988. Use Tension To Your Advantage. ~ Cash Nickerson

Today, I'm going to show you how to use tension to your advantage instead of running from it. Tension is always present—in conversations, negotiations, relationships, and decisions—and where most people freeze, get aggressive, or flee, you can learn to sit in it and work inside it. I break down the two forces that are always at play—timing and leverage—and why neither one is ever static. Even when you don’t have the advantage in the moment, awareness changes everything. Learn how to spot tension, protect it, and apply productive pressure that helps you—and others—move forward with clarity and confidence.

Thanks to Cash Nickerson's book "The Seven Tensions Of Negotiations" for inspiring this episode. 

Transcript

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Alright, 3, 2, 1. Let's get it this morning. I wasn't sure what I was going to read on in my random reading. And the random reading is something I try to do a majority of the day. I say every day. Um, but a majority of the days I try to read from a random book for about 15 minutes and then I. Write for 15, sometimes 20 minutes and just kind of unpack those thoughts. And I think this is a powerful tool. Uh, it certainly saved my life, and I think it's something powerful that you should begin to adopt. And I think this is how you become a 30 minute millionaire. And the Millionaire is a. It's a metaphor for creating freedom in your life. You'll think quicker, you'll think clearer. Uh, you'll be able to make more decisive decisions and no doubt. You will be more successful if you embrace this and what's good about it? I know I bang the drum on it, but that is the, the spine of everything that I do because it saved my life. It has turned my life around and it's made me successful and, and brought me from some of the darkest times in my life. I've been bankrupt, I've been obese, I've been demoted, been homeless. And this short practice, 30 minutes every day since 2017 has made a big difference. So I am a preacher of this, and so this morning, back to my point this morning, I wasn't really sure what I was going to read on. And so I open up my Kindle library. I'm a big fan of physical books, but sometimes. I don't have all the physical books, so I go through my Kindle library and I just kinda roulette it and uh, spun the wheel there and came across Cash Nickerson's book, the Seven Tensions of Negotiations. And that was a book I was gonna read, cover to cover, but sometimes, man, that's just the a DD in me. I, I, I saw where I just kind of abandoned the book. Not that it was a bad book or anything, it just, I think sometimes you read and you're in seasons. And this is why I like the random reading is, is because I don't have to read chapters one through 22 all in, in one linear sequence of months. I can just, I can read chapter five one day and come back another day and read chapter 13. It doesn't matter. Um, it's just. It's small enough where you can prime your mind, and that's, that's what the practice is. It's something where I can read it, I can think about it, I can write about it, and then I can go live it that day. And the point, it's the long drawn out version. The point I want to emphasize to you today is manipulating tension. Tension is something that you can, you can actually use. To your advantage, but you have to have an awareness. Tension is one of the most powerful negotiating tools that you can use in your life. And when I say negotiating, I'm not just talking to salespeople because we are all selling our way through life. And so when you have an awareness of. What we're gonna talk about today, an awareness of the tension and how you can use it to your advantage, where most people work to eliminate tension or escape from it. I'm gonna show you how you can learn to work inside of the tension. I call it productive tension, and when you bring an awareness to it. You can, you can always use it to your advantage. So I guess the first thing I wrote on my tablet this morning is can you teach tension? Like, can tension be taught? And short answer, NII can't even give a short answer. No, I, I don't know. Here's the thing. Not directly. Lemme just say it like that because. Tension and, and using tension to your advantage. The timing of tension is reflected on your time in, and that's the experience. It takes experience, it takes reps, it takes sitting in uncomfortable moments where that fight or flight kicks in. That's what most people, when they feel tension, that's what they do. They. Either get very rigid and aggressive, or they just avoid the situation altogether. And when you can learn to sit in the tension, you'll actually shorten the learning curve and use the two most powerful tensions. To your advantage. And most of the time they're, they're paired together. It's timing tension and leverage tension. And if you think about it in any negotiation, and when I say negotiation. Again, I'm not talking just profession. I'm talking about different, all kinds of encounters in your relationships, in your professional life, in your creative life. Like I, I mean, just you're going to, when you hear this episode, you're going to, you're gonna chuckle to yourself and be like, oh yeah, I'm in, I'm in one of these situations right now. And so. When you see, when you realize this, your tension. Tension is always present it, but also it's always moving because you may have leverage, which is a form of tension. You may have leverage tension in the moment, but then five minutes later you don't. I mean, look at any sporting event, like as I'm recording this. The Super Bowl is. Today, what is it? Super Roll 60. So as I'm recording this, I mean you're gonna see there's going to be leverages initially when they kick off. There's just these assumed leverages. But then as the game goes on, they actually use tension to their advantage. And one minute they'll have it, and then the momentum, they lose that momentum, they lose their leverage. So sometimes leverage is on your side, sometimes. It flips. The mistake that people make in everyday life is that you think that tension is static. Like you walk into a situation and you have no leverage and the other party does. You think it stays that way? No, it doesn't, but you have to. But, and this is where people