Vanessa Bohns is a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. Her research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and has been covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Economist, and NPR.

She is also the author of the book, You Have More Influence Than You Think.

She received her PhD in social psychology from Columbia University and her AB in psychology from Brown University.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• We tend to underestimate the power of a simple ask. As a graduate student, Vanessa felt anxiety about asking people to fill out a survey. But once she analyzed the data, she was surprised to see how different her perception was from reality. People were way more willing to help than she had expected.
• Before we ask for something, we should assume we are going to get the thing we’re asking for, and then ask ourselves, “Is this something I should be asking for.” Given how powerful our asks can be, this extra step will help us ask for things that are appropriate.

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