The best trades, deals and group projects are the ones where nobody walks away feeling robbed.

Winning an exchange by a wide margin is usually a short-term result, because the other side remembers and the relationship pays for it later. Arrangements that hold are the ones both people would sign again. That is not softness, it is the thing that makes a second deal possible at all.

Before you close anything, ask whether the other person would still be content if they could see the whole picture. In a group project, check that the split of work is defensible out loud. The standing you build from those choices arrives long before you need it.