Don't sell yourself short
It works great for chocolates, and for tutoring
A few months ago, I was hanging out with my business club mentee, Josie, at the Bomb Shelter at UCLA.
I had just eaten a wonderful pizza from Blaze Pizza, and was feeling up for a delicious dessert. Fortunately, there’s a UCLA Store location right nearby, so I pulled up with Josie and bought myself a Lindor chocolate.
An interesting thing then happened, which I documented in a LinkedIn post around that time:
Today, I was buying a Lindor chocolate at the UCLA bomb shelter when the cashier ringed me up for 99 cents.
Shocked, I asked if she had the right price, since they used to be 55 cents. She responded that they recently increased some prices, but that she’d double check just in case.
Turns out they were 55 cents, and she accidentally chose the wrong item. Result?
44 cents saved! The importance of self advocacy cannot be overstated.— My own LinkedIn post, June 2024
It was a funny experience at the moment, and it made me chuckle that the LinkedIn post got ~10,000 impressions over a few weeks.
But this chucklesome moment and experience became relevant to me quite recently. And by quite recently, I mean about two days ago.
Let me explain.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been tutoring a local high schooler in pre-calculus. I saw a listing for the position in UCLA’s student newspaper (I’ve written much more about this here), and have been tutoring the student whenever their mom reached out to me as needed.
The first time this happened, the rate was $40/hour. The second time, I was expecting the same rate, but was paid $45 for a job well done. Nice!
And this past week, they reached out again to schedule two more hours. I happily agreed, but since I’m graduating from UCLA in three weeks, I figured I’d ask for a higher rate since my time is much more limited and valuable to me. Worst-case scenario, they’d just pay me $45/hour again. Not too bad!
So I found myself sending this email:
Hello Naz,
[scheduling stuff]
Also, I was wondering if we could increase the tutoring rate to $50/hour. I'm graduating from UCLA in three weeks, so my time is much more limited and valuable to me. Thanks so much!
Best,
Dennis
And to my surprise, this response came just a few minutes later!
Hi Dennis, thank you for getting back to me. I will pay you $60.00. Tomorrow at 5 pm works. Also, are you available on Tuesday as well? She needs two sessions anytime after 3 PM would work. Matisse is very happy with you and I appreciate your services. Hope you had a great weekend!
WHOA! That was even better than I had expected, this is crazy!
And when the tutoring session had ended, I was paid $65 for a job well done again. I was honestly blown away, and felt great the rest of the day.
The lessons from these experiences are twofold:
If you consistently show up and do great work, others will notice and reciprocate. This is a great way to build strong relationships, and keep yourself proud of your work.
The importance of self-advocacy cannot be overstated. This was true for the Lindor chocolate, and for the tutoring. They say that closed mouths don’t get fed, and that’s so true in many aspects of life!
That’s all for me now, folks. Until next time 💪
Best,
Dennis :)
Dennis’s Picks:
I just finished reading the book Land of Big Numbers, and it was one of my favorites in a long time. It’s a collection of beautifully written short stories about Chinese culture and experiences, and I finished it in one amazing afternoon.
I really enjoyed this article from Nat Eliason, who wrote about the importance of exploration and self-discovery. My favorite quote from the piece: “You can explore and try new things with a certain lightness. It doesn’t need to work out right away, or in the way you want it to, and you don’t need to justify the exploration at the start. By exploring you are discovering the ways in which the exploration can justify itself. So try things, experiment, explore. You never know how the various threads will tie together later.”
