In 2023, my friend Anansi asked, “if you could ask anyone for a truly life-changing Favor, who would you ask, and for what?”
I asked this same question again later. To be frank, I was underwhelmed by people’s responses both years. People asked for favors that were unreasonably enormous things, or favors that were vague and nebulous. Worse of all, they didn’t specify who they would ask, specifically.
It occurs to me that people don’t actually have this skill—how to ask for a life-changing favor.
Having this skill, knowing how to ask a life-changing-favor, doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you will receive the favor—but it does increase your odds, as well as your odds of having it genuinely change your life should it be granted.
Here’s how U ask for a life-changing favor:
- Ask someone specific—a specific person. Ideally they are someone who is in your broader social network (e.g. U have a friend that knows them personally, or they follow some of your mutuals on Twitter), rather than someone who is many degrees of connection and status removed from U (like Elon Musk or Taylor Swift).
- Ask for a very specific favor. Ask for five thousand dollars, an hour of their time to have dinner, a signed copy of their book…
- Make it something feasible for them to give. Don’t ask for “help with my project”—that’s too open-ended—or a billion dollars (sorry to break it to U—no billionaire is going to give U a billion dollars, flat out). There’s a balance, an ideal sweet spot between the degree to which it will change your life, and the ease with which this person can grant the favor.
- Make it a match between who they are, and what U are asking for. Ask an eye doctor for LASIK surgery, not a veterinarian or a football player. Make sure they would be able, willing, and excited to give U it!
- Make it obvious how it will benefit U. Tell a compelling story about who U are, where U are in your life, and how their help will change your life for the better. Have a track record, a reputation that precedes U, a larger context that demonstrates U are worthy of what U ask for.
If U make an ask that meets these criteria, it’s much more likely that U will hear a yes, that your favor will be granted, and that your life will change.
The art in this post was created by Sílvia Bastos, and is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license. You can support her work on Patreon.