232: How to Ask for Help in Business & Life

Steli:

Hey everyone, this is Steli Efti.

Hiten:

And this is Hiten Shah, and in today’s episode of “The StartUp Chat”,  we’re going to talk about how to ask for help. And I’m going to jump  right in because I would say that until very recently maybe a few years ago,  I don’t think I was very good at asking other people for help. I felt  like I needed to do everything on my own, so I’m dropping that in the beginning, just to kick it off.

Steli:

Yeah, I’m going to agree with you on this, but funny enough, I think that  … So I think for me, I was not good at asking for help in  personal matters right? I think this is something where we’re actually fairly similar. One of  many reasons why we like each other so much, when it came to my personal  life, family, friends, and that type of a thing, I think till recently, I really  struggled to ask for help. I always dealt with my issues on my own without  talking about them with other people even with friends, family or anybody else. In business,  funny enough, I have never had an issue asking for help and I’ve always been  I think pretty shameless in asking for what I needed, or asking for what I  thought was needed to move something forward, especially when I could sense that I on  my own am progressing too slow on this, so instead of just trying to keep  on that pace, I’ll probably need to go out and ask for help. But the  main reason why I wanted to talk about this, besides us being bad at it  in some scenarios of life, or learning about it, or learning to become better at  it, and we’ll uncover why we’re doing this and how it has affected things. It’s  a recurring theme that I see with people that work on my team, that founders  that I’ve known that are seeking advice from me, it’s like, I see this problem  in many, many start ups where people are being stuck for way too long and  they could just move a lot faster and problems could be solved a lot better  if they just reached out and asked for help, within the company, outside of the  company instead of just banging their heads against the door just trying to look for  … Banging their heads against the wall realizing I’m a little stuck and what I  need is help, and I need to ask for help from others. And so I  think I posted this on Facebook, on Twitter a few days ago, and it got  a fairly big response, I was like, oh this is something that seems to be  … Like asking for help seems to be a challenge for many people, but it  also seems to be the solution to a lot of problems, so the two of  us should probably talk about this. Before we go into the personal part which is  going to be fascinating I think, and we can uncover in the second part, let  me ask you, have you seen asking for help as an issue within the teams  that you’ve been working or within start up teams that you’ve been advising? Have you also seen this is a pattern when things are too slow, or when people get  stuck that if they just learned more for help or earlier for help, things can  get moving much faster, problems could be solved when they’re much smaller?

Hiten:

Yeah, I’ve noticed that … People are really good … Too good at it, and  they’ll think to themselves, and some people just don’t do it. So I think there’s  a break out of three that I’ve seen. I’ve also seen something really valuable that  I see companies do in that ones that give, at least ones where I’m an  investor and an advisor, or even ones where I have opted in or they’ve asked  me if I want their updates, and I always say yes, because I’m super happy  to help and hear about their business and how they’re doing, the ones that give  updates regularly, like once a month at least tend to be much more self aware  and conscious of what’s going on in their business and when to ask for help.  That’s just been a singular pattern if I were to pick one, that’s very related  to asking questions. Because when they give updates, people have contacts, and they generally ask questions within those updates.

Steli:

I love that, so let me go back real quick because the connection was working  in and out, you said that there’s people that never ask for help, even if  they could use it, there’s people who ask for help about everything so they just  don’t tend to think about themselves that much, which is also annoying. And where you  want to be is in the golden middle right, where you ask for help at  the appropriate time to the appropriate people. And then you talked about start ups in  general as a whole, the start ups that are good at this are ones that  give regular updates which is a fascinating thing. So let’s just jump into that. So one strategy or tactic especially for the leadership part … But this is … A  founder can give an update to investors and advisors, but somebody within the team can  also give regular updates to the team about progress of something, if that’s not already  part of the way the company is running things, nothing stops you from giving regular  updates to the team about your work or your teams work. And those updates both  create transparency, they create context, and they will be stimulating for people to chime in  and offer help or ideas or suggestions, but also in those updates, I’ve seen this,  I’ve noticed this with a lot of founder updates to advisors and investors, they’ll say  here’s the updates on all the important major KPI’s or things that we’re currently doing.  Here’s the one ask we have, or here’s the biggest problem we’re struggling with, [inaudible  00:06:06] the area where we need help. They’ll actually call it out at the end  of the update, this is the one thing we would want and appreciate help with,  or get feedback on or whatever. So give a bunch of updates and allow anybody  to chime in and offer things on their own, but also have a very specific  ask at times at the end of the update, is that a structure that you’ve  noticed as well?

