38 I NTERPERSONAL N EGOTIATIONS Alice quit the next day. In her exit interview with Mark, she said she had quit because the work load was intolerable, and she felt Mark and Aaron re- fused to respect her needs, Mark was surprised because he had not understood from what Aaron had said how serious the situation was. While there was a company policy to hold down hiring additional staff, Mark had in fact added staff in both the human resources and the information systems departments because the managers of those departments had assertively come to him with workload analyses and had made specific requests. They had negotiated for what they needed with Mark. Aaron!s beliefs and consequent timid behaviors caused him to lose track of his duty to assess his department and to assertively negotiate with his boss for the staff increases that were needed. Others Mirror Our Beliefs The amazing thing about our beliefs is that others believe us. Beliefs are con- tagious. When we believe that we can!t, others believe we can!t. When we believe that we can, others pick up on our confidence and believe that we can do what we say we can do. Others do not question us unless we question our- selves. They respect us as much as we expect to be respected. It is as if we walk around with a price tag hanging on our hat. Sometimes our price tag says we are worth a dollar, and other times fifty cents, and still other times we are willing to pay others to take us off their hands. Other people always seem to know what we believe we are worth, and they rarely give us more than we