How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
Emotions in negotiation
Ever wondered which negotiation persona you fall into? Prepare to discover your natural tendencies and how to leverage them for successful high-stakes negotiations!
As your negotiation expert host, I'll guide you through the five negotiation personas: self-assured, fearful, uneasy, cautious, and squeamish. By understanding your emotions and natural tendencies, you'll be better equipped to advocate for yourself and achieve the outcomes you desire.
In this solo episode, we'll discuss strategies to overcome challenges associated with each persona and how to prepare for those critical moments. Whether you're a self-assured negotiator like my friend Dan, or someone more cautious or uneasy, you'll learn to become more aware of your emotions during negotiations, leading to increased confidence and success. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock your negotiation potential and become the advocate you're meant to be!
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🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
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Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Welcome. This is Leaders with Leverage. Suzy, i'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:This is an episode that's solo, so I'm just going to be talking quickly, not very long, about negotiation, as I always do, but I want to talk about the emotions around negotiation. Okay, i'm going to dispel any disbelief in this. There is no crying in negotiation. There is meaning. There's always emotion with negotiation, especially if it's high-stakes, and, as we know, high-stakes situations are the ones that are common to most people, that make people nervous, like asking for more money, asking for a promotion, those things that just are difficult to do. But high-stakes can be anything that's really important to us, and it could be seeing a movie or moving through something that is just tension-filled. It triggers emotions because it can be difficult to move into, so it can happen all the time. So being aware of those, and so I want to talk about what are the emotions that are commonly tied to negotiation, and people want to believe that you have a negotiation persona, and there's five that were outlined early on in negotiation And the five are self-assured, fearful, uneasy, cautious and squeamish, and they are associated to kind of what your normal course of action might be when you're facing a high-stakes negotiation. So let's talk about each one, and I want you to think about which one you might fall into, but also the fact that, because every situation is different, you may have a few of these that feel that feeling at the beginning of a negotiation that they could change over time as we negotiate with ourselves. So being aware of your normal tendency can help you prepare in the right way to move through something that's high-stakes to you. So I'm going to talk about each one.
Speaker 1:So self-assured is somebody that they seize an opportunity because they look at a negotiation as being mutually beneficial And they see the process as fun. I know these people. Dan is one of these people. He loves negotiation. He almost loves the tension of it. He's very okay with awkward silence. He's very okay with saying something that makes people really uneasy, triggered. He could just stir up emotions and just not even think anything of it. And I'm not the same way. I didn't even like to be in the same room as Dan when he would do those strategies, techniques, negative techniques, but he would see it as fun And he didn't really worry about the risks. So self-assured is somebody that feels really good about it and feels like they have high leverage.
Speaker 1:Now, if you are self-assured, you should do all you can to feel self-assured in a situation. And when you don't, some things that you can do are consider your options, your BATNA. What's important to the other person, what's their BATNA, what are their alternatives, what are the aspects of leverage, what are the interests of the other party, what are yours? So, when you think about those things, that makes you more self-assured because it gives you options, it gives you a plan, it helps you think it through. So there are ways that you can make yourself self-assured. But in this context, self-assured is like that person that always feels that way, that just kind of says I, if I had to say what kind of negotiator I am, i'm self-assured. That would be Dan. So think about that for you And maybe think about which negotiation. Because maybe you say, if I'm going to go for a car, i am self-assured because I do my homework, i have nothing to lose, i have a relationship with that person. But when I'm advocating for myself or if I'm facing a difficult conversation, self-assured is not me.
Speaker 1:The second one is fearful. Just the whole process stresses you out, and I definitely have times where I am very full of fear, especially if it's somebody that I'm talking to that isn't expecting me to ask for something. That's kind of above and beyond, or if I anticipate that they're going to have a negative reaction, and not even like a negative. I almost would rather them be no, i don't want to do this. But it's more like oh, like I don't know if they really feel good about it or not. And that's almost worse than if they would just be totally honest and go no, that's way too expensive for me. But fearful is something that I think about, and fearful is if you were going to stamp yourself, whether this happens all the time. Fearful is probably the person that doesn't advocate for themselves regularly because they opt out. Fear can be the reason why somebody doesn't even ask for something.
Speaker 1:I spoke to a woman who had heard me speak. She'd read my book and she said I have to share with you a story. I'm 62 and I had never countered in a job offering. And I did because I know you said you should at least counter. And she goes, and they didn't even flinch. And when she told me I could almost see her past flash of her eyes because she was like oh, there were so many opportunities I didn't ask, and so I think sometimes fear holds us back from even getting to a no. So is fearful something that you need to be aware of. Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage.
Speaker 1:Now let's continue the conversation. Uneasy, you might start, but once you go in, you don't want to proceed. You know they do say that a lot of times. We'll get to the table and we won't stay in it as long as some people. Some people will stay and go rounds and rounds, but sometimes when we get there we're so proud of being there that we're ready to get out as soon as we can. So uneasy If you identify as being uneasy about negotiation, that might mean you have to have a conversation with yourself to stay in it, because uneasy people might move forward but they're really quick to retreat.
Speaker 1:So it's really important to think about what are the things I want. Be really clear about my floor, make sure that I'm really understanding the three things I want, to make sure I get out and don't allow yourself to leave until you have those three things. And the more clarity that you can drive for yourself, the more you can push away that uneasy feeling or allow that uneasy feeling to hijack your efforts to get what you want. At the end And you know honestly this happens to me I'll go in and I'll just have such a great report. The other person I'll just kind of think, oh, i'm not going to go for that third thing that was so important to me And I'm so mad at myself because it's not always hard to just ask for that other thing And it might be really easy for them to say yes. So feeling uneasy may just happen for you And it's not in the situation that you need to retreat from that. So identify as uneasy. Those are some of the things to consider.
Speaker 1:Cautious is you want to engage but you retreat at any negative pushback, anything, a slight eye I'm busy right now like any kind of indication that the person doesn't have space or time for you. So being cautious is another one, just to plan for I know I'm a cautious person. I know that when there's any negative indication or signal that that's going to make me not want to move forward And so have a plan for yourself, ok. And sometimes I say to myself OK, there's that apprehension that I hate or that's that negativity. That person uses anger And I just need to push through it, even though it makes me feel really insecure And it makes me want to just run away. But OK, there it is. I see that. I know I'm feeling like I want to walk away, but I'm not going to allow myself to do that. So cautious is another one. And then squeamish It's funny that self-assured is the only one that's perceived as being kind of positive or just gregarious about moving forward And then squeamish is.
Speaker 1:You think it through many times but you find excuses to move forward. There's a woman I was working with and she was really strong that at the beginning of the year she needed to go ask for more money because she found out that she is really underpaid for what she does and that her boss has had more money. But because she doesn't ask, she knew that she wasn't given the increases that she should have gotten And it was really because she wasn't advocating for herself. And she kept telling herself these reasons why, and before she knew it, half of the year went by. And when you do the math and you think about those months that go by because you're not moving forward, you're losing money.
Speaker 1:And so if that's the calculation you need to do, to say to yourself, if I don't do it now, i'm going to miss out on this, and then what can you do to get coached through it or to have somebody on the outside to help you really think about the words you use, think about the steps you take and then making you accountable to move forward, so that you don't back out or find excuses, and I'll tell you, those excuses can seem really, really reasonable in the moment, especially when you're looking for one. I can certainly give myself excuses all the time to say you know what, i'll do that later. This is probably not a good time. She sounds really stressed out. I don't want to talk to her about it. So be aware of that and give yourself And maybe, if you are squeamish, maybe it is something that you really want to put some dates on some actions, some things you write down.
Speaker 1:Have an accountability partner, something that you can do to help yourself move forward. So, again, these are the typical personas of negotiators self-assured, fearful, uneasy, cautious and squeamish, and I really see all of these things can at different points in our negotiation journey. As we get more confident, we start asking more. We can change and jockey between these personas, but it's powerful to think about these things and when they might be getting in our way, so that we can identify them and have a plan on how we don't allow them to hijack our efforts. So think about those. What comes up for you? What do you need to adjust? So next time, here's your action.
Speaker 1:Next time you're going into a difficult conversation, one that just makes you a little bit uneasy, ask yourself how you're feeling And if you're feeling self-assured, make sure that you're moving forward with all the facts. You're not. You know you're coming from a place of objectivity. If you're fearful, identify that it's going to be hard for you to move forward. But what are you going to need? to not stress yourself out, but understand that you need to move forward. When you're uneasy, how are you going to continue to push yourself through so that you go all the way to the end and get what you need? When you're cautious and you retreat out of negativity, how are you going to identify that and go I see that I'm still going to move forward And then squeamish what are those excuses that might be getting into your head, that chatter that we give so much attention to, and how do we silence that or turn it down so that we'll have the ability and the strength to move forward? So thanks for joining me today. I hope that was helpful. I hope you found something that you can apply today in your next conversation. I really encourage you to do that, because the only way to get more comfortable with negotiation is to try it every day, and it's applicable in everything we do. We all know it. Why not do it with more intention.
Speaker 1:If you think somebody needed to hear this, feel free to share this episode with them. I'd love to hear what's on your mind. I'm on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me, dm me, ask me a question you want me to cover. But thanks for being here. I appreciate you so much And until next time I'm Suzy, and this was Leaders with Leverage. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage. If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach any time you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book The Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book, you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction in your day-to-day. You'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Head to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
