Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that's me) shares one way to be more successful and satisfied — and build a career or company you love.
欢迎来到《更好的事情》。每周，《企业家》杂志的主编（就是我）会分享一种让你更成功、更满意的方法，帮助你建立一个你热爱的职业或公司。

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如果这封邮件对你有帮助，请分享给其他人！

Today’s one thing: Asking for what you want.
今天的重点：勇敢地表达你的需求。

That one thing, better: Knowing what you need.
那件事，更好：了解你真正需要的是什么。

Have you ever asked for something — but were misunderstood?
你有没有请求过某样东西，却被误解了？

Or…  或者…

Has someone asked you for something — and even though you tried to help, you were unhelpful?
有人向你请求帮助——即使你努力去帮忙，但最终却没有真正帮到他们吗？

Maybe it happened with a boss, a customer, a partner, or even a spouse. Maybe it’s holding up a deal right now. Maybe it’s causing tension at home.
也许这发生在老板、客户、合作伙伴，甚至配偶身上。也许这正影响着一笔交易。也许这在家中造成了紧张气氛。

Recently, this happened to me: I asked a question, got the wrong answer, and was annoyed.
最近，我遇到了一件事：我问了一个问题，得到了错误的答案，感到很不高兴。

As I thought about why, I had an ah-hah moment. I realized why these disconnects often happen, and how we can fix them!
当我思考原因时，我突然领悟到了。我明白了这些断裂为何常常发生，以及我们该如何修复它们！

It starts by recognizing this: 
它首先要认识到这一点：

People don’t always ask for what they want.
人们并不总是表达他们的真实需求。

Instead, they often ask for bad examples of what they want.
他们反而常常要求一些不好的例子来说明他们想要的东西。

Today, I’ll explain why — and give you a better way to ask questions, give answers, build relationships, solve problems, and become someone’s hero.
今天，我将告诉你原因，并提供一个更好的方法来提问、回答、建立关系、解决问题，成为他人的英雄。

But first, here’s why I was so unhappy…
但首先，我要告诉你我为什么会如此不快乐…

I was in Chicago for a speaking engagement last month — and I was running late.
我上个月在芝加哥参加一个演讲活动时，结果迟到了。

It was 8:30 am, and I had 20 minutes to eat breakfast before heading to the venue. So I ran to the hotel concierge and said: “Excuse me, where’s the quickest place to get, like, an egg and cheese sandwich? I need a fast breakfast.”  
现在是早上 8:30，我还有 20 分钟可以吃早餐，然后去会场。所以我跑到酒店礼宾部问：“请问，哪里可以最快吃到一个鸡蛋奶酪三明治？我需要快速的早餐。”

The concierge replied: “Our market downstairs has sandwiches. Or you could go to the deli around the corner.”
礼宾部回答：“我们楼下的市场有三明治，或者你可以去拐角的熟食店。”

I raced to the market, which only had crappy turkey sandwiches. Then I raced to the deli, where I found more deli meat. Blech! Then I raced back to the hotel and spotted — omg! — a breakfast buffet. Perfect.
我赶到市场，那里只有难吃的火鸡三明治。接着我又跑到熟食店，发现了更多的熟食肉，真让人恶心！然后我急忙回到酒店，竟然看到了——天哪！——一个自助早餐。太完美了！

As I sat eating my eggs, I wondered why the concierge didn’t tell me about this buffet. It was exactly the fast breakfast I wanted.
当我坐着吃鸡蛋时，我在想，为什么礼宾部没有告诉我这个自助餐。这正是我想要的快捷早餐。

Then I realized: I asked my question all wrong.
然后我意识到：我问的问题完全不对。

And after that, I realized: OMG, we all ask questions wrong.
然后我意识到：天哪，我们问问题的方式都是错的。

How we flub our questions
我们是如何问错问题的

To appreciate why we’re so bad at asking questions, let’s first consider the question I asked.
为了理解我们为什么不擅长提问，首先让我们回顾一下我所提的问题。

It was:  这是：

At the time, it felt like I was asking one question. But now that I’ve written it out, I realize that I bundled two things together — a question and a statement. Like this:
那时，我觉得我只是在问一个问题。但现在写出来后，我意识到我把两个东西混在一起了——一个问题和一个陈述。就像这样：

I asked a question about sandwiches. The concierge gave an answer about sandwiches.
我问了一个关于三明治的问题，礼宾人员则给出了相应的回答。

But in truth, I didn’t care about sandwiches! I cared about a fast breakfast, which I buried as an afterthought. That’s why his answer was unhelpful.
但实际上，我并不在乎三明治！我关心的是快速的早餐，而这只是我随意提到的。因此，他的回答并没有帮助。

This is a problem we all make:
这是我们大家都会遇到的问题：

We don’t lead with what we need
我们不是以需求为出发点

When we ask for things, what are we really asking for?
当我们向他人请求东西时，我们真正想要的是什么？

Here’s what I think: We’re often bundling two things together…
我觉得我们常常把两件事情混在一起…

We have a goal — a specific outcome we desire. But instead of stating that goal, we often ask for whatever we think will achieve that goal.
我们有一个目标——我们期望的具体结果。然而，我们往往不是直接表达这个目标，而是请求我们认为能够实现该目标的任何东西。

This is why I wrote above:
这就是我之前提到的原因：

People don’t always ask for what they want.
人们并不总是表达他们的真实需求。

Instead, they often ask for bad examples of what they want.
他们反而常常要求一些不好的例子来说明他们想要的东西。