Hiten:

Yeah absolutely. Yeah, when the updates are consistent, they have a format, and they have  context and then there’s a question at the end, or a set of them around  the biggest challenges or whatever, that’s definitely a critical key format I’ve seen that works.  Especially if you’re not good at asking questions, it forces you to give people an  update and ask for help.

Steli:

I love it. When we talk about the individual, maybe within a team asking for  help, we talked about people who do too much, people that do not at all,  these two extremes of the spectrum being bad, of wanting to be in the middle,  how do you do that? When do you know … How do you learn when  to ask for help?

Hiten:

When you need help, Steli? I’m just messing around.

Steli:

Let’s keep on that train of thought.

Hiten:

Okay. How do you know you need help?

Steli:

How do I know I need help?

Hiten:

Oh man, after you’ve googled it and didn’t get an answer.

Steli:

Let me google this for you though [inaudible 00:07:40]-

Hiten:

Dude, seriously, the amount of times I can just google something for somebody and give  them an answer is ridiculous. That being said, they appreciate it when I google it  for them, and I don’t usually tell them I’m googling it. So I want to  be straight up and honest about it, that being said, it is the number one  thing that I’ve noticed, which is some people can just google it, and they’re asking  a lot of questions that are google-able, by me or them, but they might not  be good at googling, that’s totally fair. That being said, you ask a question when  you know someone can help you is another way to look at it. And what I mean by that is the framework I would use is like, you’re stuck to  a point where you can’t help yourself, you’re stuck to a point where like, whatever  you get from somebody else is going to be valuable to you. So typically I  don’t like the non contextual questions that we’ve talked about this a lot. What I  mean by that is if you just ask me a question of like how should  I do marketing, I can’t really help you. There’s a million ways you can do  it, if you tell me what your problem is, describe it, and then say I  need help figuring out what the best way to move forward is based on my  situation, that’s way more impactful, that’s a better question. So usually it’s when you’re just  stuck and you’re struggling, and you can’t google it, would be my really blunt answer.

Steli:

