You can journal a fortune and still die polite. The ask is where continuous desire becomes a discrete event in someone else's day: a price, a meeting, a placement, a yes or a no. Electric Empress does not decorate the ask. She makes it clean enough to answer.
Apology is the tax you pay to stay likable while you want something. It sounds like a preamble, a discount, a joke at your own expense, a 'no worries if not' that teaches them not to worry, and not to pay. The body will try to sneak the tax back in. Catch it.
A clean ask has four parts: who, what, number or terms, when. If any part is fog, you are still in almost. You do not need to feel brave. You need to send it while your hands are still cold. Bravery is a story you tell after the send.
No is data. Silence is data after a reasonable window. A rearranged yes is data. None of these are a verdict on your soul. If you require every ask to be loved, you will only ask ghosts. Ghosts do not wire money.