Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, We're finally coming to the
Speaker 1: end of our Happiness Hot Take series, a whole season
Speaker 1: in which I've been calling out the bad happiness advice
Speaker 1: that I hear so often on the internet. For a
Speaker 1: final hot take, we're heading back into the Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: archives to revisit a misconception that I struggle with myself.
Speaker 1: Many of us find it hard to ask for support,
Speaker 1: either because we're afraid of inconveniencing other people or we
Speaker 1: don't want to come off as too needy. We're taught
Speaker 1: to handle things on our own, even at times when
Speaker 1: we really could use a helping hand. But today's hot
Speaker 1: take is this we should be bothering people a little
Speaker 1: more often. It turns out that asking someone for a
Speaker 1: favor doesn't just make life easier for you, it can
Speaker 1: actually make the other person happier as well. So stay
Speaker 1: tuned for research and stories that reveal why asking for
Speaker 1: everything from a little as assistance to a massive act
Speaker 1: of generosity can be good for everyone involved. Here's this
Speaker 1: week's in case you missed it Happiness hot take. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it. We're in a first grade classroom
Speaker 1: in Beijing, China. It's about twenty years ago. Ahead of
Speaker 1: the annual holidays. To mark the occasion, a teacher has
Speaker 1: brought and wrapped presents for her students. The gifts are
Speaker 1: stacked up in a corner ready to be handed out,
Speaker 1: and if she.
Speaker 2: Just stop right there, it'll be a great story.
Speaker 1: Jah John was one of those excited kids.
Speaker 3: But she had all of us come to the front
Speaker 3: of a classroom and said, hey, why don't you guys
Speaker 3: say nice things about each other. If someone calls your
Speaker 3: name and says something nice about you, you can go
Speaker 3: get a gift and sit down.
Speaker 1: One by one, The kids started sharing kind words about
Speaker 1: their classmates.
Speaker 3: It was great when he started someone's can sing really well.
Speaker 3: Someone is helpful to other teachers, and I will applaud
Speaker 3: as if it might turn.
Speaker 1: But the flow of compliments soon slowed down and then
Speaker 1: petered outcome lately worried, Jao's teacher asked, doesn't anyone have
Speaker 1: anything nice to say about the students who are still
Speaker 1: at the front of the class. No one spoke. Three
Speaker 1: gifts sat uncollected in the corner, and three kids stood
Speaker 1: rejected at the front of the room, and I was.
Speaker 2: One of them.
Speaker 1: It was just a fleeting few minutes in Jao's life,
Speaker 1: but the events of that day cast a long shadow.
Speaker 1: Joh eventually graduated school, then headed to college, and began
Speaker 1: a new life outside China.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, once I came to the United States,
Speaker 3: I started following like a path of almost like at
Speaker 3: least resistance.
Speaker 1: Nearing his thirties, Jao felt like he was being held
Speaker 1: back from chasing his dreams and fulfilling his potential, and
Speaker 1: he traced some of that back to the fateful day
Speaker 1: many years ago, where he stood rejected in front of
Speaker 1: his classmates.
Speaker 2: Pretty sure it didn't help.
Speaker 1: You See, Jean needed all the confidence, self belief, and
Speaker 1: drive he could muster because he had a dream.
Speaker 3: I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. You know, I
Speaker 3: actually come from a family of teachers, but I didn't
Speaker 3: never want to be a teacher. I want to be
Speaker 3: entrepreneur because I was inspired by Bill Gates.
Speaker 1: Becoming the next Bill Gates requires a willingness to put
Speaker 1: yourself out there. You've got to be prepared to tell
Speaker 1: potential investors and clients about your big plans, and you've
Speaker 1: got to be prepared for them to laugh you out
Speaker 1: of the room. You have to knock on door after
Speaker 1: door after door, asking for support and backing until you
Speaker 1: get the answer you want. And Jaw just wasn't sure
Speaker 1: he could handle that.