maintain their attention is. You as one side of the party think it's static. I'm, I'm outgunned here, I'm out. And so they mentally and emotionally and physically, they just nut up and they just don't do anything. And they just become a doormat. Tension is fluid. It is always fluid. So sometimes you may not have the leverage, but then you can manipulate the timing. Okay. And you're gonna be able to spot these things. And the timing sometimes is using, is slowing things down. Sometimes it's speeding things up. And so sometimes it's a combination of both. I was trying to think of a podcast episode that I did sometime back. I gotta go find it, but I want to get on the mic before I lost this thought. And it was about Robert Green and he used tension. Timing to his advantage. And there's different ways of, of maneuvering that. So maybe just go in the search bar. If you find it, let me know what it is. Maybe I'll go and find it sometime today. But anyway, that, I think when you, when you listen to this and then you go back and, and listen to that episode, I think they'll actually pair well together if you don't have the awareness. That tension is always present. You end up leaking, leaking it, and when you leak the tension, this is where desperation comes out. When you leak tension, well, lemme back up. If you don't have the awareness, then by default you're going to leak tension. Okay? When you leak tension. Then the other party, especially a skillful party, but sometimes they just pick up on it. They don't have to be skilled. They actually take advantage of that and realize that and use it to their advantage. This is where desperation pops up. This is where urgency leaks out. And this is where people give away their, their leverage, their timing without even realizing it. So the first thing before we do anything else, bringing awareness to situations. Whether it be one-on-one, whether it be walking into a room, find you, find your. Find your leverages. Find your timings okay. And again, time in develops timing. So the more you do this, it's not like you're gonna listen to this episode and just be really good because at first you gotta settle your your mind down and you've got to learn to just sit in in that tension. And when you can do this, bring an awareness to it. You can actually manipulate tension, and I use that word on purpose, manipulation in a productive way. I do believe you can manipulate the tension when it's honest and you're ethical. And it's aimed at a win-win situation for both parties. Sometimes people are just terrified of making a decision, and so you have to manipulate the tension and apply it in the right ways. Oftentimes, it's leverage or timing, so that way they can get unstuck and move forward. Because sometimes, I mean, my wife sees it all the time, like, ladies come in and she's got all women's gym and ladies come in and they're just, they, they, they, they don't look their best selves anymore. They don't feel good. They don't look good. They let themselves go. They don't feel attractive yet. They still stall. She talks to 'em, she finds out what they're, you know, why they're here and she really works with them to get them set up and. They're like, okay. And they go for one workout and then they just, they lose hope. They lose hope. And so, you know, it's, and, and so this is, she's gotta figure out a way how to get them unstuck. Or a lot of times they won't even work out. Sometimes they'll even say, well, lemme go talk to my husband or Let me give it some thought. And they're just stalling. So I have to work with her. Own applying tension in the right way. And that's uncomfortable for her. And I'm like, the first thing you gotta do if you're going to to do really well in this business is you gotta sit in the tension. You do. So back to my, back to my point is even when you're on a slick spot. And you need something to happen. You don't want to expose your need. You don't. So you can use timing to your advantage where you actually slow things down and you protect your position and you don't give out any sort of leakage with some sort of enthusiastic desperation. And this is where most people. Mess up because they, they, they feel the pressure and they immediately try to relieve it by talking too much. They'll, they'll sell it and buy it right back because they keep talking, like deliver it in as few words as possible and shut up. Okay. Deliver your message in as few words, bold, confident, eye contact, deliver it. And even though inside you're like, oh my God. Stay strong. And this is, this is, this is time in, this is experience that, that will help you with this.'cause sometimes we talk too much, sometimes we discount too fast. Sometimes we push too hard. I believe you should push yourself to be persistent with the other party. Persistence is staying with the thought and showing other options and finding other ways. Okay, pushing yourself is that uncomfortableness of sitting in the tension, okay? And that's what most people don't do. Most people, it's fight or flight, right? They either are freeze, fight, flight, or freeze. Isn't that what it is? So they freeze and they just nut up or they fight. So their tone gets very aggressive. Or they just flee all together. They stall. Sometimes they throw stall objections out there. I'm gonna think about it. Um, let me talk to my husband. Uh, let me get back with you next month, next quarter. Email me the information. All that kind of crap. So this is why you've gotta learn to sit in the tension. This is why I coach on. Confrontation. It's one of the five C's con communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action, and productive confrontation. These are life skills that you gotta have. And so I tell my young salespeople all the time, like, you have to learn. To sit in the tension, and I use the analogy of like young quarterbacks. Young quarterbacks running quarterbacks talented fast, they leave college, get into the NFL, and they still try to run when they feel the pressure. They're so used to, their default setting is to. To take off running that they rely on their talents on that, that they're not relying on the rest of the talents of their team. And in the NFL, those guys are just as fast, if not faster and stronger than your quarterback. And so you can take a