Money: “Show me the money,” Cameron Crowe once wrote in a screenplay to summarize his thoughts on negotiations. Winston Groom’s negotiations to sell the rights of his novel Forrest Gump to Paramount probably didn’t influence Crowe to write the line, but if you’re ever involved in negotiations keep this quote in mind.

For some reason, some of us have philosophical problems with “too much” money. We don’t want to appear too greedy, and we’ve all heard people say things like, “It’s not all about the money for me, money isn’t everything, and money is the root of all evil.” Most people who say such things already have so much money that it’s no longer a concern for them. If you’re ever at a negotiation table, and the other party wants something you have, wipe all of that nonsense about money from your mind. This might be the only chance you have to make real money.

If you hire someone to negotiate for you, and most people should, send them in with the instructions that you want them to bleed every last dime out of the other party. Once your team determines the other team of negotiators is not going to pay another cent, take it, take as much front-end money as possible, and run away as fast and as far as you can. Don’t think about the back end, the asides they offer in lieu of money, the otherwise symbolic, prestigious titles they offer, or anything but the money. The job of the other team’s negotiators is to pay you the least amount of money possible, and they will use several creative measures to accomplish that. Ignore all of that and the voices in your head screaming about the prospect of making money on another end, and remove those cartoon dollar signs from your eyes. As the negotiations between Winston Groom and Paramount suggest, “Show me the money,” should be the first and last things you say in any negotiations.

Winston Groom is a writer, and though he probably experienced some level of negotiations selling Forrest Gump and his other books to book publishers, he probably knew negotiating the rights of his book with a Hollywood production studio was a different league. This was probably the most advantageous position Groom had ever been in in life, and he didn’t know anything about such negotiations. He probably hired a team of lawyers and other specialists to handle the negotiations for him. We can guess that negotiators on Paramount’s side were so eager for the project that they showed their hand at various points. Groom’s negotiators probably knew, at some point, how much Paramount wanted his book. We can guess that numerous advisers probably guesstimated how much money this story could make for both sides, especially if they knew Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis signed onto the project at the time of negotiations, and Groom’s team probably walked away from that table with several proposals from Paramount. Groom ended up selecting the proposal that gave him $350,000 on the front end, and while this is a sizable amount, sources report that it was less than the top proposal of front-end money. Groom chose the proposal with less on the front end because his negotiators worked out a clause that would give Groom 3% percent on the backend, movie’s net profits. Who wouldn’t take less on the front-end if they knew they could make 3% of $661 million on the backend that, by my math, equals over $19 million?  

When Groom informed Paramount that he didn’t receive a single royalty check, Paramount informed him that this fourth highest grossing film of all time (at that time), that grossed $661 million didn’t make a net profit. Their accountants suggested that the movie ended up actually ended up $62 million in the red.

Groom sued Paramount and won, and as one part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to purchase his second novel Gump and Co. We have to imagine that the star and director of Forrest Gump didn’t have to sue to receive their royalty checks, because Paramount didn’t want to upset them. They didn’t extend the same courtesies to Winston Groom, however, because they probably figured they wouldn’t have any future dealings with him. Groom declared that the other parts of his lawsuit against Paramount left him as “happy as a pig in sunshine,” but these deals don’t always end up this way. Thus, if we’re ever lucky enough to be at a negotiations table, and they want something we have, we should walk in saying “show me the money” and leave screaming it.

Crazy: While involved in yet another discussion of crazy people, my friend displayed some acknowledgement that he had some vulnerabilities on the issue. The acknowledgement was a subtle reddening of the skin that suggested he no longer thought everyone was talking about everybody else when they talked about crazy people. He thought everyone was talking about him now. My friend has always been a little off base, but that never stopped him before. He’s always enjoyed conversations about crazy people, and he enjoys them as a spectator might a sporting event. I knew he was off base on many subjects, but I managed to disassociate him from his peculiarities while in the midst of our conversations. Something happened. Someone who meant something to him said something substantial that flipped him.

As a middle-aged man, my friend spent most of his life insulated by what he considered the truth. His belief in this truth was so entrenched that he couldn’t understand how anyone could believe anything different. He viewed his truth as the truth. We don’t know who flipped him, or if it was a number of people. We don’t know if there was an incident, or an accumulation of moments that led to his epiphany, but we have to believe that he had to have it repeated often enough by numerous people he respected that he had his thoughts altered. Whatever it was they said, they said it to a less malleable, middle-aged man. When we’re young and insecure, we’re more adaptable to the idea that we could be wrong, but this middle-aged man seemed to be backtracking on what he considered fundamental principles sacred to his personal constitution one year prior. His reddened skin also suggested his path to recognizing he had some vulnerabilities on the issue were not kind or easy.