Speaker 2: I just felt like my fear of rejection was really
Speaker 2: holding me back.
Speaker 1: Though now fully grown, Jaw still felt the pain of
Speaker 1: his six year old self.
Speaker 3: And I was just miserable, to be honest, because I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm getting old. My wife was pregnant, and
Speaker 3: I just feel like I probably missed my mark to
Speaker 3: be this entrepreneur that I've always wanted to be.
Speaker 1: So was shopping to admit defeat and give up on
Speaker 1: his dream and remain miserable on this path of least resistance.
Speaker 2: Nope, So that's.
Speaker 3: Where I realized I got to overcome this fear of rejection.
Speaker 1: Even if you did get dissed by your entire first
Speaker 1: grade classroom, you can probably still relate to Jah's lack
Speaker 1: of confidence. It's not just entrepreneurs who need to make
Speaker 1: themselves vulnerable to others, whether it's in our careers or
Speaker 1: just in daily life. Many of us have a hard
Speaker 1: time asking for the help we need because, like Jah,
Speaker 1: we fear rejection. We may worry we'll get a big,
Speaker 1: fat no from a friend or stranger. Or we may
Speaker 1: just hate the idea of bothering busy people. We may
Speaker 1: fear being seen as pushy or annoying or needy. These
Speaker 1: fears may feel very real, but do they match the
Speaker 1: reality of reaching out to the people around us when
Speaker 1: we need help. By not even opening the conversation, are
Speaker 1: we actually making ourselves and other people less happy than
Speaker 1: we could be. Our minds are constantly telling us what
Speaker 1: to do to be happy. But what if our minds
Speaker 1: are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
Speaker 1: leading us away from what will really make us happy.
Speaker 1: The good news is that understanding the science of the
Speaker 1: mind can boin us all back in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos, I was.
Speaker 4: A former college football player, so asking for helps not
Speaker 4: the kind of thing I typically did very much.
Speaker 1: This is Social Connection expert and Happiness Lab regular Nick
Speaker 1: Eppley lake Shaw. Nick grew up with a reluctance to
Speaker 1: ask for help.
Speaker 4: It's pretty strong and capable, and I could do stuff,
Speaker 4: and that always made me fairly reluctant to ask others
Speaker 4: for help to do almost anything.
Speaker 1: If you've heard Nick on other episodes of this season,
Speaker 1: you may recall that he studies the way our minds
Speaker 1: mess up when it comes to happier social connection. Recently,
Speaker 1: his lab has turned to the fears that he and
Speaker 1: so many of us have when it comes to asking
Speaker 1: for help.
Speaker 4: And our research and that and many others in the
Speaker 4: field has been making it crystal clear that many of
Speaker 4: those fears are miscalibrated, that as they're exaggerated, we tend
Speaker 4: to underestimate how positively these interactions are going to go.
Speaker 1: Nick's work begins from a premise that many researchers aru
Speaker 1: is a universal psychological truth. We enjoy doing nice stuff
Speaker 1: for other people.
Speaker 4: I think feeling happy to have helped is a very
Speaker 4: real thing. You go do something kind for somebody else,
Speaker 4: you'll feel pretty darn good.
Speaker 1: We usually notice how good it feels to help others
Speaker 1: when we're in the role of the helper. We forget
Speaker 1: that the same maxim holds for the people we ask
Speaker 1: to help us.
Speaker 4: Notice that asking for help from somebody else gives an
Speaker 4: opportunity to do something kind for you, and by not
Speaker 4: asking for help, you are really missing out on an
Speaker 4: opportunity to make somebody else feel good.
Speaker 1: We sometimes worry that our requests will be a burden
Speaker 1: on the person we approach, that they'll feel pressured to
Speaker 1: say yes, but Nick's research shows that that usually isn't
Speaker 1: the case, Especially when we have a relatively simple request,
Speaker 1: Calling upon another person for assistance can be a gift
Speaker 1: not just to ourselves but also to the person we ask.
