Asking is Always FREE! - A Lesson from my Father - BENEFICIAL TRANSACTIONS! - 061

and that my father knew that involving the other individual merely through the context of asking allows for relationships to be built so that everyone can win. I've built many startups, most of them the fail. So Bitcoin is exactly the place that I like to be. We're gonna end it right there. Ask and you shall receive. Ask and you shall receive. I'm sure many of you guys out there have heard this quote in many different contexts and I'm here to tell you that it's probably more true than not, at least from my experience. You see, asking is such a powerful, powerful idea. And when I was writing some notes down about this, this quote came to mind from my father. And my father had said this many, many times throughout my younger years growing up and I'm telling you it certainly is true. My father said

to us as we were young kids, he would always say this. He would say, asking is always free. Asking is always free. You know, I'll never forget this. I think this is one of the many quotes that my father has instilled in us, at least for me. And I don't know about my other siblings, but at least for me, it was one of those quotes that really, really stuck. I really stuck. I found this idea, this idea of asking to be such a powerful, powerful thing. It really is. And I would go as far as to say, not that I know the mind of my father, but I would go as far as to say that my father truly understood the value of asking, having started at a company, literally counting nails on a conveyor belt to moving all the way up the chain over

many, many, many years, 30 plus years to be quite frank. He knew, my father knew the secret of asking. He really did. He knew the secrets of asking. There was a humility, and this is something I wrote down here. There's a humility in asking. And my father absolutely being one of the best examples of humility in life. I mean, he exuded this. He would always ask. He never was afraid of engaging with an individual. And I think, and I wrote these ideas down, I think my father knew that with this humility of taking every opportunity to ask, merely ask. Because remember, asking is always free. Given the context, depending on the context, it gives the receiver the opportunity to see two particular things. Number one, they can see that maybe you have enough humility because you need help. You're asking. You need help. You need

someone to help you out. A different context would be they could see that you're assertive that you're not some wet blanket, some wet noodle, that you're assertive in asking for what you want, asking for opportunities. You see, what is so great about the asking idea? And you can ask anyone anything, anytime in this world. And I think this is really powerful is that by asking you involve the other individual in a mutually beneficial transaction, or relationship. And I know this might sound a little deep here, but I think it's essentially true. That whenever you ask someone else, you engage with them beyond the transaction. You engage with them beyond just the handing over of money. You engage with them more than just the simple things that you're supposed to do in that conversation. It is involving them in something deeper, especially if you're asking for

the other individual in a mutually beneficial transaction, or relationship. And I know this might sound a little deep here, but I think it's essentially true. That whenever you ask someone else, you engage with them beyond the transaction. You engage with them beyond just the handing over of money. You engage with them more than just the simple things that you're supposed to do in that conversation. It is involving them in something deeper, especially if you're asking for help. Depending on the context of the conversation, if you're asking them for help, then it gives them an opportunity to respond. They can say, well, you know, I can't help you here, or maybe I can, or if maybe there's someone else that can help you. Now, whenever someone says, maybe they can't help you, one of the next questions you should ask is, hey, is there someone that

can? And this is really, really, really powerful. Again, depending on the context, by asking merely a question to the receiver, you're involving them in a mutually beneficial transaction or relationship. Now, I'm going to give you a simple example. And I hope this helps you guys out in life. I'm always asking when it comes to the simple transactions of life. I'll give you an example whenever I go to a coffee shop. One of the things that I always ask for is a Grande in a venti cup, a Grande in a venti cup. Now, for those that are a little bit knowledgeable and experienced in the coffee world, you know that the real difference between a Grande and a venti is just the amount of milk they put in there. And what's great every time I ask this guy's, please try using this, it always works. Every

