Getting What You Want is a Decision…
…so Start Deciding in Your Favor
Have you ever played tug-of-war with a monkey? I have, and it’s not as fun as you might think.
The story goes like this: I was taking a morning stroll with a friend in Bali (where I lived at the time) when a monkey snatched my friend’s sweatshirt off her shoulders. To be fair (to the monkey, that is), we were in The Monkey Forest, and my friend, she’d been trying to lure this wild animal to her person so she could snap a cute selfie with it perched on her shoulders.
There I was standing opposite this creature, this monkey who had been soooooadorrrrrrrable from far away but now held the fate of my friend’s hoodie in his hand, and he was ready for a fight.
I felt helpless (though lesshelpless than my friend who just cried): how do you recover stolen goods from a monkey?
I asked a park employee for help, but he wouldn’t assist unless I gave him money, and I didn’t have any. What I did have was an empty water bottle, which the park employee told me that I — personally without his help — could use to lure the monkey away from the sweatshirt.
And it worked! My cheap plastic Poland Springs bottle distracted the monkey causing him to drop my friend’s hoodie and lunge for the shiny thing in my hand.
Unfortunately, just as I thought I had cleared the shirt from the monkey’s reach, he side-eyed like a boss, caught on to my plan, and grabbed a dangling sleeve before I could break the hoodie free from his grasp.
We were in a face-off, me tugging the hoodie one way and the monkey tugging the other (yep, this really happened and nope I’m not proud of it). Again, I felt helpless — how was this going to end? What would become of my friend’s precious hoodie?
Then something dawned on me: I’m bigger and stronger than this monkey.
So I snatched the sweatshirt from his tiny hands and walked away.
Getting what you want is a decision
The difference between Helpless Tug-of-War-Devin and Victorious-Sweatshirt-Recoverer-Devin is simple: a decision. I stopped wanting the hoodie and decided I was going to have it. Sure I had the upper hand (I was bigger and stronger), but I was also facing an unknown foe, and I didn’t know for certain that being bigger and stronger was an advantage (just ask the lion).
Instead of worrying about the situation I was in, I took an active role in dictating the outcome.
The thing is, life isn’t about A Few Big Decisions That Change The Course Of Everything. Life is a series of incremental choices that add up to your current circumstance, which is both a relief and a distress at the same time: you don’t have to make so many Big Decisions, but you do need to make smaller ones on a regular basis. And if you want to be happy, then you have to decide in your own favor and take an active role in making it happen.
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And the good news is, the people who matter will respect you more when you advocate for what you want. As a former vice president of corporate development at Time, Inc told me, asking for a higher salary was practically an expectation for her position. She was responsible for leading acquisitions on behalf of the company, and so by asking for a higher salary than they offered her, she demonstrated to them that she wasn’t going to take the first offer that came her way.
By asking for more money, she showed she wasn’t afraid to advocate on her own behalf, which meant she was going to do the same for the company.
The opposite scenario is one I see all too often (and have been guilty of myself): people who don’t ask for what they want and complain about never getting what they deserve.
How and why people end up in this mindset is a blog post in itself, so instead I like to focus on how to avoid getting to the place.
How to decide in your favor in 7 complicated but totally worth it steps
1. You have to know what you want to get what you want
You don’t need to know how you’re going to get what you want, but you do need to have at least a vague vision of what you’re running at.
Be as specific as possible: it’s not enough to know you want dinner, you have to know what kind of cuisine you want or at least where you want to eat. A perhaps more relevant example: it’s not enough to know you want to make more money. You have to figure out how much you want to make and what roles are available at that level.
Pro tip: It practically never happens that people get things they don’t ask for in a positive way, so you might as well — while you’re at it — get outlandish about what you go after. The worst that can happen is someone says no.
2. Believe that you deserve what you want
Newsflash: It doesn’t matter if you actually deserve what you want or not, you just have to believe that you do. It’s a mindset. When I wanted the hoodie back from the monkey I felt helpless. When I decided that the hoodie belonged to me I snatched it out of that monkey’s hands confidently.
We’ve all met that person who is kind of a jerk but seems to have everything they’ve ever wanted. They’re the person who feels practically justified in everything they do, because they believe so hard that they deserve whatever it is they want. They’re the people you look at and say: How does so-and-so who is a total nightmare have a girlfriend and I don’t??
Because they believe they deserve to have a girlfriend and took action to get her.
You don’t have to be 100% like those people — they are no fun to be around. But since you don’t suck, it would be a good idea to eat a piece of their “I deserve it cake” for breakfast every day and lick the frosting off your fingers after. What it’ll do for good doobies like you is develop the self-advocacy muscle that will work with your other decent human tendencies.
Eventually you’ll not only be a good person to other people, you’ll be a good person to yourself too.
Pro tip: Stop comparing yourself to others, because it actually works against getting your goals. Also, it’s just plain unproductive and a little pathetic. You don’t deserve sh*t — no one does. But you especially don’t deserve anything if you’re just sitting around comparing yourself to other people.
