“What Should I…?” Answers to Unblock your Next Ask

Dia 0:01  

I've had women raise their hands in my workshops and say like, How do I know I'm not delusional with this particular ask? And I'm like, What is it? You know, and she'll tell me, and I'll say, Great, explain it to me. And if she can explain it, she can ask for it. And in fact, I have yet to hear an ask that is not explainable.

Dia 0:38  

Hello, everyone, welcome to the Dia Bondi show - a big, huge, ginormous, enormous, gargantuan podcast for women with goals. I'm Dia Bondi and I'm on a mission to help women ask for more and get it, resource their dreams and have an absolute blast doing it. I'm here with my on air producer extraordinaire, Arthur Leon Adams, the third aka baby Arthur. Hi, baby A.

Arthur

Hey, Hey, Dia.

Dia  1:02  

How are you?

Arthur  1:02  

I'm good, a little tired. I stayed up kind of late last night working on a video project. You know, my wife, Kat and I, we have this music project we're working on and we made a music video and I actually stayed up last night like putting the finishing touches on it. Oh, that's fun. And we're gonna release it soon. So yeah.

Dia  1:19  

Oh my gosh, that's so exciting.

I love seeing you two work together. Yeah, I follow and know that you're not much up on the Instagrams and neither am I actually, but I do follow. I do follow Kat and I love seeing the little duets you guys do. It's great. Yeah. So much fun.

Arthur  1:32  

So you know, I stayed up super late, but I'm super happy that I did. Because I finished the video.

Dia  1:38  

Yeah, that's fun. I love finishing things. finishing things is hard for me. I'm like that 80 percenter. I love starting stuff. But I'm tough when it comes to finishing them. I'll do all the dishes and leave one pan in the sink - drives my husband crazy.

Arthur 1:51  

Oh, yeah. I mean, tell me about it. We shot and I edited 80% of this video in November. So you know, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Dia  2:01  

Oh, yeah. 80%. Man, there's

something about that mark that's so rough.

Arthur 2:04  

Yeah, yeah.

Dia  2:06  

Well, good for you. Good for you. Good job. Putting it all the way over the line.

Arthur  2:09  

Yeah thanks. Just took staying up till 3am one night to finish it.

Arthur  2:15  

What's going on with you?

Dia  2:16  

You know, I have a little, I'm doing good. Um, I had a little idea I started to have in the very back of my head. Like, I want to learn something new. Like, I want to do something weird. Same thing when I, you know, when I went to auctioneering school, I guess a handful of years ago was the same thing. I was like, I think it's time I learned something weird and do something. And there's a woman that I follow who runs. I don't I can't remember what it's called. But she runs like a poetry school for grownups. And I'm like, I'm about this far from registering for it.

Dia 2:49  

I'm just kind of craving doing something fun and weird and out of my depth. Like that same feeling that you got when you like, learned to drive, you know, unless you learn to drive, you know, before you really even learn to do anything else. I mean, some of us learn to drive when we were really, really young. But I remember learning that thrill of like, being in control or something brand new. I don't know.

Arthur  3:13  

I know exactly what you're talking about. I remember when I first learned to drive and I was able to do it on my own. And just, I just can sit right in it and remember the feeling of like freedom and possibility and everything.

Dia  3:29  

Even when you're fighting with it. In the beginning. You're like I can figure this out. Oh, wait, no, I

got that one. I mean, I'm old enough that I learned to drive on a stick on a stick shift. Yeah, right. I mean, there it is. And I actually had to learn how to drive on an Alfa Romeo stick shift which hates second gear. I had to like double clutch, you know, 15 and a half years old learning how to double clutch an Alfa Romeo that doesn't want to go anywhere. Anyway. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. It was not actually a lot of cursing. Yeah, I'm just kind of getting this. This I'm getting. I've been focusing so much on growing my business and my mission and that's all been really fun. But sometimes I like to step out of that. And I can feel a little desire, like for doing something weird and new. And maybe poetry school for grownups is gonna be it. I don't know. It's so scary to me. But I'm also interested. I don't know, like it's in there somewhere. That's kind of what's on my mind today.

Dia  4:16  

That's cool. Are you a big poetry person?

Dia  4:19  

No, no. That's what's so embarrassing about it. I'm like, Who am I? To? I don't know, I totally am getting that. Like, who the heck are you Dia you're like, you know, come on, but I can feel that it would be fun and interesting. And I'd be okay to be the only like, white lady mom type up and that, you know, up in that school,

Arthur  4:37  

I think it probably takes all kinds.