time I ask for a Grande in a venti cup, I end up paying for a Grande and I get way more milk. I get way more milk and if they don't give me a lot of milk, then I can just go over to the little bar and fill it up with milk, fill it up with whole milk, fill it up with half and half, fill it up with whatever I want. And this is one of those opportunities that it's beneficial for you. You win by merely asking, you pay it less for something that you get more of. And it's simple. And sometimes, even during this transactions, very simple transaction, I get a smile from the receiver because they know what I'm doing. They know what I'm up to. They know the game. They know I'm a, they know I'm bust in the, hey, I want

to pay for this, but I want to get a little bit more. And sometimes, just sometimes, it makes their day. It does. And sometimes it sparks up a conversation. I can even remember conversations at a Starbucks. When I asked for a Grande and a venti cup and I remember the sales associate on the other end going, oh, really man, is that what you're doing? Any crack to smile? And I was like, look, hey, can you give me a Grande and a venti cup? And the guy was like, yeah, we can do that. And it was just one of those moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a simple transaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just getting a little bit more uu, a little bit more milk in my cup. But it was a moment for him to just crack out of the norm. Crack out of the normal

smile? And I was like, look, hey, can you give me a Grande and a venti cup? And the guy was like, yeah, we can do that. And it was just one of those moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a simple transaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just getting a little bit more uu, a little bit more milk in my cup. But it was a moment for him to just crack out of the norm. Crack out of the normal processes of, you know, transacting and having these customers come by and align and pay, it gives him an opportunity for some human conversation, some human interaction. And maybe I'm thinking too much and maybe I'm going too far here. But I would go as far as to say that I bet I just made that moment in his life just a little bit better. Because what could have been

simply and merely a transaction became an opportunity for conversation. And a conversation of a little bit of brevity, lifting it up, cracking a smile, having a moment. You see, you guys know I'm all about good juju. I love spreading good juju. I love spreading positive thinking. I love spreading positive thoughts. And I love blessing other people as much as I can wherever I go. And so these are opportunities for me asking questions to merely just step in just a little bit into the life and hopefully make it a little bit better. But when it comes to a different context, like say that you're on the other end of the sales side, depending on the context, asking questions can involve the other individual in a mutually beneficial transaction or relationship. And for me, this is how I succeeded. And there's many reasons why I succeeded as

a consultant. But this I'm telling you guys was a powerful, powerful thing that I took from my father asking for more, asking to open up doors, asking for opportunities. I did this as a consultant all the time, especially whenever I got into selling my services as a consultant, as a product development consultant, as an agile and engineering consultant to clients. I always asked no matter what the meeting, no matter what the meeting could have been, let's just give you, I'll give you an example. Let's just say we're having a great conversation. They've heard some things about me. They've read maybe their CIO, their CTO or their CEO read one of my books and said, hey, you know, this guy, Peter, he knows what he's talking about. Let's have a first conversation with him and see whether we could use his services with our development team

and help us build our products and services faster. And so during this introduction call, there was always, you know, one, two or three executives or leaders or managers or directors or what have you on the call. And I'm on the other end. And one of the questions, one of the questions I always brought up guys, and this is really powerful, especially if you're a consultant out there or you're in any type of role of selling, is I always asked at the beginning of the conversation, hey, who else needs to be here? Who else needs to be part of this conversation? And what that did for me, obviously as you can probably imagine, it had them pause. Maybe there was someone else who needed to be a part of this conversation. Maybe there was someone else that could benefit from this conversation. Another question that I

or you're in any type of role of selling, is I always asked at the beginning of the conversation, hey, who else needs to be here? Who else needs to be part of this conversation? And what that did for me, obviously as you can probably imagine, it had them pause. Maybe there was someone else who needed to be a part of this conversation. Maybe there was someone else that could benefit from this conversation. Another question that I asked a lot as a consultant is, who should I speak to next? Who should I speak to next? Now, we might have just had a great conversation talking about how I can help them with their development, how I can help with their organizational design, how I can help them with optimizing their processes and these types of things. But at the end of it, I always made sure