3. Know in your bones you can get what you want
This is where the woo-woos would tell you to “envision what you want” and “picture yourself succeeding” or whatever. Taking it down a notch, how about a simple mindset:
You’re inevitably going to doubt yourself, everyone does, so you’re not special in your fears, which is actually a good thing. Being special in fear is lame and boring. Instead, shoo away those negative thoughts and focus on the task at hand.
It’s better to go down trying than to miss out because you were too scared to try.
Think of this way: most of the time, the worst-case scenario is pretty basic:
X person you want to say yes, says no
You’ll be embarrassed
You’ll make a mistake in front of other people and ↑ or ↓ will happen
You’ll look stupid
Someone won’t like your work (whatever your craft is)
Here’s the thing, it’s likely that at least one of those things is going to happen. In fact, the likelihood is higher if this is your first time doing whatever it is you’re afraid to do. I can almost guarantee something you don’t want to happen will definitely happen. The good news: that’s not actually the worst case scenario.
The worst case scenario is not trying at all.
4. Know Your Terms
When now the now-legendary-but-at-the-time-just-a-regular-jazz-bassist, Ron Carter, was asked by Miles Davis, the godfather of jazz, to join his band on tour, he gave a surprising response:
He said no.
That’s right, a 23 year-old aspiring musician was visited by Willy f*cking Wonka and offered a palace of delicious candy and he said:
“Mr. Davis, I have a job already. I’m working with Art Farmer for the next two weeks. But if you ask Art if he’ll let me out of this gig for the next two weeks, if he says ok, then it’s ok with me. If he says no, I’ll be at the Half Moon for the next ten nights.”
It was a defining moment for Carter in his relationships with both Farmer and Davis. He showed his character to both men: he intended to keep his commitments, but he wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted.
When you know what you want, you are in a better position to negotiate in your favor.
Should the situation come down to a compromise (highly likely), you need to know your floor and ceiling measurements: what’s the lowest you’ll go and highest you want to climb. Knowing your “limits” becomes a form of leverage in negotiations.
While you don’t need to know your end goal, you do need to know what you want from specific situations if you’re going to dictate the outcome in your favor . Things like knowing your negotiation range, what you’re going to do if they say no, etc. This article about advocating for yourself at work actually applies to all other scenarios (well, maybe not the police officer one, but if you find yourself haggling with a police officer, this post probably won’t be much help to you anyway).
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5. Be ready to walk away
My path to leadership began with saying no to a job offer. The president of a startup saw my LinkedIn profile (which I hadn’t updated with my new job title), and reached out asking if I wanted to join the team. I said “No thanks, that’s not what I do anymore.”
He wrote back asking me to talk anyway. He said the role was flexible (most of them are) and would I please just hear him out.
On the call, he pitched the exact same job to me, thinly veiled with a few marketing words here and there. I said, no thanks, I’m growing my marketing career now. To which he replied, “Tell me what your ideal role would be.”
Let the negotiations commence!
In the end, we agreed on a compromise: I would build out their customer service team by hiring other people to do the job he originally pitched in addition to growing their marketing function as well, eventually focusing solely on the latter. It was a bigger role, bigger salary, and while nothing is ever as rosy as it sounds in a blog post, I got exactly what I wanted.
My next job opportunity came from an old boss I used to work with and liked a lot. But when the time came for salary negotiations, I did not let friendship and past experience influence what I asked for. The company (not my former boss) lowballed me, and I simply said no thanks. I knew exactly what my skills and experience were worth, and since the role wasn’t a significant growth opportunity, there was no reason to take a pay cut. So, I said no, even though I wanted the job.
The company remained firm on their original offer but I knew they ha, but that’s always BS, so while I was prepared for the deal to fall through, I also knew they would likely compromise, and that’s exactly what they did.
And just so you don’t think it always comes up roses, I spent months working out a deal to essentially create a standalone company/brand for this entrepreneur who in the end wanted to pay me $60,000 to do it. Yep, that shit really happens. And he was serious about it (and shockingly still running a successful business). I said no, and the deal fell through and I never, ever regretted working for a cheapskate.
Pro tip: Don’t worry if you don’t get it. Rejection is only as important as you make it. I’ve been fired twice and turned down for multiple jobs, and it hasn’t held be back in my career at all.
TELLING PEOPLE WHAT I WANT IS SCARY THO
Duh! Did you think all these know-it all blog posts written by know-it-alls like me are easy to execute? That’s just our loftiness talking, the a-hole writer’s witchcraft: we can make a steaming pile feel like a warm romantic hearth.
Being scared doesn’t make you unique. You don’t have a special condition that makes only YOU scared. And the moment you stop babying yourself and just go fall on your face a few times, the easier it gets. You’re not made of porcelain and the sooner you take yourself out of the dollhouse and make a few real life mistakes, the better you’ll be at getting your way.
Wanna hear about my trials and tribulations negotiating salary and breaking into leadership, this interview is the history of me eating my own dog food:
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