Show Notes

Episode 17: Asking for Help

Asking for help can be so, well, helpful. Yet many people (Janine and Shannon included) have difficulty asking for help. In this episode we explore how life can be better when you seek help. This episode includes a special (surprise!) guest appearance by Mike, Shannon’s husband, who is an asking-for-help ninja. He shares some of his insights on the whys and hows of seeking help.

Discussion topics include:

  • How perfectionism can get in the way of asking for help
  • The ins and outs of asking for directions
  • Shannon and Janine’s adventure in asking for help when they had car difficulties in Utah
  • Why it’s a good practice to ask for help even when it’s difficult
  • Mike’s strategy for asking for help (hint: it’s always a conversation, not just a question)
  • How just by asking Mike finds out that he needs help with things he doesn’t even know about
  • Mike’s view that he doesn’t just ask for help, he gets clarification of the problem
  • A couple of approaches that might make it a little easier to ask for help
  • Shannon and Janine’s promised experiment with asking for help

Link:

Janine’s post on accepting help (which to her is quite different from asking strangers for help)

Comment from Janine: At the end of this episode, Shannon and I vowed to ask for help more. Shannon said she would seek out people in stores and ask for help. I just promised to say yes and ask a question when approached by an employee in a store. The result of that experiment? Well, neither of us has spent much times in stores in the couple of weeks since we recorded the episode, but I sought out help at The Container Store with a storage challenge for a client and was richly rewarded with some great advice I hadn’t thought of. Shannon solicited advice from her chiropractor in selecting shoes. But she didn’t stop there. When approached by a brand representative of the shoe company, she actually peppered him with questions, told him what she was looking for and asked for his advice (rather than just wishing he’d go away). She told me, “I learned so much! I’m really glad I did it.”

3 thoughts on “Episode 17: Asking for Help”

  1. I don’t ask for help, but I should. When Mike said, “Smart people ask for help,” it made me cringe. I am considered to be a smart person but overriding that is arrogance. I always think I know the best way to do something and that is a character flaw of mine which I am working on.

    I did a pretty good job of asking my ex-boyfriend for help because — since he is Jewish — he was always wanting to do mitzvahs. So sometimes I would create a task that I could easily do myself and ask for his help just to give him the opportunity to help me.

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