Accepting Help
Learning how to accept help seems like such a simple thing to learn, but I think it is rarely practiced. Yet the benefits of learning how to accept help are probably better than the benefits gained from learning any of the other 5 things I will talk about. If the benefits are so extraordinary, and accepting help is such a simple thing to do, why is it rarely practiced? The problem is that accepting help is not as simple as advertised. Let’s take a few examples where you might want help as you age:
A) Tying your shoe
In the first instance, we have a child of about 4 years and he needs help tying his shoes. We’ve seen how children react when they’ve got an untied shoelace; some children tug at their mother’s leg and impatiently stick their foot out to get their laces tied so they can get back to the urgent job of playing. Other children ignore their untied laces as long as possible; only when they’ve fallen 3 or 4 times will they reluctantly go to the nearest adult.
If that child could just ask his mother or siblings to teach him how to tie his shoes, his life would be so much better, he could play all day without having to find an adult; he might even be able to teach the other kids and become the “hero” and “leader” of the group. But the child can’t see that, it’s annoying to ask for help: the other
kids are watching and waiting, remember.
B) Trouble in a class
When you are in school, the worst thing that can happen is being humiliated. Your peers and what they think of you are everything to you. You’re the best athlete in school, but you are having trouble in English class. Instead of asking for help you decide you’re just going to be the dumb jock. If only you’d ask for help, you could be the best
athlete AND a leader in class. How are you supposed to know that kids look up to smart athletes way more than they do idiots? and that after you graduate you’ll be much better off being smart than dumb.
C) Difficulty managing a group of people
At work, our whole value to a company is based on our ability to do a job. We can’t ask for help to do our own job. What would be the point of being in a position that you can’t even do? The people I manage would quickly realize that I can’t do my job, and they would stop doing theirs. It’s hard to see that by asking for help, even from our
own people (the ones we are managing) we are actually showing that we care about how they can be best managed. And these people would be much more appreciative and more responsive employees. Who knows what
managing success could do for our careers?
D) Raising children
We can’t ask help with our kids, everyone else has problems with their own kids. Besides I don’t want them to see how bad my kids are.
E) Going to the bathroom
When I’m old, I’d sooner die than let someone wipe me. I guess my grandchildren can live without hearing my life experiences.
Help is actually a very hard thing for us to accept. We have a hard time accepting help in school, asking for directions, and doing our jobs. Accepting help is somehow a tremendous sign of weakness. If I ask for help in school, it is an admission to my classmates, but more importantly to myself, that I don’t really know the material. If I ask help for directions, it is an admission that I am a foreigner in this place. If I ask help in a job, it shows that I am not fit to do the job I was hired to do. The truth is that when we ask or accept help, we feel that we are somehow not fit to be in whatever situation we find ourselves in.
Making matters worse, many of our friends and coworkers enforce this notion by jeering at us and making fun whenever we do overcome our fears and actually ask for help. It is a negative feedback loop. We behave just as rats do when presented with food but everytime they touch it, they are electrocuted, eventually they are conditioned to avoid the electrocuted food. If each time we overcome our fears and ask for help, we are ridiculed; eventually we stop asking for and accepting help.
How can we avoid this negative loop? The way forward is found in changing our perspective on help. Until now we have been concerned with our own vulnerability. We need to instead focus on the tremendous opportunity.
1) Help is an opportunity to excel in what we are doing rather than “just get by.” When we ask for help it is usually because we think we could be doing better, help is a chance to do better.
2) Help is an opportunity to meet someone new. We often see a good-looking girl in a strange setting and think “If
only I could approach her, maybe she’d be my girl.” If we have something we need help with, all of a sudden we have something to say to the unapproachable girl.
3) Help is an opportunity to influence people. My father always says, “If you want to influence people, you first
must allow them to influence you.” When we allow someone to help us, we allow them to influence our lives; they now have a “stake” in our success. Part of human nature dictates that when we have a stake in something, we take an interest in that thing and its course. In this case the helper becomes interested in us, presenting us with the
chance to share ourselves and our perspective.
4) Help is an opportunity to see beyond the status quo. If we always stay within our own capabilities, we cannot expect to grow in experience. When we accept help, we accept a new perspective. This change in perspective is an opportunity to see a new way forward in small things, but occasionally in large things. When I was in Phoenix interviewing for my job with Intel, I was trying to get into the Phoenix Suns game. I ran into a kid who needed a cell phone to call home. I was reluctant at first, I didn’t know if he was going to steal it or something. I gave it to him, then after he made his phone call, I decided to ask for help, too. He told me the best place to watch a Phoenix Suns game was to go to this bar down the street. I thanked him and went on my way. The “seeing beyond the status quo” happened when I got to the bar and a lady was standing in the doorway trying to sell her COURTSIDE tickets for $20. I snapped one up and 10 minutes later I was seven rows from the floor.
Have you ever heard a company say in its presentations to prospective employees, “Our biggest asset is our people”? Forget the company, YOUR and MY biggest assets are the people around us, and we have 6 billion of them waiting to offer us their services free of charge.
Once you realize that being able to ask for help is a tremendous sign of strength rather than a weakness, you might feel like you’ve learned something, but HOW do you ask for help? Well, you just learn the 3rd Thing to Learn in this Life… (my personal favorite)
Luis
8.26.07
