Ask Away
Author: Zuberia T., Technical Writer (Greater Toronto Area, Canada)
Ask and you shall receive…maybe not always, but ask anyway – has always been my mom’s adage. Years ago, my mom, brother and I were travelling during our summer break. We had got two free business class tickets provided by my dad’s workplace. My very practical mom had bought herself an economy ticket, as she deemed spending on a business class ticket as unnecessary. So my brother and I would travel in business, while she would take the economy. On the day of travel, my mom decided at check-in that she would ask if they could upgrade her to business. My brother and I were appalled and our unanimous reaction was “Noo, that’ll be embarrassing! What if they laugh at us for asking?”. My fear as a 9 year old was that the airline guys would take away our existing business class tickets for mom’s impertinence. Mom just shrugged her shoulders defiantly and said “The worst they can do is say NO…so it’s not a big deal!”. At the check-in counter, my mom approached the airport agent and explained our situation, and asked if it was possible to upgrade her. Meanwhile, my brother and I stood faraway from mom pretending to be strangers. The lady at the counter paused for a few seconds and said she would need to ask her boss. She went to get him and after 5 excruciating minutes, came back with her boss. He looked into our records and saw that we had travelled frequently with their airlines. He finally said with a smile that they’d be okay to upgrade her. I’ll never forget mom’s triumphant smile when she told us “If you never ask, you’ll never know”.
Another incident that deepened my faith in not being afraid to ask no matter what the response will be, was in high school. One of my teachers was forming a dance group for an event. I loved dancing, however, I had fallen sick when my teacher was holding auditions and couldn’t make it. The group was formed and the practice sessions had started by the time I had recovered and returned to school. One day, after class I followed the teacher while grabbing my bestie to tag along for moral support. I went up to the teacher, told her I’m a good dancer and asked if there was any way possible I could be a part of the dance group. She thought for a second and said, “One of the girls just dropped out of the group, so yes, you can join. I really hope you’re good, because you’ll need to catch up quickly!”. It took me a few minutes to process the easy acceptance. Some other students were annoyed with me for getting in easily and wondered how I managed it…if only they knew that all I did was ASK!
Friends and colleagues have told me about their awesome experiences, from getting a huge raise in the middle of the year to highly qualified strangers agreeing to be their mentors, all because they simply had the courage to ask! However, it’s not always rainbows and butterflies, we’ve all got our fair share of disappointing and embarrassing ‘NOs’. Like your request being denied at a customer service center, your proposals for a new plan being rejected, your ask for help being ignored or someone laughing at a question you asked in a meeting. These rejections make us regret and in hindsight we tell ourselves, it was stupid to ask.
The fear of rejection is very real, it has been found that our brains processes rejection like it does physical pain. But we cannot let the fear of rejection stop us from asking. I came across this valuable and entertaining TED talk by Jia Jiang who talks about how to handle rejection. Jia calls it 100 days of Rejection Therapy, where he comes up with awkward requests which most people would be inclined to reject. Like asking a stranger for a 100$ or a bizarre request for Olympic style donuts at Krispy Kreme (this video is a must watch!). His goal at the end of the 100 days was to desensitize himself from the pain and overcome the fear of rejection.
Another wonderful TED talk by Heidi Grant titled ‘How to ask for help – and get a yes’, tells us how we need to open ourselves to the idea of expressing our need for help by asking and the dos & don’ts of how to structure our requests for help.
I found the above TED talks to be very useful in taming the paper tiger - the act of asking much easier. If you have more resources or tips, do share them in the comments below. Happy Asking folks!