MindsetGo iCommunicate Podcast
Welcome to the iCommunicate Podcast where we develop the mindset and provide communication strategies to foster confidence, emotional intelligence, as well as organizational, team, or personal growth. Our progress and improvement is not limited to a training session; it embodies a constant cycle of self-reflection and continued learning on individual and communal levels.
MindsetGo iCommunicate Podcast
ICommunicate Radio Show #56: Self-Advocacy
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Welcome to iCommunicate on full service radio, AM 830 WCRN. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.
SPEAKER_01Happy Thursday, everyone. Good to be back. This is your host, Mark Altman. I am uh back from a road trip to Minnesota and thrilled to be back. Uh, not thrilled to be back to see the Red Sox, but uh thrilled to be back to be in this beautiful weather as I look outside today. And uh, this is I Communicate. And today, uh urine for a treat. We're gonna be talking about uh self-advocacy, and a word that we often hear with young kids and people with disabilities and people with life challenges, but very rarely do we hear about it in the workplace. And so today we're gonna talk about uh the importance of self-advocacy, uh, the strategies around advocating for yourself. And I'm excited to bring this topic to you today. So I want to start with the word itself, because the word itself actually has a pretty weird stigma to it. You know, if you think about self-advocacy, you know, people uh aren't going to walk around saying, you know what I need to do better? I need to start advocating for myself. I mean, it's not a standard conversational topic you would hear. And the true definition of self-advocacy, it's actually a very simple definition. It's the action of representing uh oneself or one's views or interests. And my question to everybody listening today is why the heck wouldn't you want to do that? Seems like a pretty obvious uh benefit to it, but that's that's just it. We're gonna talk today about what gets in the way of people wanting to advocate for themselves and the fears that go with that and how you can overcome that in the workplace. And, you know, being able to self-advocate really comes down to three simple things. It comes down to knowing yourself, knowing your needs, and knowing how to get what you need. And when we do professional training for companies, uh, one of my favorite topics is talking about the difference between assertive, aggressive, and passive. And one of the challenges with self-advocacy is uh another perception is that if you advocate for yourself, you're gonna be considered high maintenance or you're gonna be considered a complainer. And so, how can you advocate for yourself without worrying about how people will judge you and how people will receive the information you're you're asking about? And I think that's a big piece of it because if you are able to be assertive, what that means is you are able to deliver information in a way where your tone, uh, your body language, and what you're listening for. And it is so key when you're advocating for yourself that you build a template to understand that it's okay for me to speak up with my for myself, and I can't make the decision on the way the information is going to be received because you can't be responsible for others. And so such a big factor is having a template that you know is the right way and the right thing for the right situation and for the right people, and that it all starts there. Now, let me let me walk through some of the factors that can get in the way of wanting to advocate for yourself. And one of them is the life templates we receive from our family and adults. You know, who has influenced us along the way and have they set that example and modeled how to advocate for yourself, or is that frowned upon? Did your family frown upon that, or did your family judge people who do that? And that's more common than you might think. You talk about the culture in the workplace. You know, are you working in a culture where it's an open, honest environment for communication, and the leadership team and the executives at the workplace are encouraging that kind of communication. So I think those are some foundational pieces that are really important. Now, I was just recently in my travels working with a company and it was working with a sales team actually, and it was really interesting because this sales team really struggle to advocate for themselves. And what what the situation was is they have a customer base that is very demanding of them. And they kind of when that customer base says jump, they jump. And we certainly can understand that kind of behavior logic because they're paying the bills, right? The customers are the ones that pay the bills, and if you feel like you're not responsive or you don't do what a customer asks, then you fear the risk of losing that customer. But the fact of the matter is, you don't no one deserves to be walked on. And you can advocate for yourself. And so the advice I gave for the sales team is you have to set some boundaries and you have to be careful of the precedence that you set. So it's one thing to just respond when someone asks you to respond. It's another thing to understand where the response is coming from. So, for example, let's say you have a client that calls and says, you know, I need this project taken care of by tomorrow morning. And you know in your heart that it typically takes the