I love that, so there’s a number of things in there, and I would encourage  people to listen to prior episodes that we recorded on both how to ask questions,  and also how as a founder to learn to listen, because we need to know  how to ask good questions and how to listen if you want to ask effectively  for help, but I think that … I think that a lot of times …  I think that the best part in terms of learning when to ask for help  is that you need to understand who you are, it comes back to self awareness,  and you just need to answer the question to yourself, when … If I think  about the past, when were the times where I could really have used help and  why didn’t I ask for it? And what’s the best way for me to receive  help? Some people, as you said, some people constantly ask for help and they don’t  receive that good of a help, because they ask too early too often, to the  wrong people. They ask people that have zero context too early, when they have not  enough informational learning themselves, so the type of answers they’re getting are answers they could  have gotten if they googled it, or if they just spent a few minutes themselves  researching or trying to think about something. But all they do is the create frustrations  apparently with the people that they’re asking for help because they’re mindless and thoughtless about  it. So just think about in the past, when were the times when you received  the best help? What was the timing of it? Was it proactive, before you attacked  a really big project that you knew very little of, did you just go okay,  let me get better research and then let me ask these three people that know  me really well, and that I know have experience in this, what kind of mistakes  to avoid, how to put together a plan in a way and proactively make sure  that I don’t waste a ton of time learning and making basic mistakes that other  people can help me avoid. Or was it, am I more the type of person  that the best type of help I’ve received in the past was when I really  pushed hard, I tried on my own, I tackled a thing from all kinds of  angles, and then at the time when I … And usually, that gets me to  a point where I find solutions and I move them forward, but eventually in rare times, I get stuck, and when I get stuck, I’m just spinning my wheels and  days and weeks go by, and I’m not really progressing or finding new solutions, and  it took me two months of being stuck until I asked for help, and sought  outside advice, and maybe okay, I can find some kind of a framework where when  I’m stuck for longer than two weeks, that’s a signal for me to go and  ask for help. So I would give the advice to people that to go back  in time and ask themselves what have been some successful examples of me asking for  help, where it really made a big difference, and what was the framework, the architecture  of when I … The timing, the person, or the circumstances, and how I asked  for help, and how I responded to the help offered, versus the times where I  was not that successful, and then I think the frame … What really makes a  big difference, timing is a big question, is it very early, is it in the  middle, or is at the very end or very late, the person you’re asking for  help, who is this person? How much context do they have on you, on what  you’re doing, what you’ve tried in the past, how much experience do they have in  this particular problem, how long ago did they solve this type of problem? What kind  of relationship do they have with you? And then what type of help are you  asking for? Is it more like, hey let me tell you, here’s what my problem  is, here’s the solutions I’ve tried, here’s the results I’ve gotten, and I’m not sure what to do next, just more advice or is asking for help, are you asking  for more practical help, hey, I can’t do this, can you take a portion of  my work and do it, because I can’t get it done myself, or can you  do all the work, or like, is it more of a … When you ask  for help, is it more getting advice and feedback or are you asking people to  get involved and take weight off your shoulder or take work off your plate? Because  the type of help you are asking is also going to influence when you want to do it, and who you want to do it with. But I feel like  a lot of people, the number one mistake that people make when it comes to  not asking for help, this is the person that I’m focusing on in this episode  on my end, versus the person that asks for too much help, is that they  get stuck in a framework where they want to disappear with a certain project or  problem, and then they want to reappear and show up as a big hero that’s  solved this big problem, they fixed it, they came up … It’s like an ego  driven thing, they just want to figure it all out on their own, and come  and show everybody, or they just hate to be reliant on others, and they hate  to have a feeling of vulnerability, a feeling of helplessness or feeling of relying on  others, so out of these reasons, they’re not asking for help, not because they’re not  the right time but because they’re eager, or their personality doesn’t allow them for …  and I think … It’s always a recipe for disaster, it’s always a recipe for  making mistakes or going down the route that’s way too slow instead of accelerating your  pace. If you’re a human being, you will need help, you will need other people,  if you’re trying to accomplish anything big, you’ll need a team of other people, so  learning to ask for help, learning to ask for help at the right time or  the right people, is just an incredibly important skill that is super undervalued and I  think not talked about enough. So anyways, so those are just some generic thoughts more  on the professional side of things. Before we move onto … I want to do  a little bit of like, peeking into why you and I had an issue asking  for help people, or you specifically Hiten, when did you realize that and have you  made a change and if so, why? And how?

Hiten:

Yeah, I made a change, I think I just didn’t want to rely on anyone  else, and I thought that if I asked them, I’m bothering them. That was my  general mindset, it wasn’t just, oh I can do it myself, I never really felt  like that, it was more so, I don’t want to bother somebody else, what I  realized and I learned and this actually started with something one of my friends Kate told me, she’s Kate Mats on Twitter, and she’s a good friend of mine, and  we were talking a few years ago, and she was basically saying that … She  was telling me one of her strategies on dealing with difficult people, and that just  means, someone you think doesn’t like you, or you’re not working well together with that  person, and she basically said, ask them to help you. I’m like really? She’s like,  yeah, ask them to help you, and your relationship will very quickly improve as a  result. And I was like no way, and then I started trying that a little  bit, and it started working, and honestly that was the big click for me, that  got me to start changing my mindset around asking people for help, it wasn’t something  you would think of normally, it was more so I wanted to improve my relationships,  and she gave me that tip, and it works extremely well, especially in a work  environment.

