When I was 16 years old, my family went on a toad trip to the Grand Canyon and some surrounding areas.  During one of the days we were traveling, we stumbled upon an Indian Reserve small little jewelry shops hidden under tents along the road.  The shops sold beautiful, beaded jewelry and my sister and I decided we wanted to buy earrings to take back home with us.  My brother followed and decided to buy earrings for his girlfriend at the time.  When we got inside the tents, we realized there were no posted prices.  I walked up to the woman selling the jewelry and asked what the price was for a pair of earrings I had my eye on.  She said $10 and I pulled that exact amount out of my wallet and headed back to the car with my brand new pair of earrings.  My sister came back to the car a few minutes after with a very similar pair to mine… for $8.  SThe Painful Process of Negotiationhe said that $8 was all she had and when she told the woman selling the earrings that, the woman said $8 would suffice.  My brother soon returned to the car with the same pair of earrings I had bought.  I asked how much he had paid and he said “$4.”  I still have no idea how he negotiated that.

As part of a reading assignment for my Core II class last semester I read a book called “Ask For It” by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, which talks about negotiation and especially women negotiating salaries upon hire.

Babcock encourages women to be more assertive when negotiating (salaries, relationships, projects at work) and suggests that readers go off on their own after reading the book to try to negotiate for things that they need and want in their life.  She says these negotiations could be for the smallest of things, like asking your cab driver for a discount, or bigger things like asking your significant other for more of what you want out of your relationship.

While reading the book, idea after idea about things that I could have negotiated in the past popped into my head.  Then, as Babcock suggested, I started thinking about what I wanted to happen in my life and how I could use negotiation tactics to make those things happen. However, when I actually thought about what I’d have to do to make these negotiations successful, I cringed.  Even thinking about asking someone for a favor (this is technically considered a negotiation) made me extremely uncomfortable and, to a degree, still does.  Negotiation is hard for a lot of people, especially women, and I can’t say that I’m any different.

I was determined to follow Babcock’s advice, however, and become a more experienced and knowledgeable negotiator.  I found myself wanting to negotiate for my friends, family, and colleagues, instead of myself, however.

Negotiation makes me cringe, and I think it will for a long time to come. However, after reading Ask For It, as well as a couple other negotiation books that followed, I’m beginning to recognize the negotiations I hadn’t been making and should have.  And so, slowly but surely, I’m beginning to understand how I can negotiate even the smallest of things that end up having a big positive impact on my overall happiness.