Innoveering Nebraska

Why is it so hard to ask for help?  I’m not talking about the incidences when something is on fire or you’re bleeding profusely or something else very immediate and very physical and very obvious has occurred.  Unless we are instantly rendered unconscious by the disaster, it’s pretty easy to ask for help at these times.  Some of us might even demand help quite loudly.  It’s probably instinct. 

What I’m wondering is why it’s so hard to ask for help with the less immediate situations.  Or in the slightly embarrassing circumstances.  Or when you feel you should be able to handle it on your own – but somehow just can’t.  Even in the terrible times when these factors pile up, we somehow don’t recognize that it’s the emergency equivalent of accidentally stabbing ourselves with the small pruning shears while mowing. Why is this? 

I encountered several of these situations recently.   After getting really annoyed with myself I spent a lot of time searching for an explaination for why I behaved the way I did.  As a result, I’ve reached some conclusions as to why this disparity in perceived emergency levels occurs. 

1. The situation creeps up on us slowly and grows larger and more serious than we realize. 
2. We get overwhelmed and stop thinking clearly. 
3. Plain old fashioned denial. 
4. Overconfidence in our skills and abilities.
5. A perception that no one can or no one does want to help.
6. A sense of responsibility for “cleaning up our own messes.”

Regardless of which factor or combination of factors is causing your inability to ask for help, I think I’ve also discovered the best solution.  Describe your circumstances to someone who cares about your welfare and gauge their reaction.  It’s highly likely that you should be having that same reaction.  Describe your situation to several people if you don’t trust one person’s reaction – but ask them each individually.  This isn’t a group project.  But it is an easy start.  You’re just talking to someone.  Maybe asking them to have lunch with you – or just coffee if lunch seems too much to ask. 

It’s what finally shook me into the realization that I was in over my head and needed help.  The irony is that help was easy to get once I asked.  And here’s the best part of all, even though my problem isn’t resolved yet, I’m not worried because I know someone competent is working to solve it.   This lovely sense of relief made me wonder why I tortured myself for so long – which led to the annoyance with myself and the thinking through why I would act this way. 

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if something yelled “Danger Lora Frecks!” at opportune times?  Where’s the app for that?   Dinner with family, lunches with friends and coffees with colleagues is better anyway.  My phone will certainly never care for me as much as they do. 

{image ciatation}

Yesterday I spent the afternoon helping a friend with some manual labor related to a business endeavor she has next week. The work didn’t require much thought – we were describing and pricing items. But I had a lot of fun. We giggled, we laughed and we talked, talked, talked as we worked through the stack of items.

Afterwards, sitting in my favorite coffee shop waiting for my next appointment of the day, I found myself reflecting on how important people are to business. And I’m not just talking about the various business experts needed at each stage of development in a business’s life. Those people are important too – and are worth another blog entry someday in the future.

But today I’m focused on the friends, family members and acquaintances that help out at some point with your business simply because they love you and/or they like being a part of building something new.

I’ve been on both sides of this equation and, when it’s my business, I’ve felt incredibly grateful, lucky and honored.  When I’m helping with someone else’s entrepreneurial venture, I’ve also felt these same three things – but in a different way.

I’ve given it some thought and I think the most similar feeling I’ve had is when a friend’s small child or teenager asks me to do to something with them. What the child, teenager and new venture have in common is that they’re all still in their early stages of development when the foundation of their characters is still being developed. It is an honor to be asked to be involved at this stage. You do feel lucky and grateful for the opportunity.

At least I think you do feel honored, lucky and grateful to be involved in the business venture if you are a developing entrepreneur yourself.  That‘s right, I said it.  I think an individual’s willingness to devote time and energy to the entrepreneurial endeavors of others is a useful and fairly reliable indicator of whether that person is going to grow into a entrepreneur themselves sometime in the future.  I concede that it might just be an indicator that you love someone enough to devote hours to a cause you think is futile and doomed.  Which means you really love that person.

So how to tell the difference?  Well blood and marriage for starters.  But other than that:

• Are you interested in hearing about other’s business adventures (even people not related to you)?
• Do you jump at the opportunity to help out with other‘s new ideas and ventures (whether for-profit or non-profit)?
• Do you follow through and actually show up when it’s time to do the work?
• Do you wish you could be as creative as the person with the new venture?

Congratulations, I think you’re a future entrepreneur!

Image Citation

I’ve not traveled much outside the United States, so I’m not certain about the rest of the world.  However I am certain that a shockingly large percentage of business in America is conducted in coffee shops.  Local, little, fragrant, friendly coffee shops. 

Today I’m at my favorite coffee shop – a Scooters near 120th and Blondo.  It even has a small meeting room you can sign up to borrow.  I’m sure business would get done without coffee shops, but life would be much less pleasant and we’d see our friends and aquaintances much less often.  Plus we’d all have to find another source  of caffeine – and who has the energy for that? 

My point is that in all this rushing around that seems to accompany modern life, I love the peace and companionship found in coffee shops. 

I long for a larger coffee shop that would contain the trappings of an office (basically a copier/printer) and rent tables or desks (though I’d refer a tall table) to really small businesses like mine.  Perhaps this would destroy the magic.  Let me know if you hear of any such place.  It would be fun to visit my personal business/coffee promise land.

Image Citation