Hello, hello from New York City. I say that because I’m very curious about where people are listening from.

Today I want to talk about a conversation I was having with a friend of mine, Jackie. She’s working on building out a vision that she has. It’s something that’s been a dream of hers for many years and it feels big and important. So in this context, we were having a WhatsApp exchange recently, and she was saying it’s really incredible how many people want to help me and to be honest with you, it’s making me a little nervous. In my follow up message to her I said, that’s a beautiful thing. And don’t forget that people want to help. You are offering them the opportunity to make a contribution, to step up and to be a part of something. It’s very inclusive and very beautiful when you allow people to help you.

Allowing people to help can be very challenging. It’s especially difficult for those of us who were raised with this high value of self-reliance and independence. I think my first reframe of that came when I was an executive recruiter. When I was researching to fill jobs, I was overly focused on feeling like I was asking people for help. I felt kind of ashamed that I was always asking for help. I totally reframed it as I was giving people the opportunity to perhaps help a friend, or to look good by making a referral to me. After I reframed it for myself, I started noticing that people really do like to help. Of course, there are recruiters that are annoying and always calling but for the most part, when you’re a professional and you’re respectful and not inappropriate, people like to help. They love to give their opinion, their ideas, and to refer friends, to bring up the name of someone maybe who was on their team who they helped train.

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