Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
A simple request for popcorn from my eight-year-old daughter completely transformed my understanding of what it means to ask for what we want in life. Standing in a cold school playground, I watched in amazement as she boldly approached a fundraising table, bypassed a queue of 40 parents, and secured popcorn without a penny in her pocket—all because she simply asked.
Her reflection later that evening "If I don't ask, I won't know whether the answer is yes or no" struck me as wisdom that many of us adults have forgotten or never learned.
How many opportunities have we missed because we feared rejection? How many desires remain unfulfilled because we never voiced them?
Drawing from this experience, I've developed five principles to help us all become more effective at asking for what we want.
First, get crystal clear about your desires.
Second, cultivate courage not waiting until you feel ready, but leaning into discomfort.
Third, separate yourself from outcomes, understanding that rejection doesn't diminish your worth.
Fourth, remember that "yes lives in the land of no"—you must wade through rejections to find acceptance.
Finally, practice asking in small ways to build confidence for those life-changing requests.
Whether you're seeking a promotion, deeper relationships, or simply trying to navigate daily interactions with more authenticity, the courage to ask directly for what you want can open doors you never knew existed. I'd love to hear how these principles resonate with your experiences or help support you in getting closer to what you want.
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Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. So today, on Forging Resilience, you're stuck with me and it's nothing to do with the fact I took two weeks off, had some podcast cancellations and now I'm filling gaps Honest. But something that came up for me a couple of weeks ago was this asking for what I want. I'm part of a public speaking group Toastmasters here in Barcelona, something that I really enjoy, and I had to write a speech, which I did. It's around exactly that asking for what we want. After delivering it in public, I could see that there's a lot more than just a speech. There's a lot of lessons in this for me, which obviously came up during the speech. It's something that I've shared with a couple of people, as well as to my coaching group. The speech and it's something that I've shared with a couple of people, as well as to my coaching group, and I thought it'd be worth doing a quick episode around this theme. So I'd like to take you back.
Speaker 1:
Just before Christmas, early December, it's a cold winter afternoon here in Catalonia, with the winds blowing. The temperatures had dropped and it really was quite fresh for this corner of the world. And that afternoon I took out two sandwiches, or made two sandwiches for my kids, put them in my bag, closed up the house as I left the warm comfort of my home and made my way down to pick my kids up from school. On the way down, my hands were thrust deep into my pockets and my jacket was zipped all the way up as I braced against this strange and often rare winter cold here. But nevertheless I wasn't the only one, and as I arrived into the school playground saying hi to lots of other cold parents, I noticed out the corner of my eye a table. This table was set up and it was selling popcorn, hot chocolate and cakes in an attempt to raise money for the school library. There's a big, long queue, maybe 30 parents at that time already anticipating their kids coming out and asking for what was being sold.
Speaker 1:
So many of my lessons come through my kids being able to pause and reflect and respond rather than react, and so it's no doubt and no surprise that a lot of my lessons come through my incredibly powerful, direct young daughter of eight years of age. This is just another example of that. She was the first one out of my two kids out of the school that day, and as she came over to say hi to me, me and I got down onto my knees to give her a hug and a kiss. Her head pivoted as her nose caught the smell of warm popcorn on a cold afternoon, and she saw exactly what was going on in my mind. I was already thinking oh no, another argument. I know what she's going to ask for, and she did. Dad, can I have some popcorn? To which my response was not today, love, no, I've made you a sandwich and besides, I haven't got any money. She paused for a minute, looked me directly in the eye and told me that's okay, dad, I'm gonna see if I can get some. Anyway, can I go for it, love? And she made her way past this queue of parents, which was probably at now at 40 or 50 impatient parents waiting for overpriced popcorn not that hot hot chocolate and rather dry cake to be sold, and she went right up to the front of the queue.
