it cool to make a company want me even more?"

• "I have multiple offers. Isn't it better to pit the companies against each other by playing hard to get?"​
  ​

No. Showing enthusiasm for a job actually gives you more power in negotiations, not less. Here’s why:
​
​1️⃣ Culture and team fit is the final differentiator in today's tough market: We're in an employer's market these days. Competition for jobs is fierce, and it's not uncommon for a single role to have hundreds of perfectly qualified applicants. The trend we've been seeing is that by the time a company has narrowed down to their final list of candidates for a role, every one of those candidates is more than qualified to meet the responsibilities and skills that the role requires. So one of the only differentiators a company has left in deciding who will get the job offer is the candidate who makes for the best culture and team fit. The best way to signal culture and team fit is by showing enthusiasm for the role.

2️⃣ It shows you’ll be an asset to the team: Employers aren’t just looking for skills, they want someone ready to crush it in their job. Enthusiasm shows you'll be motivated to onboard quickly, show up every day to do your best work, be a pleasant co-worker to work with, and present as less of a flight risk (i.e. you're committed to stay at the company for the long-term).
​
​3️⃣ It will boost your chances of receiving the offer: We've both been on the hiring end of interviews, from startups to big tech companies, and teams would almost always score higher the almost-perfect, excited candidates versus the perfect (on paper) but lukewarm-attitude candidates. The former demonstrated that they could be coachable and motivated to improve themselves in the job.
​
​4️⃣ It will boost your chances of getting better offers: If employers see that you're all-in on the role, they’re more likely to go the extra mile to make it work for you. From a recruiter's perspective, why not give concessions and sweeten the pot for a candidate who seems likely to accept?
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How to show excitement the right way​
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​▪️ Get specific: ​Instead of a vague “I’m excited for this role,” explain why. Try something like, “The company's focus on innovation really resonates with me because of my background in [your expertise/past experience where you leveraged innovation to accomplish a work project].”​
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​▪️ Stay professional: ​Enthusiasm ≠ over-the-top gushing. Keep it warm but polished.
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​▪️ Connect it to your value: ​Pair your excitement with confidence in what you bring: “I’m excited to use my skills in [X] to help you achieve [Y].”​
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All else equal, hiring managers want someone who’s excited to join the team and for the work the role entails.

Companies want someone who is committed to the job for the long-term and won't just bail six months in for a higher-paying job.
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And most importantly, the team is more likely to advocate for a higher compensation package if they know you're genuinely excited to join if the compensation were better.

Best,

Gerta & Alex​
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

If you missed Part 1, you can catch up here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple | Newsletter​

(FYI: Part 1 was one of our most popular episodes to-date! If you liked it, reply back to this email and let us know what resonated with you most.)

Quick recap: In his early 30s, Arben was put in charge of rescuing the country’s economy after a financial crisis pushed Albania to the brink of financial collapse and a civil war. As part of that work, he was thrust into high-stakes negotiations with powerful organizations, including the EU Commission, IMF, and World Bank, all with his country’s future on the line.

In Part 1, Arben shared stories about how he relied on unwavering integrity and his commitment to the Albanian people to center himself through the negotiations. His values-based approach also showed his counterparts that he was a dependable partner to collaborate with for the long-term.

In Part 2, Arben’s insights got a bit more tactical. A few key moments from the episode below.

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Respect is not optional, it’s a precondition

One of Arben’s earliest meetings with the World Bank did not start well. He was demanded to appear at their offices instead of hosting them in the Ministry of Finance headquarters, a small but meaningful signal that he interpreted as a power play. Once there, his counterparts opened the meeting with a condescending tone. He was lectured and questioned about whether he truly understood the responsibilities of his role and what was at stake.

He respectfully but sternly shared that if he was not treated as an equal counterpart, it would be difficult to work productively moving forward. He reminded them that, after all, they were working towards the same goal.

This wasn’t about ego. It was about establishing respect as the foundation for future collaboration and productivity. Before discussing details on programs, reforms, and funding, Arben named the conditions under which collaboration could happen. In his words, if he accepted disrespect at the start, everything that followed would be compromised.

When we help people negotiate job offers, we coach them on the right negotiation mindset. Even if you feel like the smaller player, remember that you’re not asking for favors; you’re exploring together whether you and the company can make each other better off.

Even if the other side seems much more powerful and well-resourced than you, there is almost always leverage on each side. In Arben’s case, these global governmental and financial institutions did not want to see an entire country collapse. In a job seeker’s case, a company wants to fill their open seat and is willing to pay someone to fill it.