company or yourself a couple of days to turn around that project. So this is this is a milestone moment for you because you have to make a decision. Do I let that person down? Oh no, they're the customer. I can't do that. Do I advocate for myself and set some boundaries either for this specific situation or the future? And too many people go into what we call people-pleasing mode out of fear. And so one of the challenges in this scenario I'm bringing up is I often, for my own business, when I'm servicing customers who have special requests that put a strain on myself or the company, I'll do I'll do certain things like this. I will talk to the customer and say, look, this sounds like a unique circumstance. So I'm gonna help you out this time. I'll I'll make some things happen. But I just want you to know moving forward, this is not the norm, and this is not typically how we do things. And then I send an email after the phone conversation, so there's a paper trail of this discussion. So this is a form of advocating for myself because I did do the favor, but I also set a boundary and didn't let them assume it's a precedent. Now, everybody listening has either been in a situation or known a situation. Think of when you go to a restaurant. And believe me, if you ever go out to eat meat, if you ever go out to eat with me, I am super picky. So if I go to a restaurant and I'm asking, for instance, I love chicken picata. So if I order chicken picata at the restaurant and I say I'd prefer no capers, and that restaurant does that for me, the next time I go into the restaurant, if I make that request again and the waiter-waitress says, Oh, I'm sorry we don't do that, what do you think the first thing I'm going to say is, Oh, you did it last time. How come you didn't are you not doing it this time? So one of the things about advocating that's very tricky is a lot of people struggle to advocate when they wait too long and they feel like they're in too deep, so to speak. So every opportunity you have to speak up and creating a boundary and setting a precedent, the longer you go, the harder it becomes because the pattern is more ingrained with the other person. So in the situation with this sales team, that's one example of having a phone conversation, having the email, paper trail, and setting the boundary. But what about the time you just don't want to do it in the first place? Now, one of the things I really enjoy in training individuals is a process I love to teach called root cause. And so when someone makes a request for you, human beings in many cases are very selfish and they aren't necessarily thinking of your needs when they have a request. So if someone has a unique demand that makes me uncomfortable or is going to affect my mental, emotional, or physical wellness, I simply ask, okay, well, let's talk about this. Why is the need so urgent that you need this by tomorrow morning? To which a very common reply in corporate America is, oh, well, my customer is putting a lot of pressure on me. And so their burden from their customer becomes your burden to them. To which I might respond back to them is, well, are you aware of why the customer has a big need? And have you educated your customer on what could go wrong if we expedite this process and how anytime you take people out of their comfort zone, there's more of an increase of a chance for error or disappointment or failed expectations. And so again, people, you don't know what you don't know, right? And so this is a situation where if my client can educate their client on the pros and cons of expediting this process, that's a big piece of it, number one. And number two, if my client can educate their client and understand what their process is. So for example, if a contractor calls a supplier and says, hey, I don't have enough shingles or nails for this job, what I would train the supplier to say is, okay, well, why did that happen? How did that breakdown occur in the first place? To then understand, can we build a process with people so there's a better solution moving forward? So these kind of breakdowns and expectations become fewer and far between. So when we talk about advocating for yourself, think about the words heavy, but try to put it in really simple terms, which is just how do I express my needs, my wants, my emotions in a way that I'm comfortable for myself to ask and for another person to receive the information. Now, one of the things I've been running into lately from a lot of millennials in the younger generation in the workplace is I'm hearing a lot of millennials tell me that they're struggling to express their ideas and thoughts in meetings with older generational executives. So if you think about that for a second, so what's the root cause of that? Well, the root cause is millennials are not going to feel like they have the credibility because of their age, people are going to assume certain things of them. Number two, they don't necessarily have the confidence or they haven't been empowered with the confidence to have been told their ideas and thoughts are relevant. And are they just sitting there in the meeting because they're part of the company or are they expected to have an active role? And if they are expected to have an active role, how do we create that process? So when we come back from our first break, I will continue to talk about some additional challenges in the workplace for advocating for yourself. This is Mark Altman, uh founder of Mindset Go, and you're listening to I Communicate.
