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The Answer is Always No Unless You Ask

It’s a simple adage that some people never really get the hang of. Sometimes all you need to do is ask, and you will get help from the strangest places. More simply, the answer is always no unless you ask .

I have tried to get this point across to my kids, but there seems to be a great deal of trepidation from the young folks about looking stupid or worse still being denied something they want. If they ask for it (so a lot of times they just don’t ask).

Answer is always no unless you ask
The Answer

A great example of this arose a while ago. My daughter had missed the deadline to get a bursary from her sports club. She had been a member of the club for 7 years. The bursary was for staying with the club and going off to University. We were sure this bursary money had been given to somebody else. When we inquired, however, we found out that nobody had been given the funds, due to nobody applying.

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I decided it was time to ask the question, “So is it too late to apply now?”, and I did. The initial answer was, “Yes you are too late”, however I spoke to one of the executive, and they did rethink their initial answer and eventually they reopened the applications, and in the end my daughter got the bursary.

This just shows that the answer is always no unless you ask. Yes, if you do ask the answer might be no, but not asking assures you of a negative answer. Same is true when applying for your disability tax credit, you don’t apply, you won’t get it.

These same kind of questions happen in every day Personal finances as well. If you are late with a credit card payment, you can call and ask if they could forgive you the late penalty, and if you are a good customer the answer might well be Yes. Many other instances like this can arise, so do not be afraid to ask for help, or ask the hard questions, because if you don’t ask, you’ll never know what might have happened.

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Similar Sports Phrases

  • You miss every shot you don’t take.
  • You hit a home run unless you swing the bat.

Any others?

Feel Free to Comment

  1. Hi bigcajun read your articles, so do a few others I know, hope all is well and every mouse click is expanding your revenue (:

    Here is an example from the Nortel days when we bought our house here in town. We settled on the house and closed the deal, the owners were Nortel employees that were transferring to another city. When I got to work someone told me “hey I think there is a program if you are buying the house off a nortel employes” . So I sat on it and then finally I made a few calls before we moved in thinking perhaps we would get a small gift , and thinking there was probably no gift because the deal was done. Imagine my surprise when the lady said “Yes, we have that listing, send me the paperwork and we will pay you 5% of the purchase price of the house on the next payroll after closing” . That was worth asking and probably the closet I have come to a lottery wining (although tax man got his 50% share on that)

  2. This is very simple–yet I seem to forget to “ask” all the time. I also have that fear, that I am somehow being unreasonable or just out of line for asking such a thing.

    Thank you for a great reminder

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