Don't Expect It, Just Because You Asked For It

For the readers who liked last week’s post and have been concentrating on clearly stating your thoughts or needs, this week may turn that upside down (although, I hope not).

For much of my career I was in sales, and as any salesperson knows, there is a lot of effort that goes into closing a deal. A successful salesperson knows you always have to ask for the business. This is where my theory of "not expecting unless you ask" gets a little tricky. What if when you ask they still say no? Does this give us the right to be offended? Angered? Judgmental? Most of us want to answer these questions with a resounding no, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t many rejections in my life that ended with exactly these emotions.

Perhaps we could justify the salesperson’s reaction because of the impact on their career and their income. The truth is that however big or small the situation, there are going to be many cases in which we ask people for something and we don’t get what we expect in return. Have you ever asked a friend to dinner and they replied, "no, thank you" without any reason? Have you ever opened up a gift and found yourself completely disappointed because it wasn’t even close to what you asked for? Of course you have, and so has everyone else.

As difficult as it is to get our arms around this concept and as much as we want to defend our right to be disappointed, we should never expect anyone to do what we want them to do. Even if we think we are right, the truth is, we might not be.

Comments

[Susan Schneider]

Dad, as always you have the perfect comment. I guess its pretty obvious where I get some of my pearls of wisdom.

[Dad]

Susan,
It reminds me of a piece of Gestalt Therapy: Change comes about as a result of: "full acceptance of what is, rather than a striving to be different.
Or to paraphrase: I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not here to live up to mine. I am who I am and you are who you are and if we agree that is great and if we don't that is great, also.