Asking for Help
Asking for help is something I’ve always struggled with. After watching this TED talk, I realized that I’m naturally a giver — I unconsciously approach situations with an attitude of “How can I help?” instead of “What can I get out of this?”, which can sometimes be a good thing — but I can take it too far, failing to get my own needs met, and thus also failing to help others the way I might like to.
In the TED talk, Adam Grant discusses research shows that shows that givers tend to be both the lowest-performing and the highest-performing members of any group. He suggests that they earn the goodwill of others, which is to their benefit, but they can also be taken advantage of by others. He also suggests that, even when their behavior is to their personal detriment, it can be to their organization’s benefit, so it’s important to find ways to reward givers whenever possible.
There’s another aspect of the upsides and downsides of “giving” vs “taking” behavior that’s more subtle, that I’ve experienced myself.
Back when I went to college, I didn’t get nearly as much out of the experience as I might have, if I had spent more time thinking about the question, “What can I get out of this?” Unfortunately, for better or worse, that’s just not a question that drives me. I can appreciate its importance rationally, but pursuing my own self-interest just doesn’t create the driving passion that motivates me to be my best self. The only thing that gets me to get off my ass and work hard is the feeling that someone else will personally and immediately benefit from my doing so.
One of the classes I learned the most from in college was an introductory economics course. It wasn’t something I was especially interested in — and even in my favorite classes, I always found it hard to do more than the minimum required to pass. But in this class, there was one particular student who asked for my help. She was an attractive young woman who was clearly used to getting her way by flirting, and had what Adam Grant would identify as a “taker” mentality. I was strongly disinclined to engage with that behavior — but that didn’t mean I wanted to see her fail, either! It was clear that she was struggling with the math and concepts, and also that she had many of the same issues with attention and self-motivation that I had, which I could strongly empathize with.
I agreed to tutor her. We worked together on all the homework assignments, and discussed the reading together. I ignored her pressure to simply provide all the answers, and instead guided her to asking the right questions to figure it out on her own.
It seemed to work — but, perhaps most interesting of all, I too learned far more about economics than I would have otherwise! I not only had to understand the work enough to do the assignments, but also to answer her questions. Driven by the desire to help, I spent a lot more time and effort on the class than I would have otherwise, and I benefited greatly from that.
Years later, when I went back to school, it was to study massage therapy. This time, I was directly learning how to help people, and I worked far harder in that school than I ever had before.
Looking at these ideas, I realize that perhaps I can learn to be selfish when I need to, by re-framing it as finding more efficient ways to help others.
Our other assignment this week was to ask for help. To that end, I reached out to some friends and acquaintances this week with relevant skills, and asked if they would be willing to meet up with me to discuss my work. I also signed up for LinkedIn Premium, which allows users to send a few direct messages each month to people who they aren’t connected to, and I started reaching out to people who might be able to help me with my new business. I tried to remind myself that everyone who offers me help is really joining me in my quest to help others. Slowly, I’m understanding how to get my own needs met.
