I was bent over a table at a German restaurant in Chicago.

A waitress with a wooden paddle was about take a running start and smack me in the butt as hard as she could.

There were about 20 people standing around watching me, and waiting for my reaction.

These weren’t normal people.

These were famous speakers that I had spent the last 16 years watching, they were legends to me.

Guys like Mike Boyle, Gray Cook, Martin Rooney, Charlie Weingroff, and Thomas Plummer.

Now I had the chance to become one of them.

As I awaited my fate (butt slap)…

The Godfather of Perform better, Chris Poirier locked eyes with me and said these words:

“Don’t you flinch Vince”

This was my moment.

If I didn’t flinch, I’d be invited into the incredible inner circle of being a Perform Better speaker.

As she swung that paddle as hard as her large German muscles could swing, she connected with my butt…hard…

…it took every ounce of me not to wince.

I’m happy to say that I passed the test.

5 years later I’m now a regular speaker and I’ll be in Long Beach and Providence this year.

Success!

The lesson today is HOW I got to be in the position to be bent over a table at that German place.

Here it is.

I asked.

This is the most simple but violated principle of success.

If you want something, you need to ask for it.

• You need to ask your clients if they want to upgrade from 2 to 3 days a week because they don’t even know that’s a possibility anymore
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• You need to ask your former clients to come back because they’re too embarrassed to ask you
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• You need to ask your clients to buy supplements because they don’t know what they should be taking so they take nothing
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• You need to ask the salon down the road to do a joint venture because they probably won’t ask you

I could go on but I think you get it.