Ask for what you want.

In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” There is a power in asking.

Picture my wife April and I driving down the road. I look behind me once and then again. She feels a tinge of frustration.

“Are you trying to get over,” she asks?
“Yes,” I reply.
“Do you have your turn signal on so they know you want to get over?”

It seems silly, but we walk around in our lives acting as though the people around us and the Universe already know what we want. We’re all adults and we’ve learned that simply asking doesn’t get us everything we want in life. It gets us a lot more, though, than not asking and expecting the world to somehow infer our intentions and wants.

Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.” Failing to ask is failing to shoot.

Power hack: Use these seven power words up the power of the ask. The goal is not to control others. The goal is to make your asking for what you want as powerful as it can be.

In the video above, Kevin Hogan mentions the research of Dr. Ellen Langer. Here’s more information on the power both of asking and, specifically, of adding the word because.

Then there’s the work of Dr. Robert Chialdini. He’s studied the universal principles that persuade people to say yes. We’ll get into these in more detail in a future blog. For now, watch his very popular video overview of the topic. You’ll definitely pick up some things you can use right away.

There’s no question that asking ups your chances of getting what you want in life and how you ask influences the response. It appears that asking is the key to receiving.

Stay inspired!

Ray

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