Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents)

Renowned negotiation expert William Ury has taught tens of thousands of people from all walks of life—managers, lawyers, factory workers, coal miners, schoolteachers, diplomats, and government officials—how to become better negotiators. Over the years, Ury has discovered that the greatest obstacle to successful agreements and satisfying relationships is not the other side, as difficult as they can be. The biggest obstacle is actually our own selves—our natural tendency to react in ways that do not serve our true interests.

But this obstacle can also become our biggest opportunity, Ury argues. If we learn to understand and influence ourselves first, we lay the groundwork for understanding and influencing others. In this prequel to Getting to Yes, Ury offers a seven-step method to help you reach agreement with yourself first, dramatically improving your ability to negotiate with others.

Practical and effective, Getting to Yes with Yourself helps readers reach good agreements with others, develop healthy relationships, make their businesses more productive, and live far more satisfying lives.

Why do our best intentions in negotiations fail—and how can we stop getting in our own way?

• Win-Win-Win Solutions: Move beyond a simple win-win framework to find agreements that benefit not just you and the other party, but the larger whole—your family, your company, or your community.
• The Inner BATNA: Discover your true source of power by making an unconditional commitment to meet your own needs, independent of what the other side does or says.
• Difficult Conversations: Learn to “go to the balcony”—a mental place of calm and perspective—to transform reactive, emotional arguments into productive dialogues.
• A Framework for Self-Leadership: Apply the same proven principles used to resolve international conflicts to the most important negotiation of all: the one with yourself.