First published 19 October 2020 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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For episode 100 I got to Nigel's house at ten to ten. He put it on Facebook as proof. Ninety-nine episodes of him ribbing me for being late, and he used my one good morning to build the whole show around the idea that people can change. Even me.
Nigel runs a session for an unemployed group he's worked with for 19 years, and it starts at 9:59 and 59 seconds. Miss it and you're not in, even on Zoom. Under the jokes there's a real point. When we expect something of ourselves we quietly expect it of everyone else, then get cross when they don't do it. Most of the time they had no idea.
Which led us, as these things do, to restaurants. I told the story of Giraffe bringing my daughter's food before ours because it was their policy, and me asking them to bring her a bit more when ours came, because we like to eat together. Nigel's local Greek restaurant owner remembered him from years back and followed him to the table with hot pitta bread. He waited 35 minutes for his starter and didn't notice.
Then Nigel offered me £1,000 if I could guess one of his favourite business books. I couldn't. It's The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield, about asking for what you want. At one of Jack's seminars in Santa Barbara in 1997, 200 people had to ask each other for things, and the tenth ask always got a yes. The ones who didn't want to hear no ended up standing round the edges of the room.
My bit near the end was about trading expectation for appreciation. Someone turns up at 10:02. You can have a go at them, or be glad they're only three minutes late. Nigel called my analogy shite and then agreed with it.
My notes from this one
- Tell people what you expect. They can't meet a standard they've never heard about.
- If something someone does bugs you, say so before it turns into resentment.
- Don't give up after the third or fourth ask. Just don't drive the client mad either.
- When someone does something for you that wasn't quite what you meant, thank them anyway.
- When someone says "it doesn't matter", they might be telling you they don't feel they matter.
Let's not be scared of the word no, because if everyone says yes, you're either too cheap or you're asking the wrong questions.
Nigel Risner
I think sometimes we need to trade expectation for appreciation.
Neil Martin