SPEAKER_00Once again, here's Mark.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back, everyone. Good to be back here talking about self-advocacy. And when we left off, we were talking about millennials. So one of the challenges with millennials in the workplace is yes, are you being empowered to uh express your ideas? Do you feel like you have the credibility? Have this is one of my favorites, everybody. Have you earned the right? And I used to work with uh a former executive I used to work with. I remember he used to tell me this. He used to say, when I used to hire new people, he used to say, you know, before you ask them their opinions and advice, they need to kind of earn their way and prove themselves around here. And I never understood that because I always said, why does someone have to why can't you embrace people's thoughts and feelings from day one? I mean, certainly if they don't have a knowledge base, that could impact their ability to uh contribute to a situation, and I think that's where he was going. But at the end of the day, I'm always trying to create a culture where people feel comfortable expressing their ideas and opinions. So, you know what's funny? I'm a big sports fan. I think about often in sports. Uh, can you imagine a player on a high school or college team, or even a professional team for that matter, although ironically, we do see it in professional. But in a high school and college player, can you imagine a player going up to the coach and saying, geez, coach, I'm really frustrated, I'm not getting enough playing time? Well, they wouldn't dare. You know? They wouldn't dare do that. And why wouldn't they dare to do that? For fear of repercussion. How will the coach perceive you? Will the coach perceive that you're complaining? Will the coach perceive you're ungrateful? You know, it's it's really a high risk, low reward proposition. So now let's translate that to the workplace. If you're an employee that is feeling like you're not getting your needs met in the workplace, it's almost the same, right? Because if you're going to express a need, again, you could sound ungrateful, you could be perceived as a complainer. So one of the big questions I always like to train around in self-advocacy is when's the right time? You know, how do I know? Is this a good opportunity to speak up? Or geez, maybe I should let it go along, go go, let it go a little longer. So that's always a challenge of when to know to speak up. And so my own formula for speaking up is I just always speak up right from the get-go because it's really less about when to do it, and it's more about how prepared you are when you do do it. So, for example, here's some here's some tips and strategies. If you're sitting listening today and you're thinking, God, I don't know, like when's a good time? So here's kind of my roadmap when I'm advocating for myself, big or small. And let's face it, I I want to run the gamut for a moment before I start giving these strategies, because there is really a gamut. And the gamut could be I had plans with a friend of mine, and they canceled the plans for at the last minute. And I feel like, hey, you know, you didn't really value my time, our time together, or whatever. It could be that all the way up to people who have to advocate for really critical serious things like rape or abuse or things like that, and have to advocate and all the fear that goes along with that. So one of the things I think happens with the word self-advocacy often is people think, oh, well, if it's just disappointment with friends, you know, I shouldn't really bother. That doesn't seem really important. So here's kind of my formula, regardless of the situation, um, at least outside of rape and abuse, because of how serious those things are. The first thing I want to do is I want to understand why I need to speak up in the first place. So if I'm gonna speak up, what's happening here? Why do I feel the need? Okay, so in it, for example, let's say I got accused of something at work. I got blamed for something. Okay, so what's the need for why I need to advocate? Well, I want to defend myself, of course. It's not fair that I've been blamed. So is is that the right reason? Because I feel like I need to defend myself. And if I do feel I need to defend myself, am I going to advocate for myself in an emotional, intelligent way, or am I going to advocate for myself in a in a in a emotional way? So I think the first thing I want to do is understand why I need to speak up. The second thing I'm going to ask for is what am I hoping is different next time? Alright? So if someone has done something to upset me or wrong me, okay, what do I want what do I want to have different? And here's the problem with that. That is often a guide for when or when not to speak up. Alright? So very often when I'm training adults or kids for that matter, they say, Well, you know what, I'm not going to bother because nothing's going to change. They can't hear me. How many times have you heard someone say that, or you say it yourself? So that is often a rule we assign internally for giving ourselves permission to or not to speak up. And it's not a good rule because the second you let your inner voice talk you into not doing it, it's going to become easier and easier to rationalize not doing it. So what I say to myself is, I can't control other people. So if I feel like it's a core value of mine to speak up for my wants and needs, then I'm going to speak up. And what I don't think we often take into consideration is when we make that unilateral decision to not speak up because we say, well, it's not going to matter, they're not going to hear it, nothing's different next time, then