Enter the ZOFO: Zone Of Freaking Out

Jen Hardy [00:00:09]:

Hello, fabulous. And welcome back to the Fabulous Over 50 podcast, where today I am going to bring you the most phenomenal woman. She is a powerhouse. Her name is Dia Bondi, and she is going to tell you all about the ZOFO. Yeah, you heard that right. ZOFO the zone of freaking out. And that’s actually a good thing. And if you’re wondering, how in the heck is that a thing? Stay tuned and listen, and you are going to learn how to get the most out of your life, from everything from work to things at the store to things with your significant other. Just all of the things. How to ask for more, get more, and really grab life by the horns. Take charge of your life and get control. Stay tuned. Listen to Dia, and we will be back at the end so we can talk about this a little bit more. She is a rock star. All right, Dia, thank you so much for joining me. We met at Podfest and you talked about the ZOFO, and we have got to talk about that. But before you want to just tell a little bit about you.

Dia Bondi [00:01:22]:

Sure. I’m longtime leadership communications coach. I help sea level leaders and VC backed founders who are usually like series B in their fundraising rounds and beyond because they need to have a product and market and revenue coming in and they have to start actually leading teams and not just being a product wonk, as many of them are. I say that in the most affectionate and positive way. But I work with both of these groups of folks to help them start to think about their voice as a leadership tool, not just a transaction transaction tool. So I’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations in social impact like the Clinton Global Initiative and folks who need to speak powerfully at their large gatherings, UN gathering years and non UN gathering years, as well as working on Olympic bids, I helped Rio de Janeiro win the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. And I work in tech. A lot of my clients are in the tech space, really trying to build tools and products that make a difference to people’s lives. And a few years ago, I went to auctioneering school during a sabbatical just for fun and started doing fundraising auctioneering for women led nonprofits. And nonprofits benefiting women and girls. And turns out that what I learned from the auctioneering stage can teach us a lot about how to ask for more and get it. And so in 2019, I launched project Ask Like, an auctioneer with a goal to help a million women and underrepresented people in their industries ask for more and get it. And the book will be coming out fall 2023. So that’s a little bit about me. I have two kiddos, one’s hyper competitive, also saying that in the most supportive and positive way. Softball player. She’s 13 this summer and a 16 year old son who wants to build robots.

Jen Hardy [00:03:14]:

Very cool. Well, that’s the way of the future. So that’s a good goal. So part of the reason I wanted to have you on is this ask like an engineer or auctioneer. What can people do if they’re standing at the precipice right, of what could potentially be a whole new thing to get through that fear and do something new?

Dia Bondi [00:03:35]:

I think it’s an important distinction that when I think about Project Ask Like an Auctioneer, it’s really about helping people ask for more and get it and use asking as a success strategy. And if you’re going to do that, you got to know what you want first. So I’m in the business of come talk to me once you know what you want. Okay. So that’s number one. Number two, when I think about Ask for More and get it, and when I think about what it means to ask like an auctioneer, I think about how do you, once you know what you want, think about what you might ask for in order to get you closer to your goal in that way. I posit, and I don’t remember if I talked about this in the session you were in that I believe in my 20 years of leadership communications coaching, and I do a fair number of skills workshops where people are more pursuing sort of their individual ambitions. So they’re not thinking about their leadership as much, although they are they’re also thinking about how do I use my voice to advance my own goals? And that’s where people bring. They bring desires that are more personal. It’s not how do I acquire more users or how do I align my teams. It’s much more about like, how do I make VP in three years, how do I find an opportunity to take a sabbatical when it’s not part of our organizational policy? How do I move to part time such that I can have pursue a personal passion and not take work so seriously? Like, they’re much more personal requests. So in all of that work, I have seen over and over again that asking is one of the most overlooked and actively avoided success strategies we have out there. There’s actually a new research from she’s either a sociologist or a social psychologist at Stanford. She wrote a paper called Happy to Help. I think it’s called Happy to help. And it shows the data shows that people are more willing to help than we are willing to ask. There’s a gap there, and I want us as askers on the asking side of that equation to fill that gap. So what does it mean to step into the ZOFO? And for listeners, you’re probably like, what is a ZOFO? So here’s the deal. I’m going to try to break it down to what it means to ask like an auctioneer, and that’ll clarify what the ZOFO is and then we can talk about how you might use it. How’s that? Jen?

