Noah Kagan told me to walk into a random restaurant and ask for 10% off…

That’s all that happened…

Just kidding.

If you don’t know who Noah Kagan is, you can find out more at OkDork or AppSumo. Don’t ask me how I know this but he’s partying in Thailand right now with one of the guys from StartUpBros.

I’m not good at being uncomfortable. When I’m uncomfortable, I start to sweat and stutter. I get really nervous and think that everyone knows all my secrets and are sitting there staring at me, thinking of cruel jokes about my face, my hair, my clothes, my skinnyfat figure and every other thing I’m insecure about. So when I decided to take Noah’s course and saw that some assignments were meant to make me feel uncomfortable, I was thinking I wasn’t cut out for it.

To make it worse, the first assignment that I really didn’t wanna do was mandatory. It had to be done and I had to provide proof. I had to ask people for money. I didn’t wanna do that. Why would I do that? Who on earth just asks people for money for no reason? God dammit. I’ll never be an entrepreneur. I’ll just have to work my ass off and get promoted if I wanna make money…

But then I’ll also work on someone else’s schedule in a location of their choosing instead of sitting someplace like the Maldives or Bora Bora.

Okay. Okay. Alright. So I have a few choices here:

• I could not do it, request a refund and go on with my life(on a path I’m not super satisfied with at the moment)
• I could say I did it, post a fake picture and continue with the course
• I could somehow actually try. The thought of trying alone was so scary and daunting that I started to get nervous and sweaty. In my room, by myself, I was nervous and sweaty. No one was even there to make fun of me. Interesting. So maybe its not about where I am or the situation that makes me nervous, maybe I just make myself nervous and certain situations lead me to amplify it in my own mind

I was pretty scared. I was uncomfortable. I was nervous. I thought I’d just ask for money and send a funny note explaining why, because then it wouldn’t matter. An explanation would be to blame, not me. (SIDEBAR: confident individuals don’t explain themselves)

I ended up trying it. I asked someone for the money. It wasn’t a lot, but it was still weird. I probably said “lol” and “hahah” about a dozen times in the 3 text conversation. And the CRAZIEST THING HAPPENED…I got the money.

Whoa

And then moved on to the next assignment. And not long after, the restaurant assignment came up. Noah Kagan said I needed to go into a coffee shop and before paying, I had to ask the clerk for 10% off. That was it. Just something along the lines of…

• me: “hi, can I get a venti hot chocolate?”
• clerk: “lol really bro? you want a hot chocolate in this LA weather?”
• me: “uh…….yeah”
• clerk: “lulwut. okay, that’ll be $5.4594594935948534”
• me: “cool, um, can I get 10% off?”
• clerk: “GTFO!” ← I assumed that would be his/her reaction.

And that was it. It was just an experiment to go in and ask for 10% off. Why? Because it’s an uncomfortable question. It’s strange. It’s out of the ordinary. And if you work in retail, you get annoyed when people ask for discounts just because.

Most people wouldn’t do it. They’d feel uncomfortable in more ways than ten. They would feel weird. It would be out of their comfort zone. But the thing is, it’s not about getting the discount, it’s simply about asking for it, because that alone is what most people wouldn’t do.

I didn’t do it the day of. I promised that I would do it the next day. I promptly forgot about it.

And then yesterday, a week after I was supposed to do it, I remembered. Luckily, I remembered on my cheat day. I was eating out allllllll day. I had multiple opportunities to do it. Sitting in my room, I fantasized about walking in, all confident, asking for the discount and feeling great afterward. Thinking about shit like that is easy. Actually doing it is when it gets tough.

When you get in your car, you get nervous and agitated. You start to reconsider. You think, “maybe I don’t need to be uncomfortable to grow. Maybe I can just make it to my goals with who I am right now.”

But you can’t. Because if you could, you’d already be there.

Dammit

So I thought, alright, I’ll try this one too. It wasn’t easy. I went through the same steps as before with the money. I got nervous, started sweating, became very uncomfortable. But I thought about what I was actually supposed to do. And I realized that it wasn’t the end of the world. The worst that could happen was that someone would get upset and ask me to leave their store. Which isn’t likely, most people would just say no and ask that I pay full price, which I would gladly do.

So yesterday afternoon, I ordered food online from Yelp and went to go pick it up. I might’ve cheated because I had already paid for it and just had to go in, sign, and grab it. I also went to a restaurant that I frequent. I drove down there, went to the counter and when they gave me the form to sign, I looked at it.

The guy said “no, no, you sign right here” with a smile on his face. I said “oh, okay.” I got really nervous and thought “SCREW IT, I GOTTA DO THIS, JUST DO IT, JUST DO IT!” And I did…

• “um, is there anyway I could get 10% off?”
• clerk: “oh, uh…I don’t — why do you need that?”
• “Oh I was just wondering if I could get 10% off”
• clerk: “oh, nah I can’t do that. Maybe next time.”
• “Oh okay, no worries.”

Then he asked why I asked. And I told him I’m taking a course and this was an exercise(Noah said this was okay). He laughed. He thought it was cool and asked about the course. He said next time I’d get the discount. And then he said, “well I can’t give you 10% off but I can give you a free mango lassi if you want.”

• “yeah, sure that’d be awesome!” — if you’ve never had a mango lassi before, go find a brown people restaurant and get one. Amazeballs.

I told him it wasn’t about getting the discount, it was an exercise in growth. He said he liked that and said no worries. People ask him for discounts all the time. He handed me my food and my free mango lassi, which was a value greater than the 10% off I asked for, and I was on my way.

Driving back home, I felt a bit uncomfortable and kinda weird. I know how small margins are at restaurants and this was a family owned place. I was hoping they weren’t struggling. Then I remembered they have over 100 reviews on Yelp with an average 4.5 star rating, so I think they’re good. Not to mention that I’ve spent well over $100 there in the last few weeks so this freebie wasn’t gonna hit them too hard.

I drove home. Sipping on the lassi. Feeling great. Feeling like it was so silly that I had been so nervous. Thinking that I might start asking for 10% off everywhere, just for kicks, to see what would happen and to accelerate my growth. I felt better. I decided I was gonna start tipping more at that restaurant and that I’d for sure go there 1–3 times a month from now on. They offered me a free drink and they ended up getting a customer for life.

All I got was the feeling of growth and as I drove home, enjoying the tangy, sweet drink in my hand, I realized that growing feels great. I realized that pushing boundaries feels great. I understood that, with some hard work, it really is possible to move the world around you. I realized that I wasn’t nearly as scared anymore. That the world rewards you for doing new things and different things.

So on a random Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles, with a big ass goofy smile on my face, I did what Noah Kagan asked me to do; ask for a 10% discount on my order. And all I got at the end of the day was this feeling of incredible openness and possibility, that I really could become the person I wanna be and eventually find success…

ps — Noah, if you’re reading this, I just want you to know…that I love tacos more than you do :]

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Asad Chishty is a writer, digital marketer and wannabe comedian figuring out the best way to deliver value to the world. You can follow him on twitter and sign up for his newsletter to stay up to date on his work.