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Lessons - The Things You Want But Won't Ask For (Scott) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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