Jen Hardy [00:05:59]:

That sounds great.

Dia Bondi [00:06:00]:

So clients come to me when they need to at really critical communications moments. And I’ve been fairly active in my career in the world of advancing women in entrepreneurship, women in the workplace, women who are leading a social impact, and this has been especially true for that group of folks. It comes to me when they have to communicate at really critical moments, use their leadership voice and when we put together their pitch or their story or whatever it is they need to do in front of that critical audience which could be a boardroom with six people or it could be in an industry conference instead of 6000 people. It just depends. They’re high leverage moments. I always have to ask, what is it that you want? What are you asking for? In business, we use the term call to action, and not just in marketing, but when we’re in front of a critical audience, what is it that you want from them? And it’s usually something like investment, engagement, a vote, access to something. And as soon as I get the what, I always have to ask, well, how much? How much of that thing are you asking for? And over and over again, I met with a lot of hand wringing at all levels, by the way. At all levels, I met with a lot of hand wringing and then I met with a follow up question, which is usually something like, I don’t know, dio, what do you think I can get? And for a lot of years, I was co conspiring with my clients to define it that way. Yeah, great question. What do you think you can get? Okay, I need $100,000 budget, but they’ll never go for that. I think they’d probably go for 60. So I’m going to ask for 60 and then I’m going to piece together the rest of the budget with like, in house talent, taking their 20% of flex time and applying it to my project. Do you see what I’m doing here? Yeah, fill in the gap with Southern. Okay, fine. So then they go out and make that ask and they get their 60 grand. And then they’re cobbling together the gap between what they really needed to make their project super successful and what they asked for. And we are high fiving each other because they got a yes to the 60 grand. When I started auctioneering, I realized that’s a fail. Why? Because we designed our ask based on what we thought we could get. And we are often limited to doing that because there’s a relationship between how big an ask it is that we make and how much courage we can muster to do it. If I want to make a huge ask, I’m going to ask myself, how much courage can I muster? Oh, I can muster four units of courage. Then that means I could probably ask for four units of the ask, whatever that is and what that ends up landing us on, and what sort of defines how much courage we can muster is what we think we can get a yes to. Meaning the yes is the limiting factor in how big of an ask we make. They’ll never go for that. What do you think they’ll go for? Well, I think they’ll go I’m 98% sure or 87% sure they’re going to go for 60 grand. And if I’m pretty sure they’re going to say yes, that’s about as much courage as I can muster. And so, boom, the yes is just held hostage. How big of an ask I can make? Are you freaking?

Jen Hardy [00:09:20]:

Yeah.

Dia Bondi [00:09:20]:

Okay.

Jen Hardy [00:09:21]:

Absolutely.

Dia Bondi [00:09:22]:

Why don’t we ask for more than we are guaranteed or mostly guaranteed? All you listening, take a minute right now and think to yourselves, how much of a guarantee do I need to ask for? The thing that I want to ask for, how much I need to be 80% sure I need to be 90% sure. Some of you listening might be like, if I’m not 100% sure, I’m not opening my mouth. Because it is an existential threat to get a no. We tie up our worth and worthiness in it. We do all kinds of spinnings on what the word no means. Now, why don’t we ask for more than whatever your level of comfort is or your level of sort of guarantee might be defined as? Because everything between a guaranteed yes or mostly guaranteed yes and that menacing word no lives in a place I like to call the zone of freaking out, or the ZOFO. It’s when your best friend says, really? You’ve been writing for $75 an hour for 15 years, and it’s time for you to raise your rates to 125. And you’re like, that gives you that ZOFO feeling, and you all know what I’m talking about. It’s that feeling that makes you go, who do you think you are? You’re going to ruin everything. Get back in the box. So the zone of freaking out, however, is actually where all the potential is. So this is not. This idea of aiming for a yes is not and then congratulating ourselves for getting that instant yes is not what we do as auctioneers. And here’s the AHA that hit me. When I started auctioneering, I recognized that when I make an ask in the room, let’s imagine I’m selling a piece of art and I open the bidding at $1,000 if a paddle goes up in the air and I say, Sold. What have I just done? Jen?

