"If You Don't Ask, You Don't Get"

Until this past February, I worked in a corporate setting: It was a big place, and my cubicle was on a major thoroughfare in the maze of grayness that made up the Marketing department. So I decorated that cubicle with copies of each project (home, kid, pet portraits) I'd completed. More commissions started coming in, and I plastered the outside of my cubicle with them.

A couple of things happened. People would drop in my cubicle and ask me to do projects for them. Lots of projects: pet portraits, home portraits, caricatures of people who were retiring. Each more exciting and challenging than the last.

Then, I heard that a group of friends were putting on a production of Amadeus at the Concord Players. I pitched that I could do a caricature of the entire cast as a gift to their director, and I proposed my fee. All they could do is say No, right? They accepted.

We settled on a price that they could afford and that was fair to me.

Back in the day, I would wait around for people to come to me. Now I get it: You set an intention. You go outside your comfort zone. And then things happen.

Put yourself out there, and, with a little enthusiasm, the results may surprise you. Stevie Wonder was right. If you don't ask, you don't get.

Here's the director of the play, proudly displaying a caricature of her 18-person cast.