I'm sending this from sunny Spain, just before the World Cup Final, which is exciting - but not quite as exciting as the new Stuff Mixtape, which is an excellent accompaniment to this week's mail. Stick it in your ears now, and it'll keep you company.
Last weeks most clicked link was solutions for insomnia, I hope that things aren't keeping you awake this week.
This week - we're looking at negotiation skills, and how they can benefit you in your work and career as well as the usual list of Stuff to make us all smarter.
Finally - a warm welcome to an influx of new subscribers last week, Stuff #150 got shared in a few places, which I'm grateful for as well. Maybe you could share this with a few friends and help us continue to grow!
Thank you all for being here on our joint journey of curiosity.
Till next Monday, enjoy...
👓 The Big Stuff - Get what you want
I recently watched an Apple TV series called Hijack, starring Idris Elba as a negotiation expert, it was a little farfetched, but enjoyable.
Idria Elba's character, Sam Nelson, uses some key phrases to unlock negotiations in a high-pressure situation. The skills he demonstrates in the series are the same ones you can use to negotiate your way through tricky situations:
- interpersonal skills 'at the table'
- deal design and value creation
- moves 'away from the table'
Good negotiators play the whole game - 3D negotiation.
You can build these skills yourself, LinkedIn learning has well over 1000 modules devoted to negotiation skills & Coursera has a plethora of courses available.
If you want to hack the process, here are 5 great tips to get you started on your road to better negotiation skills - including finding a negotiation coach. Or, if you find yourself at the bargaining table, you can use this guide to getting what you want.
Whatever you need to achieve in a negotiation, it's worth building those skills BEFORE you get into a situation where you need them.
🧠 The Other Stuff
- Small Talk: French people make small talk more interesting by using these 12 questions. You could also use my icebreaker questions app to do the same!
- Congratulations: You've been promoted, now things get harder. Great advice on making tougher decisions at work.
- Time: How to have buckets of time. Not literally, obviously.
- Creativity: 31 ways to unlock your inner creativity.
- Useless: How some people get away with doing nothing at work. Not us, obviously!
🌞 The Little Stuff
- Best Life: Forty short principles for living your best life.
- Crazy Ideas: This X thread (?) of 10 crazy ideas, is excellent.
- Pig Racing: League of Pigs. An entire YouTube channel of it.
- InstaHits: Watercolour Animations | The Coolest | Great Architecture
- Finally: Clone-a-Lisa. You will do better than me for sure (only 15%).
Matt Rutherford
🎧 Aural Stuff
On the Stuff Speakers this week...
🎧 This week, I am sharing the latest edition of the Stuff Mixtape (#16) which is packed full of great tunes. It's a two-hour journey into the music around my ears this month.
I kick off with some very chilled tunes - Babymorocco recalling the Pet Shop Boys, Arc De Soleil and Monster Rally all easing us into the mix. There is some classic soul from Barbara Mason, before things start to pick up the pace with Oreku and then a shimmering Latin beauty from Sofia Kourtesis.
In the middle, we get a bit more dancefloor oriented with bangers from Django Django, Ikebe Shakedown and a huge dancefloor monster from Soul Mass Transit System.
I start to wind things down with some South African coolness from Bongoziwe Mabandia, Savana Funk and Daniel Avery - before taking you home with the new one from Stuff favourite Glen Hansard and something from Pachyman.
Matt Rutherford
👂🏼 Stuff Someone Said
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt
