Rebecca Zung – Narcissist Negotiation Expert & Bestselling Author | How To Negotiate Your Best Life

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About The Guest

Talking Points

• 00:00 — Intro
• 03:00 — Rebecca Jung’s origin story
• 10:36 — Negotiating with narcissists and getting the best possible outcome
• 15:47 — Rebecca’s negotiation steps
• 23:45 — What is Rebecca Zung anticipating in her S.L.A.Y. formula?
• 25:45 — Having a winning mindset
• 28:06 — Negotiation advice for beginners/amateurs
• 31:04 — Where can people connect with Rebecca Zung?
• 31:49 — The biggest challenge Rebecca Zung faced in her life
• 32:37 — The most impactful person in Rebecca Zung’s life
• 32:56 — Rebecca Zung’s book or podcast recommendation
• 33:46 — What would Rebecca Zung tell her 20-year-old self?
• 34:00 — What does success mean to Rebecca Zung?

Show Links

• https://www.instagram.com/rebeccazung/
• https://twitter.com/rebeccazung/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-zung-6753893b/

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Machine Generated Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

negotiation, people, narcissist, person, negotiate, leverage, business, podcasts, teach, narcissism, kids, steps, Chinese, 1000s, world, dealing, supply, anticipating, lawyers, life

SPEAKERS

Scott D Clary, Rebecca Zung

 

Scott D Clary  00:01

What do the federal funds rates and the price of a barrel of oil have to do with you being able to buy a house this year? How do you suppose corporate earnings reports affect your next vacation? Join marketplace host Kai Rizal as he untangles economic news and gives you context you can actually use because the more you know about the financial world, the better you can plan for what’s happening in your own world. Listen to marketplace wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I’m your host, Scott D. Clary. This success story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has other great podcasts like marketing Made Simple, hosted by Dr. JJ Peterson. Marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work. Now if any of these topics sound interesting to you, you’re going to love his show, how to write and deliver captivating speeches, how to market yourself into a new job, how design can help and potentially hurt your revenue and how to create a social media ad strategy that works. If these topics hit home and they’re things that you want to learn about. Go listen to marketing made simple wherever you get your podcasts. Today, my guest is Rebecca Zonk. She is a narcissism negotiation expert. She is a popular YouTuber with more than 250,000 subscribers in the last 18 months she the top 1% attorney in the nation she’s been recognized by US News and World Report as the best lawyer in America. Also she’s been recognized as the legal elite by Trend magazine. She is recognized by her peers and judiciary as the AV Preeminent rated and family law. The highest possible rating for an attorney by Martindale Hubbell. She is the author of the best selling books negotiate like you matter, as well as breaking free. She is a sought after major media contributor her perspectives are in high demand by television and print outlets as she has been featured in or on extra Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek time Dr. Drew NPR Good Day New York, and CBS, Los Angeles amongst others. She’s based in LA she is continuing to serve through her popular YouTube channel media appearances, podcasts, articles and on demand programs such as slay your negotiation with a narcissist and breaking free divorce masterclass. So she speaks about and she is the preeminent authority on narcissism in negotiation. And she is the only lawyer that is currently teaching this over. So we spoke about narcissism and how to win a negotiation with a narcissist. We spoke about what narcissism is and what it isn’t how to tell if somebody is a narcissist red flags to look for. We then walk through her framework, her framework is slay. That’s the acronym she uses to walk through the steps that you have to take. When you’re trying to successfully negotiate with a narcissist. We spoke about persuasion, self confidence, and just general negotiation as well. So some great negotiation lessons for somebody who just wants to learn how to negotiate better, or if somebody is, unfortunately, in a relationship, business or personal with a narcissist, how do you manage that relationship so that you can come out on the other end with in a win, so you can actually successfully negotiate with a narcissist. So let’s jump right into it. This is Rebecca Zung. She is a narcissism negotiation expert.