In both cases, treat the other side not as a superior, but as an equal collaborating with you from the same side of the table to find a win-win (and expect to be treated the same too). If you’re shown disrespect, don’t take it personally, but you can tactfully push back to reset the balance of power (there are many ways to do this depending on the situation, a topic for a future newsletter and podcast!).

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The cost of short-sighted wins

During discussions over aid distribution, the EU Commission proposed sending food into Albania quickly and for free. This sounded like an obvious win, especially when the country was facing shortages of basic needs.

Arben rejected it.

His concern was downstream consequences: there would be no order to how the food would be collected and accounted for. He foresaw opportunities for corruption, the undermining of local markets, and weaker supply chain systems. Instead, he proposed a structure where food aid would be brought into the country in collaboration with local agencies on the ground, sold fairly and transparently, and the proceeds would be used to fund social and employment programs to help invigorate the economy.

This, of course, was harder and would require more coordination. The payoff was not obvious in the short-term. But it aligned with his broader objective of rebuilding systems that last, not dependency.

The easiest yes is often the one that costs you later, a lesson that’s all the more relevant to job seekers. If you say yes quickly to the first offer and don’t negotiate, you’ve almost certainly left money on the table and the lower comp will follow you into all your future promotion, raises, and future jobs. This is because how much you’re paid for promotions, raises, and new roles is largely based on your current earnings. These lost earnings will compound through the years, and over the span of your career, can cost you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in the long run.

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Building credibility through systems, not trust

One of the most concrete examples of Arben’s negotiations approach centered around the most important part of his job: cleaning up the fallout from the pyramid schemes and establishing lasting financial stability in his country. Deloitte was brought in to help administer the process. Arben refused to sign off the deal unless there was also an independent third party auditing Deloitte itself.

This was unpopular. Donors and his negotiating counterparts argued it was unnecessary, expensive, and would slow things down. Deloitte pushed back too. Arben still refused to sign off.

His reasoning was simple. The stakes were too high, and public trust was already broken. Even the appearance of opacity would damage legitimacy. By insisting on a second layer of oversight, he removed the need for anyone to “trust” intentions. The system itself provided accountability.

This is an underused negotiation move. Instead of simply going off of one’s word or asking the other side to trust you, redesign the structure so belief is no longer required.

When applying to jobs, don’t take what a company says and all the things they promise at face value. Don’t just go off of what the recruiter said over a call, but capture it in writing via email. And avoid negotiating until you have the written offer letter.

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A closing thought

This episode is not about heroic negotiations or winning against all odds. It’s about something more practical.

Leverage, in Arben’s context, didn’t come from power plays. It came from framing the negotiation as a collaboration, being unwilling to trade away long-term goals for short-term relief, and designing transparent systems to establish credibility.

Listen to the full conversation with Arben here:

• Part 1: YouTube | Spotify | Apple | Newsletter​

• Part 2: YouTube | Spotify | Apple​

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

We’re sometimes asked if we negotiate with each other or our friends. The short answer: yes, but not in the way people usually think.

When most people say “negotiate,” they envision haggling, transactional bartering, and zero-sum wins.

Our definition is different. I think what makes for great negotiations is not leaving value on the table, looking for opportunities that make both sides (or at least one side) better off while not making anyone worse off.

You may have heard of the classic orange story: two sisters are deciding how to split an orange. If they cut the orange in half (the typical way of approaching negotiations) each gets 50% of the orange.

But after discussing why they each need the orange, it turns out one sister needs only the juice while the other needs just the rind. Since they clarified their priorities upfront, they both got 100% of what they needed.

Negotiation isn’t about squeezing the other side, deceiving, or assuming the other party is trying to deceive you. It’s about uncovering non-obvious value. The more collaboration and creativity you bring to the table, the more likely you’ll land a deal that truly works for you as well as all other parties involved.

Best,

Gerta & Alex​
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

This week on the Gentle Power podcast (YouTube | Spotify | Apple), we welcomed a guest who has negotiated at a scale most of us will never experience in our lifetimes. He is a former Minister of Finance of Albania who was put in charge of rescuing the country’s economy after a financial crisis pushed it to the brink of collapse. His name is Arben Malaj, and he also happens to be Gerta’s father :)

When we visited Gerta’s family in Europe for the holidays, Arben sat down with us to talk about what power and negotiations look like when your country is in crisis and the other side seemingly holds all the cards.

