Wealth manager and author of the book Legacy on the Line Andrea “Andy” Baumann Lustig shares an important lesson she has learned in more than 30 years of negotiation: have the confidence to listen. Andy describes her work as “negotiating with clients themselves.” Her goal is to help people uncover and examine their deeply held assumptions, or “blind spots,” that can get in the way of their objectives. Rather than rushing to educate, advise, or solve the problem, she asks questions and gives clients space to talk. The conversation explores why listening (instead of talking) requires confidence, and why trying to demonstrate your expertise too quickly can actually undermine a negotiation.
In this episode of How My Friends Negotiate, host Andrea Schneider speaks with Andrea Baumann Lustig, managing partner of Fischer Stralem Advisors, about the importance of listening in negotiation. Drawing on her decades of experience in wealth management, Lustig explains how helping clients examine their deeply held assumptions can help them make better decisions and build lasting legacies.
She reflects on how her approach has evolved from talking and selling to asking questions, listening with intention and allowing clients to reach their own conclusions. Lustig also discusses the importance of trust, respect and patience, sharing lessons for young professionals who may feel pressure to prove their expertise.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Welcome to How My Friends Negotiate. I'm Andrea Schneider, and I love talking about negotiation. As a law professor, I've spent 30 years working with young people as they navigate the start of their careers. I started this podcast to reflect on our negotiation experiences and to help us continue to grow into more effective advocates for ourselves and for others. Learning in school is one thing, but how do you actually negotiate your salary, deal with rent, and manage all kinds of tricky situations? These are challenges throughout every stage of life. So, I called up some of my friends and people I admire to join me for some lively conversations where they will share their insights, mistakes, and life lessons. This is going to be fun.
Today's episode features Andrea Baumann Lustig, who is a managing partner of Fischer Stralem Advisors, a wealth management practice with Hightower Advisors. She has been recognized as a Forbes top woman wealth advisor best in state for five consecutive years and is one of Advisor Hub's top 250 advisors to watch for 2025. Andy's passion for legacy is in her DNA. She is the sixth generation in her family to lead a wealth management practice, tracing her impressive lineage back to 1810, when her great great great grandfather founded The Banque Levy in France. Inspired by the enduring success of multi-generational families, Andy has devoted her career to helping clients build meaningful legacies, sharing insights she has gained to guide them in creating and protecting purpose-driven wealth. And all of this is reflected in her new book, “Legacy on the Line: Overcome Blind Spots to Grow and Transfer Your Wealth” just out and available everywhere. So, most of Andy's negotiations involve communicating with prospects, clients, and their other advisors. Andy, thank you so much for being here today. I'm just thrilled to be able to talk with you.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Thank you, Andrea, for having me. I always love talking with you.
Professor Andrea Schneider
We are going to have some fun. First, I'd love you to tell us about a negotiation that you've handled in the past year.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Well, as you said, I'm a wealth manager, so you would think that most of my negotiations surround bringing prospective clients on board. But in fact, the real negotiating starts after they become clients, and it's really helping clients negotiate with themselves. Let me explain for a second what I mean by that. What I'm trying to communicate is the fact that clients have blind spots, and the book is about 10 blind spots I've encountered over the past 30 years of doing this. And these blind spots are deeply held convictions that are almost impossible to unseat head-on, and my job is to try to get clients to examine them so they don't stand in the way of building the legacy they want to build.
Professor Andrea Schneider
This kind of overcoming blind spots is really the kind of thing that anybody with a client needs to help them. So, it's wealth manager, client, lawyer, client. But it's also the kind of thing that you could imagine even between friends or colleague of we all have sort of deep-seated convictions that we just sort of go through life assuming that we know these things. And so, the ideas of helping people really negotiate with themselves is a particular gift.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
You've got that so right. Every negotiation starts with two people who have deeply held convictions about their positions, and in my view, the art comes from stopping yourself and listening to the other person, and getting them to air their deeply held convictions, so that they can start to confront them on their own with a little nudging here and there from you.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Right, because sometimes I mean, what I hear you saying is that these convictions are so deeply seated, we actually don't vocalize them. We just view them as operating. This is the structure in which we operate, and perhaps we don't even realize what our assumptions are behind the scenes.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Again, exactly right, Andrea. And so it's my job to tease out those convictions and to get people to start to air them. And sometimes it's very, very hard. One of the hardest ones is, “I don't really have to tell my wealth advisor everything I own. I can keep some assets out of the picture and just let them focus on what I'm telling them about.”
Well, of course, that's true. Every blind spot, and I think this is really important for negotiation, every blind spot is entirely reasonable and logical. They wouldn't be able to be so deeply held if they weren't logical and reasonable. And so, what I have to do is invite them in to look at the other side and see if there's anything compelling about the other argument. Okay, you don't have to tell me everything you own, but if you leave that out, first of all, isn't that a sign that you don't really have a trust-based relationship, and let's talk about that.
Or, aren't you changing your risk-return profile because you actually may have this big risk or this big overly conservative holding out there, and don't you really want the best advice that's out there? And so, first allowing the person to understand that their belief is understandable, and then helping them think about the other side is, to me, the kind of negotiation I'm involved with all the time.
