You Don't Get What You Don't Ask For
Have you ever been afraid to ask for a raise, promotion, new client, or a favor?
You probably have. I’ve faced this fear throughout my career. I believe overcoming this fear is key to success.
I interviewed over fifty entrepreneurs on my former podcast. I’ve listened to the interviews many times to extract lessons for my own business and career. One of the reoccurring points I kept coming across was that we must overcome our unfounded fears.
We must not fear asking because we don’t get what we don’t ask for.
This doesn't mean we should pester people or solicit them constantly. However, we need to muster up the courage to make the ask. Failure isn’t rejection, failure is not asking in the first place.
I recently went through a process of reviewing all of my 3,000-plus Facebook friends. Obviously, most aren’t close friends at all, some I don’t even know.
Evolutionary anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, concluded we can only manage up to 150 friendships. This breaks down as 50 people who are close friends and just 15 who are our closest friends.
It's interesting to note that these friends can often drift in and out of different groups within this number. His study is famously known as “Dunbar Number”.
Last year, I composed a Facebook message and began asking each person who I considered a friend to help me promote my Communication Mastery workshops. And guess what, most of them happily did. Only one person declined. By asking my friends to help me spread the word, I had hoped my message would spread to new people who may become clients. Side note, this is also a good exercise to realize who your true friends are, they are the ones who are happy to help you.
I am thankful my friends came to the plate to help me spread the word. They likely wouldn’t have had I not asked. I can’t say with certainty that new clients came as a result. However, I did see a substantial increase in visits to the workshop page as my friends helped promote it across social media.
I wasn’t offended when one friend declined to help me. As I mentioned above, failure isn’t rejection, failure is not asking in the first place.
Instead of asking yourself what will happen if I ask? Ask yourself, what will happen if I don’t ask?