Lessons - The Things You Want But Won't Ask For (Scott)

In today's lessons episode, we're going to talk about ending and exiting things that aren't serving you anymore. And why your inability to do that is draining your energy and basically wasting your life. You know those expired relationships, you're still keeping up with the job you should have left two years ago, the girlfriend of the boyfriend and you know that it's not working out, the meeting that should have ended 37 minutes ago but didn't, people have a really hard time ending things. And if you're carrying around things that ran their course hours or even years ago, you're maintaining just friendships that have guilt, you're lying awake thinking about conversations that you should be having with that special person but you're not. This podcast is for you. I'm going to show you why your brain literally can't let go of unfinished business so why you need to end stuff, why the way you end things is the only part that people actually remember which is why it's so important to do well and the exact five sentence formula for ending anything with grace instead of ghosting like a coward. Let's talk about that conversation that you practice in the shower every single morning. The one where you go over exactly what you want, arrays, more sex, help with the kids, space from your mother, a promotion, quieter neighbors, Friday afternoons off your money back and apology, more affection, less criticism, time to yourself, you know exactly what you want and you know exactly who could give it to you and you also know exactly what words would get it. I need a $20,000 raise. I want to have sex twice a week. I need you to handle bedtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays, mom. I need you to call before coming over. These are very simple sentences, very clear requests, very specific wants and you practice them every morning in the shower. You've perfected the tone, confident but not demanding, anticipated every response. You've won this negotiation in your head 47 times in the shower and then you get out and then you get dressed and then you see the actual person and you ask and tomorrow you're going to practice again. Why does this happen? Why is there this huge gap between wanting Marcus Chen photographs people before and after they get what they want, not metaphorically, literally. He runs an experiment at Stanford where people sit for a portrait, then make a phone call asking for something they want and then sit for another portrait and the results are insane. Look at the before. He showed me on his laptop. This is a 43 year old executive who wants to work from home on Fridays. You see the tension in her jaw, the deadness in her eyes. She's wanted this for two years and you look at the after photo, the same woman, same lighting, completely different but what did she do? She called her boss. She asked for Fridays from home. He said yes immediately had been waiting for her to ask and if you look at her face in the picture in the after photo, 20 years younger. He's documented 847 before after pairs. The pattern never changes. The person looks like they're carrying the weight of this unexpressed want after lightness, lightness of having asked. And the cruelest part is that the average time between the two photos is eight minutes, eight minutes between wanting and having. But the average time they'd been wanting before they come into the lab, 18 months, 18 months of want, eight minutes to resolve. That is the gap that you're living in. You have to ask yourself if it's eight minutes, if it's so simple, what's going on? What's going on in our brain? Where we'd rather want? When you want something but you don't ask, your brain does something a little bit sick. It gives you this hit of dopamine for imagining getting it. That shower rehearsal where you nail the conversation and get the raise, your brain rewards you as if it actually happened. You get maybe 20% of the satisfaction of actually getting it but with 0% of the risk. Dr. Sarah Kim at Northwestern studied this. She hooked people up to brain scanners while they either asked for what they wanted or imagined asking for what they wanted and the imagined groups brain lit up with pleasure, risk-free pleasure and the asking groups brain lit up with fear. But then massive pleasure when they got a yes. But this is a kicker. The imagination group needed another hit within hours. The asking group satisfaction lasted weeks. So you are basically a micro dosing on imaginary victories instead of taking the real drug. And Kim tracked her subjects for a year. The imagination group still wanted the same things. The asking group had moved on to wanting new things because they've gotten rid of the old ones. See, we're addicted to wanting but asking ends the addiction. So we avoid asking to keep, so your brain is keeping you hooked on wanting and the addiction is actually a lot worse than you think. So if I actually break down how many doses of this want that you're feeding your brain every single day, it's a little bit unnerving because of course just one want. Yeah, it's not great but we just don't have one want. We have a lot of wants. So these little dopamine hits are non-stop. What you should do is list out all the things that you want but you don't ask for or won't ask for to really give yourself an idea of how serious this problem can be. So write down everything. Everything you want but you haven't asked for. This could mean the raise you deserve for two years. You want your partner to initiate sex more. You want your friend to stop being so late. You want your parents to respect your parenting choices. The roommate to clean the bathroom. The boss to stop texting after 8 pm. Your kids to do their chores without being asked 17 times that refund for the broken product. Your colleague to stop taking credit for your work. Your neighbor to deal with their barking dog. Okay, whatever it is that you want. The average person lists 23 things if they spent a minute 60 seconds listing it everything they want. So 23 specific things that you want resolved in your life. They could be resolved with very specific asks. We don't ask and we keep wanting because wanting like we just spoke about feels safer than having or not having 23 things that you want that you won't ask for because in your head you're certain that they're going to say no to most of them and that's why you rehearse instead of actually asking what if you're completely wrong about how often people say yes and yes there is science behind this. The nest of bonds is a Cornell psychologist and she ran experiments that basically shattered my assumptions about rejection and I think shattered a lot of people's assumptions about rejection. She had people ask strangers for things not small things very uncomfortable things like can I look through your phone will you lie for me will you vandalize this library book participants predicted that almost no one would say yes so for example when asking to search through a stranger's phone that's their most private device participants in the study predicted that 27% would agree you want to know what the number was of people that agreed to let strangers look through their phones 92% said yes when asking strangers to vandalize library books by writing the word pickle in them literally