Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today I am going to share a story that I wrote several years ago as part of a book compilation. It’s called Asking for Help Is a Sign of Strength, Not Weakness.
Today’s Quote: Make what you do best the focus on your business. For everything else, get help. – Tracey D’Aviero
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
Several years ago I was invited to submit a chapter for a book collaboration. We were 20 business owners who were part of a group and we published a book called Thought Leaders: Visionaries and Influencers.
While at the time I didn’t believe myself to be any of those things, I was looking to become that.
Someone that VAs like you, and business owners alike, would come to for advice, support, and guidance for their business.
I have done that, I feel, and I decided that I would love to share my chapter with you today on my podcast.
Here we go:
Asking for Help is a Sign of Strength, not of Weakness
I was sitting on the chairlift, frozen in place. Afraid to move a muscle in case I fell into the snow below. I was praying the lift wouldn’t stop for any reason. I closed my eyes and thought, What am I doing? I’m almost 40, I haven’t done this in almost 20 years. OH. MY. GOD. What the hell am I doing up here? What was I thinking?
I recently did a talk for women entrepreneurs about getting support in their business.
One of my points was that as women, we are afraid in our business. We are afraid that we will make mistakes … that we will make the wrong decisions … that people won’t value what we do. Fear abounds as a female entrepreneur.
And the more we do, the more that fear builds up. It turns into the fear that people will judge us … or that people will discover that we don’t have it all together. Have you ever heard of imposter syndrome? It’s about being discovered as a fraud. It’s a huge issue with women entrepreneurs, and it is based in fear.
Where does fear like this come from? And what do we do when it pops up?
I think it’s because we have always been the nurturer, the organizer, the finder of everything – the MOM.
This story resonated with those women in a way that I hadn’t experienced before:
When my son was 9, he went on a school ski trip to the same ski hill I had taken lessons at in high school. I hadn’t skied in a long time, but decided to chaperone.
When I arrived at the hill, the boys were having lunch in the chalet. I had not been on skis in many years, and knew I could use a bit of practice. I told them I would go and do a run or two by myself and then come to collect them and we would go skiing together.
I headed out. The skis were much more difficult to navigate than I remembered, but I managed to get in line at the chair lift. I was so excited! It’s like riding a bike, isn’t it?
The lift came around and I sat down, alone on the chair, and we proceeded. As the chair moved away from the ground and up the hill, it didn’t feel so exciting. As a matter of fact, it was starting to feel scary.
The ground was getting farther away. Panic began to set in.
I prayed that the lift would not stop. I was actually terrified that I was going to fall off, even though I hadn’t moved an inch since I sat down. I couldn’t figure out why I was so scared. In high school we rarely even put the bar down as we rode up. What was going on here?
I took a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down. I was just hoping to get to the top and then – how was I EVER going to get back down?
I was so grateful that I did not have my son and his friend with me to see my panic. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Something that I had done without fear in the past suddenly was terrifying.
When did I get so scared?
My mind raced back to high school when I took beginner lessons. After my lesson, I would meet up with my friends, who were all much better skiers than I was, and we would ski together. It was a blast. It was a social activity that allowed me to spend time with my friends, and although I felt the fear, I went at my own pace and loved every minute of it.
One evening after my lesson, my friends and I skied on an intermediate run. They skied ahead of me and behind me to be sure they could keep an eye on me. The slope was closed, but we went on it anyway. I know, I know. It was steep but not really outside of my abilities. I wasn’t afraid at all because I was surrounded by much more experienced skiers.
I hooked a tip in some icy snow and down I went, about halfway down the last section of the slope. I could see the bottom of the hill and some of my friends were there waiting for me. I slid down and lost my balance and felt the ice chipping away at my face. I don’t remember the next part, but I do remember opening my eyes, face frozen, blood around me in the snow, and asking where my hat was so I could use it to stop the bleeding. I got rushed to the hospital and although I had a broken nose and a very cut up face that required a little surgical intervention to fix up a few jagged scars later on, I was fine.
If any fear should have set in around skiing, it should have been then. It didn’t.
I even went on to work as the Canadian Olympic Ski Team secretary for a couple of years after university (such a cool job!). We skied all the time – on much bigger hills than the one I wiped out on.
So where does fear come from?
The fear that day was not about skiing. It was about me, as an adult, pushing myself outside of my new adult comfort zone.
The exciting adventures I experienced in adolescence slowed down considerably as I got older. I learned about disappointment. I learned about making mistakes. I learned about consequences of my actions. I learned how to be an adult.
The experiences we go through build us into the adult we eventually become. But we have the ability to control a lot of the outcome, simply by making the right choices, and by getting help with what we don’t know how to do.
In business, this translates to making decisions and getting people to help us be the best we can be.
Being an entrepreneur is scary. There are many unknowns. There are many things we don’t know how to do. There are many things we struggle through.
But the problem is this: many of us shoulder the burden of all of this by ourselves. We don’t tell people we are struggling. We don’t tell them we are afraid. We don’t tell them we need help.
Why do entrepreneurs wait so long to ask for help? Why do we insist on doing it all?
As an business owner, what you put out there is what you want people to see. We prepare an image, a brand, an identity that is what we want to the world to see – to connect with – to learn from.
Whether it’s in your marketing materials, your teaching, or your networking and connections, what people perceive you to be becomes a very important piece of your business identity.
So asking for help, at its very essence, is often perceived as a sign of weakness.
We do not want people to see our failures, our struggles, our challenges. Maybe they won’t want to work with us. Maybe they won’t want to mastermind or collaborate with us. Maybe they won’t want to hang out with us.
