How to Sweet-Talk a Shark

By Bill Richardson & Kevin Bleyer

Publisher Description

Sharks are not evil. But they're single-minded and very, very hungry. On land, they take the form of bosses, businesspeople, colleagues, family, and sociopathic neighbors. In the world of former governor of New Mexico and US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, they have taken the form of the most powerful people in the world. He's engaged in high-stakes, face-to-face negotiations with Castro, Saddam, the Taliban, two generations of North Korean leadership, and many more of the world's most infamous dictators—and done it so well he was known as the "Undersecretary of Thugs" while with the Clinton administration. Now the 5-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee tells these stories—from Washington, DC, to the Middle East to Pyongyang—in all their intense and sometimes absurd glory.

How to Sweet-Talk a Shark is a rare, candid, and entertaining glimpse into an insider's world of high-stakes negotiation—showing Richardson's successes and failures in some of the world's least friendly places. Meanwhile, readers get frank lessons in the art of negotiation: how to prepare, how to size up your opponent, how to understand the nature of power in a standoff, how to give up only what is necessary while getting what you want, and many other strategies Richardson has mastered through at-the-table experience—and from working with other master negotiators like Presidents Obama and Clinton, and Nelson Mandela. These are takeaways that anyone can use to negotiate with the power brokers, dealmakers, and, yes, the hungry sharks in their own lives.

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4 Reviews

3.5

Seth Carmichael

Created 8 months ago

Eric Burgess

Created about 4 years ago

Uscdonnareads

Created over 10 years ago

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About Bill Richardson

Bill Richardson is a two-term governor of New Mexico, former US ambassador to the UN, and former secretary of the Department of Energy. He spent 15 years in Congress and has successfully won the release of hostages, American servicemen, and prisoners in North Korea, Iraq, Cuba, and Sudan.

Kevin Bleyer was an Emmy Award–winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and author of Me the People: One Man's Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America.