 

Rebecca Zung  03:29

Hey, there, oh, well, I don’t know how far back you want to go. But I have Chinese and half German. So I always say I have no fun genes whatsoever. It’s all very intense. You know, so, um, you know, I was I was raised my dad’s Chinese, he’s a doctor and my mom’s German. And, you know, I was, I was bullied, you know, as a kid for being Chinese. You know, you would think that growing up outside of Washington, DC and McLean, Virginia, that they would have been a little more enlightened. But, you know, they were a lot of people, you know, a lot of kids were like, oh, you know, any Chinese what’s going on with that? You know, like, and, you know, so it was, I felt like, I mean, it’s not like, I had no friends, but there were a lot of people who were not so enlightened about, you know, call me a jab or whatever, which I wasn’t even Japanese. I was Chinese, you know, whatever. But, so there was that, um, and I felt like, you know, I came into my own in high school. And I felt like when I kind of grew out of being more I always felt awkward when I was a kid. And then when I grew into being a little less awkward and in high school and a little more into my own, I felt more you know, into myself, but you know, I still felt like that gangly sort of kid, you always sort of feel like that person, right? And, um, anyway, so I got married young, I got married at 19 the first time and I had three kids, by the time I was 22. And that was my version of rebelling, oh, I’ll show you I’ll just drop out of college and get married at 19. And even though I had graduated second in my class from high school, that was what I did. And I ended up divorced. I had finished college, then after I got married and had the kids but I was teaching inner city elementary school at the time. And, you know, it’s like a crazy time in my life. You know, here I was in my 20s. I’m teaching inner city elementary school, I had three little kids. And I ended up divorced. So I was living in Florida by that time, and University of Miami had a night program, which they don’t even have anymore. But they the law school had a night program, and I was able to go to law school at night. So and my ex husband was a good guy, he would take care of the kids at night, I would so I would teach school during the day, I would take care of the kids and afternoon, feed them dinner or take them to soccer dance all of the things and then go to law school from like seven to 10 and then study to like, two in the morning, get up, go to work, teach school, you know, and do it all again. I mean, it’s lucky, I was like, super young. And I actually met my husband, my current husband in law school. You know, we’ve been married 2021 years now. We have a 19 year old daughter. So like, it was just a crazy time in my life, like I never slept. And I don’t even know how I got through all that crazy time in my life. But that that’s what I did. So that’s kind of my origin story. I ended up getting a job out of law school with one of the top family law attorneys in the country. You know, really the top family law firm, because the two two lawyers, there were great lawyers, but the one was also half Chinese. She also had been divorced. She also had three kids from her first marriage, and we had all these crazy things in common. And that’s kind of I felt like the universe was sort of all aligned. And, you know, so I’ve only ever practiced and high net worth divorce. And that’s sort of how I got started. And then about four years ago, I decided to merge my practice with these other guys, and decided to break out and do some other things. And so, since then, you know, I’ve done a lot of television work. I wrote a couple of books, you know, I was sort of the go to person for like, extra TMZ. And I was like, reporting on, you know, celebrity divorces, and I did a lot of that sort of thing. You know, you can always just see me like if you want to find clips of me talking about like, when Miley Cyrus got divorce and things like that. I did a lot of that sort of thing on Extron but um, so I wrote a book called breaking free a step by step divorce guide, I wrote a book called negotiate like you matter, and Robert Shapiro wrote the foreword. I have spoken all over the country on negotiation, I was the keynote speaker for the American Bar Association. And throughout all of these different travails, I did a couple of entrepreneurial things. And I ended up being a in a in a partnership with a narcissist. And it was absolutely one of the most horrible situations of my life. I wasn’t in a law partnership. It was in a different entrepreneurial situation. And so I had that and then my husband and I were dealing with a narcissist in our family as well. So I was never married to a narcissist, but between being in a business partnership with one and having one in our family I, it was just awful. And so with all of my diving into studying about narcissism and then

 