Jen Hardy [00:11:30]:

Yeah. You’ve lost out on so much potential.

Dia Bondi [00:11:33]:

So much so I’ve got to ask for more. Ask for more until what? Until somebody says no. And the moment I hear the no, I know I’ve maximized the potential of that ask and I sell it for whatever I was asking for just below the no. So I can say opening the bid at $1,000, looking for 1500. Somebody’s in at zone 500. I say looking for 2000, someone’s in at 2000. I say looking for 2500, somebody’s in at 2500. I say looking for 3000. Some out. He’s in at 3000. I say looking for 3500. And the person that was in at 25 says looks at me kind of blankly and I say, I’ve got it at 3000. I’m looking for 3500. Who’s in at 3500? I’ve got no paddles in the room. I say, I’ve got it at 3000. Somebody said yes to 3000. Who’s in at 3500? The person that was maybe in a bidding war with the person who’s got it for 3000 looks at me and just gives me a subtle head shake. I know it’s time to sell it and I know I’ve maximized potential of that ask in that room. We actually go intentionally toward a no. No is great news. It’s told me you have maximized the potential of that ask. I’m going to say that over and over again so we can actually reframe the word no, not as an existential threat or a sign that you’re just not worth it. And instead to go like, oh, there it is, I touched the ceiling, I got it. I know exactly that I am at the top of what’s possible good for me and then negotiate down and inevitably you’re going to land on a number, an amount, a level of access, an opportunity, because it’s not just about dollars and cents. We can talk about the four asking types. If we’d like out when we negotiate down, we’re inevitably going to end up with more than we would have had we designed our ask around achieving a guaranteed yes. Do you hear that?

Jen Hardy [00:13:27]:

Absolutely.

Dia Bondi [00:13:28]:

Those are always in the ZOFO. And since I realized this and then built a project around it, a keynote in a workshop and now publishing a book around it, I eat my own dog food, jen and listeners understand, like my team will even be like, really, dear? You’re going to send that proposal out? Is that a ZOFO proposal? You playing it safe, girl. Not every ask we make is a ZOFO ask. Not every ask needs the ZOFO treatment. But there are critical moments, particularly getting back to your initial question, particularly for very strategic asks you are making, that will majorly advance you toward your goals. Those are exactly the moments not to pull punches. Those are exactly the moments because the stakes are high. When the stakes are high, we want to extra guarantee because it feels super important to us. But that is actually exactly the moment when we should be making a ZOFO ask because we’re going to artificially shrink our asks in order to secure that guarantee when we don’t need to. Because of one of the ideas I shared in the workshop you were in because people this is something I learned from auctioneering are irrational or their rationale for what they’ll say yes or no to is not your rationale for what you would say yes or no to. I think I told this story in the session, Jen, that I once sold a one night camping trip for twelve people for $55,000. Twice we doubled it. $110,000 for two one night glamping trips. Yes, they were catered. Are they $55,000 worth of catered? Who am I to say what it’s worth? Not my business. They got to buy it for however much they said yes to it. It was not for me to decide. Because I’ll tell you what, if I had decided, if I had decided ahead of time what they should pay for it, we would have been in the high teens, low twenty s, and I would have left money on the table. So I guess my invitation to everyone is to first understand that feeling that you get when you’re in your ZOFO is not necessarily a feeling that you’re breaking stuff. It’s a feeling that’s telling you you’re doing something courageous, you’re standing up for your dreams, for yourself, and you’re making the kinds of asks that can change everything. Now to your question, Jen, I should be recording this because I’m just preaching right now to your question. How can we start using the ZOFO? I go back to what is it that you want? Okay? And don’t just jump to what do I ask for? So in the book that is available, I’m going to pitch it right now because you all want to get it. It’s available for preorder right now on all the places that you get all the places that you get your favorite books, target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, et cetera. It’ll come out November 14, and when you preorder it, you’re going to get a bunch of bonuses that are going to be live in June. I don’t know when this episode goes live, but you’ll have some access to some cool three different assets. Actually, when we think about how do we use the ZOFO, you’re going to build an ask plan that leverages the idea of the ZOFO. And this is something you can do on your own, and the book will teach you how to do it, but I’ll walk you through it right now. Unless Jen, I’ve been monologuing for a while, so maybe I need to stop and see if you have any you’re.