Speaker 1:
At this point I got distracted talking to somebody and the next thing I know my son had come over and was asking for his sandwich, which I duly gave him. And then my daughter appeared, beaming smile on her face, with a big, and it was a really interesting thing. I asked her Liz, how did you get that popcorn love? Well, it was easy, dad, she replied I just asked. I said you got no money and I said Mum can maybe pay them back next week. There you go. She asked for what she wanted and this time she got it.
Speaker 1:
But it wasn't really until I got home that night that the full impact of what she had shown me there and that she had done started to land, you see, in my house most evenings, much to my kids disappointment. I asked them three questions what's the best bit about today? What was a challenge about today? What did you learn? And sometimes the answers are short and sharp, sometimes they're humorous, sometimes they can't be bothered. That's all okay.
Speaker 1:
But tonight was one of the occasions or that night was an occasion where a bit of a gem of wisdom was dropped into my lap from my eight-year-old daughter. And as I asked her, liz, what did you learn today, my love? She paused, reflecting for a second and she said that if I don't ask, I won't know whether the answer is yes or no. And there you have it. Unless we ask, we will never know if the answer is yes or no, and so the whole point of this story and me talking about this is to ask for more of what we want. There's a couple of little things that I'd like to add on to that.
Speaker 1:
For some of us, we need to ask ourselves what is it we even want, and that doesn't always have to be deep and meaningful. It could be a relationship, it could be more business, it could be a promotion or pay rise. So many times in the past I've been waiting for these things and opportunities, and some do come, yeah, but I can speed my progress up or get a lot closer to those possibilities or those things that I want by asking for them. So I've come up with five little things for myself which I'd like to share for you in helping you get more of what you want by asking. Point number one is to know Know what you want. Be clear and direct when you're asking for what you want. Don't beat about the bush. There's a time and a place for everything, obviously, just like my daughter, she wanted popcorn, so she went straight up to the front and asked for it she knew.
Speaker 1:
Number two is courage. Asking for what we want and feeling the potential for rejection or humiliation can feel massive. So it takes courage. But we can't wait for courage to come to us. It's something we have to lean into before we feel ready. We have to do the equivalent of walking past 40 cold, bored parents and feel their eyes boring into the back of our head or feel the rejection when we get told no, you can't have popcorn, it costs 1 euro, 50. That is possible. So it takes courage and I remind myself that that's not in the absence of fear. It's doing the thing that we want or asking for the thing we want, irregardless of what's going on for us internally. And with courage. It's something that we can practice on a daily basis, with the small things, the small interactions, doing what's right, by us helping or supporting somebody, saying sorry when we've wronged somebody. The opportunities are endless, we only have to be open to see them. Where can we practice courage? So that's number two, courage. Three, separation.
Speaker 1:
In asking for what we want, we have to be able to separate ourselves from the outcome. So if in asking we get it, that doesn't make us any better, any more valuable, any more justified. It just is. And on the flip side of that, it's also true if we get told no, if we feel the sting of humiliation or rejection, that doesn't make us any worse, that doesn't make us unvaluable or unworthy. The answer was no. So zoom out of the outcome in asking point number five yes lives in the land of no. This is a great saying I picked up from another coach, rich Litvin, and I love it.
Speaker 1:
So in asking for what we want, lots of times the answer is going to be no, but sometimes it's going to be yes. And unless we ask for what we want, we won't know if the answer is yes. Unfortunately, yes lives in the land of no. So we're going to have to wade through plenty of no's to get to our yes.
Speaker 1:
And number five is practice. It's like anything these opportunities, the things that we want they're going to take practice, but I think that breaking it down into those five points and being able to practice them individually, potentially on their own, before we ask for our big ask, we get ourselves a lot closer to getting what we want. So if that was interesting for you guys and you'd like a bit more help getting closer to what you want, then reach out via the messages here, through Spotify or Buzzsprout, or reach out to me on LinkedIn or Instagram the links are in the show notes and let's have a conversation. Let's see if I can help support you in getting what you want. And if you've got any questions or comments or any observations from what's come up listening to this today, I'd love to hear from you. Have a great day.
