Learn to Ask for Help, Shamelessly

Humans are hard-wired to hold on to their pride. More often than not, the fuel to grow as an entrepreneur comes from being jealous of other successful entrepreneurs. That’s not a good way to fuel growth.

If you want to become successful so that you can feel better in front of people who you had jealousy on, you are probably having a misguided goal. You need to redefine your goal and have a purpose that is larger than you. Your growth shouldn’t be fuelled by your need to feel superior.

You should want to become successful because you want to contribute back to the world, create value and feel good about yourself for achieving things.

An opportunity to create something that is larger than yourself, should be the single biggest purpose of your entrepreneurship journey.

The top entrepreneurs in the world did not reach the top through narcissism. The more you focus on yourself, your ego and your pride, harder will be your growth. Your growth will be hard because you will refuse to ask for help.

Your hard work, knowledge and experience is a drop in the ocean compared to what others know collectively. You probably will never figure out certain things by yourself because your life experience is limited.

People have spent decades trying to solve a certain problem and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Realise that everything that is required for your success is within you, but around you as well.

If you can learn to pick people’s brains, you will grow faster and will have more fun in the growth. There is no need to beat yourself up pondering over a question that you don’t have an answer to. Just learn to ask.

When you make sure that your ego and pride doesn’t get along the way, you will not hesitate to ask for help from the people who you look up to. And asking for help is important for your growth.

If you have a lot of pride, you will try to come up with an answer yourself, and waste precious time in your growth. You probably have no idea about your own pride, unless you think about it and introspect.

Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

Though I have had some level of success in my line of work, I have a lot to achieve. And even the small success I’ve had so far, I would not attribute it to myself. I learned from the best and I mostly followed their footsteps to come to where I am.

I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. I wouldn’t be here today without getting help from people. My mentors, business partners and friends have definitely helped me sail through the dark jungle of startups. And if you think you can sail alone in this journey, your pride would have prevented you from the success you deserve to have.

If you understand that you are not that great or intelligent, you will become humble. When you become humble, you will also understand that there are many humble people out there. And all those people are ready to help you, only if you ask for it.

There have been very little occasions where people have refused to help me. If they have, it is usually because they are very busy and not because they don’t want to help. People in general like to help other people, but they cannot help you if you do not ask for it.

Learning to ask for help is a habit that you can grow over time. Just like you might have felt a lot of friction before speaking on stage for the first time, you would feel a lot of friction to ask for help. If you have a big ego and pride, you will have even more friction.

You will also have friction if you are afraid of rejection. What if you ask for help and they say No? It would hurt a bit. But you need to be strong enough to get hurt, because without asking, you are not going to have a chance at getting anything.

I know it doesn’t feel good to face rejection, but it is a small cost to pay for the potential upside – what if they say Yes?

No One Went to the Top Alone

Most of the people who went to the top did not go there alone. They asked for help from people at the top and got there.

Once you start asking for help, you will find that surprisingly a lot of people are willing to say “Yes” to help you. And that will make you less hesitant to ask for help from more people.

You do not need to find answers to puzzles yourself when people are ready to give you the answer. You will get the answer if you are ready to ask.

You will be ready to ask if you are ready to face rejection. So your startup’s growth and your growth as an entrepreneur depends a lot on your ability to face rejection.

Once you are strong enough to face rejection, you will ask for help more often. If you ask for help more often, you will have more chances at getting a Yes from people. If you get more Yes, the more help you will have to accelerate your journey towards your goals.

And once you reach the top, you would know that you did not get there without help, and that’s precisely why you would be ready to help anyone who asks you for help.

You will want to pay it forward, because you have a debt to repay from the people who helped you. They don’t need your help, so you can help the people who need your help. And you will find out that if you give, you will get 10x back.

So what help are you gonna ask, and from whom? Let me know in the comments below.