Breaking the Stigma: Why Asking for Help is a Strength Not a Weakness

Today, we're addressing a crucial topic impacting leaders and professionals across all fields: the stigma around asking for help and why it's a sign of strength, not weakness. Join me as we delve into why leaders often hesitate to admit they don't have all the answers, and how asking for help can be a game-changer.

Discover the importance of self-awareness and vulnerability in leadership. Learn about the common misconceptions that associate seeking help with weakness and how we can shift this perspective to view it as a leverage for growth and innovation. We'll explore practical steps for embracing help-seeking behavior, including overcoming the fear associated with it and effectively communicating your needs.

Tune in as we discuss:

• The critical role of self-awareness in recognizing when you need help.
• How admitting you don't have all the answers can demonstrate strong leadership and foster a culture of learning and support.
• Strategies to overcome the fear of asking for help and how to effectively articulate your needs to get the right support.

Whether you're a CEO, entrepreneur, or in any leadership role, this episode will equip you with the insights to turn perceived vulnerabilities into strengths. Embrace the power of asking for help—not just for your own growth, but for the benefit of your entire organization.

Join us in breaking down the barriers and changing the narrative around help-seeking in the professional world. Tune in, take action, and start transforming the way you approach challenges and opportunities.

Introduction and Overview (00:10)
The Importance of Asking for Help (00:20)
Self-Awareness and Leadership (00:33)
Common Misconceptions about Help-Seeking (02:02)
Building a Support Network (03:22)
Practical Steps to Embrace Help-Seeking (09:28)
Professional and Personal Benefits (08:22)
Conclusion and Final Thoughts (11:16) 