Dia  4:40  

I would imagine, I hope anyway, so that's like, I'm just like, I can feel myself sort of pretending like it's not on my mind when it's totally on my mind.

Arthur

You know, next I'm going to be hearing that you're gonna, you know, want to go to like magic camp or something.

Dia 4:53  

You know, we live in Northern California, and we have so much magic camp nearby, just so you know.

Arthur 4:57  

Well, you know, and that's one thing the listeners don't know but like dia kind of hates magic.

Dia 5:02  

It's so true.

I forgot that you knew that about me.

I'm not good at enjoying magic.

I am not it freaks me out and I want to say is it because I'm a control freak and it's not like I don't I mean I like to be you know the boss of things but I don't it just drives me nuts it's like unnecessary suspense To me that is just it's just yeah makes me crazy like I’m getting dry mouth even just thinking about

Arthur 5:30  

And here I am signing up for the Penn and Teller masterclass. Like the opposite I love magic.

Dia  5:36  

When my kids were really little we were at breakfast one time, at a cafe in the town that my husband I grew up in. And on Sundays there it's like slammed. This place is like you know, a line out the door. And there's a guy that does card tricks on at least that Sunday walking around the tables, doing car checks for tips, you know, super fun for the kids, blah, blah, blah. I literally gave him 10 bucks to go away. I was like, Here's 10 bucks, step away from my table.

Arthur  6:04  

Yeah, well, you know, I know just not for everyone.

Dia 6:07  

It's not for everyone. It's definitely not for D poetry school, but poetry School, which is kind of like word magic, I guess. I don't know.

Arthur  6:14  

Well, I can't wait to hear your first poem.

Dia 6:18  

It's gonna be a slam just so you know.

Arthur  6:22  

So before we move on to what we're really going to get into in this episode, I want to remind everyone as always, if you like the show, you should subscribe on your favorite pod catcher, you should rate and review, and it'll really help the Dia Bondi Show reach more people. And if you have a question that you would love to hear the answer about a really important ask in your life, you can call us at 341-333-2997 and leave a message and dm and we’ll answer it on a future show.

Dia  6:55  

All right, so what are we doing today, baby A?

Arthur  6:57  

So today, you're gonna bring us through some of the most common questions you get when you're teaching your workshops for your most powerful ask, live.

Dia 7:06  

Yeah, I pulled like three that are like so, so common, and they come up, they come up over and over again. And I just thought that might be helpful for folks listening, if these are the kinds of questions when you're shaping up the negotiations that you might be stepping into to just help accelerate you a little bit toward the courage side instead of toward the pull punches side. So I have for you ready? Let's do it. Okay, so I've got a handful of questions here for actually in no particular hierarchy. But I'm going to start with this first one, which is so common in the q&a and in the live coaching portion of my workshops and keynotes. And that is what if the ask that I'm making that I'm about to make the amount whether it's a salary request or an investment or some sponsorship, or mentorship from somebody who feels out of your league, etc. What if the Ask I'm making is actually delusional. If I'm asking for, you know, in another salary negotiation, a new company, I'm, I'm saying, I want double what I'm making right now, they don't know that, but I'm gonna say that out loud. Am I actually being delusional? Or is that a reason? Is that okay? Is it okay? How do I know I'm not completely out of this world and detached from reality? And my answer is, look, how we feel about the asks that we make isn't always the truth about the asks that we make, you know, over the course of my coaching career, every time I rate gave myself a raise, I raised my rates, I felt like, Am I am I detached from what's actually market? Or am I detached from some? Am I delusional that somebody would actually input that there's a new client paying me at that rate? So we can't always take the, we can't always take the feelings or the messages that that ask is given to us as absolute truth. So that's number