I'm a Cold Caller and I Live outside Most Comfort Zone

Part of the requirements to be a candidate for the Reston Association board seat is to assemble 25 signatures. To do so I have to ask people to sign. Most people if they are not distracted are agreeable to being solicited. But some few are highly annoyed and will look at you as if incredible that you are on the same planet.

I do much the same thing in my business of going to beauty salons soliciting stylists to have their scissors sharpened.

I had done the same soliciting when I petitioned Reston Citizens for to sign a petition permitting Reston to be incorporated to be put on the ballot. We'd hang out in front of grocery stores and ...ask citizens to sign. Most did. We got almost 5,000 signatures! A few people were mildly uncomfortable or said they didn't have time.

A lot of my fellow Reston Citizens Association members felt uncomfortable enough about asking for signatures, that they never showed up as volunteers to help in a effort which they were otherwise committed to. Some did, Jane Wong was one who single handedly got most of the 5,000 signatures.

I felt I had a right as a citizen to solicit other citizens for there own good.

It was Marion Stilson a transplanted Englishwoman who taught me to solicit for civic sauses when I first joined the Reston Citizens Association. She is now the President of RCA the but she is a leader in another way. She is a great example in living her life unconstrained by the wheelchair she is presently confined in.

Soliciting is though I think outside of most people's comfort zone. Especially Americans, maybe less so other nationalities. At first thinking about it I was a little uncomfortable but then once you do it it's fun, kind of like jumping into a cool mountain stream.

So I was not at all uncomfortable soliciting my fellow citizens for their signature on my petition to run for the Reston association Board Seat. I got some 48 names among them Joe Leighton (who is also running for the at large seat and I also signed his I don't feel I am reunnig "against" Joe but for Reston) Mark Steppell, Kathleen Driscol McKee, Richard Chew, Mary E. LaValley, Kati Ray, Jane Lee Wong, Colin Mills, Mike Corrigan, Richard Stilson, John Lovas and 40 others. A petition signer dose not obligate themselves to vote for the person running but like my town petition merely to allow it to be on the ballot. But it made me feel good that these fellow 'civic activists' felt comfortable signing my petition. And this time like always there were a few who were horrified

But if you have to cold call, to ask someone, to propose a deal to someone and you are a little bit nervous. Just go ahead and do it. You'll generally be glad you did. The next time will be easier and easier. I was sort of sad to turn in my petition to Cate Fulkerson, ending this part of the campaign.

They say the fastest growing Christian religion is Mormonism. And it's because they ask. Most don't ask so they don't grow. Not that I'm pro Mormon but maybe it demonstrates a point.

If you cold call you put yourself at risk to condemnation. That's why you have to believe in yourself. I urge you to believe in yourself and be all that you can be.

It's my hope that Reston will believe in itself and vote for me and vote to be connected to one another. As we connect and are concerned for one another's views it's my belief that we will enter a new ear and be the kind of society that Robert Simon envisioned. Clap your hands! that will be a great day, we're all going to win!