Zkitszo - The Real
September 25, 2026

Have You Given Up On This?

An email sits there. A week, maybe two. You sent the proposal, they said it looked "great", then... nothing. The usual move is the polite nudge- "just circling back", "any update?"- which gets ignored just as politely.

The fix, according to the ex-FBI hostage negotiator who wrote Never Split the Difference, is six words in the subject line and nothing else.

This came out of a two-hour-seventeen-minute podcast built around ten negotiation lines. I'm writing the lines down here mostly for me to remember them- and checking the science bits while I'm at it, because a few of them don't hold up the way they were told.

Have You Given Up On-

That's the line. "Have you given up on" and then name the thing.

Have you given up on this project?

Word for word. No "hope you're well", no softening, nothing added or taken away. The claim is that people who are hope-driven water it down because it feels too blunt- and watering it down is what kills it. In an email it goes in the subject line. Maybe repeated in the body. Anything else is a distraction from the one thing you want them doing... answering it.

Why would that work? Two things at once. Saying "no" makes people feel safe- they haven't signed up for anything by saying it. We hate to hear no, we love to say it. And "given up" pokes at loss- nobody wants to give up on something. On top of that, whatever you're asking about has been buried under the rest of their week. This drags it back to the top of the pile.

Three kinds of replies come back, per the podcast:

  • About 20 to 30% of the time- instant deal. "No, we haven't. Let's go."
  • About 20%- they moved on and never told you. You were the rabbit, the price they were using to squeeze somebody else. Painful, but you find out now instead of in three months. "It's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal."
  • The big middle- they're close but something's in the way. Here you summarize their position and why they've been hesitant, back to them, until you get a "that's right" (more on that below). Then- "what's stopping us from making this deal?"

And silence? Silence means yes, they've given up. There's a story in there about a soft drink deal that had to be signed before year end. No reply to the email. Turned out the guy on the other side had been shuffled sideways, lost his influence and was embarrassed to say so. So the move became "forget the business stuff, let's go for a steak and a beer, I'm buying". He spilled all of it over dinner, then connected them with whoever could sign. Deal got done the next year.

One catch- and it's a good one. Use it as an opener on someone you've never worked with... it's out of context. You can't give up on something you never started. The negotiator says those emails go straight to his spam folder.

The podcast also says it "works 999 times out of a thousand". I couldn't find anything backing that number up. Under a post where he shared a client win with this line, one reply said they'd "tried this a dozen times and it hasn't worked once yet". A sales newsletter that likes the line still says it's best after roughly four to six weeks of silence and can backfire outside that window. So.. a strong tool.

Flip the Yes to a No

Same trick, different doors. Everybody has been walked into a corner by "yes"- three little yeses and bang, you're signed up for the timeshare. So a yes-question sets off alarms before you've said what you want.

Is now a bad time to talk?

Instead of "got a few minutes?" You only get two answers. "No, no, it's never a bad time"- and you've got their full attention for seven to ten seconds, so get to the point. Or "yeah it is, call me at 3"- and then at 3 you have their full attention anyway. Either way you win. The dare in the episode is to try it four times today and see.

Side note on "a few minutes"- the host's reply to that one was to ask for a voice note instead, so the caller has to boil it down and he can listen when it suits him. A story about Navy SEALs in the Caribbean being told the helicopter would be "a few minutes"... three hours.

Is it a ridiculous idea to ...?

Used on Jack Welch at a book signing, seven seconds, two hundred people in line, asking him to speak at a university class. Welch went quiet with a look like he wanted to kill somebody- then laid out the whole plan. His assistant's name, how to reach her, when he'd be in town. People who feel safe saying "no, not ridiculous" will happily think through the next steps out loud, because thinking it through doesn't commit them to anything.

Are you against implementing this program?

A head nurse had turned down the same proposal for weeks. That one text- she said "no". It went ahead on the spot.

How Am I Supposed to Do That?

When somebody throws a price or a demand at you that you can't meet. "Are you out of your mind?" makes a fight. "How am I supposed to do that?" makes them picture your side of it- "forced empathy" is what the negotiator's son used to call it. The claim is eight out of ten times it turns things around on the spot and they come back with something better.

