#help-seeking

#help-seeking

People often associate asking for help with weakness or a loss of agency and control. It requires a lot of vulnerability to admit when we're struggling and need a hand. Yet, no one makes it all the way through their life without having needs. At one time or another, hardship finds all of us. Whether it's an illness or injury, financial stress, career troubles, emotional pain, or loneliness, we all struggle. It's what makes us human.

I perched next to someone I knew. "You know, the only people who act like that are on drugs." I ignorantly spoke, parroting the messaging I'd been getting for a few years now. They stopped. "You know, I used to use drugs." Here was someone I respected sitting next to me, and what they said challenged everything I thought I understood.

There's a myth that to be a good leader, you need to be the smartest person in the room. This reluctance, often rooted in fear, prevents leaders from asking for help.