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Your Own Terms
To the Davidds women in my family,
who live life on their own terms
My loving Mami, for your unconditional love; my beautiful sister Judy, for your constant strength and support; my soul sister Karina, for your protection up above the clouds; my beloved daughter, Divina, for your love that is so pure and precious; and my adorable nieces Isabella and Gabriella, whose presence brightens my life.
and
To the amazing alumni of the
Latina Global Executive Leadership Program
Your commitment to the program and to each other made my dream come true. Your constant love and support for one another provided each of you with unlimited strength and undeniable courage. May paying it forward sustain the power of the sisterhood.
Contents
Acknowledgments
My journey in life has brought me across wonderful people and beautiful souls. I would like to acknowledge those who have supported me, inspired me, and nurtured me while I wrote this book. I honor you with my deepest gratitude:
Ann Bidou, my co-author, for giving such a powerful voice to my thoughts. You are the most amazing co-writer I have ever worked with. I feel blessed to have found you.
My literary agent, Linda Konner, for all your support and dedication to making this book possible.
The AMACOM team: Ellen Kadin, Ellen Coleman, Robin Perlow, Irene Majuk, Erika Spelman, and the entire editorial, production, sales, publicity, and marketing teams. Thank you all for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to share my message through this book.
The women and men who allowed me to share their voices with the world through our interviews: Dr. Betty Uribe, Graciela Meibar, Julius E. Robinson, and Pablo Schneider.
The only man in our familymy brother-in-law, Michael Wrightthank you for loving, honoring, and supporting the Davidds women even when we drive you crazy. Ann Bidou wishes to thank Shoya Zichy, the co-author of her earlier books, Career Match and Personality Power, for recommending her for this job. Shoya, I have learned so much from you, and you will see your wisdom sprinkled throughout. Deepest thanks to Linda Konner, our agent, for bringing me together with one of the most remarkable, brilliant, and gracious ladies I have ever metmy co-author, Yasmin Davidds. Lindaa very astute negotiatoris one of the few women I know who does not need to read this book at all! Warmest thanks to Brenda Nielson for her feedback on each chapter draft. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Emily Hennessey and Sabrina OBrien for helping to keep my other business going while writing distracted me. Finally, I wish to recognize the uncountable times my husband, Greg Bidou, supported me through this writing period with unfailing encouragement, humor, and strength. Yes, ladies, there really are perfect husbands out there to be had, and I say my prayers of gratitude every day for having found one!
PART ONE
OWN YOUR GAME
Empowerment
1. The act of investing yourself with power
2. The process of enabling or permitting yourself the right to succeed
3. The ability to control your own destiny
4. The strength to maximize your own potential
5. The determination to define life on your own terms
Empower Yourself
This is not a book about how to become a barracuda at the bargaining table. Its definitely not a book about how to negotiate more like a man, or how to win by making others lose face or power. It is a book about leveraging those feminine strengths, such as nurturing and collaboration, that all people, men and women, respond to positively.
We women frequently feel like were placed in a no-win situation before a negotiation even begins. If we make concessions to further the deal, were viewed as weak; but if we go in strong for what we want, were called unflattering names that often begin with b. Either way, professional working relationships sustain damage. Wheres the middle ground?
I live and work in the middle ground. I am an internationally known, bestselling author, a womens empowerment and negotiation specialist, and an expert in the world-renowned Karrass negotiation program. As one of the leading female negotiation experts in the United States and Latin America, I have trained thousands of corporate leaders in more than two hundred blue chip companies in twenty-two countries in the art and skill of negotiation. My clients range from senior judges to tribal leaders, from unionized prison guards to accountants, and from railroad officials to diplomatic trainees.
Based on these personal experiences and successes, I will teach you what Ive taught othershow to be both a winning and a graceful negotiator. I will show you how you have more power at the negotiating table than most men, without resorting to sexual nuance. And I will help you realize that being a successful negotiator means that people end up liking you more, not less.
Lets begin by busting some myths.
Myth #1: Nice girls finish last. How do we get people to think were nice? Parents teach their daughters its by giving to others (while telling their sons its more important to be strong and tough). Some parents model this by sacrificing what they want so others (particularly their children) can have what they want. At the bargaining table, being nice in this way often leads you to make too many concessions in return for too little. The goal is to get what you want, and leave others feeling like they won, too.
Myth #2: Emotions have no place in serious negotiations. Quite the contrary. Your emotions are a critical barometer for creating a win-win. There cant be a win-win unless you win, too. Women fear losing control emotionally and looking weak in the heat of negotiating. But to repress emotion requires tremendous amounts of energy, leaving little for strategic maneuvering. Emotions are energy that needs to be directed. You cant really control what emotions pop up, but you can control how you express them. Fear, for example, can be directed into the courage to walk into (or out of) the conference room, anger into setting reasonable boundaries, self-doubt into taking a calculated risk.
Myth #3: You have to be mean or angry to earn respect. One archetype of Western patriarchal cultures is the man who uses anger and bullying to force other, weaker people to do his bidding. Kings and conquerors, slave owners, and shop foremen are all examples. But a modern woman who uses such men as her role models rarely gains respect from her colleagues (or herself). Whats the new paradigm? Earn respect from others by building your self-respect. This means taking a gracious and firm stand for what you desire.
Myth #4: You dont deserve to have it all; and if you push for it, people think you are selfish or unrealistic. Dont believe it for even one second! Who told you that you dont deserve to have what you want? When was the very first time you remember hearing this? How often did you hear it growing up? Did the person saying it have an agenda that would benefit him or her if you didnt get what you wanted? It may make no sense to honor at age thirty-six what your mother said you couldnt have at age six. As an adult, you are entitled to more! Pushing yourself to get more at first may feel fake and unnatural. But small, daily successes will start to translate into success in bigger arenasasking for pay raises, buying a house, getting investors for your business, buying a used car, and even dealing with your ex-husbands divorce lawyer.
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