We always want to show only our best side – that carefully crafted successful person we are striving to be every day. So many people (not just business people) only post the positive pieces of their life on their social media. Instagram stories and Facebook posts abound with beauty and success and travel. It seems if the news is not good, we are not inclined to share it. Who would want to see the bad stuff?
Another reason we might not ask for help is sheer convenience**.** During our busiest times, our first instinct is to do something ourselves. It’s quicker than trying to show someone how to do it. I need it now. Next time I’ll get help. I’m too busy to teach someone.
Busy is never good, though. Not. Ever.
Busy means that you have too much to do! When you feel busy, that is exactly the right time to seek help.
My cousin Justin taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned in business. He learned it from one of his mentors (he always tells me not to credit him for it), and it’s a brilliant business lesson.
If you think you are busy, stop whatever you are doing, and spend one hour in your project management system. Get organized. Delegate. Schedule. Plan.
It sounds completely counter-intuitive, to stop working when you feel overwhelmed and too busy, but it works.
I highly recommend it. When you step back and get organized, your productivity improves. You see areas where you can ask for help.
Through our lives, this resistance to asking for help has been built up. We are not born with it. It’s learned behaviour. We consciously or subconsciously make the decision as to whether we should ask someone to help us – all the time. That’s learned.
How can you tell? Because kids ask for help with everything. Tie my shoe. Cut my meat. Put my socks on. Brush my hair. Lift me up, I can’t see!
Fear is not something we are born with. Fear gets created along the way.
Even as an adult, there are times that it feels totally fine to ask for help. If you need a ride to go somewhere. When you are moving. Passing along a resume. After dinner, when you need help washing the dishes. Borrowing a pen. The ability to ask is there. The decision of when it stops feeling okay is where we freeze up.
I can’t ask someone for money. I can’t ask for information if it’s something that I should already know. I can’t ask someone for advice about my personal problem. I can’t ask them to pay me for my work.
What stops us from asking?
In business, often it can be friendship. If someone is your friend, you don’t want to impose on their time. They are busy too. Or maybe you don’t want to charge them for your services. Making that decision devalues your services, but it makes you feel like a better friend.
Maybe if people find out you don’t know how to do something, you feel dumb, or like a fraud. What if they find out you don’t have it all together?? Imposter syndrome can be paralyzing as a business owner, and it often stems from fear.
Maybe you had a bad experience when asking for help before. You had to redo it, or it cost you more money than you thought. It makes it hard to ask again.
I had a terrible experience with a lawyer once in my business. The final bill was four times what I was expecting to pay. I was shocked. I didn’t have the money to pay the bill. It was a very difficult time. I had to move past it to learn the lesson – I needed to be clear on what the costs would be next time. I had to move through that fear of not being able to afford it, so that I’m not afraid to seek legal counsel when I need it again.
And that’s what you have to do. Face the fear and push through it. Learn the lesson. Move on.
After my ski accident, I went on to university, where I belonged to the Parachute Club. We jumped out of airplanes for fun. I was never fearless (I was scared every single time!) but I still did it because I knew what to expect and I knew that I loved it, despite the feelings that rose up every time they opened that airplane door thousands of feet in the air.
I don’t jump out of planes anymore, but I have continued skiing.
So what happened with me on the ski lift that day?
When we were about ¾ of the way up, a couple of young girls ahead of me had jumped off the lift and started their way down the slope. One had taken a nasty spill and her skis went one way and her poles went the other way.
My mom instinct kicked in and I yelled down, ‘Are you okay?’ She said she was, and I said, ‘Stay right there, I’ll come and help you.’
I completely forgot about my own fear and jumped into action. I skied effortlessly down to the poles and the skis, gathered them up, and then skied down the hill with her, slowly. We both made it!
In fact I skied with the boys all afternoon without issue and we had so much fun! We have even skied much bigger slopes since then.
I created my own fear alone that day on the lift. I bet if I had any kids sitting with me, that situation never would have even happened. I would have been acting like a mom from the start.
It was me, sitting alone, that created the fear. And in the moment I could not get out of it. Until my thought process was interrupted by something that I knew how to do, instinctively, actually. My salvation was ME.
I just had to reframe my own thought processes so that I could walk through that fear.
That person who skied with the big kids in high school – that person who parachuted in university – that person who wanted to chaperone because she knew how much fun it would be to share something she loved with her son. She’s still in there.
Fears creeps in the same way when you are trying to navigate your way through your business. If you don’t know what the right decision is, stop and think about it. What should you do? Honestly, what is the worst thing that can happen if you decide the wrong thing? You make a change and you do it differently.
Or … you get help when you need it. What makes us try to do it all, anyway?
Make what you do best the focus of your business. For everything else, get help. The best help you can afford! You will not regret it. Help can come from colleagues, mentors, professionals, and even automation. Explore your opportunities and solutions around you and then just do it. Think of getting support as collaboration. Build your team, your alliances. They are your support team.
I would never have gone skydiving or skiing unless I had a group of friends around me that were encouraging me and pushing me to do more, and be more, than I could ever have done on my own.
When fear gets in your way, step back, reframe the situation, and think about how strong you are, and decide what to do next. You’ve got this!
There you go. That’s my chapter.
I’m very proud of it. And I am very proud of you too. I know that you are getting a lot of support through my podcast (you all tell me every day how much you love it) and I know that you can jump off that chair lift if you just stop getting into your own head.
If you need help jumping off your chair lift, be sure to get in touch with me. I’m here to help.
What You Need to Do Next:
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