to ask, hey, who should I speak to next? Who should I engage with next? Who can could benefit from the conversations that we had today so that we can help you as the client expand the value that you're spending on me out to even more people? You see, asking these types of questions when it pertains to the context of relationships is so powerful. You see, work just doesn't get done. Let me be fundamentally clear here, guys, when it comes to work, it just doesn't get done without other people. And people love being involved, especially when it comes to improving things, especially when it comes to helping out, especially when there's some sort of mutually beneficial transaction or opportunity that we have invited them into merely by asking the question. And one of the things that I loved about being a consultant after we had connected

with a new person, our new individual, is I would generally begin these types of conversations with, hey, during my conversation with, you know, XCTO and YCIO, I asked them, who should I speak to next? And guess what? Your name came up, and that's why we're having this conversation now. So how can I help you? Asking guys is always free. Please don't forget this. It's always free in every situation. And obviously, the most negative outcome, if you want to look at it from a positive and negative standpoint, obviously, the most negative outcome is they could say, no, so what? Who cares? As you get better at asking great questions, like who needs to be here? Who do I need to talk to next? Who else should be part of this conversation? Who else could be, should I, should, who else needs to hear this message? How

else can I help? Is there anything else that I can do? Right, when you ask these types of questions, they open up doors that you never imagined were there. Remember work just doesn't get done. It gets done with the multiplicity of people, multiple people working together, especially when you're working in an enterprise or any type of enterprise period. You have to work with other people and you want to ask questions to involve them. It opens up opportunities for you that you never knew were there. Yeah, it opens up doors. It opens up opportunities. It opens up conversation for you to delve deeper in. Especially if you're a consultant to provide more value and more help. Now, certainly I can take this even farther this idea of asking, but asking is a great way of understanding the needs of other people, understanding the needs of your

want to ask questions to involve them. It opens up opportunities for you that you never knew were there. Yeah, it opens up doors. It opens up opportunities. It opens up conversation for you to delve deeper in. Especially if you're a consultant to provide more value and more help. Now, certainly I can take this even farther this idea of asking, but asking is a great way of understanding the needs of other people, understanding the needs of your clients, understanding the needs of your users, understanding the needs of your community, understanding the needs of your people, asking questions allows you to understand more deeply how you could provide value to them and speak into their lives so that you can build up a relationship and have mutually beneficial transactions, mutually beneficial wins on all sides. Sometimes I merely use questions to continue the conversation so that I

can understand more. It's a great way not only, let's be honest, in some ways, it's not only a great way to eat up time, but it's a great way to dig deeper to make sure that you have a firm grasp. Hey, do I understand this right? From what I hear, you're saying, I'm hearing X, Y and Z is this correct? These types of questions will avail you so much more information so that you can make informed decisions on how to benefit from that transaction or relationship. I'll tell you an example of where I asked, just recently, and I wrote this down and it made me chuckle. It made me chuckle. You see, my son has been getting into go-carding and we got him a brand new junior card, brand new junior card with a two stroke engine. And over the first two days, over the

first two days of coaching, he had already maxed out, maxed out, the top speed of that two stroke engine on that junior card. It was fundamentally clear. The coach came up to us after day one, he said, man, he's ready, man, he's natural. He's got all the thing. I mean, you know, this is a proud, opa moment. A proud moment for me is a dad to be able to say, oh yeah, I mean, you got it from his dad, duh. But the real reality is he's been in the cars ever since day one. And we got him into driving electric, you know, little sit-along cars at age two. So he's been driving. He's known how to do this for a long time. All that to say is that he had already maxed out the total power and the max speed of this two stroke engine

and it already utilized all the capabilities of this junior card by day two, coaching day two. So what did I do? I'm smart enough to know that there's opportunity to move up and clearly the coach wants to move up and this means that we need to buy him a four stroke engine, a L-O-206 engine. We need to buy him a a cadet cart. We need to move him up to the next level because he's already maxed out. I've already spent a significant amount of money on this brand new two stroke and this brand new junior card. I don't want to be buying another one. So I merely asked the question. It was this simple. I said, hey, I would love. I know that we just put some time, maybe put some time, not miles. Maybe he did put a couple of miles on that thing.