Jen Hardy [00:16:47]:

Here to talk, so I’m loving this. No, you just go, this is exactly what they need to hear. This is perfect.

Dia Bondi [00:16:56]:

For example, so six step ask plan starts. I’m just going to give you the first three. What is my goal? What is the goal that I have right now? And it can’t be like, I’m going to transform the world. No, I need it to be like, I want to publish a book with a publisher in the next three years. Blah blah, blah, or I want to land my first six figure deal in the next 18 months or my goal is to move the work that I do. I had a woman, she was in her 50s who came to me after I did a workshop and she was like, I want to go to half time. She was a lighting designer. She’s like, I’ve been to this engineering firm for a really long time. I want to go to half time. I want to double my hourly rate so I can start a side hustle and move into a different industry and great goal. Great. So we’re thinking about a concrete midterm goal number one. And here’s the thing that will happen. I just was doing a talk at a marketing agency conference last week and people when we did the workshop version of Ask like an auctioneer, I asked people to share their goals. And half of the goals I heard was stuff that people were going to do. Meaning like, I’m going to operationalize, I don’t know, my creative process or something. It was all like more work they were going to do themselves versus get my company to a level of efficiency that allows for me to work less. So the invitation of your goal, think of it as something you want to have happen, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be just a big to do list. Okay? So some outcome you want to create and then the next thing you have to ask yourself before this is step two in the powerful Ask plan, what is the next move I need to make that gets me closer to that goal? What’s the next move I need to make that gets me closer to that goal? And that could be access to a particular network you don’t yet have access to right now. It could mean securing an overt mentorship relationship with somebody who’s going to help level you up. It could mean for me and my book, one of the big moves in publishing my book was to secure endorsements from some very influential people. It’s a big move. Okay. Now once you know what your goal is and you know what your big move is that you need to make if I’m going to achieve that, what are the things I got to action, right, to get me closer to that? Then you can ask, what might I ask for that actions? My big move that gets me closer to my goal and who might I ask it of? You don’t have to know yet. You could start with a person like, oh, there’s somebody really important in my domain and I want to figure out what I might ask them. It might be what asks might I make? And then go, who might I make them of in order to action that thing? It’s okay that you start with one or the other or both. You might brainstorm both lists and then do a matchup game. What are the asks I could make and of who could I make them? So these are the first three steps in figuring out how do I use the ZOFO. Now, once you’ve identified what the ask is that you might make and to whom you might make it, the next step. I said I was going to give you the first three, but I’m not going to give you the next one. The next one is to ask yourself, is this a ZOFO ask, or am I playing teeny tiny? Am I standing in the box? And that’s where we can hold ourselves accountable for not making decisions for our ascies about what they might or might not say yes to, but instead challenge what we think we can get and say, if I want to ask for this, fill in the blank. What is the ZOFO version of it? If I were to pump this ask up to the degree that makes it feel Zofoish for me, that nauseous feeling you get that says, oh, stuff, what’s the version of that? And see what you can come up with. Sometimes it’s like, I’m going to ask for a 10% raise. And then when I ask, what is the ZOFO number is that ZOFO ish? And they’re like, kind of. I’m like, okay, what is the actual ZOFO? And it’ll be like, 20% raise. Okay, now we’re onto something. Now we’re going to ask the question, what do you think? They’ll absolutely say no to 30% raise. Excellent. So let’s put 30. Let’s put 30 on it. The far distant zone of the zone of freaking out is the 30%. You know you’re in your zofa when you’re at 20% and you know that a 10% raise might be something we like to call your reserve. You’re not going to stay in that role beyond the next year if you can’t secure a minimum of a 10% raise. These are very pedestrian sort of examples, but there it is. So we’ve got to identify what our reserve is once we know what our ZOFO ask is, what is the boundary at which you will not go below in the counteroffer? This is where we hold fast to what matters to us. This is where we flip the script and we don’t ask, what am I worth? We ask, Is this counteroffer worth it to me? So this is how we use the ZOFO, how we deploy it, and help it stay alive in the ways in which we design the asks that we might make that are important to catapulting us toward our goals. Mike, drop. That’s it.

