Kia Ora Friend,I want to tell you a story about how a normal lunch with friends turned into confidence building exercise.No, it didn't involve swinging from high wires or what dramatic scenes you might be thinking.We were ordering lunch in a cafe. My friends ordered beers to go with their food, and to be slightly different, I ordered a coffee to go alongside mine.After a decent wait, my warm coffee arrives. My friends, however, were still waiting on their beverages.I was happily caffeinated, but my friends were slightly disgruntled by time lunch came.Lunch was delivered on a warm plate. I was starving and eager to dig in. On the other hand, there was an escalating unhappiness, as the beers hadn't turned up to the party yet. We had to ask and only then did the beers come after the lunch had been disturbed.The meal went down a treat but the beers took a bit longer and wasn't as enjoyable.There was some overall dissatisfaction. The beer came after a meal when it usually comes before.It's unfortunate that this happens. Most people move on. So why the fuss?How I take dissatisfaction or my friends', in this case, would usually go in silence. We could leave, complaining only to each other, the staff unaware of what went wrong.But no! It's time to break normality.For some time, I've been thinking about building skills that do not require talent. Here is one:An underrated skill: asking for exactly what you want.—Daniel BourkeOur meal didn't come out right. My friends didn't get the true value from those beers. I wanted a discount on the drinks.I discussed the idea, all the different various outcomes and forest of decision trees that would result. All in all, I was procrastinating. I thought to myself: My fellow lunch-mates were dissatisfied with their meal; the beers came late; I think it would be appropriate to ask for a discount on the drinks.After talking the talk, I bit the bullet, stood up and walked the walk.I don't want to paint a false picture. I wasn't that brave to go alone. I had a friend chaperone me as a witness but mainly as a safety if something went wrong!At the end, I/we did it.We got a discount of one drink. Instead of being absolutely nasty, we decided to redistribute the amount discounted back into the economy in a form of a tip to the staff.It may only be one drink and we didn't actually keep the discount but there were many wins and positives:I went outside my comfort zone to ask an awkward question, going against the grainI'm working on a skill of asking for what I wantThe staff got a tipThe matter will be looked into further, potentially improving their service (they are actually my local and I have enjoyed going there in the past and hopefully well into the future).The potential negatives:The business sufferedI'm not only 'embarrassing' myself but my friends as wellWhat do you think about this situation? Have you been in a similar situation before and what was the outcome? If you were presented in the same situation, how would you act? Reply and let me know!For the next newsletter, I plan to have a literature review about glaucoma and the cannabis plant. Stay tuned!Did you find this useful? If you did, please forward this on to family and friends so they can find it useful too.Thanks for reading and all the best for the week ahead.Mā te wā,Shivan :)