Professor Andrea Schneider
And the thing I really want to pull from this before we turn to sort of a little background here is there's real respect for the client. Again, sometimes in negotiation it's who yells louder or “I have a better point” or just “I don't need to demonstrate respect.” And obviously, for someone in your position who's so successful at dealing with clients, we're going to get back to this trust issue, but there's also just a respect of, “I'm not here to just tell you you're wrong. I'm here to help you understand where your assumptions come from with all the respect and care that you would want.”
Andrea Baumann Lustig
And if the client doesn't feel that respect, you're never going get anywhere, and all I want to do is help them help themselves, because people come because they want to build a legacy or they want to grow their asset. They've done the hard part. They've built their business, or they're building their business, or they've built their wealth, or they're building their wealth. My job is to help them make it last and do what they want with it.
Professor Andrea Schneider
So, Andy, I know you've worked obviously really hard to get to your position. You didn't learn all of these skills overnight. When did you realize that being good at negotiation mattered?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Oh my God! Probably when I was six years old. I mean, my parents used to watch the 11 o'clock news on television every single night, and so to me that was grown-up bedtime as opposed to nursery bedtime, and all I wanted to do was stay up one night to watch 11 o'clock news, and I remember negotiating and my parents saying, "Okay, then you're going to agree that we will come in and wake you up once in the morning. We will not come back and check on you five minutes later or 10 minutes later, and you will get up and not miss school.”
And I agreed. Now I probably fell asleep at 11:10, but I never watched 11 until, I never watched 11:30. But that's when I realized that there were things you could trade.
Professor Andrea Schneider
I mean, I think all of us, if we look to our childhood, those are our first negotiation partners, parents, siblings, all of that. So, has your approach to negotiation changed over time, either with parents or with clients?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
It really, really has fundamentally changed from talking to listening. That's the simplest way I can put it.
Professor Andrea Schneider
What did you used to do at the beginning of your career?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
I used to talk a lot more and sell the advantages of what I was trying to communicate, and I've realized the longer I've been doing this, that the less I talk, and the more the client talks, the more rapidly the issues bubble to the surface. They encounter the issues. They let those issues bubble to the surface. Then they're out there for us to discuss. And I would say I've learned to—what people who know me might think this is hard to believe—but I've learned to talk less and listen more.
Professor Andrea Schneider
I believe that you and I might be similar in that way, in which I'm like, “No, trust me, I listen much more than I used to.”
Is there a particular story or lesson that sort of informed that this was the sign of like, “Oh, I was really getting this right.”
Andrea Baumann Lustig
I made a deal with myself once in a meeting, where I looked at my watch and I said, “I am not going to say a word after I ask the first two or three questions. I can ask follow up questions that doesn't count, but I am not going to offer any advice, direction, anything else.” I can just keep asking probing questions, and the person did not stop talking for an hour and 15 minutes.
Now the good news was that I had asked their permission to record the meeting, and they had given it, so I could really look and listen with intent. And not only did they reveal more and keep peeling the onion back more and more and more, but I got so much more out of it in terms of insight as to where I eventually would need to help them and where they were okay.
Professor Andrea Schneider
That's incredible. But just to really have that sort of as a mind of people really can talk for a very long time. Sometimes we think about oh you let somebody talk, but then you've got to like switch to content. They need to understand what I'm selling. They need to understand the law. They need to understand whatever my particular point is, and not until you fully understood their story.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Crazy as this sounds, the moment you start educating is the moment you've lost the process.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Tell me more.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Somebody comes with a problem. All I want to do is raise my hand and go, “I can fix that. Oh, oh, we should fix that right away. Oh, you have that. I can fix. We need to roll that over. We need to do this.”
The sooner you start offering the answers and educating, you've cut off the communication. There's plenty of time for that later. I'm not saying you're not going to educate, but in the beginning, and especially when you encounter a blind spot, you must not overeducate. You must let the client speak and reach their own forks in the road or quandaries that all of a sudden they realize, “Wait, I actually don't know what to do about that,” and then they stop and then they listen, and that's a whole different bulletin.
Professor Andrea Schneider
One of my colleagues calls it the difference between push questions and pull questions. You're still trying to get information from them, you're not trying to push them yet to a solution. When I was in my negotiation classes, I was told that I was a problem diagnosis child. Like I liked nothing more than like headache, Excedrin. Done. Next. And, it's like no, no, no, no, no. We need to understand the problem. You need to diagnose. You need to see where it's coming from. You need to come up with general approaches and ideas together, and then you figure out what is the action plan. What should you do tomorrow? But that is a more complicated process.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
And you know what's interesting? We've all been taught this from childhood, but don't really believe it. Maybe it's out of insecurity. We have to show people how much we know, or how we can be the one to solve the problem, but we've learned this lesson as kids that it's more important to listen. The minute somebody on the other side of a negotiation feels momentum from you, they're moving backwards. They're not meeting you forward to meet your momentum. They're moving back, and so what I'm always trying to do is make sure I'm not communicating any sort of urgency. I'm leaving space for the client to share their thoughts, their concerns, their problems.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Andy, is there—I mean, again, in over the course of your career—negotiation mistake that also highlights this? I think sometimes we learn even more from the like, ooh, that one got away, or oh god, I need a redo, in order that sticks with you that also helped you really understand the importance of this listening.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Well, first of all, every single client that decided not to go with me, I feel pain that still, like, what did I do wrong that I couldn't bring them on board? But really, the answer comes from I was over educating, overselling my services, as opposed to sitting back and just having the confidence to let my talent emerge over time, I don't have to show it all up front. I can let it emerge over time as people begin to trust me more and more and more.
