I once had the incredible experience of achieving a highly improbable goal just by asking for it. This goal was so improbable, it was like intentionally winning the lottery.
When I was in high school, one of the things I wanted most in the world was an original Macintosh. I collected old Macs at the time and this was the Holy Grail. I admired everything about that computer and the incredible story
It was a very rare thing that I wanted. The Macintosh computer was released on January 24, 1984 with a puny 128 kilobytes of RAM. Sales were slow at first, and not a whole lot were produced by September of that year, when the original Mac was rebadged “Macintosh 128k” and a new Macintosh 512k was added to the lineup. It was the very first one that I wanted.
Back in my high school days, these historical machines were selling for over $2,000 on eBay, which I didn’t even consider to be within my reach. Nevertheless, I decided to find one that I could afford.
Was it even feasible? I knew that at least 72,000 had been produced, but how many of those had been lost or destroyed over the years? A lot of old computers just get thrown away or recycled, because not everyone sees historical value in them. Also, quite a few original Macintoshes were upgraded to the 512k, 512ke, or Plus through a logic board swap program that Apple offered in the early years of the Mac. Since a 128k Mac could only hold about eight pages of typed text in memory along with the system software, basic word processor, and screen buffer, I can imagine that many users took advantage of the upgrade.
I figured that if even one third of those computers survived in the original form, which might be generous, that would work out to 24,000 in existence. If you distribute those evenly among 300 million Americans, then in my home State of Ohio (population 11 million), there might be 880 original Macs. To put it another way: it’s one computer for every 12,500 people.
I pretty much despaired of ever finding one.
In high school, my main source of income was buying things cheap from garage sales and selling them for higher prices on eBay. I also made some fantastic money selling store bought cereal to the Japanese at 18 dollars a box — but that’s another story! 
As I rode my bike around town looking for things to buy, I couldn’t get the Mac off my mind. I knew I would never find one anywhere, let alone at a garage sale. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Still, I looked for one wherever I went.
One day, a nearby town held a huge garage sale. So many homes participated that it was well worth it to attend. As I was traveling around unfamiliar neighborhoods I kept thinking about and looking for a Macintosh so much that suddenly I became supremely annoyed that I hadn’t been successful yet. I felt like I deserved one!
I was at a house where some old people were selling some junk. I was so angry that I couldn’t find the one thing I wanted most in this world that I just asked them whether they had a Macintosh. It was crazy. I felt stupid. I knew that there was no way they had one; they were selling old tools and candy dishes and the usual plain old junk. I asked because I suddenly wanted to hear them say “no.” As I had expected, they politely told me that they had never heard of a Macintosh.
The rest of the afternoon, I asked the same question at every sale I visited. Again and again I was turned down, which only fueled my desire to keep asking. This was a major change in my attitude. I wanted a Mac so badly that I figured I ought to do everything within my power to find one, no matter how crazy, strung-out, and improbable. And then if I still couldn’t find one, at least I could say I tried.
Well, the day was winding down when I came to what I decided would be my final stop. As I approached the last house, I couldn’t help but tell myself that this one was absolutely hopeless. The town I visited was fairly small, but this house was on the outskirts and practically in a rural area. It was kind of rundown looking and whoever owned it had a penchant for flying lots of Rebel flags. Oh, boy! Why do I even bother? I must have wondered about a hundred times.
As I looked over the usual tables of junk, I noticed the scruffy looking homeowner. Should I even bother to ask when I already know what the answer will be? Should I become aggressive in trying to get what I want, even though I had always been quiet, preferring to leave people alone? Should I disturb this guy who obviously can’t help me?
That was the moment when it happened. It marked a genuine shift in my thinking when I decided that I wanted this thing so badly that I would ask now, even when it was totally hopeless.
I remember the conversation exactly. “Do you happen to have a Macintosh for sale?” I asked. He said, “Wait here” and disappeared into his house. I stood there, stunned. I didn’t expect that response at all. If he had a Mac for sale, why wasn’t it out on the lawn?