we're letting that frustration build internally. And that can often impact our confidence with other human beings and other relationships we have. So the damage that your internal voice can play in guiding you that way can be very costly. So what am I hoping is different next time is not, is there a guarantee it will be different next time? It's what is the ask? What do I want done differently? So for the person that accuses me of something, the ask might be, hey, listen, I understand you didn't have all the facts, but would you mind, before the accusation is mine, would you mind coming to me and talking to me first just so I can share with you my perspective? So that's an example of an ask. Now, let's face it, so many people respond emotionally throughout the day and throughout life. So they might look at you in that moment and say, yeah, sure, I can relate to that, I can understand that, I'll do that. And they might walk away from you and start laughing and go, there's no way in hell I'm going to do that. Or they might intend to do that, but just not be mindful enough to do it at the time. And so I think in that situation, if every time you make the ask, if every time you speak up for what you want, if do you have a scorecard? Like are you sitting there saying, well, the last seven times I've done it, five of the times didn't matter? Or does your scorecard say, well, it worked two more times than it would have if I had said nothing all seven of those times? So it's talk about a mindset. There is a mindset of, you know, my father, I remember my father always used to say, we should all be baseball players because it's the only field you can be successful 33% of the time and be considered great at what you do. And so that's a little bit about your expectations around speaking up for yourself. If your expectations are, well, it's going to work all the time or most of the time, honestly, don't bother. Because you can't control other people. But if you have your own formula, your own process, and your own template, then you can start to get more results than you're currently getting. So we have understand why do I need to, why do I feel the need to speak up? And then what am I hoping is differently next time? Now, one of the things that's important, and this is frankly, you can use this in giving feedback, you can use this in debate, you could use this myself, is I'm going to ask, what do I anticipate that person's going to say when I say this? Especially if there's a track record of behavior with this person, if there's a track record of interpersonal communication. Now, I want to digress for one moment because that's one of the things I hear a lot in the workplace, as I just alluded to before. Well, they're not going to hear anyway. So that's such an excuse and a cop-out where you've made two or three efforts for the same person and they're not going to respond the way you want, so why bother? But it's a bigger picture than that, right? Instead of saying, why bother? Have you stopped and decided to be curious why they haven't heard you? Is it about them? Have you got them at the wrong time? Has your ask not been right in the first place? Has your tone been not as kind and receptive as you would like it to be? So even the excuse of, boy, I've tried this two or three times with the same person. So don't let the track record of the interpersonal communication impact it easy either, even though I can totally understand why that could play a role in your decision. So when I'm looking for what the next step is, we've got what am I hoping to do different next time? And now I'm trying to understand what the response is going to be. Now the response is going to be Excuse in many cases. So what excuse are they going to make? Or the response can be um shifting the blame or the responsibility to you. So here you are, you took the time to actually speak up, and now it's now it's your fault. A double whammy, okay? It's a burn. So you know the response more often than not is going to be one of those two things. So if you know that, be prepared. Anticipate that. And then more, and the way you're really prepared is to determine how you will respond prior when one of those scenarios plays out. And what's interesting about this to me is think about public speaking for a second. All right. If you were doing a big presentation, hopefully you would say, boy, I got to prepare for this. I got to review my slides. I got to review my notes. And you're going to conceivably practice yourself in front of others. That's commonplace. I mean, that's that's assumed. Whether you personally do that or not, it's assumed. But when you think of having a conversation with someone where you need to advocate for someone big or small, would you rehearse for that? Would you get yourself in an emotionally mindful place where you're thinking about what they're going to say, you're thinking about how you're going to respond, you're thinking of coping strategies on how you can control your emotions. That's my question. But you know what? The answer is typically no. There is no rehearsal for that. There is no practice for that. And listeners, let me tell you, this is one of the problems for people embracing habit change and new behaviors. That there are so many things in life that to get good at, you have to practice. But when you talk about the most fundamentally important skill, which are the things we teach at Mindset Go, it's conversation intelligence, behavior intelligence, and emotional intelligence. What's more important than being able to execute those three? So when we come back from the break, I'm going to build on that. For now, this is I Communicate. I'm Mark Altman, and we'll be back.