Arben Malaj, former Minister of Finance of Albania

A quick history lesson

Formerly Europe’s most repressive Communist state, Albania was turned loose into a capitalist Wild West after the fall of the Soviet Union. New but poorly understood financial products flooded the Albanian economy, culminating in 1996 with the collapse of massive pyramid schemes that evaporated more than 50% of the country’s GDP overnight. What followed was civil unrest, turmoil, and fear throughout the country, at which time Arben was appointed Minister of Finance and essentially “voluntold” to clean up the crisis.

Protests in Tirana, the capital of Albania, after the collapse of pyramid schemes in 1996

A little-known technocrat in his early 30s at the time, Arben was thrust into high-stakes negotiations with numerous multilateral organizations including the EU Commission, IMF, and World Bank, all with his country’s economy on the line.

He faced a serious question for anyone in leadership: how do you negotiate when your world is on fire and you’re up against much stronger, well-resourced players?

We covered so much ground in this conversation that we’re releasing the full conversation in two parts over the next two weeks. Here are two important takeaways from the first half that really stuck with us.

​

Your values are non-negotiable
​When Arben spoke about negotiation, he didn’t lead with tactics, strategy, or leverage. He led with his values: Integrity first. Sincerity second. Goodwill third.

He shared a Warren Buffett quote that captured this cleanly: “When you look for people to work with, you want integrity, intelligence, and energy. If integrity is missing, the other two will kill you.”

When it comes to negotiations, having integrity is table stakes. If you give the other side any reason to question your integrity, you’ll destroy trust and the potential to arrive at a deal.

When we help people negotiate offers, one of our most important principles is to never lie, whether about having other offers, your past compensation history (you shouldn’t share this info anyway!), or anything else.

Not only is lying not good from an ethical perspective, but practically speaking, your lies will eventually catch up to you. You’ll find it hard to keep track of what you said to whom as you move through the interview process with multiple companies, and good chance you’ll slip up at some point.

Lying will only risk your candidacy, and we have seen on numerous occasions companies rescind offers when they felt the candidate had lied or misrepresented something (this never happens with our clients, of course!).

​

Self-respect first, and respect from others will follow

Alex asked Arben, “You represented Albania internationally at a time when confidence in the country was extremely low. What did you rely on as leverage against powerful negotiating counterparts like the IMF, World Bank, and EU commission?”

In classic Arben fashion, he responded with a quote, this time one by Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

His example was that when up against much larger institutions, where the imbalance of power was obvious on paper, he always brought himself back to his commitment to his people. He wasn’t negotiating for himself, but on behalf of Albanians and the betterment of his country. It helped him feel and show up as rooted, steadfast, and strong, even when the other side pressed him hard or showed signs of dismissing him. Arben’s mindset also instilled a perception in the other side that they had a reliable and committed partner in Arben whom they could work with consistently.

Identifying for yourself internally who you’re negotiating for (your child, your family, your younger self) is a key tactic for getting into an effective negotiation mindset. We wrote in depth about this in a past newsletter: These 4 mindset shifts can add 5-6 figures to your job offer​

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Bottom line: 1) Integrity determines how willingly others work with you, and 2) Self respect shapes how you’re treated.

See you all next week for part two!

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

A mistake we see job seekers make a lot is overrelying on their current role as leverage. Having a job can feel like they’re holding all the cards: “I’d be fine staying in my current role, I’m happy where I’m at, the recruiter reached out to me and I wasn’t even looking for a new job.”

But being happy where you are is usually not the leverage you think it is, and anchoring yourself to your current role can actually weaken your position. Here’s why:

1️⃣ Your current situation is more visible than you think

When a company approaches you, they already know where you work. They usually have a good sense of what that company pays, whether from market data or from people in their network. In other words, your cards are pretty transparent.

You might have some hidden leverage if you’re an exceptional performer, or if you have unusually strong refreshers, bonuses, or equity that you can bring up in the negotiations. But the baseline of where you are is not a mystery to them.

2️⃣ Talking to them at all signals openness to leaving

By the time you make it through interviews and receive an offer, you’ve already invested a significant amount of time and effort. That alone signals that you’re open to leaving your current company.

At that point, saying you’re happy where you are carries much less weight. Your actions tell the company that you’re at least willing to consider a move, which weakens the leverage you may think you have at this stage.

