When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game
But you don’t get a win unless you play in the game
Oh, you get love for it, you get hate for it
You get nothing if you
Wait for it, wait for it, wait

Okay, truth time: I am a bit of a theatre geek. I grew up just north of New York and loved going into the City to see plays when I was a kid. I moved away years ago and never had a chance to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vision come to life on Broadway, so I was thrilled when Disney moved up their release of the 2016 recording and I could finally see it. I watched it with my family this past weekend and was captivated by the singing, the dancing, and the sheer genius of the entire creative team.

But then it struck me that there were a major lessons for budding negotiators. I am going to spend a few posts unpacking how a musical about 18th century colonials can apply to your life today. This is post one of two.

The first lesson can be summed up simply with the old adage “you’ve got to be in it to win it.” No one (not even me, to be honest) has the perfect solution to every situation you face. But you will never know what you can do until you try. Negotiation is scary for the average person (even for those who do it for a living), and it’s common to not want to start. But I guarantee you one thing: if you do not try, you will not win.

What are you facing today? What do you want to be better? Has your cable bill gone up because your promotion ended? Do you have a medical procedure coming up that will be crazy expensive? Are you looking to get a raise? Do you want an extra five minutes of daycare coverage? Whatever it is, ask for it.

Stanley Milgram was a Harvard-trained psychology professor working in New York in the 1970s when he asked his students to do the unthinkable – go into a crowded New York City subway car and ask people to give up their seat. The students were terrified. This was simply. not. done. You don’t make eye contact on the subway, let alone ask a passenger who secured a coveted seat to give it up. Some of the students completely washed out. “This was just too hard!” they complained. But Milgram didn’t back down on his assignment.

And do you know what happened to the students who completed the assignment? They were fine. No one was harmed. No repercussions were felt. And, most importantly, over two-thirds of the people they asked just gave up their seats. Two thirds! The students didn’t even need to give a reason. They just asked and got it. I’ll write more about this fascinating experiment in a later post, but the key takeaway is this: you are your own worst enemy at the negotiating table. Your fear is keeping you from asking for what you want, and your life is harder because of it.

Here’s your assignment for the week – ask for what you want. You can’t win if you do not try. I’ll be posting some negotiation guides tailored to different situations in the coming days. Check them out, and consider our negotiation flash cards that help you practice more fully. You will be able to find them in the Negotiation Store.

Until next time, keep practicing. Remember, we are all master negotiators.