Personal Development
How to Ask For Help the Right Way
Build mentorship networks so they are ready in advance
Many find it difficult to request help. Even more so when the task at hand is difficult or time-consuming. No one wants to be a burden. But no person is an island. Ultimately, the more expertise we can employ on any given task, the better it will turn out.
So how do you overcome the hesitation, or even embarrassment, that can come with asking for help?
By preparing ahead of time and having an expert in place, ready to help when needed. I’m talking, of course, about mentors. And not just one mentor, a whole network of mentors for a range of different tasks and topics. This is how you properly design support for challenges in all of life’s endeavors.
Building networks of support
Prevalent among young entrepreneurial types is a philosophy that works counter to the wisdom “no man is an island”. Consider the fact that 20% of new businesses fail in the first two years while 65% fail in the first decade.
If you read the article linked above, the top six reasons small businesses fail are related to errors in judgment or knowledge that could be solved by the helping hand of an expert. This lack of knowledge and experience is both completely understandable and completely avoidable. This pattern doesn’t just appear in business, but in all skilled endeavors.
My own experience comes first from science, later from investing, and now from enterpreneurship. In all these areas, I first began as well almost all do — trying to learn and experiment on my own. I read all the books plyed the trade as best I could. In every case, I have always found it better (after some trial and error) to build collaborations with both peers and experts in related fields.
Let’s look at a particular example from my experience. You could apply this approach to almost any business, hobby, or learned skill.
When I began taking investing more seriously, I became interested in options trading for passive income. The problem was, I only knew enough to make about 40K and give it all back almost immediately.
After that, I began to reach out to others about their own experiences in options trading (spoiler alert: should have done this to begin with). Eventually, I found skilled groups of traders on forums and internet groups dedicated to the topic. Each group specialized in particular aspects of trading. Much later, I was able to make this my primary form of income. An interesting piece of wisdom fell out of this experience:
Clusters of experts can act, on the whole, as a type of mentor.
More to the point, mentors come in all shapes and sizes— not just the traditional old-person teaches young-person format. For this particular skill, options trading, I found aggregating group data to be more trustworthy than any individual person or guru.
This won’t always be the case. In science, for example, it's good to have a mentor by your side at the lab bench — able to show you the ropes and provide hands-on expertise. In real estate, a good mix of both crowdsourcing information along with personal mentors is a fantastic way to get a handle on things.
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” ― Benjamin Franklin
The takeaway from this section is that you can find many types of mentors, and you can find them in many places — but you must reach out and engage them before you enter troubled waters! The last thing you want is to be all alone when trouble comes knocking.
I believe in having a mentor for almost anything. At the very least, someone you can reach out to in times of need.
This may seem obvious in principle, but putting it into practice is another issue altogether. If you build your mentorship network early, you will never be faced with hesitation when asking for help — you will have already discussed your position and plans with this mentor and they will have offered for you to reach out if you have trouble.
Here’s the action point: after this article, write down skills or topics which are challenging for you (or for areas of your business), and think about how you can find an expert (or group of experts) in each area. Then, sooner rather than later, reach out and start building your network.
What makes for a good mentor
Good mentors are willing to help even if you offer nothing in return. A guru who requires ongoing payment for their services is not a mentor. That doesn’t mean there’s something necessarily wrong with the help they can provide, but they won’t likely be there for you in a pinch.
I would suggest starting with two primary types of mentors: 1. the expert, or cluster of experts, who happily help others just because they love the topic and sharing their knowledge, and 2. the collaborator, an equal but differently skilled person or group with whom you work to build something bigger than either can build alone.
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” — Steve Jobs
In both cases, you want to avoid the type of mentor who is seeking to take advantage of you and your talents or time. This is the classic “intern” scenario, unpaid labor just for “the experience”. It can also be, unfortunately, what many type one mentor relationships(from above) devolve into once the fun is over for the expert.
Never feel like you are completely indebted to a mentor — they are providing their expertise through generosity, not for personal gain. It almost goes without saying, however, that mentorship could (and often should) be mutually beneficial. It is to say that if one party becomes a parasite on the other, it’s time to change the dynamic.
Like any good relationship, a mentorship should make you better and stronger than you would be on your own. In the best of cases, a great mentor will bring you up to their level and become a collaborator. This is how the real magic happens.
“Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living — if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way. A mentor.” — Denzel Washington
Final Thoughts
Asking for help shouldn’t be a problem for anyone — even if you don’t have mentors. We can’t do everything by ourselves. Who would want that?
However, by putting in place a support network before you even hit a roadblock you will be in the perfect situation to ask and be answered. It’s no longer difficult — it’s expected.
So reach out to others, collaborate, stop being an island, and grow beyond your own limited time and abilities. The amount of knowledge and experience in the world is practically unlimited, you just have to tap into it.
