Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how sometimes asking for help is the most meaningful example of self-reliance. It’s important to do a lot of work yourself but there are going to be times where we need to ask for help from others. I used to hate asking for help from others but after doing a lot of reading, listening to podcasts, and just running different businesses for the past five years, I realized that I need to ask for help from time to time.
I don’t have all the answers and I need experts that can help me reach the level I want in life. Asking for help around the house can be helpful. I remember I was coaching this client for time management, and I was asking her tasks that she does around the house. She was busy with work and with her sons’ activities. Then once we found some tasks that she was doing, I realized that she needs to ask her son do some activities like feeding the cat. Feeding the cat my take ten minutes in the morning, but that’s ten fewer minutes she could be sleeping or getting ready for herself.
Instead of feeling flustered by having to do all these things, she was able to ask for some help from her son and now she has more control over her morning. Which is just going to make her more self-sufficient. She’ll be able to give her attention to more important things like her son and thinking about her career. And it’s something the son could handle. So it’s a win-win. The son gets some experience with doing chores and taking care of an animal, and the mom gets more time.
We can’t do everything, so we need to ask for help. When I was in the Marines and Federal Government, I saw that people hated asking for help. I think it was because it might mean they sucked doing their job but sometimes there was just a lot of work to do and one person alone couldn’t accomplish everything. Plus there were times in the Marines where a senior person doesn’t really like asking the junior person on how to do something.
This is something that I didn’t really care about. I would put my ego aside and ask anyone how to do something. Then eventually, I surpassed them because I know how to hustle. Once I acquired their knowledge, then I would just put it in my toolbox and start getting to work. I know that one hour with a professional will save me eight hours myself. So why am I going to work eight hours when I can get the work done in one. I’m saving myself time and money and these are two things that I don’t want to waste.
If someone does you favor, just accept it and then give the favor back in the future. Just make sure the favor isn’t one is going to harm you in the future. This is one reason why I prefer to make transactions into cash ones because it just makes things easier to handle. If you accept a price, then the person can’t come back to you and say you owe them something.
With my client, the son technically doesn’t pay anything for living and eating at the home, so feeding the cat ten minutes a day, is something that the kid doesn’t have much leverage with. So you have to know how you’re asking for help. Sometimes you can’t pay back the favor now but the goal is that you pay it back in the future. I don’t want people asking that I owe them so I have a tally sheet and when I get where I want to be, then I’m going to start paying back folks. If someone owes me something, then I’m just going to let it go. It going to do too much work to get that favor back and it’s not worth it to me. I’ll just focus on the next opportunity.
Plus is someone had hidden intentions, then I know that I shouldn’t be hanging around that person anymore. So if you ask for a favor, then it can show what type of individual you’re dealing with. Just don’t be abusive with your requests for help. If you do this too much, then you’re going to acquire learned helplessness and you don’t want to do this. You still want to hustle and do the work, but realize that when you need help, then ask for help. I ask my parents if I could live with them for a while as I build up my “grow with joe” business and my goal is to pay them back. I have amazing parents that want to help me succeed and just help me become more self-reliant. I would not be here where I am today if I didn’t ask my parents for help, I will forever be grateful for their help.
There are other people that have helped me out and I’m grateful for them and I will help them out if they requested it. So if you need help, then ask for it, it will make you a strong person down the road.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, sometimes asking for help is the most meaningful example of self-reliance. You don’t want to be a car that is stuck in the snow. No matter how much you push on the gas, you’re just going to be stuck in the same spot. In this case, you need the tow truck or someone else to help push you out of the spot from being stuck. Then when you’re back on the road, you’ continue to do the work. Things happen in life and you won’t be able to handle everything on your own. So request the help and you’ll feel less stuck less often.
So in your journal, ask yourself, where is an area that you need assistance in? Who is a person that can help you out? Do you feel uncomfortable asking for help? What is the worst thing that is going to happen if you ask for help? I’ve read a lot of business books and there are tons of successful people who asked for money when they were low. So to help you get out of being stuck in your current situation, figure out a way to ask for help and get back on the road to your destination.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