The other two times they blow up. One SpaceX exec got screamed at over this line- "I don't care if you lose your job, make this deal". That's not failure, that's data. Someone that cornered is telling you there's no room left... maybe this is already the best deal on the table. Take a break. If you can help that person out of the corner, they're on your side for good.

Then shut up

After any of these lines- say nothing. The other side fills the silence, usually with what you needed to know. "Shut up, count thousands to yourself, don't stop till you run out."

Here's where the salt and pepper goes. The podcast explains the silence with brain chemistry: oxytocin, called "the truth drug", takes "about six seconds" to work through your system. Talking any sooner "disrupts the chemical process".

Not really.

The famous study that got everyone excited about oxytocin and trust was a 2005 Nature paper where people sniffed oxytocin and trusted strangers with more money. A 2015 review of all the follow-ups found the effect doesn't reliably hold up. A 2020 replication, with some of the original team on it, found no effect at all. Another replication, using a different trust task, came up empty as well. I couldn't find anything at all for a six-second window. "Truth drug" is marketing. Staying quiet is still good advice- it just doesn't need the neuroscience costume.

Say the Worst Thing First

The accusation audit. Before they can think it, you say every bad thing they're probably thinking about you, biggest first, three or four at a time. Let each one sink in.

You're probably going to think I'm crazy.
This is going to seem greedy.
When I'm done, you'll want to leap across the table and stab me in the eye with a pencil.

That last one is a Black Swan trainer's favourite. The logic: you can't plant a positive emotion, but calling out a negative one takes the air out of it. People expect naming a fear to make it worse. It does the opposite. Get all the negatives out and very often the other side flips positive on their own. If they don't, there's probably another negative you haven't said yet.

The big mistake is pulling the punch- "you might be a little unhappy with this". That tells them you're scared, so now they're scared. Go all the way until they say "hold on, you're being too hard on yourself". Laughing at yourself while doing it- that's just the accusation audit dressed up as self-deprecating humour.

The example given was Steve Jobs listing every reason Disney buying Pixar was a bad idea, then saying the positives could still outweigh the negatives. The podcast names the Disney CEO in the room as "Bob Eisner". That's wrong- Michael Eisner was out by then. It was Bob Iger, CEO from late 2005. The deal was announced in January 2006. In Iger's telling, Jobs wrote a few pros and a lot of cons on a whiteboard. The takeaway- a few strong pros can beat a long list of cons.

Your Offer Is Very Generous

Your offer is very generous. It just doesn't work for me.

For the lowball. Calling a stingy offer "generous" feeds the generosity- in their head they were generous, they could've offered nothing. "Doesn't work for me" is the part that shuts the door on the benchmark argument ("people in your role make X"). Nobody can argue with what works for you... that's information only you have.

It's also a soft no. A no dealt out a little at a time, so the real one never blindsides anybody. And if both sides go off to think about it- send the lead person on the other side a short note thanking them for how hard they worked to get the deal on the table. Nothing else in it. Jim Camp's Start with No (2002) is credited with the idea that emotional payment can be worth several times the dollars- I couldn't check the exact wording in the book, so take the "four times" as the podcast's number.

That's Right, Not You're Right

One word apart. "You're right" means "stop talking"- they're not bought in, it's still your idea. "That's right" means they feel understood. You get it by summarizing their side back to them- all of it, more than feels comfortable. "If you don't feel like you're laying it on thick, you're not laying it on thick enough."

The story: Jeffrey Schilling, an American held by Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines in 2000. They wanted $10 million in "war damages"- not ransom, war damages, because that makes them heroes instead of criminals. The coached negotiator summarized every grievance they'd ever voiced. Long silence. "That's right." The $10 million never came up again.

In the podcast's version, the kidnappers slowly drifted off until Schilling just walked out of the jungle. The US Justice Department's indictment backs that up, more or less- he "managed to escape" on April 12, 2001, after more than seven months. It also lists the $10 million as a ransom demand, alongside the release of prisoners held in the US. War damages was their word for it.

