Be a Better Negotiator in Everyday Life
Whether you realize it or not, you’re negotiating all the time, in ways large and small, with everyone you know
Negotiating, most of the time is something that requires significant prep: Doing research, practicing your lines, giving yourself the requisite pep talk, and finally wiping sweaty palms before walking into the boss’s office or the car dealership to make your case. This is a high-stakes battle of wits, and you want to be as ready as you can possibly be.
Or at least, that’s how most people think of it. Really, though, negotiating isn’t an isolated activity to be stressed over and meticulously planned; it’s something you’re doing all the time, with everyone around you, in ways large and small — figuring out how to share expenses with a partner, making vacation plans with a friend, or splitting up a project with a colleague.
“Literally every part of our day is somehow spent negotiating,” says negotiation coach Mori Taheripour, faculty member at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “Most people are good negotiators. They just don’t recognize that they’re negotiating.”
One reason there’s so much anxiety surrounding negotiation, Taheripour says, is that people tend to define it as a transaction where one…