Jen Hardy [00:23:04]:

We can end right there. That is exactly what I think everybody needs to hear. I know it’s what I needed to hear. I mean, you lit a fire that day with me. I tell you what. I put a big thing on my computer that says, enter the ZOFO to push me out of my comfort zone. And I think, yeah, because it’s always no. That’s what I try to explain to people if you don’t ask, it’s no, it is. No, because you haven’t asked.

Dia Bondi [00:23:28]:

My big issue is not women ask. Research shows women ask, they just don’t get. And I’m just like, I want you and I’m not going to tell women they should ask. I think women need to do whatever the hell they think is important in the stage that they’re in, getting toward their goals. My issue is, if you’re going to ask, might you actually enter the ZOFO and maximize the potential of the ask you’ve already decided you’re going to make? Because I just want to show you a mental model and a framework that lets you not leave anything on the table so that you can resource whatever dream you have. Because your dream needs resources, it needs networks, it needs friends, it needs champions, it needs money, it needs mentors, it needs sponsors, it needs clients.

Jen Hardy [00:24:26]:

And it’s not necessarily business. I mean, it’s all the kind of things that you do in your whole life. This applies to everything you’re doing in your life. And thank you so much. I so appreciate you coming, sharing. It’s been amazing and you do such great things. So thank you for taking the time because I know your time is very valuable. So I’m really glad I did the ask and you’re here and thank you again.

Dia Bondi [00:24:49]:

Thanks, Jen.

Jen Hardy [00:24:51]:

Oh, my gosh. Is she powerful or what? I cannot even believe. And she talks so fast because she has so much great information and she’s got to get it in and diet. Thank you again for joining me. You are a phenomenal rock star and you listener. So are you. And with this information, when you enter that zone of freaking out, you’re going to get things done. Let me tell you what, I had a bunch of things that I wanted to do and I was afraid, I’m not going to lie, I was. I was afraid. I was afraid to tell people what I wanted to do. I was afraid to ask for the help and support that I needed. But when I listened to her, I made this huge enter the ZOFO banner that I’m going to have on the website that you can go and take and download it and keep it and put it somewhere, print it out. Because entering that ZOFO, entering the zone of freaking out, getting out of my comfort zone and into the discomfort of asking, which women do struggle for asking for all of what we want. Right? Like she was saying, we might ask for 60% or 50%. No, girl, we’re going to start asking for 100, 110, 150, let them come back down to the hundred. Right? But we are going to get it. And I’m so glad you got to hear her. She is a lightning rod. And did you see? I mean, she’s worked with the Olympics. She’s worked with all these huge things and she came here today to talk to us and that makes me so excited. And one of the things that I started after hearing her was my Jen’s Friends because it’s something that I’ve really been wanting to do. Did you know that loneliness, it’s an epidemic right now. After 2020, things got weird. People started staying home. The connections have not all been reengaged and there’s a lot of older women who are home and lonely. You might have someone in your family like that, maybe an aunt or a grandma. You know, you should be calling her more, but your life is busy. Sign her up. For Jen’s friends. It’s giftable. It’s only $17 a month and every single day I’ll be in her inbox just two to three minutes. Just encouraging her, inspiring her to do things and get out there and teaching her about the ZOFO so that she can push those boundaries and do some phenomenal things. And I’m just so fired up about it because I know it’s solving a huge problem that’s out there. And speaking of huge problems, have you listened to the news lately? Is that crazy or what? Things are going weird and the world is going mad and we have the antidote. It’s called the Good Human Guild. You can join the guild. We give awards out on the podcast every Friday. And you’re going to want to stay tuned because the person that’s about to get this award is also on fire. And I’ve shortened the music at the end of the episodes so that you can just keep listening and it’ll flow right into it. It’s going to be amazing. So make sure you’ve subscribed or followed the podcast and you’re just going to get every episode because we are going to have fabulous things coming for you and I don’t want you to miss one of them because it’s going to be amazing. So thank you for joining me today. I value your time. Stay tuned and stay fabulous.