SPEAKER_00Once again, here's Mark. Welcome back, everybody.
SPEAKER_01Hope you're uh having a great work day today and uh getting a chance to go outside, stretch out, take a little walk, maybe during your lunch break. Uh, of course, not during the show. I want to emphasize that. Uh, the phone number to call in is uh 508-871-7000. If you want to share an experience you've had in the workplace and we could do some problem solving, please feel free to call. And as always, you can listen to tunein.com and uh WCRN AM830. So want to continue where we left off. And it's funny, a lot of times when companies call Mindset Go for engagements, I'll hear something like this in so many words. You know, we need, we're having, we're struggling with customer service. We need you to help our customer service people turn our customers and start into stark raving fans. Or they'll say, you know, can can you help my salespeople improve their habits and close better and overcome objectives? And the one I'm hearing most often these days is leadership issues around improving retention and employee engagement. And my answer is always the same. I sure can. And the way I'm going to do it is help people build their confidence, their self-esteem, their resiliency skills, and their self-advocacy skills. Because you can give people the playbook, but if they're not confident to use it, it doesn't matter. And so when I talk about the formula for advocating, one of the literally the truly first thing you should be doing is believing you deserve what you're asking for. And I had mentioned that in the top of the show, talking about knowing yourself. But are you worth it? You know, so we talked about that challenge of saying, is this a big deal? Should I really speak up? I don't know. Should you? Are you worth it? Is it going to affect you? Are you going to perseverate about it? And is it going to be in your mind frequently or often? And so having that self-esteem and belief in yourself to know that you're worth it is really where it starts. Now, the other piece to this is clarifying your ask. Because when I talked earlier about what's going to be different next time, you know, you you have to know what you're asking for because the person you're going to can't read your mind. And one of the kryptonites to advocate self-advocating is mind reading. So a lot of times when there are failed expectations, and I talk about this a lot with job descriptions. So for those of you listening who work in an office, think about the people you work with who you work for, and think about what your expectations are of them. And we're trained, we take a job, we read the job description, we get hired, and those are what our responsibilities are, and those are the qualifications we're supposed to have. However, we know that's not true. We know people have a lot more expectations. For example, I'm very big, and I know my staff is listening, and they're probably making fun of me as I'm saying this, is assertiveness. You know, I'm really big on speaking up for what you want and need, and I can't mind read. I don't, I'm happy to help, but I don't know what you want. But it's upon me to create that culture. And so a lot of people get frustrated when their needs aren't met, but they're not understanding the other person's perspective that I can't read your mind. I don't know what you want unless you ask. And there's another piece to that, by the way, is I also can't understand your perspective unless you share it. So part of advocating for yourself, it's not just on the, it's not just, you know, standing up for yourself and the other person. It's also looking in the mirror and having confidence that you deserve it. Having confidence that, or having the self-awareness and recognition to know that the other person can't read your mind, the other person can't understand your perspective unless you speak up. So confidence, self-esteem, resiliency, and self-advocacy, those are the things that are gonna drive the playbook. Now, the next thing we're gonna talk about related to this is, and this is this is something that a lot of people I find miss. It's called lessening your ask to increase your chances. So let's say you feel like you're underpaid as an example. So you're gonna go advocate for yourself, and let's say you think you deserve$10,000 more than your salary. So there's the mindset of, well, probably not gonna get 10. Might as well just reduce my ask and just ask for five and just hope I get what I get. The problem is if you lessen your ask to increase your chances, I never knew what your ask was in the first place. So if you think you're doing me a favor by lessening your ask, I'm not gonna recognize the favor because I didn't know what you ultimately wanted to begin with. Now there's another piece to that, right? The other piece is in a negotiation, for example, there's the concept of, well, I don't, I don't wanna I don't wanna ask for too much because then someone might think I'm greedy or someone might get and someone might not want to do a deal with me at all because it's just such an unreasonable starting point. And yes, that's true. I mean, that