It’s exactly what I did at that hotel. My goal was to quickly satisfy my hunger, but I led with how I thought I’d achieve that goal — which was the sandwich.
这正是我在那家酒店所做的。我的目标是迅速满足我的饥饿感，但我首先想到的是实现这个目标的方法——也就是三明治。

It reminds me of something that billionaire serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain says. His son Ankur recalled it in an Entrepreneur story: 
这让我想起亿万富翁连续创业者纳维恩·贾因说过的一句话。他的儿子安库尔在一篇《企业家》故事中提到过这件事：

I’ve experienced that myself! Here’s an example from my work at Entrepreneur:
我也有过这样的经历！这是我在《企业家》工作时的一个例子： 

I once negotiated an in-kind deal with a corporate partner. They’d do something for us, and we’d do something for them. “What do you want?” I asked. They sent me 20 demands — various kinds of advertising, social media exposure, consulting, and more.
我曾经与一个企业合作伙伴谈判过一项实物交易。他们会为我们做一些事情，我们也会为他们做一些事情。“你们想要什么？”我问。他们给我列出了 20 个要求——包括各种广告、社交媒体曝光、咨询等。

I wondered: Why do they want all this stuff?!?
我在想：他们为什么会想要这些东西呢？

So I talked with the partner lead and learned this: They didn’t actually care about the individual requests. Instead, the partner lead needs to show their boss — who then needs to show their boss — that the deal is worth their time.
我与合作伙伴负责人交谈后了解到，他们并不关心个别请求。相反，合作伙伴负责人需要向他们的上司展示——而上司又需要向更高的上司展示——这个交易是值得他们投入时间的。

That’s helpful! Once I understood the goal they desired, we could discard the nonsense they asked for and figure out how to make the boss happy.
这真有帮助！一旦我明白了他们想要的目标，我们就可以放弃那些无谓的要求，想办法让老板满意。

This repeats itself in so many ways. For example, think about the last time you argued about something dumb. Your goal was probably to feel understood and respected — but you didn’t want to say that, so you argued over something you hoped would achieve that goal (but probably didn’t).
这在很多方面都在重复。例如，想想你上次为一些无谓的事情争论的情景。你的目标可能是希望被理解和尊重——但你不想直接说出来，因此你争论了一些你希望能达到这个目标的事情（但可能并没有）。

So, why don’t we just say what we want upfront? Here’s why:
所以，为什么我们不直接表达我们的需求呢？原因如下：

We’re uncomfortable talking about goals.
我们对讨论目标感到不自在。

Goals can feel personal. Needy. Possibly weird. Maybe we’re not even clear what they are. Maybe we’re not sure it’s appropriate to share or ask for them.
目标有时会让人觉得很私密、很依赖，甚至有些奇怪。也许我们自己都不太清楚这些目标是什么，或者不确定是否合适去分享或请求它们。

So instead, we create a proxy for those goals. We guess what will get us there, and ask for that instead. It is a confusing way to communicate, leading us to argue about pointless things, demand stuff we don’t need, and seek sandwiches we don’t want.
因此，我们为这些目标设定了一个代理。我们猜测什么能帮助我们实现目标，然后请求那个。这种沟通方式令人困惑，导致我们争论无谓的事情，要求不必要的东西，寻找其实并不想要的三明治。

The solution is therefore simple: We must start with the goal.
因此，解决方案很简单：我们必须以目标为起点。

How? By using this simple filter: “What do you want to accomplish?”
怎么做？使用这个简单的提问：“你想实现什么？”

Before asking for anything, ask yourself that question. What do I want to accomplish? Do you really know? Are you able to ask for it? Can you ask without creating distractions?
在请求任何东西之前，先问自己这个问题：我想要达成什么？你真的清楚吗？你能提出请求吗？你能在不造成干扰的情况下提出请求吗？

And if you’re on the receiving end of someone’s question, ask them outright: What do you want to accomplish? You’re inviting clarity. They’ll appreciate it! They’ll tell you whatever they hesitated to say before.
如果你在某人的提问中处于接收方，直接问他们：你想要达成什么？这样可以让事情更清楚。他们会感激你的！他们会告诉你之前犹豫不决的事情。

When we know what we want, and we say what we want, we start to get what we want. And isn’t that what we all actually want?
当我们清楚自己想要什么，并且表达出来时，我们就开始获得我们想要的。这不正是我们大家所追求的吗？

That’s how to do one thing better.
这就是提升一项技能的方法。

P.S. Miss my last newsletter? It was about how to do work that really matters. Read!
P.S. 你错过了我上期的通讯吗？那期内容是关于如何做真正重要的工作的。快来阅读吧！

P.P.S. Do you live in Dubai? I’ll be there on business later this month, and have some time to fill. Would be fun to meet any newsletter subscribers out there! Reply and let me know.
P.P.S. 你住在迪拜吗？这个月晚些时候我会去那里出差，还有一些空闲时间。能见到任何订阅了我的新闻通讯的人会很有趣！请回复我，让我知道。

P.P.P.S. Are you using an AI notetaker? I use Fathom in almost every meeting now — it’s been a game-changer!
P.P.P.S. 你在使用人工智能记笔记工具吗？我现在几乎每次会议都用 Fathom——这真是个改变游戏规则的利器！

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