A person who rushes your agreement may be avoiding your better questions.

LEADERSHIP

WHAT THIS MEANS

Speed is sometimes a schedule and sometimes a strategy. When an offer comes with a deadline that does not obviously belong to it, notice that the pressure removes the exact thing that protects you: time to read it, to check, to think of the question that changes the answer. People with good terms are usually comfortable waiting. The urgency itself is information about the deal.

Say you need until tomorrow and watch how that lands. A reasonable person adjusts; a pushy one escalates, which tells you what you needed to know. Use the delay to write down the questions you would have asked if nobody were waiting.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Who pushes you to decide before you have finished thinking?

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