One of the most underused tools of success is the power of asking. There is power in asking for what we want — and yet, few of us use it to its full potential.

We didn’t ask to be born, but as soon as we were born, asking was the first thing we learned. As a baby, if we were hungry, or cold, or sick, or just needed a new diaper, we instinctively knew what to do — we just had to CRY!

Nobody taught us that, we were too young to understand, but we knew — as if it had been wired into us — that all we needed to do to get what we wanted was ask! Or cry, as it were. And get we did.

Our parents were very good at understanding and responding to our requests — otherwise they wouldn’t get much sleep anyway…

But as time went by and we grew older, it seems that the instinct of asking for what we want was slowly stamped out of us. Little by little we were made to feel that asking for something we wanted was selfish; that we were disturbing somebody; that we didn’t deserve to ask for anything but instead should be grateful for whatever we had; and somehow we even learned to take pride in NOT asking anybody for help or anything else we needed… How did that happen?

This is a fascinating, “lost” power that we all need to relearn how to use.

If nothing else, it’s simple math. If you ask more, more often, from more people, in more ways, you’re bound to get more.

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