The Art of Asking for and Accepting Help
Many of the most valuable life and work skills seem simple. Jennifer Kim wrote recently, "So much of good management is so simple: recognizing when your people need a challenge vs. when they need help."
How do you learn to do this?
I believe it starts with learning how to listen, and then normalizing asking for help.
I always thought listening was easy, you just shut your mouth and open your ears. As I've been facilitating and coaching more, I've realized how difficult listening actually is. There are three different models of listening: Informational Listening, Critical Listening, and Empathetic Listening.
Having come from venture capital where my job required me to constantly evaluate and analyze, my default mode was critical listening. At the beginning of every Grand Session, I have to consciously remind myself to move away from critical listening, and instead practice empathetic listening. This practice helps me notice what the person is experiencing, and what they may need.
Next, normalize asking for help.
Serena Bian, a member of The Grand Quest, recently shared this message on our community Slack. I love her lesson to self, "It's okay to ask for help, and to share what your dreams are - people want to help 🙂"
It's served as a reminder to me that as a community, we need to celebrate asking for help more often. To that end, we'd like to start a new section of the newsletter called 🎉 Help 🎉 to highlight and celebrate requests for help from our community.
🎉 Help 🎉
From from a member based in L.A. He writes:
"One thing I struggle with the most is the inability to entirely move past a relationship that ended 5 years ago. I realize that I rarely am able to have a conversation about it where people relate deeply. Also, it’s something that I’m often reticent to talk about, in fear of sounding like a broken record, or I feel shame. It occurred to me this morning that this topic could make for a great The Grand conversation."
If you'd like to join the conversation or help connect our L.A. member with friends who have a shared experience, please reply to this email. If you'd like to submit a request for 🎉Help🎉 for a future newsletter, please email us at founders@thegrand.world.
Upcoming Sessions:
Finding Wellbeing & Fulfillment in Uncertain Times (7/9) - Join us for a conversation led by Caroline about how we’re coping with new lifestyle demands and explore ways to create a greater sense of flexibility and fulfillment through all aspects of our well-being: emotional, professional, physical, social, intellectual and spiritual.
The Art of Accepting Help (7/15) - Listen to Noel’s story about how growing up Caribbean and Queer shaped limiting beliefs about doing it all himself. He’ll share more about overcoming a fear of vulnerability to ask for and accept help in order to create a network of volunteers that have helped over 100 founders of color grow their social enterprises.
How to Talk about Racism with Friends, Family and Co-workers (7/21) - Learn how to navigate through the discomfort of conversations about racism to create scalable and meaningful change in your communities. Manasa will share how she has approached talking to her friends and families, and a helpful framework to guide conversations.
💌,
Rei