Every day I am besieged with requests.

“Dad, can I borrow your SUV to move some furniture?”

“Would you please donate $5.00 to (fill in the blank)?”

“Would you and your fiancé like to join us for dinner on Saturday evening?”

In order to simplify my life I have learned to classify each request into specific categories, and I’ve developed a logical process for each category based on my patterns and preferences.  Here are four examples.

1. Requests from family. My bias is always to say “yes” to a request from a family member, so that is where I start.  If my daughter asks for money for a new dress I’ll say “yes” (unless I have a good reason not to).  If my fiancé asks me to pick up half-and-half at the grocery store on my way home, my first thought is always “yes.”  After that, of course, I might remember that she drove me into work in the morning and I don’t have my car at the office.
2. Requests for a political or charitable donation. My bias is to say, “Maybe.”  Then I think about the specific recipient and often say “no.” If my answer is “yes,” I’ll determine the amount I’m comfortable donating.  If my answer is still a “maybe” then I’ll ask for additional time to consider the request, or for additional information. But when I remember that my “maybe” is a temporary “no” unless it becomes a “yes,” I’m tempted to change my “maybe” into a quick “no,” because then I won’t have to spend more time thinking about it.
3. Requests for a social or business appointment. My bias is “no,” since I would rather spend evenings at home and days at my desk dealing with emails or questions from coworkers.  Once I get past my initial “no,” however, I often end up at “yes, I’d be happy to.”
4. Requests to make an investment. First I look for reasons to say “yes.”  If I can’t find enough reasons for “yes” then my answer is “no.”  If my preliminary answer remains a “yes,” then I look for reasons to say “no.”  This process not only helps me find good investments with my “yes” test, it also helps me weed out losing investments with my “no” filter.  Of course, my investment system is not perfect.  Just look at my dismal record of stock investments.  (My process has worked far more successfully in real estate.)

When you think about all of the requests you receive each day – from your children, your life partner, or at work — you might find, as I have, that they fall into a few major categories.  Like me, you can save both time and brain power when you simplify your reply process based on your own personal patterns and preferences.

Yes?

No?

Maybe?

Alan

I arrived at the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the early afternoon of a pleasant Sunday in June. I was sixteen years old.  After my adventure of flying alone, and riding a subway/elevated train in an unknown city all by myself, I found my dorm and checked into the room where I would spend the next five weeks.  I was participating in a national five-week summer speech program for high school juniors.

A few of the guys had arrived before me and were throwing a football around on the grass between the dorm and Lake Michigan.  I was large.  By that I mean fat — five feet seven inches tall and over two hundred pounds heavy.

“I’ll bet you play on your high school football team,” one of them said. My priority at that moment was to fit in rather than be honest.

“Sure.  I’m a lineman,” I heard myself say.  “Third string, all city.”

Before I could retreat to the relative safety of my room he said, “Great!  Now we have enough players for a touch game.  You’re on my team.”

“Oh, shit!” I thought. “Sure!”  My traitor mouth said.

But I was on the debate team, not the football team.  Even so, my first fib had led to another, then to a whopper, and there I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

On the first play of our “touch” game I lined up to the right of the center.  As soon as he snapped the ball I was knocked flat on my back by the player lined up opposite me.   He was smaller than me, but at the time I had no idea he was an all-state guard on his high school team in Tennessee.

I smiled apologetically, lined up again, and for the second time landed on my butt, looking up at a fuzzy sun.

The third play was different from the first two in one significant respect.  I didn’t get up.  My right thigh was burning, and my leg had disconnected from my mind.  The leg refused to work.  I couldn’t move it.

My memory of what followed is foggy.  I somehow ended up in the campus infirmary, and after a painful examination by someone in a white jacket I learned that I had torn a ligament. I was given a few pills and told to stay off my feet for a few weeks, “maybe longer.”

The next five weeks were a torment.  Classes were at the other end of campus.  Fortunately, someone loaned me a bicycle.  It would take me a few minutes to painfully place myself on the seat, then close to half an hour to propel myself, with only my left leg, to the other end of campus.  Using the pedals was out of the question.

Obviously, I survived.  I even won an award in discussion, which many of my classmates regarded as a wimpy event.  I had a girl-friend, Becky from Indiana, but only for two weeks, because she got tired of my limping along behind her and she stopped talking to me.

Did I learn my lesson?  Am I now willing to risk rejection by speaking my mind?

I’m still working on it.

But as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, wrote, “When I was a boy they called me a liar.  Now they call me a writer.”

Actually, my football career didn’t really last a full five minutes.  It was more like three and a half.

Alan

When I was a kid I wanted to be President of the United States.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with this ambition.  As an adult I realized that to become President I’d have to:

1. Meet and connect with a lot of people.
2. Remember names and faces.
3. Fundraise.
4. Spend many evenings away from home.
5. Have my private life constantly scrutinized and broadcast to the entire world.

I’m not very good and #1 and #2 and I don’t like #3, #4, or #5, so I’m happy that I never acted on that particular priority.

While making money was one of my priorities, at some point I decided that I was not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to compete with those who wanted to become a billionaire.  I knew I would need to ignore many other aspects of my life until I was retired, and I didn’t want to do that.

Years ago, however, I told a friend that she could become a millionaire.

“How?” she asked.

“You would have to work every Saturday and every other Sunday for fifteen years, then save and invest every weekend dollar you made.”

“Every Saturday?  Every other Sunday?  No thanks.  I don’t want to work that hard.”

But some people are willing to put in the time. Sprite knew in the seventh grade that she wanted to help people by becoming a journalist.  She won her first speech contest in the sixth grade.  She was willing to start at a minimal salary in a small TV market and move around the country every year or two as better jobs became available.  She was willing to work on weekends, early mornings, and late evenings.  She sometimes had to take her daughter into work when there was breaking news.  In short, Sprite did whatever it took to succeed on the highest level.  Ultimately she became a network anchor on both ABC and NBC.

I asked her, “Was it difficult?”

“No.  I had a calling.  I knew I would do whatever I needed to in order to be the journalist I wanted to be.”

Will you succeed?  That depends entirely on you.  First you have to figure out what you want to succeed at.  Then you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.

When Barack Obama hired David Plouffe to be his campaign manager he asked David, “Do I have to campaign all the time?  Can I go home on weekends?”

“Sure,” David said.  “If you don’t want to win.”

In a newspaperk article recently I read the story of an immigrant couple who wanted to save money to pay for their son to go to college when he was eighteen.  To raise what was needed they worked six nights a week for more than a decade, scavenging through dumpsters for recyclables. They were able to pay for their son to attend an Ivy League school because they were willing to do whatever it took.

You can succeed.  You will succeed.

As long as you’re willing to do whatever it takes.

Alan

P.S.  I think that anyone who wants to be President is a little crazy.