V7.45: Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

By now, you’ve probably come to realize that people need people and that no one can do all the things alone. At least we hope you know this– if not, this blog will be a good reminder for you.

As leaders we tend to take on more and more work in the hopes of getting things done. Maybe there is a tight turnaround or a past due deadline. Maybe you think you’ll do it better than your team or maybe you just like to work till 11pm every night. Any way you slice it, when you take on that much work, you quickly burn yourself out.

It’s absolutely vital to ask for help. It’s not always easy to accept help from others, but we must become comfortable with proactively seeking it out.

Let’s jump into Entrepreneur.com’s “5 Reasons It’s Essential to Ask for Help.”

1. “You’re investing time learning how to do a task yourself.” You shouldn’t feel obligated to do every task yourself. You want to build a new website or maybe you want to produce a video? Don’t over tax yourself with learning how to do things just to say you did it. Ask for help or hire someone who knows how to do those things. Your time is valuable and struggling to learn something will not produce quality work in the long term. 
2. “Managing your finances is eating away at your work week.” If you are a small business, you should think about seeking outside help for your finances. We all know how important the bottom line is when it comes to running a business. But if you relinquish tasks like merchant services or depositing checks to a trusted advisor or business bank, you will sleep safely knowing your money is being handled by a professional. 
3. “You’re constantly putting out fires.” We all know this one quite well I would imagine. As leaders, we tend to take on everyone’s screaming monkeys and then we’re stuck feeding and nurturing a hundred monkeys. Don’t let this happen! Ask for help with the fire drill situations and your team will rally around you. Or better yet, empower your teams to care for their monkeys on their own. I’m mixing metaphors here, but I think you get the picture. Don’t spend all your time in reaction mode. 
4. “It feels as if you’re sitting on a mountain of menial tasks.” The small tasks matter, but they sure can build up to a large mountain. If you are spending all your time doing menial task after menial task, you will never achieve innovation. Ask for help when it comes to the day to day execution. This is why we hire at all levels, my friends! It’s okay to delegate out the small tasks so that you can focus on the bigger ones. 
5. “You look at other businesses and wonder: How’d they do that?” Do you ever look at other businesses in your industry and think to yourself, “Damn, how are they doing that?” We’ve got the answer for you right here, folks: they are not doing it alone. Successful campaigns come from many people coming together to build something great. It’s important to rely on others for their specialties in order to create something comprehensive and innovative.

We’ll leave you with this: don’t feel like you have to do everything yourself. It’s okay to ask for help when you need it. This is how we push forward, learn new things, and innovate.