One of my jobs while living in Europe was that of a tour manager. I would take busloads of people to lots of places including Cologne, Brussels or Germany’s Rhine Valley.
During one trip to Paris, a nervous man in his mid-20s joined the city tour with his girlfriend. I was getting a little suspicious of this couple until half way through the tour he pulled me aside and said “I want to propose to Judy at the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
Now, if you’ve ever been to Paris, you’ll know that the line-ups to get on the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower are at least 2 hours long. Unfortunately, as we were right in the middle of a city tour, we only had about 15 minutes.
As a tour manager, I had a special identification badge which could help speed things up, but there was never a way to jump the queue to the top of the Tower.
Well, long story short, Mike and Judy did get to the top where she said YES!
This chain of successes happened because each one of us, despite being hesitant or skeptical, asked for what we wanted. Mike asked me, I asked the security guards at each level of the Tower and finally Mike asked Judy for her hand.
We didn’t let our initial assumptions of failure stop us. And we kept going until we either got the result or had exhausted all the options.
Action – What have you stopped pursuing simply because you think it might fail? Who can you ask for help?
If you’re going to make any assumption at all, assume what you want WILL happen, not the other way around.
(What assumption of failure have you made recently that stopped you from asking for what you wanted? Please leave your reply in the comments box.)