him up to the next level because he's already maxed out. I've already spent a significant amount of money on this brand new two stroke and this brand new junior card. I don't want to be buying another one. So I merely asked the question. It was this simple. I said, hey, I would love. I know that we just put some time, maybe put some time, not miles. Maybe he did put a couple of miles on that thing. But we put a couple hours on the engine. We've put a couple hours obviously on the chassis. But man, I would hate to have to buy a new one and then put this one on the secondary market. Would it be possible to upgrade to the next cadet with the next four stroke engine that you as a coach know that he needs? Is it okay that we move

up to the next one and would it be possible to get credit for the two days of use of the previous chassis and the two stroke engine? And guess what happened guys? They said yes. They gave us. This is so powerful. This is so cool man. They gave us the full value of the junior card. A used value of the engine because the engine is a little bit different than the chassis I suppose. They gave us credit so that we could not have to spend all this brand new money on a new card that they gave us credit from the previous junior card so that we could purchase the cadet card and move up to the next level so that my son could get to the next level of his carding career or a carding fund. Whatever you want to call it. Guys, this saved

me over $3,000 for merely asking the question. I was talking with my wife and I was kind of really excited about this and really feeling triumphant right over saving this $3,000 plus on this upgraded card. And I was talking with my wife and I said, hey, you know, there's so many people that would not have asked that question. They were looked at the coach, kind of gone internal in their mind and they're like, dead gone and now I got to upgrade to this new card. What am I going to do with this old card? You know, now I got to put on a secondary market. Now, if you don't have this idea, that asking is always free, that asking is always free, then you'll never, you'll never know if you could get something that's beneficial to you. You could win today. You could feel good.

It feels good to get your way. It feels good to ask and receive. And if I'm intellectually honest, let's be honest here. The coach on the other end of this was happy to to supply us with such a great opportunity because it means for him that he gets to keep coaching us. It means for him that he keeps an established relationship with us. We feel good about the next progression of my son's card and career. He feels good that he's going to continue to be able to coach my son. There's no bad juju. Everybody wins. Now, obviously, we can go back to the organizational part of this and have, you know, maybe some director or some man's ruby like, what did you do? You give him credit for a two-day use card. It's like, well, that's on them. That's on them to decide whether the

the next progression of my son's card and career. He feels good that he's going to continue to be able to coach my son. There's no bad juju. Everybody wins. Now, obviously, we can go back to the organizational part of this and have, you know, maybe some director or some man's ruby like, what did you do? You give him credit for a two-day use card. It's like, well, that's on them. That's on them to decide whether the relationship with me is worth the $3,000. They could, hell, they could come back to me tomorrow, or they'd come back to me the next day and be like, you know what, we gave it another thought and we don't want to give you $3,000 credit plus for this. We want you to pay the whole price. Now, would I be salty? Be a little salty. Is that within their,

that within their means? Is it there, are they allowed to do that completely? But they know and I know it would put a little bit of a shade on what we're doing here. And we don't want to do that. We want to mutually win for everyone's benefit. Guys, asking is always free. Asking is always free and I would ask you today. And as we as you move forward in life, continue to keep that on your mind. Where can you ask for more? Where can you ask for more help? Where can you ask for something? Where can you just merely practice? And I think this is a good discipline to be honest. Where can you practice the discipline of asking in humility so that everyone can win? Guys, my father knew the secrets of asking. He knew that it was a, it was putting yourself in

a position of humility. It was putting in your position where you are asking for them to respond to help or to see that you are assertive. And that my father knew that involving the other individual merely through the context of asking allows for relationships to be built so that everyone can win. So my question to you today, guys, is where are you going to ask? And let us know in the comments. See you guys there.