one. Number two is how do you know you're delusional on this? Or how do you know that you actually are making an ask that feels really big and scary and out of this world, but actually is perfectly okay. And by the way, side note, you're 100% allowed to ask for whatever you want. And the bit here is that if you can explain it, you can ask for it. I've had women raise their hands in my workshops and say like, How do I know I'm not delusional with this particular ask? And I'm like, What is it? You know? And and she'll tell me, and I'll say, Great, explain it to me. And if she can explain it, she can ask for it. And in fact, I have yet to hear an ask that is not explainable. The moment I hear a woman explained to me her ask her why. That in and of itself is wildly confidence building. And the explanation can be as simple as well. I've been at this consulting rate for three years and it's it's time my this year my rates are going up. Like, it can be an explanation, just that simple. If you need to tell a big, huge, robust story that feels like you're putting yourself on the defense, then it may not be necessary. If you want to test your explanation, do it, try to try to explain it in half as many words or a third, as many words and see if you can do that. And that may be actually the confidence building activity you can do to help you find the courage to actually make that ask and not preemptively lowball yourself. So that's number one. The second question I get often is, what do I do if I get a no? And there is no way ever me or anyone else can really give you that answer. But I can instead offer you another question back, which is great question. What are you going to do? inside of the question, What do I do? If I get a no, there's a little bit of a should in there? What should I do? What's the best thing to do? based on some what industry standard of reacting to a no, this is such This is so contextually yours, you get to you get to answer the question. If I get a note, what do I want to do? Do I want to quit? Do I want to stay for two more, you know, promotion cycles? Do I want to find another role inside my organization? Do I want to you know confront the the no giver? Do I want to you have lots of choices and you can in fact list them out and say which one of these do I want? Which one makes sense for me at this moment, in this context? In this situation? And you get to choose what's beautiful about asking the question, what do I want to do if I get a no is that the know that you get doesn't become the thing that holds your goals hostage, you just get to look at it and say if I get to know here, here's my plan. And now it's just a moment in time not the thing that stops time for you. So when you are looking at making a big, courageous ask that you feel has a threat to get a no that can't turn into a negotiation but it's an absolute No. Or the negotiation that you're going to get back won't actually meet even your minimum requirement or your what we think of an auctioneering as your reserve. If you have a plan of what you're going to do you're going to have a lot more freedom and again speaking of courage making activities like the earlier question around you know if I'm How do I know I'm asking for too much? If you can explain it you can ask for it that's courage making what do I do if I get to know if you can answer the question what do I want to do if I get to know and and have a plan for that that also can be wildly courage making so those are the those are the two that that show up a lot. Question three is how do I ask so that I don't fill in the blank? How do I ask so I don't come across as greedy so I don't come across as too pushy as I so I don't come across as too bossy. So I don't come across as you know, unappreciative like whatever the thick fill in the blank. This one comes up a lot. And actually, the first time I ever shared the core concepts of project ask like an auctioneer was in a 20 minute talk I gave to a group of 65 women. And when we went into q&a, I'd never heard anybody react to the ideas ever. And it was a you know, I've been a leadership communications coach for years, which implicitly has some asking and negotiating, you know, business requests pitching inside of it. But not I had never come at this directly from the world of like, asking for more and getting it just specifically with that lens on it.

