When a deal seems stuck, most people assume there is a fixed amount to divide and the question is who gets more. The authors call this the fixed pie assumption — and they argue it is almost always wrong. Principled negotiation's third principle is to invent options for mutual gain. Before a negotiation reaches the bargaining stage, the authors recommend a separate exercise: brainstorm as many possible solutions as you can think of, with no evaluation of whether they are realistic, without committing to any of them. The goal is to expand the set of possibilities before narrowing down. The key rule of this brainstorming phase: separate inventing from deciding. Evaluate nothing. Commit to nothing. Just generate. Why does this matter? Because in most negotiations, people come in with one or two ideas about what an agreement could look like, and they fight over those ideas. The set of options they are arguing about is tiny. Widening that set — before anyone locks into a position — opens room for solutions that genuinely serve both sides. Two oil companies in Iraq were in a dispute over displaced farmland. The oil company wanted the land immediately. The farmers refused to leave, with nothing to lose. The positions were irreconcilable. Then someone asked: when do you actually need to produce oil? In three years, said the company. And what do you need the land for in the next three years? Seismic surveying and mapping. Suddenly new options appeared. The farmers could stay for the harvest — six weeks away. After that, they would cooperate with the survey work rather than resist it. The oil company would eventually hire some of them as construction workers. The land would be shared in sequence rather than divided by position. Nobody had proposed that solution at the start. It emerged from asking: what would actually serve the interests of both sides? For Ngozi, trying to get her school to approve a student newspaper with editorial independence: instead of arguing about whether it is allowed or not, she can propose a solution that protects the school's reputation interest (a faculty adviser reviews before publication) while serving the students' interest (the adviser can flag concerns but cannot veto without giving written reasons). A framework both sides had a hand in building is far more likely to be accepted.