3️⃣ The best leverage in job negotiations still comes from another offer

At the offer stage, the strongest leverage is still having another concrete option outside your current role. When companies sense real competition for your talent, they can be far more willing to increase your compensation to avoid losing you to the market. And of course, it needs to be handled with diplomacy and strategy.

Being in a job while you’re recruiting does have its advantages: it gives you a sense of safety knowing that you’ll still be employed if you don’t get the offer. It can help you walk away if something about the new opportunities doesn’t feel right.

But on its own, it doesn’t meaningfully change the power dynamics in a job offer negotiation. Understanding the difference can prevent you from overestimating your leverage and underplaying your strategy.

Best,

Gerta & Alex​
​Cofounders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​

An unexpected first episode of Gentle Power to kick off 2026 (YouTube | Spotify | Apple): we’re currently visiting Gerta’s family in Albania for the holidays, and we both ended up getting COVID.

However, we take pride in not having missed a single week of publishing an episode of Gentle Power since we started the show last March, and we weren’t going to start off 2026 having broken our streak. So we recorded an episode anyway, audio-only, while laying in bed sick. Even if the conditions weren’t ideal, we felt it was more important to maintain consistency than perfection.

For this week, we covered tips and tactics for a different type of negotiation scenario than we usually cover, one that most people face outside of the job context: negotiating with hotels, airlines, or other services. This was very top of mind for us because Gerta was invited to give a negotiations masterclass at her alma mater, MIT, and she had to get a bit creative with her hotel logistics.

Here are some takeaways from the episode.

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Negotiations in an everyday situation

This episode was sparked by a very ordinary situation: a hotel booking.

As part of MIT’s invitation for Gerta to give a masterclass to 200+ master’s students, the school is covering the cost of hotel accommodations. She had to extend her trip though for personal reasons, as her mom is traveling to Boston with her and Gerta wanted to avoid switching hotels in the middle of New England winter.

So she called the hotel and politely made a simple ask: Could they match the MIT rate for the personal portion of her stay?

That was it. No elaborate setup, no aggressive push; just a reasonable request framed in a kind and cordial way.

After a short call with one of the hotel’s customer service reps, they said yes. She then asked if they would be able to upgrade the room to one with two beds, one for her and one for her mom. They were happy to do that as well.

Here are some things Gerta did to help seal the deal:

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Prepare lightly, not rigidly

Gerta typically doesn’t script negotiations or rehearse exact phrasing. She goes in knowing what she wants and a few directions she can take things in if the first ask doesn’t land. We’ve seen the opposite of this backfire. The more people rehearse, the more mechanical they can sound. Negotiation isn’t a performance, but rather an interaction where genuinely listening and engaging with the other side will get you a lot further than regurgitating your prepared scripts.

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Asking for someone’s name changes the dynamic

One habit Alex noticed that Gerta often does when speaking with customer service is to ask for the person’s name. Names humanize conversations and make them more personal. Asking it in a neutral or appreciative moment shifts the tone and brings top of mind that this is a conversation between two real people, not some automated system.

Gerta was also reflecting that she asks for people’s names as a way to bond even further, especially if they happen to speak one of the 7 languages she speaks.

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Creativity often looks like generosity

After the hotel’s customer service rep agreed to the lower rate and a room upgrade even without Gerta having had to offer anything in return, Gerta asked one more question: “What can I do for you as a thank you?” She offered to email a manager, mention the employee in a survey, and/or leave a public positive review (also why it was helpful to ask for their name). None of this was required to get the deal done, but this is where negotiations quietly become creative. You’re not looking for ways to extract value, but rather ways to make the other person better off at a low cost to you and high value to them.

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Nothing about this situation was high stakes. It was just a hotel booking.

But having a clear ask, genuinely engaging with the other side as a human, and offering a bit of generosity will often take you further than rehearsed arguments or clever tactics.

That is as true for hotel bookings as it is for anything else.

Full episode here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple​

​

Best,

Gerta & Alex
​Co-founders, YourNegotiations.com

​

P.S. Are you job searching or have upcoming negotiations?

Book a free call with us, where we’ll learn more about your situation, offer some free tips, and explore if we’re a good fit to work together: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call​

P.P.S. Know someone who could use our help?

Refer them and earn $500.

We’ve paid out thousands to people who just made a simple intro. If your friend becomes a client, we’ll send you $500 - no strings attached; just our way of saying thank you for spreading the word.

Simply send an intro email to alex@yournegotiations.com and your friend.

See all the details of our referral program on our website here.

​