I want to share a real impact of this book on my life.

A few weeks ago my friends and I arrived at a small town at 11 pm, we were so tired and really want to book a hotel and sleep, but we could’t find any available hotel on booking apps. After several calls, we finally found a hotel offers a room for 250 dollars.

If I were not reading this book, we would probably accept the offer. However, a random thought came into my mind: why not negotiate? I told to my friend on call and proposed to lower the price to 200 dollars, and it works!

If I don’t have the mindset of “You Can Negotiate Everything”, we won’t have the chance to save the money.

I found this book through Derek Siver’s recommendation list. Since he gave this book 10/10, and I want to know how to get anything I want (who doesn’t?), I started reading this book.

I took notes when I was reading. But one day I accidentally resetted my eBook, and they are all gone. Now I only have notes from last few chapters. I tried to recall what I have learned from this book, and here they are:

  • Care, but never that much
    • If you care too much, other people can make profit on you
  • Personalize
    • Let other party think you as a person, instead of a data point
    • Make yourself different than the others
  • Be creative
    • Don’t be afraid of breaking rules
    • Remember the rules are executed by human
  • Only negotiate with people who have authority
    • Or you’re just wasting time
  • Build trust (probably the most important)
    • Be collaborative
    • Create a win-win situation
    • Compromise means neither side gets what they really want, try not to do that but also realize sometimes you have to
  • Meet people in person
    • It’s a lot easier to say no on phone or online
  • And there are a lot of other stuff you can take a look at Derek Sivers’ blog.

The stories in the book are funny and impressive (people remember stories more easily), and in the long run, you will eventually need to negotiate, so this book is definitely worth reading.