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to the end game podcast, season two, where I bet you don't know what you don't know. I'm Dr Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. Today, we're here to talk to you about breaking the stigma. And why asking for help is not a sign of weakness. In fact, a sign of strength, sit back, relax, tune in and enjoy the episode. Today's topic. We're going to discuss this idea of the stigma behind and often the hesitancy to do, uh, what is really important to do as a leader, which is to not have to feel that you always have to have the answer. This ability to step back, be able to do self assessments and realize when you may be over your own skis or where maybe you're good at something and not great at something. And then how you ask for help from there. This really strikes near and dear to my heart, again, as a psychiatrist. Overwhelmingly, there's a stigma around just asking for mental health help. And so I see this, I've, I've seen this for many years now, you know, in that space, but I also see it a lot in the entrepreneurial space where someone who's a CEO or COO feels the need to have to always know the answers and have to always. Uh, be able to answer employees questions or patient questions or client questions. And the reality is there are instances, you know, again, just like your tagline for the show, you don't know what you don't know. And there's a lot of things you do know, but you don't know enough about, and it's really about how you ask for that help. First of all, have self awareness around it. And then second of all, how you go about asking for help and who you get help from that really could define your trajectory both personally and professionally. So let's tackle the common misconception about seeking help and explore how it can demonstrate strong leadership and self awareness and breaking down again and joining us and how we can break down the stigma surrounding asking for help and learn how embracing this mindset can actually lead to, as I said. So again, some common misconceptions about asking for help, one of which is probably the most common we see in here and kind of feel is this idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness that as the founder or owner or entrepreneur or COO or CEO, that you should know all the answers and that if you don't know all the answers, that that shows that you are weak and capable, you're not knowledgeable enough, you know, maybe your job's at risk, or you feel like your job would be at risk if you don't know, whereas it's, it's very much the opposite, which is if you try to know where you're, Spending a lot of time inefficiently on things that you aren't really great at. Then you're actually not down the downstream going to get the things done. You really need to get done or have the right answers. And that ultimately puts you and your business at a much higher risk or your job at a much higher risk than if you just made sure that you were self aware enough to know when to ask for help. Yeah, we see this a ton in medicine, which is what really defines an incredible physician or. Our provider is not how much that provider knows, although that is important. You certainly want your physician to know about your condition and about what the treatment options are, but in my experience, what really defines great. Physicians and great providers are those who know when they don't know those who know when to ask for help, and that is very much the same. There's a direct one to one overlap as we look at CEOs and founders and business centers to. I found myself very much in that position as I was kind of building my own enterprise. There were many times when I knew I didn't know, or I knew I needed to know more. Or I knew I needed help and I was, as we talked about in prior podcasts, I did not hesitate to build that circle of trust to really make the networking connections and to not hesitate to ask a colleague or a mentor or a coach what the answer might be, or where I might be able to better find the answer. So there's, there's also this idea that. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean you may not be really good at it, or you may not be able to get the right answer, but then you need to know how to get there. Right? And that's really where coaching and mentorships come in, because there are many things you can learn and become to understand and make part of your kind of sphere of influence and knowledge. And the way in which you choose to do that, or the timeline in which you're able to do that may dramatically change with a mentor or coach who can maybe provide you some modeling or some resources or some ability to get help sooner, quicker, faster, better. So, one common misconception is this idea that asking for help is truly a sign of weakness. That folds into, again, another one, which is this idea that as a leader, as a founder, you should always have the answers. And our brains, although incredibly powerful and very knowledgeable, are just not all knowing. We just don't know. Cannot know everything. And so you will often not have all the answers. And the more important thing is the two most important things is that, you know, when you don't know, and that you are, you know, you need to ask for help. And secondly, that knowing, asking for help is not weak, right? And that knowing that that's actually an opportunity to learn. To grow and to be better. The third misconceptions is self reliance is key to success. And that goes back to the kind of your sphere of influence, your networking connections, those you choose to put in the room, right? The table around you as part of both your personal or professional life. This idea that, you know, I'm not, I'm not incredibly detail oriented, never have been, that is not a personality trait of mine. That is not a skill set that I'll ever. Want to develop, uh, more than I've developed to this point. And that is why having a very detail oriented operationally minded COO has always been really important to my success. I have been a founder. I've been an operator, been an owner. I've been many things in my career, and I've always. Looked for help, especially on the detail orientation and operation side of things, as that is just candidly, not my strong suit. I can flex into it. I can certainly be as extremely detail oriented if I have to be, but that is not something that I find to be either fulfilling nor incredibly efficient, something that I'm incredibly efficient at. So that is something that I've always worked on delegating out and partnered with so that I can be successful when And have, you know, what the organization needs in terms of that detail, orientation and operation. I mean, it's on its head as compared to this as being a sign of weakness. We actually should look at asking for help as being a sign of strength, being a sign of wisdom, right? Being a sign of, again, just knowing who you are and knowing what your strengths are and being able to be self aware. So self awareness and vulnerability are really important aspects of. Both being able to identify when you need help, but also feeling comfortable going out there and asking for help, whether that's from a peer, again, a mentor or a coach, you know, someone who maybe has walked a mile in your shoes, maybe has walked many more miles in those shoes, maybe who has the experience and the knowledge that you just don't quite have or haven't tapped