Click here to download the PDF version
Hello and welcome to episode five. Today we are going to talk about making requests instead of demands and why it is so important and how it will help your marriage thrive. But first I want to give a shout out to my client, Dr. Melissa Parsons, who will be so excited to hear her name said today on the podcast. Hi Melissa. She shared her experience of working with me so that all of you can get a feel of what’s possible from working with a life coach like me. Here’s what I want you to know. I know that a lot of you might be familiar with many different aspects of psychology and yet not be familiar with what coaching is all about and I really want this show to be a place where you can learn not just about having a healthy marriage, but how coaching can help your life.
If you listen to this and you go out and you hire an executive coach or a weight loss coach or someone to help you in some area of your life to make real progress, then we have all helped each other move forward. I trained at the Life Coach School, which I think of as the Yale of coaching. The tools we use and the results that we help our clients create are so, so powerful and I am so happy to be an ambassador, not just for healthy marriages but for the coaching industry as a whole. Okay, so that is my soap box moment and here is what Melissa wants you to know about her experience with coaching. “At first, I did not think it was possible to change our relationship with only changing one person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, but with Maggie’s help, that is exactly what happened.
She really treats her job as a sacred relationship,” which side note I really do, “and I immediately trusted her with all of my crazy thoughts and feelings and emotions. I never once felt judged or like my issue was too big or too small to talk about. The fights that used to last forever, were novels turned into chapters, and now most of them are paragraphs. We still get into arguments, but we recognize it immediately when we do and try to turn the page or come up with a solution as soon as possible. We get into far fewer arguments and well because we are putting love into the tank as often as possible these days, we are not as quick to get upset with ourselves or with each other. I am now the wife, mom, friend, daughter, sister and pediatrician that I was always meant to be.” Thank you, Melissa.
That’s such a beautiful sharing. Thank you so much. I love sharing these stories because I am so deeply inspired by the four minute mile. You know, once someone ran a mile in four minutes, it’s like that barrier was broken forever and that result got repeated over and over again. Imagine yourself experiencing what Melissa did, listening to this show, applying the concepts I’m teaching you and making your marriage better. That is what we are all about. Okay, so now here we go. Requests versus demands. Seriously you guys. I teach this to my clients one-on-one. All of my clients who have really embraced how to practice this concept have gotten amazing results from this one little tweak. So I really want you to like slow down and pay close attention to what I’m about to say. Here’s how I define a request: When you make a request, there is no emotional price to pay,
if the answer is no. When you make a demand, if you don’t like the answer, then you charge the person you are making the demand from in the form of emotional currency. So you don’t say to them, hand me $10, you’re not actually charging them money. But you see something that removes peace from the conversation. It’s like you’re extracting money from that emotional bank account. You may get pouty or lower the volume in your affection or invoke some kind of guilt inducing protocol. You know, we all have those. What you want to do in your marriage and in all of your relationships really is stay in the land of requests and imagine that demands is like a foreign country that you never want to visit because every time you go there you get sick. So what does this look like in practice? Many years ago I wanted my hubby to do a particular activity with me for Thanksgiving.
I remember we were engaged. I literally remember where I was sitting. I was talking on the phone with him when we had this conversation, but we were engaged at the time. I was not a coach then. I had no idea about the concepts, like the things I’m teaching you guys now. I was just walking around being human. So I asked him for what I wanted and he said no, the scandal, he said no and I got all pouty and whiny and really the opposite of my usual delightful self. And what I was doing was charging him an emotional price for saying no instead of saying okay or getting curious and asking more about the no, I got annoying instead. So for anyone listening who isn’t sure what a mean about charging emotional currency, any response that could be interpreted as annoying means there’s an emotional charge attached and you need to stop that immediately.
I was teaching this for clients once and we had a whole conversation about it and then on our call the following week, her sister did exactly what I was explaining. She asked her something, she got super emotional and annoyed when my client said no, and it was the first time that my client realized what being on the other end of a demand felt like. And she also realized she had at the time done that so many times to her husband that she did not want to be that person anymore. She was like, Oh my goodness, this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end. So here we go. Recap, you make a request. The answer can be yes or no and you accept the answer. That’s it. That’s how you make a request. If you feel that you might get emotionally charged by a no, then my guidance to you is don’t even have the conversation until you can find your equanimity about the situation.
I absolutely love the word equanimity. It means mental calmness or composure. So this week as you go about your life with your partner, your friends, your coworkers, your clients, whoever is in your world, notice whether you’re making requests or demands. Notice is how you feel when you make a request. Look for what a demand feels like. Notice when people are making demands of you. What do you do if you notice the opposite like my client did with her sister? You stand your ground. You don’t pay the ransom, so to speak, right? The other person wants to charge you an emotional currency and you just refuse to pay. You say no. You move on standing in your love for them and standing in your love for yourself and that my friends is a wrap on episode five for everything I share on this podcast or in any of my work, I really challenge you not to believe me, but to take these ideas into your world and test them. Try them out, see what happens, adapt them to your own situation. I really hope this helped you today. Now go forth and have a loving day.