Scott D Clary  10:30

what do the federal funds rates and the price of a barrel of oil have to do with you being able to buy a house this year? How do you suppose corporate earnings reports affect your next vacation, join marketplace host Kai Rizal as he untangles economic news, and gives you context you can actually use because the more you know about the financial world, the better you can plan for what’s happening in your own world. Listen to marketplace, wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Rebecca Zung  10:57

All of my experience with negotiating and studying a lot about negotiating. And speaking on negotiating, I’ve started to realize, oh, I can actually apply what I’m learning about negotiating, I mean narcissism to what I’ve already studied and learned about negotiating. And that’s kind of how I started talking about it and started talking about it on YouTube. And that’s where I am now. So I teach courses on how to negotiate with narcissists, and I teach about it on YouTube, and that’s where I am now.

 

Scott D Clary  11:32

Okay, so how do you Okay, so let’s, let’s walk through that. So what, what do you do when you’re negotiating with a narcissist? How do you get the best possible outcome? Just like from the ground up starting from scratch? How do you approach that person? Because I’m sure that negotiation, it’s a lot more than just the actual conversation. I’m sure there’s steps to it, too.

 

Rebecca Zung  11:53

Yeah. So slay is my methodology. And slay stands for strategy, leverage, anticipating and focusing on you, and you have to work through all of those steps, or you’re not going to get anywhere. And you know, I just literally was doing a one on one with a client, like a week ago, and she first started off with, well, I don’t want to be aggressive. And I thought, Well, I mean, I literally said right to her, well, then you’re totally going to be taken advantage of, you know, because when you’re dealing with a narcissist, the very first thing is that, you know, they are going back to what I said, at the very beginning of this, you have to understand the concept of narcissistic supply, it all goes back to that concept of narcissistic supply. Everything revolves around understanding that they’re in this world of survival, this world of that, and so you have to, you can’t listen to a, a regular class on negotiation that you’re dealing with to normal people, and everybody is gonna, you know, come out with some fair outcome. That’s not who you’re dealing with, when you’re dealing with a narcissist, you’re dealing with the person who literally is in this world of survival. So you have to understand that, you know, that this person is going to need to feel like they that they’re that they’re going to have to survive, in order to, to have some sort of outcome with this thing. And so you have to have a strategy around that. Number one, and number two, you have to understand that you are dealing with a person who is in survival mode, so they are going to be aggressive against you. I mean, you know, so you can’t go well, I don’t want to be aggressive because they are going to be aggressive, they’re going to be and so you have to have an understanding about all of that. So, you know, you start off by going, okay. You know, first of all, when you’re dealing with the narcissist, it’s there you’re either for them or against them and And when they realize that you’re no longer for them, that means you’re against them. You can’t just go, okay, hey, listen, this isn’t working out, let’s just nicely come to a resolution. Let’s just, I hate I tried to do that myself, by the way, when I was dealing with one in a business situation, I was like, we’re gonna go in different directions. And, you know, let’s just come to a nice conclusion here. And it doesn’t, they don’t, their mind does not work that way, you’re either for them or against them. And if you’re against them, then you’re public enemy number one. And that means that they have to start lining up all their flying monkeys, and they’ve got to have their army on their side, and it’s got to be against you. And, you know, like, this is how they think. And they’ve got to take you down before they’re going to take, you’re going to take them down. And so all of that is going to start happening right away, and you’re just if you think, oh, it’s all going to be nicey. Nice. You’re just like naked over there. Because, and by the way, if you if you start off with giving all kinds of stuff early on, and they’re gonna see how nice you are, because you gave up all this stuff at the beginning, they don’t care, they’ll just take all of that. And that just is in the wind, it’s taken and gone. So don’t give up a whole bunch of stuff at the beginning, that’s like just leverage

 

Scott D Clary  16:44

you’re gonna win them over, don’t assume that’s gonna gain you any favor. It’s not it’s just, it’s nice. So, if you’ve identified this person, you gotta you got to get your mind, right. So you got to go into the situation, it will be combative, I guess, situation. It’s like, it isn’t us versus them, you know, you versus them, which is unfortunate, but it’s not like the normal person. You mentioned before. It’s okay. Okay, so you have your mind set proper. What’s what’s the next step in this negotiation.