Eating: “Eating is one of the only joys I have left in life,” my uncle wrote in a legal document to his caretakers, “and if you that away I will take legal action.” A muscular degenerative disease deprived him of 98% of his motor skills, and he couldn’t manage anything more than a soft whisper in the waning years of his life. Then the institute he loved as much as they loved him stated that his coughing fits proved so troubling that they decided oral feedings were no longer feasible, and they provided a list of alternatives from which my uncle could choose. At this point in his life, my uncle was no longer objective. He wouldn’t view this ordeal from the institute’s perspective, as he said he’d rather die than not eat. When we tried to encourage him to view this matter from objective perspective, however, we forgot to do view the matter from his perspective. The threat of a lawsuit, coupled with my uncle’s legal statement that the institute should have no legal consequences if something should happen, had my uncle eating until the day he died.

New Year’s Resolution: My New Year’s resolution is to put more effort into avoid reading any stories about the personal lives of known figures. I am as susceptible to click bait as anyone else is, and I fell for one. I accidentally clicked on a story about an athlete’s personal life. In my defense, the article contained a deceptive headline that suggested the article might be about his athletic exploits on the field. The minute I read the words wife, cheating, and divorce, I clicked out of it, but the damage was done. I accidentally rewarded the writer of a salacious article by clicking on his entry. My New Year’s resolution is to be more diligent to avoid this in the future.   

Christmas: Christmas is my favorite holiday by a long shot, but some people say that the commercialization of Christmas is ruining the holiday. First, that ship has sailed, and there’s no calling it back now. Second, can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time. I view Christmas as a multi-tiered holiday. It is a symbolic celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and I write symbolic because some suggest he was born in September, and that he was not born on 12/25. I have no problem with that finding, but I also don’t mind an arbitrary, symbolic celebration of His birth. I think we can celebrate His birth, let children enjoy Santa Claus, and spend some time with family. If, however, you feel that commercial enterprises are ruining Christmas for you, I suggest that you do everything you can to avoid their advertisements. Throw the ads away when you receive them in the mail and fast-forward through them on your DVR. I don’t understand why that is complicated. Those of us who don’t want anyone else to ruin Christmas for us don’t let them.   

Subjective Interpretations: Facts are facts and truth is truth, but how many truths are subjective interpretations of an event that boil down to perspective? A friend and I had what he called a wild weekend. He did not inform me how much fun he was having when we were out, but when he returned to work on Monday, he reported this to our co-workers. It was a forgettable weekend for me, bordering on a complete bust that I considered embarrassing. We flirted with some women, we followed them to a bar, we danced, and we followed them to a third bar. En route to the third bar, I knew the women were going to ditch us. All the markers were there. “Should we even go?” I asked my friend. He said, “Yes!” followed by a, “Hell yes!” I reiterated my guess that the women seemed bent on ditching us. “Well, we’ll never know if we don’t find out.” I considered taking a step in that third bar a punctuation mark on their ruse. I pictured them laughing at us. They probably weren’t laughing, but that was my mindset at the time. Even though they ditched us, our friend returned to work on Monday to tell anyone who would listen about our wild weekend chasing chicks. I considered his version of our weekend such an exaggeration that I thought he was lying. In hindsight, he didn’t say one falsehood. It was just a matter of perspective. He left out the part where the women ditched us, but who wouldn’t? He considered that weekend a lot of fun. He enjoyed hanging out with a friend and flirting with some women. That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to forget about the weekend. I thought it was embarrassing. My friend didn’t care. He had a blast. It was a matter of perspective.

Friendship: Having friends is important. To balance our mental well-being, it’s important to have fun in life. It is also important have someone outside the home, and outside the office, with whom we can confide. We should spend time accruing friends and strengthening the infrastructure of those friendships, and to accomplish the latter it is important to develop a respectful and sympathetic way to say no to them every once in a while. Saying no to a friend can be one the hardest things to do, especially when they plan an outing that doesn’t sound very appealing. We might have substantial conflicts in some instances, but some of the times we just don’t want to do what they plan. Why is it so hard to say no to friends? We don’t want to hurt their feelings, so we sort through various ways of letting them down easy, but they all sound contrived and lacking in sympathy. When we don’t have conflicting plans, or a reasonable answer other than we just don’t want to do what they’re planning, some of us just ghost the friend and hope that the whole situation goes away. We might later apologize, suggest we had a conflict, and hope everything sorts out on that basis. How is that the best, most respectful way to say no to a friend? Shouldn’t we just say no thank you? We’ve probably all ghosted a friend once or twice, but when someone displays a level of friendship and respect that suggests they want to spend time with us, we should feel compelled to return that display of respect with a level of respect greater than or equal to that which they displayed. We all know that saying no thank you can be one of the easiest and hardest things to do, but it’s far more acceptable than ghosting someone.