certainly can be a symptom or a criteria of different negotiations. But when you think of how that would apply, let's get off the topic of money for a moment and let's talk about another way this could play out. Okay. Um, a great influence tactic I've taught parents to use their kids, and this really speaks to it, is let's say you want the kid, your kid, your kids to do all their chores. Let's say they have five chores to do on a daily basis, and they're hemming and hawing, and you know, they don't want to do it, and they're complaining. But really, all you want them to do is clean their room, and that's the primary thing. So you might ask for more, and then they complain, they're like, all right, well, can you at least clean your room? And then, of course, the kid feels like there's a victory. So you ask there was a motive and agenda that that works for you. That's that's a good example to work for you. But when it comes to acting for yourself, let's say you have a friend who has blown you off a couple of times, and you soft pedal why it upsets you or why it frustrates you because you don't want to make a big deal of it. Well, if you lessen what you want them to do differently next time and you don't really come out and tell them how they can make it better and change the behavior, then the problem's not going to fix. So be careful not to lessen your ask because people don't know what the original ask was in the first place. Now, we were talking a bit about the mind reading, and part of the mind reading aspect is really knowing how to take stock of what's working and what isn't. And how do you do that? How do we do a self-assessment to really take a step back and say, all right, well, this might be on me or this might be on them, or maybe it's this part that isn't working. And this is an area people really struggle with. And it's really kind of funny because I've alluded to this a few times on past shows that a lot of times when I talk to sales executives and they say, okay, well, if we hire you, what's the ROI on our investment going to be? And they say, you know, how much more revenue are we going to add? I said, I couldn't tell you because the the ROI for sales training depends on a lot of factors. It depends on is there a continuous learning element? It depends on is the leadership team going to carry forward what we've done in the training. And so what I always say is the way you can assess great sales training is you listen to the phone calls, you watch the conversations, you watch the presentations, and if they become that much more confident and effective after the sales training, that's how you can really tell. But adding or subtracting revenue, that could happen in spite of or because of what I do. So when it comes to assessing, if you're one of those people that says, hey, I've tried that, it doesn't work, what didn't work? That's when you need your self-assessment template to say, okay, wait a minute, let me see what didn't work. You know what? Come to think of it, I let myself get a little too emotional that time. So I don't know if that's a really good indicator of the success. You know what? I grabbed someone in between meetings, so they were already kind of impatient in a rush, so they probably weren't in a good place to hear what I had to say. Uh boy, I didn't really take the time to clarify what my ask and what the behavior change I wanted was. So maybe that's why the behavior didn't change. There could be a lot of factors. But to be able to, it's one thing to be able to assess what didn't work. It's another thing to stop and mindfully say to yourself, I need to assess why it didn't work. And by the way, it's not always going to be your fault. Sometimes it could be because you didn't do one of those things, sometimes it could be because the other person's just irrational or unreasonable. But that's what you have to figure out. You have to have a process, a template, an understanding for why to do something. And if you're one of those people who has been raised and has a life template where you're not really comfortable advocating for yourself, I would encourage you to think about the people who taught you that and maybe give some thought to how that's impacted them negatively over the course of their life. I mean, I can't tell you how many couples I run into that will say, you know, we've been together 20 years and it's really sucked, but we thought it we should stay together. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time someone said something like that, and I say to myself, when I hear that, I'm like, well, did it have to really suck? Because I'm wondering if there's conversations you could have had along the way, maybe it would have sucked a little less. And so I think there's there's an element of what do you want to accept as a human being? What are your standards? You know, what are the things that you're willing to say, you know what? I am willing to accept this and I'm not willing to accept that. And those are typically driven by our core values, right? But we don't walk around every day so saying it's like it's like I was joking about, wait a minute, that doesn't fit my core value of integrity. You know, we don't talk like that. We don't say things like that. So it's not that it has to be so explicit of you're talking to yourself about your core values on a daily basis, but you do have to have some standards. And if you would have, you know, do you have standards of the people you work with? Do you have standards of the people you work for? Do you have standards of the people that are friends of yours or significant others? But the most important question is do you have standards of yourself and for yourself? And that's where it's all going to start. Everything starts from your own standards. So, you know, as we continue to explore this, you know, the last piece of this before we head into break is something you a term you only hear in sales and marketing, it's called the call to action. So what are the next steps? When you do advocate for yourself, are you just crossing your fingers and thinking, you know what, they said okay, they shook their head and they validated what I said and they acknowledged it, or do we have a plan? Is there a commitment being made? And if the person violates that commitment, do you have permission to call them on it in a respectful kind way? So I think the call to action of, you know, the roadmap of how the problem's going to fix, how they're going to be more considerate in the future, the permission you have to speak up and advocate for yourself, it doesn't, if it doesn't. And all of those are steps to the call to action. Now, this process, before we go into our last break, this process I just shared with you, if you would like a copy of this process that you want to use in your workplace, or if you want to talk to us about culture building or leadership or engagement training, uh, you can reach out at uh info at mindsetgo.com or call 978-206-1535, and we can certainly at least give you have an initial conversation on ways that you know we can support you and you can support your team. So we're gonna go into our uh final break, and uh, this has been I Communicate. I'm your host, Mark Altman, and we'll be right back.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to i Communicate with your host, Mark Altman, on Full Service Radio AM 830 WCRN. Once again, here's Mark.
SPEAKER_01Okay, welcome back, everybody. Final segment here on uh i Communicate about self-advocacy today, or really in just English terms, just speaking up for your wants and needs and ideas. And in this final segment, you know, I'm gonna tackle something a little different. And I want to start before I get into this. It's about getting second opinions. And before I get into it, I just want to share that, and this is the God's honest truth, I can't tell you how many times I have done any of the following, such as make special requests at a restaurant, such as ask if there's discounts or opportunities for better pricing. And here's two things that I've taken away from this. It makes people so uncomfortable. Like I just noticed, like if I'm out to dinner and I want, you know, a certain dressing on my salad, or I want no croutons or whatever, and I think to myself, boy, why is that making you uncomfortable? It's like I'm speaking up for I want to enjoy my dinner, I want it exactly the way I want. And then I think about when I've done negotiations over the course of my career, and I think about just asking, can you do any better? Just think about that for a second. The question is, hey, could you do any better? Now, if you were going into a store, let's say you were going into a Best Buy or something like that, and you were buying a TV, I bet the majority of you listening would say, Well, I wouldn't ask because you don't negotiate the price of a TV. But you would with a car, right? Because with a car, it's understood there's a negotiation process. So apparently the world has rules. The rules are that if there's an established societal negotiation process, then you can speak up. If there isn't, you need to keep quiet. Go to Europe, go to go to Asia. Bartering is an understood way of life. So why do we let why do we let other people's rules dictate ours? So, hey, the next time you go buy a TV, say, hey, I was wondering if you have any room on this. What's the worst they can say? Geez, unfortunately not. But you know what? That's not the worst they can do. Here's what gets in the way. Because I know what gets in the way. What gets in the way is judgment. Can you imagine that salespeople, salesperson looks at you and says, How dare you? What do you mean? You can't negotiate a TV and then you feel stupid because the person rolls their eyes at you or makes a gives you some kind of body language or some kind of response that makes you feel stupid for asking. So we're making a unilateral decision at that point. Do we want to risk being judged or made to feel stupid, or do we want to speak up in the hopes of accomplishing something? So I'll ask you, and I am in this case going to put it in financial terms. So how much of a discount would you like to get to risk feeling stupid? Is it is it worth$100? Is it worth$500? But unfortunately, this is the thought process in