The benefits of asking for help

The steel covers from man holes got stolen making the walk home a bit dicey, “anti-trouble emulsion” was sold in chemists and mutton was on every menu. My first few days in the city had been educational but I was ready for something different.

I had an appointment to meet someone new. At an interview.

The conversation was flowing, we were laughing together and it looked like a good match. Then Jayne paused.

“Wow. You really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?"

I smiled and nodded “I really don’t. That’s why I placed the advert.”

There are times in our lives when we ask for help and although we might feel a bit awkward research shows that asking for help is a good thing.

Adam Grant, organizational psychologist, fast talker, writer of thoughtful books, and professor at Wharton Business School, has written about the benefits of asking for advice:

1)     The best performers seek help from experts.

2)     People who ask for help have a fairly healthy relationship with their ego as they feel able to ask for advice without it trampling all over their identity.

3)     It strengthens trust between the person who’s asked for help and the person who feels chuffed because they've been asked.

Jayne had responded to my postcard sized add stuck on a notice board in a café in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: “Smiley Scottish woman seeks fellow traveler to tour the countryside with. Interested to meet with any former Boy/Girl Scout.”

Jayne was an expert. She had all the gear, she’d planned the trip, organized a local guide and driver and she was a lover of the outdoors. The cherry on the cake was that she was also a director of an environmental organization back home in Portland, Oregon. She was looking for company and for someone to share the cost of the trip.

It was a pretty perfect set up for me.

I wasn’t bringing so much to the party.

I had less camping experience than Jayne and also less than say most people in the northern hemisphere.

This was my camping experience: One night in Scarborough, northern England, drinking rum and cokes and playing pool in a country pub, followed by sleeping in a damp tent in a damp field by the damp north sea coast.

It had been an intrepid experience.

And here I was deciding to rev things up a little. In Mongolia.

I was eager to learn and Jayne was happy to teach which created great conditions for our trip, our sanity and my opportunity to live outside of my comfort zone for a while. 

Here’s what I learned from being bold enough to ask for help from an expert:

1)     The beauty of being in nature and wide open spaces.

2)     It is possible to only have 2 showers in 9 days.

3)     It is good to get off the grid. This was before smart phones. The people and experiences I engaged with were right in front of me. Being present to where you are is a real gift.

4)     The importance of just getting on with things: Jayne’s advice on attending to nature in nature: take the trowel, pick a rock and pick a view.

5)     The value of space. After a deluge of overnight rain we woke up freezing and wet. Some time on your own works wonders for shifting out of a serious grump.

6)     The joy of learning: pitching a tent for the first time and the concentration this took.

7)     The joy of being amazed: pitching a tent in the dark after a few beers and waking in the morning to discover our view – the Gobi Desert’s magnificent sand dunes.

8)     There is often an ick factor with doing something exotic. Mongolian gers are cozy places to sleep in. Cockroaches also think so. Less cozy was them dropping from the roof onto my head.

9)     The humbling experience of living like a local: Waiting in line behind nomads to get water at a well.

10)  Team work takes work: The rotation of tasks helped create harmony. Jayne, Selenge, our guide, and I took on chores leaving Otto, our trusted driver, to stop and rest after his often 8 hours of daily driving.

Asking for help and pushing my boundaries on that trip was something I am proud of and that was fun.

What about you? Are you ready for something new? Is there something you really want to do? What’s the next thing you’d like to try?

You might have a whole new world open up to you if you ask for help...