Professor Andrea Schneider
And that really is the sort of patience.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
It's about being much less linear and much more associative, letting what the client says bubble up and going in that direction, in that direction, and asking probing questions as opposed to trying to drive to a close, whatever that close might be.
Professor Andrea Schneider
For me, sometimes I like the visual of a bicycle sometimes because it's you know you're moving forward, but boy, oh boy, those wheels go backwards. If you think about the cycle, the wheels themselves-they go over bumps, they pick up dirt. There's all sorts of things that are happening, even as you're sort of progressing forward. There's lots of information and intake and context that you need to pay attention to.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
And think about it. If you get fixated on that bump you just went over, you've stopped. So, you got to keep going.
Professor Andrea Schneider
So how would you advise a young person to build that skill? Is there something that you wish you knew in retrospect, and that you advise and mentor the next generation?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
It's that you have to try to have the confidence to listen. And when you're young and you feel like, why on earth would this person on the other side of the table trust you? You tend to want to demonstrate your skills, whereas if you can hold back and let them talk, you'll find that that's the most important skill to demonstrate.
Professor Andrea Schneider
I had a student years ago. I remember him telling me the story. He went into real estate, and he said he was getting interviewed for a job. He had been a realtor, came to law school, was moving back, and he was being interviewed for a job. And he's like, “You know, the guy interviewing me was ranting about how lawyers are so annoying, and he doesn't like hiring lawyers for his company,” and on and on.
He's like, "Look in my head. I'm like, "I have no idea why I'm in this room. He obviously hates lawyers. What's going on?”
So he's just sort of listening and taking it in, and the guy ends the interview with, "And I can tell you're different because you have let me talk for the entire time, and you have the job.”
Andrea Baumann Lustig
There you go.
Professor Andrea Schneider
It was just stop. Everybody knows your skills. They're on a piece of paper. I love that frame of have the confidence to listen. It's really such a good message, even at the beginning of your career when you might not have that confidence. Even more reason to slow down.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Just try it.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Yeah, that's terrific.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Set that watch and look and see how long you can go without speaking, other than a probing question.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Really takes practice for some of us.
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Yeah, believe me, I'm still trying.
Professor Andrea Schneider
I know it is a lifelong skill. It is a lifelong skill.
All right, we are going to switch and play a few negotiation games, a couple lightning round games about negotiation, and our first game is “Would You Rather.”
We're going to focus on the who and how of negotiation. Just quick answers.
So, would you rather negotiate with your kid or with your parent?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
My parents.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Because?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
If they were still alive, they were easier than my children. My children are very tough to negotiate with.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Okay, over email or over text?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
I hate both for negotiating, but if I had to choose, I would say email.
Professor Andrea Schneider
All right, so face to face or over the phone?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Definitely face to face.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Would you rather negotiate on your home turf or away turf?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Away turf, because I think that gives the other person a bigger feeling of security.
Professor Andrea Schneider
And over coffee or over drinks?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Coffee. Drinks are dangerous.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Be careful. Exactly. All right. Our second game is a classic debriefing tool for negotiation called Best, Worst, Wildest. Going to give you three rapid-fire prompts. You get 30 seconds to respond to each just something that's happened in one way or another. So, first thing: what is the best negotiation advice you've ever heard?
Andrea Baumann Lustig
Shut up! *laughs*
Professor Andrea Schneider
Okay, worst negotiation tactic you've ever seen.
AL
I mean, I've seen people throw temper tantrums as if they were children. They’d stamp their feet and pound the table.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Crazy. And what's the wildest thing you've ever seen somebody try?
AL
Well, I have seen somebody rip a phone out of the wall and throw it against the other wall.
Professor Andrea Schneider
Oh, that I think that wins. That is, I mean, and for anybody younger listening, it used to be that phones were located in wall units in homes and offices, wired to the wall. But right to see somebody pull it off the wall and throw it across the room—that would stick with you. All right, Andy. This was so much fun.
I know I really learned a lot. I, for one, as always, will be focusing on talking less, listening more, and being less linear in my thinking. More willing to sort of be associative, see how things bubble up, really relying on the other party to let me know where they want to go next. I think that's just terrific. So, thank you so much, and thanks for helping us learn a lot.
AL
Thank you, Andrea. This was a lot of fun.
Professor Andrea Schneider
I'm Andrea Schneider, and you've been listening to How My Friends Negotiate: Negotiation Advice from Trusted Friends. You can find us and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.