that it's too painful to risk getting judged versus the reward of the ask. And so I'm gonna the last thing I want to cover on the show today, which is something every single person out there can relate to, is the second opinion. So you go to a doctor, and it's your doctor who you've gone to for years, and the doctor says, Geez, I think you're gonna need surgery. And so what do most of us do? Okay, well, you're the doctor, you know what you're doing, so I'm just gonna get the surgery. What would happen if you went and got a second opinion? Well, there's a lot of work. You gotta find someone to go get a second opinion for. It could be kind of a hassle. I mean, it's only your body and your health at stake, so don't put too much effort into it. So think about it for a moment. There are so many people who will just take a doctor's word as gospel. Doctors make mistakes all the time. I hate to break the news to you. And not because they're incompetent, because they're human. All humans make mistakes. So why wouldn't we get a second opinion? How about how about a contractor or a plumber or an electrician that's doing work on our house? You know, would you go get a second opinion for that? Well, you know, the mindset is typically when we go get second opinions, it can be for your health, it could be for a quote. But how about if the recommendations that are being made in the first place are the right actual recommendations? So if you think about advocating for yourself and a second opinion, again, is it, geez, I don't want to question this person because they're really nice and I've always had a good relationship and I don't want to get back to them or wait a minute, this is a surgery. I'm not taking this lightly. Wait a minute, this is my house, this is my home. If something happens to this or something goes wrong, what could really happen here? And so I look at the ability to advocate for yourself in a second opinion scenario as really a microcosm of why people truly struggle to ask for those second opinions. And it really is hard to go against what an expert says. But for all the adults out there listening, I want you to think about something for a moment. Think about if your children are in college and getting jobs and people make recommendations to them. What would you suggest? What would be the advice you give them? Would you uh would you tell them to take everybody's word as gospel? Would you give them a process or a formula when to question and when not to question? And and notice how I phrase that. When to question. It sounds so argumentative. It sounds like you're gonna have a debate or an uh a conflict with someone. Again, questioning doesn't have to be an argument in a conflict, it can just be a question. Trust me, I can ask the qu I can ask questions to you in the nicest way humanly possible. One of my favorite quotes, I'm I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this on the show before. One of my favorite quotes ever is from Winston Churchill who said, Tact is telling someone to go to hell and having them enjoy the trip. And I gotta tell you, that's the art of asking questions. You know, speak up for what you want and need, ask the questions in a way that's kind, respectful, with the right tone, with the right body language, and you've done your job. And you can't control other people's templates and other people's judgment. Maybe those same people who are giving you rolling their eyes and giving you a dirty look are doing though doing so because the last time they tried, that was done to them. And so they're resentful and jealous that you had the courage and confidence to speak up for yourself. It could be that. So I I think I think what it really comes down to is it's a simple equation. It comes down to three things motivation, fears, and benefits. Are you motivated to speak up for what you want to need? What are the standards you have for yourself? Second is what's holding you back? Can you identify the root cause of what's getting in your way? And third are what are the benefits to doing it? And again, I want to reiterate in the final moments of the show today that the benefits are not dictated by the results. Because the results are your inner voice, what you hold inside. So if you can justify that you believe in yourself and it's meaning to meaningful to you, then it's worth it. So knowing yourself, knowing your needs, and knowing how to get what you need. And again, I said it at the top of the show as well. This is why we built our entire training and coaching program around conversation intelligence, right? Which is how to get how to ask, okay, to emotional intelligence, which is the confidence to believe in yourself, okay, and behavioral intelligence, which is the mindfulness to know your needs and to be aware of your needs. So thank you for joining us for another edition of I Communicate. And uh please, if you have any other additional questions or have any thoughts, again, email me at maltman at mindsetgo.com. Uh, thank you to our wonderful producer Ted who rocks. And stay tuned for our upcoming show with Frankie Boyer. I'm Mark Altman, and we'll see you next week.