requesting them to commit a not so serious but a crime participants predicted single digit compliance but 64% of people actually did it because your brain tells you people will say no but the data says that they're actually desperate to say yes because saying no to a direct request actually causes psychological pain and people will do almost anything to avoid it which means they're a lot more likely to say yes so you are living in a fantasy of rejection while swimming in an ocean of very likely yeses if strangers let you search their phones 92% of the time if they vandalize property 64% of the time you ever thought what would happen if someone actually tested this with their real wants and there is actually somebody who tested this Jennifer Woo she kept a list for one year everything she wanted but didn't ask for and by December there was 400 and 19 items on that list and her new year's resolution was to ask for everything just ask for everything January 1st I want a window seat she got it January 2nd I needed deadline extension January 3rd and you please not call during dinner her mom agreed January 4th I want $10,000 more for this project her client said yes January 5th and he did a handle breakfast with the kids by January 31st she had 31 asks and there was 26 yeses four nose and one let's discuss and she kept going all year all 419 once at the end of the year the final tally was 298 yeses 94 nose and 27 not now but maybe later that's a 71 success rate but here's what mattered more than the success rate by March she couldn't imagine not asking the neural pathway from want to ask confused there was no more rehearsal stage no more shower conversations it was want get or don't get and move on and what happened well her income doubled she asked for raises and higher rates her marriage improved she asked for what she needed and her anxiety vanished there was no more unexpressed wants just festering in her head 40 years wanting things and then one year getting them and the only difference was her opening her mouth a 71 percent success rate from a normal person normal wants but and Jennifer wasn't using some complex negotiation strategy or psychological technique she was using the same simple words over and over and I'm about to tell you what those words are it is an 8 second script that gets you everything you've ever wanted and after studying thousands of successful asks thousands of successful people to get what they want the pattern to get what you want is embarrassingly simple all it is is this sentence and you insert the specific thing because insert the reason can you make that work I want blank because blank can you make that work eight seconds three parts everything you want I want Fridays off because I'm more productive at home and you make that work I want a $15,000 raise because I'm below market rate can you make that work I want you to initiate sex more because I need to feel desired can you make that work there was no I was wondering if maybe there was no I know this is a lot to ask but there was no well when you get a chance could we possibly there was want reason and question and the average response time to this script is four seconds of consideration then an answer eight seconds plus four seconds to answer equals 12 seconds between wanting and potentially having that if you're listening to this there's if you're a human there's things that you've been wanting for years and 12 seconds that's all you could have everything you want for the price of 12 seconds per item but what's the real cost of not paying those 12 seconds it's not what you think they think that when they do this calculation the cost of not asking is not getting what they want but that's not the cost the cost is living at partial capacity because when you want but you don't ask part of your brain stays locked in that want if you have a whole bunch of wants remember the average person lists out 23 in 60 seconds you are operating at maybe 70% presence because 30% of your brain is just managing these unexpressed what else is a cost relationship decay because people can feel when you want something from them if you don't ask we don't say it they just don't know what it is but they're going to make up stories in their head about what you want from them and usually it's worse than the truth there's also opportunity blindness so if you are wanting the same thing for two years that is all you're fixated and focused on you can't see the new possibilities because your want list is full there is no room for new desires there's identity damage every time you don't ask you are reinforcing to yourself and to everyone around you that you are someone who doesn't get what you want and this becomes who you are now if we look at the math 23 unexpressed wants and each one just occupies 2 to 3% of your mental energy and cognitive bandwidth you are living at 31% of your potential not because you can't have what you want because you won't ask for it so that is 31% of your potential gone energy gone cognitive power gone devoted to managing wants instead of having them and to more morning in that shower you're going to make the same choice again you're going to stand under the hot water and you're going to start rehearsing again I need you to stop and you need you to stop needed to get out of the shower I need you to I don't care if you're just drying off you're still wet walk to your phone I need you to call the person I need you to ask for the thing I want xyz because insert the reason here can you make that work I want because can you make that work and they're going to be confused about the timing because it might still hear the shower running but that doesn't matter they won't care they're either going to say yes there's a 71% chance they're going to say yes that means there's a 29% chance they're going to say no either way you're going to have your answer either way the wanting ends either way you get to move on to wanting something new see the gap between wanting and having is eight seconds of sound coming from your mouth so if you've been wanting the same things since 2019 I can guarantee you eight seconds a lot longer than from 2025 back to 2019 just ask either way the wanting ends you get it or you don't but you stop living in the gap you stop living in this space that's comfortable familiar but ultimately not serving you if you don't ask you're going to keep having these shower conversations you're going to keep perfecting your argument you're going to keep winning negotiations with people who aren't there or you can ask once clearly right now and the data says that you're going to get most of what you want the brain science says that you'll finally feel satisfied the research says people will respect you more or not less and the math says that eight seconds beats 18 months but you won't do it because your brain would rather you want forever than risk eight seconds of possible rejection except here's the thing the person you need to ask they probably already know you want it they're waiting for you to ask they might even want to give it to you but need you to make it official by asking so your shower rehearsals they're not practice their procrastination is ready the words are formed the person is waiting open your mouth eight seconds get what you want or don't either is better than wanting forever