 

Rebecca Zung  17:18

So you create a strategy. And the first thing you have to do is have like a vision as to where you want to go. And so many times people are like, all they’re focusing on is the other person’s bad behavior. Look what they did, look what they did. And they did that. And they did this. And they did this. And they did that. And I want people to understand that that is just a defense, defense, defense, defense, defense. And I always say the best football teams, if all you have is a good defense, no one scoring any points, you have to have a good offense as well. So figure out where it is that you want to go, what’s your outcome? So okay, where’s your vision? And then create steps on how you’re going to get there? That’s your strategy. All right. So vision steps on how you’re going to get there. So that’s your strategy. Next is leverage. What is your leverage leverages kind of two parts? First of all, what is the diamond source of supply that is really, really matters to this Narcissus? What is the thing that they you know, what matters most to them as far as how they look? Okay, because for every narcissist, there’s this thing that matters the most to them as far as how they look

 

Scott D Clary  18:51

how they perceive, like physically, like physical or just how they’re perceived or

 

Rebecca Zung  18:55

like, who, you know, is it their new source of supply? Is it their employees? Is it their, you know, what, what world do they live in, that they don’t want to be exposed to? You know, is it you know, for example, I had a guy that I represented who was a CEO of a Fortune 10 company, and he had been married a long time. He had a pension for you know, hiring very high end escorts, he ended up getting herpes, he ended up giving it to his, his wife, she she didn’t even know that he had been ever cheating ever. And so she ended up going to the OB GYN because she had didn’t know why she was like developing sores and I have all the sudden here, she has herpes, how did I get herpes when I’ve never cheated on my husband? And so now all of a sudden, you know, she’s got this major leverage against him. Because, by the way, I can tell the world that, you know, look at what you did. That’s a huge source of leverage, like she does not, he did not want the world to know about that. Right. So that’s something that she could potentially, you know, have filed a civil battery action against him. I mean, she could have filed something in the courts, uh, you know, that said, hey, I want, you know, extra damages for pain and suffering I want, you know, these are things that he could have potentially been exposed about, right. And instead of doing that, she said, Hey, I could do this, but instead of doing this, I want you too, just pay me, you know, this amount of money. And, um, you know, we’ll do this quietly. And so that was a way that she could kind of use her leverage against the diamond level supply, you understand what I mean, by that? I

 

Scott D Clary  21:34

1. It’s, it’s an uncomfortable thought, because it’s so aggressive, right? Like, it’s uncomfortable to think about having to find that piece of leverage against somebody, because for most people, no one goes out of their way to try and hurt somebody like at that level, right. Like, that’s like, that’s incredible exposure. So you’re saying that this is what you mean, when you say mindset, and you say, be prepared to be aggressive, you’re not negotiating with normal people. So you have to come come to the table with extra ammo?

 

Rebecca Zung  22:06

Well, I call it ethically manipulating the manipulator, you have to look to see what is a source of supply, that’s going to be more important for them to keep protect or maintain, that is going to be, you know, more important for them to protect, than the supply that they get from jerking you around. Because this, that coal level supply, which is jerking you around, they’re going to want to keep that too. And that’s why those cases never settle, because they also enjoy jerking you around. And they, you know, so part of, of, of the jerking you around process is constantly moving the goalposts using the court system as a sword, not giving you the documents, it’s filing unnecessarily unnecessary pleadings, you know, so they they drag you through the mud in the court system, because they get supply from doing that. And so as long as they can continuously get supply from manipulating you in the court system, they will do that. And that’s a source of coal level supply for them. And so, if you don’t want those cases to last three, four and five years and you spend 234 $100,000 in in attorneys fees, the only way you’re going to be able to put an end to that is to find a source of diamond level.