Dia  13:27  

I had a woman raise her hand in the back and said, I love all this content. How do I ask so that I don't get seen as and I don't even remember what the thing is she filled in the blank. And I stood in front of the room. And I was like, Okay, do you have a choice, you can help this woman, twist herself into a pretzel position balancing on one, you know, one toe trying to please everyone while she's also trying to advocate for herself. Or you can tell the truth. Which is, looks side note. Sure. There's lots of storytelling techniques that you can use. And we'll explore that on this podcast to help you set up a powerful ask so that it can be as successful as possible. But that is an offensive move, not a defensive move of how do I do this thing without leaving a certain impression that we don't always have control over? The choice that I made was intelligent truth, which is I am not here to help you be even more uncomfortable to twist yourself into a position where you are so out of balance with who you are, where we're trying to accommodate everybody else's expectations of us so much. I'm done with that. Instead, you get to ask for what you need. With authenticity. With generosity. You can ask with gratitude and courage and all the things that make you you know, in relationship with a person that you're the person or entity that you're making the ask of, but to expect us to constantly manage other people's impressions of us in a way that makes it impossible for us to just speak from the heart and speak our truth is not something I want to help women do. So my answer for you is basically, don't, you know, bring to your ask all of those things I mentioned: your authenticity, your gratitude, you know, the best story you can put together. But ultimately, you will be too much for some people, those are not your people. And that is perfectly okay. If you go back to the previous question, what do I do if I get a no? Okay? Or what if I, what do I do? If I get a no if you have the answer to and if I get a no, or they don't like it, I've got myself a plan. And so this becomes a moment in time, not a thing that stops time. The fourth question I get a lot, which is sort of underneath all of this, which is how do I get the confidence I need to go make the ask that actually matters. And this is interesting, I draw on my 20 years of leadership, communications coaching, where I'm helping folks, you know, find the courage to speak from the heart on stages, you think about helping folks tell a story in front of an audience is like, you're dealing with stage fright, and imposter syndrome, and all the stuff that comes up when everyone's watching and listening, right? When you're the only one mic'd up, and you're broadcasting your own story across an audience. And that is, confidence is an outcome of action, it's, it can't be a prerequisite. My clients and communications want to feel confident enough to be a great speaker on stage or in front of a high stakes audience. And yes, I want that for that for them. But that comes with rehearsing that comes with getting a powerful story together and speaking it until it feels integrated into who you are, it comes from the actions you take that produce the confidence you, you think you need in order to take those actions. It's sort of like, you know, that diving board moment where you can't, you can't be perfectly nervous lists, you know, to You can't expect yourself to be not scared at all, to jump off that diving board for the first time, you have to just recognize that, oh, the fear that I have is just part of the package. And I'm going to jump off of that diving board. And I want to get out of the pool, I'm going to be so thrilled that I did it and more confident on the next go round. So we have to kind of flip the script on that, that we don't always, yes, we need enough confidence to do it, I get that. But it's more like we need courage and less like confidence. We need courage to act. And from the action, we produce more confidence, which rolls into the next ask that you need, which can be more courage producing, which lets you do more action, which produces more confidence. And pretty soon, you're running on the belief that if I just act, I will get the confidence I need to do it again. So it's sort of this virtuous cycle that we can put ourselves on. If we let ourselves off the hook of having to have perfect, flawless or even, you know, or even just some amount of confidence in order to act. We can act and trust that competence will come as an outcome. And actually, I wrote a short article about this called the confidence trap that we published on an op ed we published on Adweek, 360. And I'll put the link to that on in the show notes as well. We call that I call that the confidence trap. So these four questions are the most common questions. And I imagine that maybe one of these four questions are ones that you're asking yourself as you look at the negotiations you'll be making on the behalf of your dreams right now. And so here I'm just going to review really quickly if you're asking how do I know that this big huge ask I'm making isn't isn't unreasonable that I'm not being delusional. here's, here's your homework, ask yourself, and you can write it down or tell it to a friend. If I can explain it, I can ask for it. So try to explain it. And if you can, you know, you can ask for it. The second, what do I do? If I get a no? Here's your homework. Answer the question. Yeah. What am I going to do? And have yourself a plan, you'll have yourself more courage to make that ask, three? How do I ask so that I don't fill in the blank, leave a certain impression, you're going to do your best with all of your courage, all of your authenticity, all your skillfulness all your stories, telling all of your courage, and ultimately, you will be too much for some people, those are not your people. So you don't have to twist yourself into a pretzel and forth. How do I get the confidence to make the asks that can change everything? And my answer to you is you can act first and expect that confidence will follow.

Dia  19:36  

So I think, you know, if there's one big idea that runs through all of this is that you get to want what you want. And you get to ask for what you want. And I assume any question that you have, for you know, for me around this stuff, I assume that you're coming at it with with gratitude not greediness that you're coming to it with courage that you're coming to it with empathy, that you're coming to it with purpose, and you get to want what you want. And you get it asked for what you need in order to get what you want you get to,

Arthur  20:12  

You know, the big thing for me and in those questions or the answers to those questions that you said, that's so relatable for me is, if you can explain it, you can ask for it. Like just thinking about that just about things that I've asked for that I felt that way about, am I delusional? Are they gonna come back and laugh in my face? Because this is something that no one would ever dare ask for? And then I can just, I can explain it so easily. Yes. You know, yes. It is not unreasonable. It is totally a very normal and acceptable thing to ask. That's right.

Dia  20:46  

That's right.

And even if you are asking for something that doesn't, that may not be acceptable. Still, if you can explain it, you're allowed to ask for it.

Arthur  20:56  

Oh, totally. Totally. I was just speaking personally. Yeah, totally. Thanks. I was thinking about we are saying. Yeah, yep. All right. That's it. I like it. That was a good one.

Dia  21:05  

I know it's a quick one. Right. Last episode and this episode are fairly quick. We just bolted right through those. But we're hoping that in what's beautiful, is that if you got something that's valuable out of this, this is so short, if you need to listen to it again, it's right here.

Arthur  21:17  

Yeah. And in the next episode, we're gonna have a guest, right?

Dia  21:20  

We are. I'm so excited and kind of nervous, actually. But I'm really excited. Yeah, she's completely awesome, and the conversation will not specifically be about asking so much, but it's about the infrastructure we put around ourselves so that we can work toward our goals and find the courage that we need to do that.

Arthur  21:43  

That sounds great. I'm excited.

Dia  21:44  

Alright, everybody. See you later.

Arthur  21:51  

The Dia Bondi Show is a production of Dia Bondi Communications and is produced and scored by me, Arthur Leon Adams the third. Please like, share, rate and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Do you have a question for Dia about an important Ask in your life? Well, you can give us a call at 341-333-2997 and maybe Dia will give you an answer on a future episode.