Steli:

Yeah, I love that. So big shout out to her.

Hiten:

Yeah.

Steli:

I think that for me on the personal side of things, I think that for  many years … I think that … The reason why I didn’t want to ask  for help was probably a mix of some level of arrogance of thinking I already  know how to solve this problem, I’m just not ready to solve it, so just  talking to somebody else, pretending I’m not sure what to do about this is a  waste of time. And some type of … I think some sense of feeling of  strength, I don’t know, maybe not wanting to be that vulnerable, always assuming the role  of being the person that people come to with their problems, and being so much  in that role that I didn’t know how to step out of that role and  be the person that goes to people to ask for help. There was a time,  I think we talked about this privately once, I’m not sure if we talked about  this on the podcast, but there was a time where I was like, maybe I should … My friends and family would basically give me feedback and tell me you  should also open up more, you never … You always talk about my problems, you  never … We’ve been friends for twenty years, I’ve never heard you share a problem with me, and I heard that again, and again, and again, until I was like,  all right, I’m really just going to start telling people my problems, but I did  it from a … I’m going to prove myself right that this is reallY that  useful, so I would tell them about my problems, people would just offer solutions and  I’d be like, this is not really helping but whatever, I did it. But I’ve  come to realize as I’ve been experimenting with this, with asking for help in my  private life, I’ve come to realize that I don’t necessarily have to ask for help  to get an answer or a solution, but what does help me is to talk  about my problems with somebody I trust and just be able to air it out,  or articulate it, or communicate it, again, not really to solve it or to find  a solution but just to be able to just get it out of my system  in the sense that it’s not just me thinking about this thing, but it’s me  being able to talk to somebody about the thing. And also that my relationships are  better because it’s a two way street, if I always just come to my problems  with you, I always come to you to ask for help and you never ask  me for help, it’s a very one sided relationship, I’m basically robbing the other side  from a chance to be helpful as well, so being … Helping somebody that has  helped you many times, that is actually a very empowering thing that makes me feel  better if I can help you, if you’ve helped me many times, make me feel  better about our relationship being a give and take versus just a selfish relationship that  I have with you. So I’ve noticed that my friendships and certain relationships have gotten  stronger and better, and I’ve noticed that if I come into the conversation in my  private life, not asking for help, not in the sense that … Not necessarily in  the sense of just getting a solution but just being able to articulate a problem  I have, and that oftentimes they will be able to help me, even just by  listening at times, or often times even been just offering a good solution or jumping  in and taking something off my plate, and so I don’t know, I’ve been just  struggling with this, I’ve been for a long time, and for me, the [inaudible 00:20:12]  where I tried to get better, it was the people who were giving me feedback,  that they’ve been friends of mine for many years and that I never open up  in that way, and ask them for help, and I’ve just experimented and I think  in the beginning I did it in a way to prove myself right, so it  was not useful. But I’ve gotten more and more open minded and now I think  I do ask for a lot more help in my personal life as well. Anyways,  do we have a tip at the end of this episode?

Hiten:

Yeah, just do whatever you can to ask for help. People actually want to help  you, I think that’s what both of us learned in different ways that if you  ask for help, people will actually help you, and it’s not a sign of weakness  or something where you’re not going to get value from it, even if you’re like  Steli and I, and like to solve our own problems, you’ll still have somebody to  talk to, maybe you’ll get there faster on the solution or something like that. So  I would say that just open up and the biggest tip in whatever way, whatever  convinces you to do it. For example, for me, like I said, my friend Kate convinced me just because it was a relationship building thing and it sounds like even  in your case, that whole idea of robbing people, of helping you because you’ve helped  them so much is a pretty interesting concept.

Steli:

Awesome, I think that’s it, there’s nothing really more to add. Ask yourself, have I  been asking for help, and do I need to improve on this? And then just  open up a little bit more, it can make a huge difference. I think this  it from us for this episode.

Hiten:

Later.