What Makes You Ask?

"Why" sounds like an accusation- in every language. It's what the nearest adult said when you broke something as a kid. The negotiator says it set off hostage-takers in Egypt, the Philippines and Colombia alike. Swap "why" for "what" or "how":

  • What uncovers things. What makes you ask? What's getting in the way?
  • How gets things done. How do you want to proceed? How am I supposed to do that?

Both feel like being asked for advice- and everybody loves giving advice.

After lunch, though, the advice is to switch to a label ("seems like you have a good reason for asking that") because what/how questions make people think hard. "Decision fatigue kicks in with every human being after about 1:00 in the afternoon". That's leaning on the parole-judges study, where favourable rulings dropped over each session and bounced back after food breaks. That study's been picked apart since (case order, who had a lawyer). The wider "willpower runs out" idea failed a 23-lab replication in 2016. I went down this same rabbit hole in Think Clearly to a Super You. The label trick may still be easier on a tired brain. The 1 p.m. cutoff is folklore.

Labels and mirrors

A label names what you see- "it seems like", "it sounds like", "it looks like", "it feels like". Seems like you're in a hurry. Sounds like something just crossed your mind. It's tentative, so if you're wrong they correct you... more info anyway. This one has real science under it: a 2007 UCLA brain-scan study found putting feelings into words turned down the amygdala.

A mirror is repeating the last one to three words they said, with a curious tone. "...Tons of stuff?" Feels robotic the first few times. There's research here too- a 2003 study had a waitress repeat orders back word for word, and she got bigger tips than when she didn't.

Most people lean one way, like being left- or right-handed. Practice somewhere it costs nothing: the grocery store checkout, the gas station. "What do you love about working here?" then mirror whatever comes back.

The old 7-38-55 thing got a mention too- 7% words, 38% tone, 55% body language. The negotiator's take was "I don't care what the ratio is, the problem is when they don't line up". Funny enough that's closer to what Mehrabian actually found than the ratio itself- his studies were about feelings and attitudes, only when words and tone contradicted each other. It was never a rule for all talking.

Two new ones

I need you to wave a magic wand.

At a lost-luggage desk, where the staff get yelled at all day for something they didn't do. Said playfully, it says what they're already thinking. Supposedly someone went into the bowels of the Las Vegas airport and fetched the bag personally. Same idea for an early hotel check-in.

You look important.

For the security guard, or the person stacking vegetables, who isn't there to give directions. They straighten up. Sometimes they walk you there. It comes from Jonathan Smith, co-author of Fight Less, Win More with Derek Gaunt.

The Ackerman Ladder

Bargaining is the last move, not the first- "like violence", as a martial-arts friend of the negotiator puts it. If you have to haggle, this is the sequence. It's named after Mike Ackerman, an ex-CIA officer whose firm has been doing kidnap-and-ransom work since 1977.

Ackerman ladder, target $10,000 Each raise is half the last. Never raise until they counter. target $10,000 $6,500 open 65% $8,500 85% (+$2,000) $9,500 95% (+$1,000) $9,963 odd final number + empathy + accusation audit + maybe a non-cash item
  1. Pick your target. Your number- not the market price, not their asking price.
  2. Before the first number, lay on the empathy and an accusation audit. "I'm lucky to even be at this table... you're going to be angry when you hear my number... I'm almost scared to say it." Now they're braced for something insulting.
  3. Open at 65% of target. Low, but not as bad as they feared.
  4. Never counter yourself. Wait until they put a number out, every single time.
  5. Go to 85%, then 95%, then 100%. Each raise half the size of the last one.
  6. Make the last number oddly precise- $9,963, not $10,000.

Black Swan's write-ups add one more thing the podcast skipped- throw in a small non-cash item with the final number to show you're tapped out.

Ranges? Don't. Say "somewhere between $500 and $750" on a car and they hear $500- then they feel like they won, so they won't budge. If you're ever forced into one, make sure the end that favours them is a number you'd be happy with.