 

Scott D Clary  23:50

But yeah, correct. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode HubSpot. Now, running your own business means uncertainty is everywhere. So wouldn’t it be nice to have a CRM platform that just works a CRM platform that helps you provide a seamless, connected best in class customer experience? For too long, businesses have had to deal with managing point solutions that slow down their teams, frustrate customers and hit them with hidden fees, hub spots, all in one CRM platform has everything you need to do business, no hidden fees included with a connected platform that’s easy to implement and use. Your teams have all the tools and data they need to spend more time on what matters most creating remarkable customer experiences. Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better@hubspot.com. Okay, that makes sense. Next one is anticipating so in the slave formula, you’re talking about anticipating, anticipating what exactly because it seems like with leverage, you’re already anticipating that they’re going to act a certain way. So what else? Could you be anticipating in that particular negotiation?

 

Rebecca Zung  25:05

Well, I mean, you’re anticipating throughout the entire case, right? So you know, anticipating how they’re going to behave, anticipating what they’re going to be doing, you know, you want to be two steps ahead of them throughout the entire case. And, and, you know, part of that also is going to be, you know, using understanding how they think and their mindset, you know, sometimes I tell people to use something that I call bartering, which is, you know, understanding that they need a certain amount of adulation. So if you want to get them to do something for you, go ahead and give them a certain amount of adulation, hey, you know, can you, you know, you know, if it’s a business situation, you know, can you work on the QuickBooks today, you’re so much better at it than I am, you’re way faster at the program, you you know, you know, the program so much better than I do, it’ll be done so much, you know, more efficiently. If you do it, then if I do it, you know, something like that. You know, if you want them to do something for you, be prepared to give them some adulation in return, you know, use it to your advantage sometimes.

 

Scott D Clary  26:44

Why is and then the last piece? The last the why the why enslave is you? Why is that so important? It seems like, it seems it seems I’m just playing devil’s advocate. I know. That’s important. But it seems like it seems like you’re of course, you’re focused on you, you want your you know, you want to win. But why is why is that part of the formula?

 

Rebecca Zung  27:06

I mean, I said, I actually went I interviewed Bob Proctor. And I said you, I said you and your mindset, and your position is at least 50% of winning the negotiation. And he actually corrected me and said it’s 99% of winning the negotiation. And in a way, I think he’s 100%, right? I mean, if you don’t believe you’re going to win, then you’re not going to win. I mean, you have to believe you are going to win that negotiation. You’re, you know, you and you alone, define your value. You tell people what to think. Yeah, there’s so much that goes into that. And, you know, in my courses, I actually teach people about body language, I teach people about embedded commands, I teach people about clothing color, and this, the whole psychology around clothing color. I mean, there’s so much that goes into all of that. I mean, it and you know, and I even talk about the hurts, levels of your, of your emotions, and the levels of of anger and how you can met actually measure anger versus joy on on hurts levels. And, I mean, there’s so much that goes into all of that. But, I mean, in my courses, I actually teach people all sorts of, you know, I give like 50 different examples of leverage and how to document and, I mean, there’s like, we only like, scratched the surface, the whole thing, but, you know, focusing on you your mindset, your position, and all of that is just so, so, so critical.

 

Scott D Clary  29:03

And, okay, so, so good. So fairpoint so we’re only scratching the surface, so somebody’s just listening to you, and they’re in they’re in a relationship with somebody and you’re like, like, holy shit, like, how am I ever going to, you know, be effective at this negotiation? This person is a horrible person. I don’t know what clothes that person’s clothes I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know what their posture means. I don’t know what the length I don’t know what any of these things mean. I just listened to this so like, you didn’t you didn’t start with this. You went through like legal training and that like you’ve gone through this whole gamut of stuff. So how does somebody how does like the layman, how does it the average person, like sort of fast forward so that they can deal with these situations and feel confident and persuade and influence and, and negotiate like, what’s the what’s the easiest way? What did you do like or what would somebody do? Who isn’t like a classically trained negotiator do well,

 