As the minutes went by, I realized that even though I was lucky enough to find someone who had a Mac for sale, there was no guarantee that he had The One. I mean, the world contained millions and millions of plastic boxes that could be called a “Macintosh,” but the one I wanted was very rare. Sure he has a Mac he wants to sell, but that could mean anything. I knew what it probably meant: try again next time. I wanted to leave, but I waited anyway.
Eventually, the Rebel guy emerged from his house carrying a beige plastic box that was unmistakably a classic Macintosh. Okay, I was pretty excited at that point, but there were still lots of other models it could be.
He brought it up to me and put it in my hands. I turned it to its back, where the badge read: “Macintosh.” Not Macintosh 128k or Macintosh 512k, of which there were more than a million. Just Macintosh. The needle in the haystack. In my hands! There was no way I could conceal my grin.
I tried really hard not to sound too interested when I asked what he wanted for it. I was floored when he said “thirty dollars.” I actually had thirty dollars! I didn’t have two thousand dollars, but I had thirty!
As I counted out the money, he plopped some other things down next to the computer: a disk drive, keyboard, mouse, manuals, and disks. “You get these, too.” When a lot of eBay auctions were selling only the computer itself for an outrageous price, I was getting the whole package for a steal!
So I paid the guy and went home floating on air, hardly believing what had just taken place. I had looked in only a few dozen places and quickly won the lottery, essentailly. To make things better, the computer worked perfectly. I was beyond stunned. I was not prepared for my dreams suddenly coming true.
I got what I wanted because I wanted it so badly that I took aggressive action and kept asking for it again and again. I just decided to broadcast my desires to whoever would listen, even though it seemed pointless at the time.
What I learned that day is that asking for what you want is a great way to get it. Before you say “Well, that’s obvious…” ask yourself: if it’s so obvious then why do so many people harbor desires that they don’t express and never achieve?
Do you want to radically change your career, but it seems impossible, so you tell no one and do nothing? Do you want to lose weight, but you avoid the shame of admitting that you have a problem? Do you feel love for someone, but never tell that person?
There is a sort of clarifying power in defining exactly what you want and just asking for it. It’s so much easier to work toward some goal when you have a clear vision and enough confidence in the goal that you can share it with others.
Unless your goal is entirely internal, it’s those others who will help you get it in some way. And even if you have an internal, psychological goal, other people might give you advice or point you in the right direction.
Whatever it is that you want, you can dramatically increase your chances of getting it by asking for it. This will require you to get clear about what you want and develop enough confidence to communicate it to others, who probably will be instrumental in helping you achieve your goal.
Suppose you want to do something that is beyond your current abilities, the kind of goal that you can’t see how to ever accomplish. Let’s say you want to write a novel. How can asking others help you? Other people can’t do your writing for you.
When you clarify your goals and tell others about them, even if those people could have no conceivable role in your personal achievement, you help yourself by developing and projecting confidence in your ability to reach your goal.
If writing a novel is your secret wish but you don’t see how you’ll ever do it, try boldly expressing your true desires. Start introducing yourself as a writer. Tell people that you’re working on a novel. Set up a web site. Pretty soon, you’ll start to think of yourself as a writer. If you’re honest, you’ll start writing the novel so that you don’t end up being a liar.
If it seems a little strange to trick yourself into success, please understand that many people lack the confidence to even talk about their goals. They think that their goals are impossible, or that they aren’t capable of reaching them. Talking about your goals is not an especially sophisticated way to develop confidence, but it works.
If you can move from the stage of keeping you desires bottled inside of you to talking openly about them, however impossible they may seem, then you can move to the stage of taking action. And sometimes, the talking stage is the action stage, as with my Macintosh story. I actually thought that my goal of finding a rare computer was so crazy that I didn’t even think I should have opened my mouth. And yet that is how I got exactly what I wanted.
It takes persistence and confidence to keep trying when the odds are against you. As long as you understand that if you keep opening your mouth, you will eventually find a rare computer, make a sale, find the right opportunity, or convince a publisher to print your book, you will have success.
I used to like the sound of that old adage “Ask and you shall receive,” although today I might expand it to “Ask and you might receive, but if you don’t ask, you will certainly get nothing.”
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