Three Voices, Three Types

The voices:

  • Assertive. "This is what I need and I need it now." Feels direct and honest to whoever's saying it, feels like getting hit in the face with a brick to whoever's hearing it.
  • Late-night FM DJ. Slow, calm, downward inflection. You don't need a deep voice- drop your chin a little and it comes down on its own.
  • Playful. Happy to see you, life is good. This is the magic-wand voice. It supposedly turned a $3,700 medical bill into a $700 payoff: "I owe you money!", said like it was great news, to a collections department that only ever hears excuses.

The negotiator types line up with them- analysts, accommodators, assertives- and silence lands differently on each. Analysts like quiet time to think and feel connected by it. Accommodators fill silence by talking, which is how they connect. Assertives want to be heard and respected, so letting them talk and then summarizing it back is gold. Staying quiet works on all three for different reasons. If an assertive comes at you hot, don't match them... that's a boxing match. Give them respect first. Playful can come after.

Small conflict here- the podcast frames the three voices around the types, while Black Swan's teaching material says to live in the playful voice most of the time (the figure usually quoted is about 80%) and only reach for the assertive one rarely, if ever.

Quick Hits

The rapid-fire round had a handful worth keeping:

  • "Win-win" in the first five minutes is a red flag- it's what the cutthroats say to get your guard down.
  • "I just want what's fair" means they feel backed into a corner, or they're trying to push you around. Label it: "sounds like you feel backed into a corner". If it lands, they were cornered. If they brush it off, it was a play.
  • Be predictable about when you'll be in touch. Not "end of next week"- "by Thursday at 5". Uncertainty is the stress special-forces selection uses on purpose. Goes hand in hand with your word being your bond.
  • About 7% of people you'll never get through to. Spot them early- constant attacking plus playing the victim- and move on without being mean about it.
  • The last impression beats the first one.
  • Most overrated skill- being articulate. Most underrated- listening.

A couple of the side claims in there are shaky too. "You're 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind" comes from Shawn Achor's The Happiness Advantage- a popular book, not a replicated number. And stress giving people cancer... Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute both say there's no good evidence stress causes cancer directly. Even "loss aversion is the most dominating factor in human decision-making" is stronger than the research: a 2018 paper called The Loss of Loss Aversion argues the effect is smaller and patchier than the textbooks say. The lines can work fine without the stretched-out science around them.

Also- he got asked Trump or Obama. I'm not touching that one.

Which of these would you try first? "Is now a bad time to talk?" seems like the easiest to test four times tomorrow. If you've ever sent a "have you given up" email- did it work, or did it land in spam? Tell me in the comments... I'd like to know whether that 999-out-of-1,000 is real.

Oh, and on "practice it 64 times and it's a habit"- the study people usually mean found a median of 66 days, not tries, and anywhere from 18 to 254 days depending on the person. So.. four times today, then keep going for a couple of months.

Happy haggling.

Glossary

  • No-oriented question — a question built so the answer you want is "no", because saying no feels safe.
  • Loss aversion — the idea that losing something feels worse than gaining the same thing feels good.
  • Accusation audit — saying out loud, up front, every negative thing the other side probably thinks about you.
  • Tactical empathy — showing you understand how the other side sees things, without agreeing or feeling it with them. Sympathy is feeling it with them.
  • Label — naming an emotion or dynamic you notice: "it seems like...", "it sounds like...".
  • Mirror — repeating the last one to three words someone said, as a question.
  • "That's right" — the reply that means someone feels fully understood, as opposed to "you're right", which means "stop talking".
  • Ackerman model — a bargaining sequence: offer 65%, 85%, 95%, 100% of your target, with an odd final number.
  • Anchoring — the first number put out pulls the rest of the negotiation toward it.
  • Oxytocin — a hormone tied to bonding and childbirth. Its supposed role in trust hasn't held up in replications.
  • Replication — running a study again to see if the result comes out the same.
  • Decision fatigue / ego depletion — the idea that decisions or willpower wear you out over a day. Contested.
  • 7-38-55 rule — Mehrabian's split of words, tone and body language, which only applies to mixed messages about feelings.

Sources

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