YourNegotiations.com

He was the commandant of the #1 officer in the Marine Corps and shares his top negotiaton tips

Continuing on our recent episode on the Gentle Power Podcast. We interviewed Jim Lose, the CEO of , a recruiting firm that places veteran executives into high-growth companies.

Jim spent 8 years as a Marine Corps intelligence officer briefing the Commandant of the Marine Corps on threats facing the entire Corps. Then he got out and had to figure out how to ask for a raise.

He shares some insights and tips, including on communication and how to command a room from his days in the Marine Corps.

Tune in! Episode 55. Link in bio

Discussing power & negotiations with a former Intelligence Officer who supported 500+ marines,
worked with the CIA, DIA, NSA, & was authorized to call the White House Situation Room

He once had authorization to call the White House Situation Room. At 25 years old.

Then he got out of the Marines and had to negotiate his first salary like everyone else.

We had the privilege of interviewing Jim Lose on the Gentle Power Podcast, who spent years as a Marine Corps intelligence officer briefing the Commandant of the Marine Corps on threats facing the entire Corps. Then he got out and had to figure out how to ask for a raise.

That gap is more common than people think. The military trains you to execute, lead, and pass the credit down. It does not train you to sit across from a hiring manager and advocate for yourself. But honestly, most careers don’t. You get good at the job. Nobody teaches you how to price yourself.

Jim has spent 20+ years on the other side of that table, placing thousands of veterans into corporate roles via . He knows exactly where people leave money behind and why.

Tune in! Episode 55. Link in bio

She was born into one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical empires. And was told to look nice, stay quiet, follow the blueprint. She went to build at refugee camps instead.

Our latest Gentle Power guest, Paula Schwarz, curates co-living spaces in castles around the world where people who’d never normally meet end up building things together. The house managers are mostly refugees.

This episode covers refugee camps, ID systems, Molotov cocktails, Burning Man at 8 months pregnant, and even reassurance that Paula does not own a gun. Probably the most thrilling episode we’ve had to-date! Don’t miss it.

Creative tactics for negotiating job offers, a divorce, and your grades.

We recently had Pri Upadhyay, founder of Product With Pri and Coach Pri, on the Gentle Power Podcast. Pri spent 18 years in tech, including time at Google and Salesforce, then built a coaching and training business for product managers, helping senior PMs, directors, and VPs navigate job searches and transitions.

Some of the tips include: consider the channel of communication (email vs in person), the most strategic time to initiate a negotiation, and even the gender of the mediator.

Tune in for the full episode, link in bio 🎧

We had on the podcast and she said something that’s been living in our heads since.

She’s an investor, and before she backs any founder, she asks them one question: how does what you’re building actually contribute to a more flourishing human future?

Because so many talented founders are building things they don’t care about. They’ve been told the only path that counts is: raise VC money, build B2B SaaS, get the exit. And nobody ever invited them to consider anything else.

So they end up negotiating with themselves. Like, I actually love this thing… but I should probably build that other thing.

Tallulah’s whole point is, what if you just built the thing you actually care about?

Full episode with Tallulah is live now. Link in bio.

Recently on the Gentle Power podcast, we hosted Tallulah Le Merle. Tallulah spent seven years as a management consultant at Kearney, has done fractional COO and advisory work with AI scale-ups, and is now a partner at a conscious-tech investment firm called Fifth Era. She also has a book coming out called The Case for Hope in the Age of AI.

The thread running through all of it is a deep, practical fluency in human dynamics. This turned out to make for one of the more genuinely interesting conversations we’ve had on the podcast.

The negotiation thread kept weaving in and out of some bigger ideas: cultural differences in how power shows up, why authenticity is an actual strategic asset, what it means to hold your ground without becoming a wall, and a concept Tallulah calls WOO.

Watch the full episode on gentlepowerpodcast.com

“What’s your hot take on power or negotiations?” is our favorite question to ask our podcast guests.

Our recent guest, Sam Liu, dropped out of his PhD in decision making at Stanford, and is now building Fergana Labs.

On our interview, one of his many hot takes was that sometimes negotiations really are zero sum.

A lot of negotiation advice (ours!) emphasizes collaboration and mutual gains. But Sam also made an important point about situations where value really is being divided.
Startup equity is one of them. If one person gets more equity, someone else necessarily gets less.

In those cases, Sam believes people often soften too quickly. “I feel like most people need to be more hard-lined,” he said. “More aggressive. They need to hold that tension and hold their ground.”

He’s not dismissing collaboration but rather pointing out that some aspects of negotiation involve real tradeoffs. When that’s true, clarity and conviction become important. Do you agree?

The full episode link in bio.

You can negotiate an MBA scholarship. She got a no, pushed back, and walked away with $50K more.

Surina Diddi came on the Gentle Power podcast and shared how she negotiated her scholarship at Chicago Booth. She also got into Columbia. And she did it without the highest test scores, as an older-than-average applicant, and after getting some genuinely bad advice along the way.

What she did have: an early start, the right community, and a few key relationships she actually invested in.

There’s a lot of transferable strategy in here, well beyond MBA negotiations. Listen at GentlePowerPodcast.com