How to ask for what you want by advocating for yourself first

Executive overview

Most people fail to get what they want not because they ask poorly, but because they haven't convinced themselves they deserve it. Heather Hansen draws on 20+ years as a trial lawyer to show that self-advocacy precedes all other persuasion.

The best advocate in any room starts by persuading their inner jury before turning to the outer one.

The five tools of an advocate

• Credibility — believe yourself (keep promises to yourself), believe in yourself (collect evidence of your skills), and help others believe you can help them
• Reception — listening and reading tone of voice matters more than presentation; tone reveals emotion better than facial expression or body language combined (Yale study)
• Questions — prepare three genuine, non-defensive questions before any meeting; forces you to listen and builds connection
• Perspective — practise seeing situations as victim, villain, and victor; you can't change a perspective you don't understand
• Argument — the last resort; the goal is to avoid needing it

Building credibility with your inner jury

• You can't advocate for something you don't believe — find a story you genuinely believe first
• Make promises to yourself and keep them; when you can't, own it
• Keep an evidence journal: three pieces of evidence of your skills, resilience, or experience every day
• Look for the ROI — concrete numbers of value you've delivered — before making any ask
• Once the inner jury is persuaded, the outer ask often becomes straightforward

Becoming a better listener

• The best listener wins — better listening is better negotiating (Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference)
• Go into meetings with three prepared questions; listen hard enough to ask follow-up questions based on the answers
• Leave your phone outside the room; be completely present
• Challenge yourself to read the person's emotional state from tone of voice alone — the attempt forces full attention
• Don't rush the ask when someone is stressed, angry, or exhausted; read the room first
• As people gain power, the empathy-related part of the brain shrinks — deliberate practice counters this

Playing with the evidence

• Collect evidence across seven formats: testimonials, pictures, graphs, numbers, video, etc. — repetition in one format loses impact
• Run a win-lose analysis: map every way your evidence helps you win, then every way it could make you lose, then counter each weakness
• Add a "weird" scenario pass — predict unlikely but possible disruptions; you won't predict them all, but you won't be knocked off your feet when they occur
• Facts tell, stories sell — but advocates win, because there are always competing stories

Shifting perspective to persuade

• Draw an E on your forehead: facing yourself means you're in your own perspective; facing outward means you're in theirs
• Practise victim-villain-victor: retell the same event from all three roles to loosen fixed perspective
• Behind every complaint lies a commitment — when someone is agitated, ask what they care deeply about, not what they're objecting to
• Never deny the other person's story outright; give a nod to it, then reframe — attacking their story loses credibility with the whole jury
• Let your jury reach the conclusion themselves; people value what they construct (the Ikea effect)

When to ask and how

• Timing matters: push your ask when the other person sounds enthusiastic, anticipatory, or happy
• Advocacy is universal — selling, marketing, and leading are all forms of advocacy
• "Don't fake it till you make it — show it until you grow it": build visible evidence and confidence grows from it, not before it
• Presenting evidence seven times in seven different ways ensures the message lands without feeling repetitive