beating. For only so long. And those quarterbacks have to learn. If they want to extend their careers, they have to learn to sit in the tension. And so those, uh, a good coach will come in and they can feel the tension, they can feel the pocket collapsing on them, yet they can still read the defense and throw to a spot. That's the same thing that you have to learn and that my salespeople have to learn is how to sit in the tension. And this only comes. From the reps. This only comes from the time in. So you can develop your timing. Timing, so you can spot these and manipulate the leverage or the timing and use it to your advantage. One thing I like that Cash Nickerson points out is that you cannot treat everybody like a 10 on the urgency scale. On the timing scale, like everybody needs it. Just because you need it right now doesn't mean that they do, because like when you do that, you're assess, you're not assessing their timing, you're projecting your own, and this is where the desperation comes out. And people, they, they pe people sense that Roy Vaden calls it desperation breath. And that's what happens. You're like, man, I mean, they love the product, but they were just like, just something about it. We're just gonna hold off. It's because you projected a tin on them. You just were overwhelming. Because you needed something to happen, but you did not. You failed to realize, engage, and this is something Cash talks about. You gotta constantly find out what their timing is. Okay. And even though they may say something, their body may say something different, their questions may turn to something different. And so you work through your process. You're constantly gauging your timing and your leverage assessing these things, and then you manipulate it based on and and gain a little more advantages and leverages based on your time in your investment with the customer itself. A lot of times, man, people aren't, they're, they're not saying no, they're just terrified to decide. And so your job, again, in any profession, in sales, in leadership, in relationships, dude, you're gonna see this with you and your daughter today, okay? You're gonna see this with your kids, and you're gonna say, okay, here's the tension point. Well, case in point. They want to go somewhere. All right. They got a room that has a mountain of clothes on the floor. Your leverage, that's your leverage. All right? Here comes the negotiation. You gotta take care of that. You gotta clean your bathroom. I wanna make sure all that's done. And then once you're done with that, then you can, then you can go do what you wanna do. I mean, we, we do it all the time, but sometimes we just, we lose that awareness. And, you know, we don't, we don't, we don't spot those things. So the point I really, really want to emphasize is this is like, every interaction has tension. It does, but it's in a good way. Don't, don't, don't flee from it. So you're going to see this in your profession. You're gonna see this in your relationships. You're gonna see this, um, in, in your personal life. Look, I mean, marketers know this. Because they use tension to their advantage today only, uh, you'll probably get bombarded with some sort of Super Bowl themed, you know, messages today. And so they use that to their advantage. And your thing is, is, or your goal today is to spot that tension. Like where is. Where's my timing tension and understand it doesn't stay that way. So you may have it right then and there, but then you can manipulate that. You need it to go faster. You need it to go slower. Where's your leverage tension? Do you have the leverage? Just 'cause you don't walk in with leverage doesn't mean you don't have it right now. You have to be curious. You have to be creative and spot how you can gain more leverage. Then also the other thing is bringing in awareness. This is really, really key. Bringing an awareness to tension and asking yourself like, am I, am I leaking tension or am I protecting it? And you should protect your tension even though you need something to happen, even though. Well, I'll just leave it at that. You need something to happen. You protect that. You don't leak that out. You have an awareness and you're, you're ti you're, this will help you stay present in the situation too. This will help you stay in tune with the other party that you're talking to because you're finding your timing and you're lever leverage points. Using them to your advantage and it's advantageous for both parties. Okay? I am not saying this like you use it as a weapon. It's more so of a tool. You never take advantage of somebody, okay? You capitalize on the opportunity that's in front of you, okay? And it's gotta be a win-win situation. Okay. I push myself to be persistent with my customers, and I, I, I, I use productive tension all the time, and I use it to my advantage because sometimes I have to help them walk through these things. So sometimes I have to ask difficult questions. Sometimes I have to push against their stalls. You know, these objections, they're throwing out this, I'll talk to you Monday. Tell you what, let's do this. And then, so I have to, I'll, I'll throttle that. Back and forth. Here's the thing about tension, and I'll leave you with this. I believe you should put tension in and it should be tight, tight, tight at times, T, okay? It should be tight at times, and then you let it out, and then you draw it tight again. And then you let it out. And so it's a throttling, it's a manipulation based on what's going on in this circumstance, and that's proof positive. Like when you're manipulating the tension and you're putting a lot of tension in it, and then you're letting some of it out to reduce some of the stress, and then you redo it again. Okay? It's that back and forth. What, what happens is that expands that capacity not only for yourself, but also you're. You're, you're actually, and customers don't realize this, or the other party doesn't realize this, you're actually developing capacity for them as well. Okay? This is so key, man. I love this topic as you can see, because I'm longer than my normal 15 minutes. So anyway, I'll leave you with this spot. Your tensions today. You always have tension. Tension is always there. Alright? Keep it simple, keep it moving, never settles. Stay tough. Peace.