Rebecca Zung  29:57

I mean, they can start by getting I have a Free crush my negotiation prep worksheet, which is 15 pages, it’s an e book, which, like people can get it when my negotiation.com I’ve had people win their entire negotiations just on that, by the way, so they can get that. But I mean, there’s so, you know, many different things that, you know, people can do just, I mean, it goes subscribe to my channel, I have, like 1000s and 1000s of videos right there on my YouTube that are totally free. By the way. You know, I mean, I think that, you know, there’s, this is why I do what I do. This is why I’m out there teaching people I have such a passion for making sure that people have this information and have it in their hands so that they don’t have to go and spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars and, you know, attorneys fees, to you know, and 99% of lawyers, by the way, don’t understand narcissism. And that’s why, you know, people, people can spend 1000s of dollars on lawyers and still not end up where they want to go. You know, and that’s why I’m out here. You know, on this mission. I’m on a crusade. so passionate about this. You know,

 

Scott D Clary  31:18

were you were you ever naturally gifted? Or is this something that you’ve just learned? Good persuading?

 

Rebecca Zung  31:23

I just learned that I mean, I had to teach myself all this stuff. That’s why I got taken advantage of narcissists myselfI kidding.

 

Scott D Clary  31:32

Yeah, no, it just it just you know it the point the point is, like, if somebody’s in the situation they’re listening to it, like obviously that’s super unfortunate but like there is like light at the end of the tunnel if you’re

 

Rebecca Zung  31:44

Yeah 100% And I always say I never leave my thoughts on supervised by the way I’m listening to like all kinds of motivational stuff all the time because you know, I have to make sure that I keep my mind in the right place. Okay,

 

Scott D Clary  32:00

good. All right, so I’m gonna pull out some some rapid fire career insights from you but before we pivot where do you want people to go all your website your social all the links, where people could go check you out? Go find more your content all of that.

 

Rebecca Zung  32:16

So my YouTube is youtube.com forward slash Rebecca zone II S Q. And then my Instagram is Rebecca song room I Facebook as facebook.com Rebecca song, and I, you know, those are the really the main things and then I do have the free crush my negotiation prep worksheet, which is at win my negotiation.com.

 

Scott D Clary  32:45

Okay, perfect. All right, let’s do a couple rapid fire. And those will go in the show notes too. So. So a couple rapid fire. So biggest challenge you’ve had in your life? What was that challenge? And how did you overcome it?

 

Rebecca Zung  32:58

Oh, gosh, I would definitely have to say it was you know, being divorced, three kids going to law school at night and all of that and no sleep. And I you know, I didn’t know I think it was just one step at a time. And I just think it was just knowing that I wanted to feed my kids and put a roof over their head and survive for them and give them a better life. And you know, it’s everything has always been for my kids.

 

Scott D Clary  33:28

It’s a good it’s a good it’s a good thing to drive you that’s that’s important. Yeah, it’s important. If you had to choose one person in your life has obviously been many pick one person in your life who’s had a huge impact on your life. Who was that? And what did they teach you?

 

Rebecca Zung  33:43

Totally my dad. And just the importance of family and education.

 

Scott D Clary  33:51

Amazing. Your favorite podcast book audible pick one that you have that’s impacted your life. What was it? And how did it impact you?

 

Rebecca Zung  34:02

Oh, um, you know, when you said that, I guess you the first person that came to mind was Gary Zhukov. I don’t know, I mean, I just, I love his teachings. And, you know, it just meeting him in person was amazing. And I loved the fact that he was the same in person as he was in his books. And then, and then I also reached out to him to do an interview recently to promote his book and he said, Yes, and he just as always been such an authentic and approachable person.

 

Scott D Clary  34:44

Amazing. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be?

 

Rebecca Zung  34:50

Oh, it’s all gonna be okay, and just stop worrying.

 

Scott D Clary  34:56

And then last question, what does success mean to you?

 

Rebecca Zung  35:02

I’m raising a family of good kids who are happy and and fulfilled