For me, relationship is very important. I can lose money, but I cannot lose a relationship. The test is, at th... — Sunil Mittal

For me, relationship is very important. I can lose money, but I cannot lose a relationship. The test is, at the end of a conversation or a negotiation, both must smile.

Author: Sunil Mittal

Insight: There's something quietly radical about measuring a deal by whether both people leave smiling. Most of us are trained to think about winning—getting the better terms, securing the advantage, coming out ahead. But this idea flips that around. It says the real victory is when you walk away and both parties still want to know each other. This matters more now than ever, because everything is temporary except people. Your job changes, your circumstances shift, markets crash. But the people you've dealt with fairly? They remember. They talk about you. They show up for you later in ways you couldn't predict. The person you negotiated with today might become your partner in something completely different five years from now. Or they might just tell their friends you're someone worth doing business with. That compounds. The trickiest part is that this approach actually requires more skill, not less. It's harder to find solutions where both sides genuinely benefit than to squeeze someone on price. But that difficulty is exactly the point. When both people smile at the end, it's not because someone settled—it's because you figured something out together. That's the relationship that actually lasts.