into or candidly may not. Really need to know, right? Again, it may be something you can outsource or maybe something you can insource in terms of a headcount or a job. So again, I would flip it on its head from the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness and really say it's actually more a sign of strength. And part of that is the self awareness aspect, which is self awareness as a, as an entrepreneur is incredibly important. Being able to read the room and having situational and self awareness are really important in terms of being successful. So that also applies to your ability to know information and make decisions. Okay. With making decisions, when you're able to ask for help and you use that as an opportunity to stretch outside your comfort zone and grow, really show how you can be self aware and vulnerable. It often leads to the opposite of what people believe, which is it often leads to more innovation because you're able to pivot again, maybe in source or outsource this information and actually innovate from there. And the other thing is it often leads to better decision making. It certainly leads to better long term outcomes. When we think about. The idea of, uh, compounding interest and, uh, again, little decisions today and little decisions day on day, making big impacts of those little decisions or bigger decisions may be better if you're reaching out for help, or you had someone who was able to counsel you, coach you, mentor you. So again, very much the opposite of weakness often leads to longer term, better successes, better, small and large decision making, and again, candidly can often lead to more innovation within your organization. As with everything here, there's obviously professional benefits, but there's also personal benefits to being able to ask for help and be vulnerable and have self awareness. A lot of those things actually tie directly into improve mental health. When you are not capable of letting go or delegating or asking for help, you often, these are individuals who often find themselves getting, getting overly worried and anxious and nervous about the decisions they're making, feeling unsettled or uncertain about the things we're talking about. And that can further lead into anxieties and depressions and big T, um, little T traumas. Based on decision making and what the outcomes are. So, um, it's really important that you have the ability or you feel that you have the capability of asking for help again, as a psychiatrist, I know that that will and can directly impact. As I said, it will enhance problem solving and really can create innovation, uh, leading to better decisions downstream. And frankly, if you're able to ask peers or talk to networks or surround yourself with individuals, colleagues, that actually helps you build stronger relationships, both personally and professionally. It improves your networking skills, which thereby can actually improve your ability to get new clients or have referrals or. Um, you know, be able to refer to other levels of care or other individuals or companies that may be able to help this person where again, it might be outside your niche, it might be outside your business. And so the, the idea that you can ask for help with peers and really this concept of a rising tide raises all ships, I firmly believe in that idea coming from a mindset of abundance, not a mindset of scarcity, and that is. You know, being able to network and even if it is among colleagues and peers in the same profession, uh, you guys can learn off one another. And as I said, the awareness in the community often rises, often raises all ships. And so, you know, you both, or all of you can benefit from being collaborative and seeking out assistance among peer groups in the community. As we just think about the practicality of embracing kind of help seeking and what does that look like again? The first aspect of the first practical aspect of being able to ask for help is that self awareness and to know when you don't know. Or to know when you don't know enough, right? So your own self awareness and self assessment and be able to recognize that and ask for help when you need it is step one and critically important. There's often this fear, as we talked about earlier, you know, whether it is, you don't want to be disappointed or don't want to disappoint others. We don't want to seem weak or don't want to seem inept in some way there. You know, all of those things come from this fear based mindset. And so we often have to work on overcoming the fear. You have to work on overcoming the fear of asking for help, especially if that's not a strong suit or something you've done much of to this point. So overcoming fear of asking is really a practical. Step along the way of how you ask for help or how you, you seek help. And then finally, being able to effectively communicate your needs. So part of self awareness and self assessment is to be able to understand what it is you need help with and really getting very specific with that. So again, coming from someone who's not incredibly detail oriented. It's really important that if I'm going to go out somewhere and ask for help, or if I'm going to delegate a task to someone or insource it or outsource it, it's incredibly important that that person or that activity has a very detailed amount of orientation to it so that we're not out there asking for apples and getting oranges, right? I mean, you need, you need to be able to go ask and communicate effectively for exactly what your needs are. Otherwise you might end up getting answers to questions. You're not actually asking, and then you are spinning your wheels and you are ineffectively asking and seeking and getting help. So make sure you know what you need help with and be very specific about that, especially as you're looking for vendors or individuals who may. Be the ones coming in to help you with that need that needs to be incredibly specific. So not just being self aware and self assessing, but being very specific about what it is you need help with and being able to communicate that effectively and efficiently. So, in conclusion, today's episode very straightforward, which is. The idea of being all knowing and be able to answer everything in your business or personally is, is actually one of weakness in and of itself is not a sign of weakness. There should be no stigma around knowing when to ask for help and going out there and asking for it. That will come with some fear, potentially, but Again, you need to be very specific about what your needs are, but at the end of the day, if you can have that self awareness, have that self assessment, feel comfortable asking for help when you don't know where you don't know enough and surrounding yourself with the right people, including those individuals like coaches and mentors who can really change the inflection point or change or model things for you in a way that gets you to a much better end point and a much better decision making process sooner rather than later. So you spend less time spinning your wheels and more times racing around the track. Thank you for listening. If you liked the episode, please subscribe. Don't hesitate to share again, like it if you liked it. Once again, I'm Dr Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. I'm here to teach you how to exist today. So you may expand tomorrow, create the ultimate end game of your body's desires, talk to you soon.