Speaker 5: So in some ways, it seems almost selfish to not
Speaker 5: ask other folks for help when they could give it
Speaker 5: to you easily, because you're denying or an opportunity to
Speaker 5: do something kind for you.
Speaker 1: The problem is we usually don't see it that way,
Speaker 1: and when we fail to ask for help, we don't
Speaker 1: get to witness the happiness boost it gives us or
Speaker 1: the person giving us assistance, and so we continue to
Speaker 1: believe that seeking help is an imposition rather than a
Speaker 1: wonderful way to bond and make everyone happier.
Speaker 4: We only get feedback from the things we choose to do,
Speaker 4: and we don't get feedback from the things we choose
Speaker 4: to avoid, and in an imperfect world like that, we're
Speaker 4: going to get a systematically distorted view of how these
Speaker 4: social interactions are going to go. That naturally confirms our belief.
Speaker 1: To test just how deeply ingrained these false beliefs are,
Speaker 1: Nick designed a simple experiment. He set up a photo
Speaker 1: op at a popular spot on campus. But the camera
Speaker 1: he put out there wasn't a modern smartphone. It was
Speaker 1: a vintage Polaroid instant camera. And that choice was key
Speaker 1: because old school polaroids aren't built to let you take selfies.
Speaker 4: So in the old days, if you wanted somebody to
Speaker 4: take a picture of you as a you got to
Speaker 4: go up and ask.
Speaker 5: Them to do it.
Speaker 1: Subjects had to find a stranger to assist them. But
Speaker 1: before they approached anyone, the subjects were asked how annoyed
Speaker 1: they thought the stranger would be by being stopped, and
Speaker 1: how positive their mood would be afterwards. Nick later compared
Speaker 1: these predictions to what the strangers actually said about taking
Speaker 1: the polaroids.
Speaker 4: And we found that people tended to underestimate how positively
Speaker 4: others respond, how willing they would be to help, how
Speaker 4: happy they would feel helping after they actually did. It
Speaker 4: was a more positive experience for the person you asked
Speaker 4: for help than people expected.
Speaker 1: Nick subjects also grossly overestimated how inconvenience the photo takers
Speaker 1: would feel their guesses were six times higher than what
Speaker 1: the helpers themselves later reported six times higher. Our predictions
Speaker 1: of how other people will react to our helping requests
Speaker 1: are way way off.
Speaker 4: They were likely to want to try to help you,
Speaker 4: and given that they were perceiving it as an act
Speaker 4: of kindness, given that you'd ask for it, they'll feel
Speaker 4: good when they actually help you out.
Speaker 1: Results like these prompted Nick to rethink his own resistance
Speaker 1: to asking for help.
Speaker 4: Year in Chicago, sometimes snow's in the winter, but if
Speaker 4: I couldn't plow my drive but I was often reluctant
Speaker 4: to have a neighbor come and shovel my driveway. And
Speaker 4: then our work in part made it clear to me
Speaker 4: that the neighbor would probably feel pretty good being able
Speaker 4: to do that for me, And so I now will
Speaker 4: ask him if he could do that if I can't,
Speaker 4: if I can't shovel it, and it's created lots of
Speaker 4: good conversations between us where I get a chance to
Speaker 4: thank him for that he feels good for it, and
Speaker 4: I don't think I ever would have done that.
Speaker 1: Before asking for help to take a quick photo or
Speaker 1: for a friendly neighbor to lend you a hand. Shoveling
Speaker 1: snow are great places to start. But aspiring entrepreneur Jean
Speaker 1: Jong was in a hurry. He wanted to supercharge his
Speaker 1: fight against his crippling fear of rejection, so the approach
Speaker 1: he took was rather extreme. He decided to ask people
Speaker 1: for some pretty fantastic favors.
Speaker 2: I saw this big guy.
Speaker 3: He looked like a security guard of some sort, and
Speaker 3: he was sitting behind a desk. And I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask him. Then I said, just inching toward him,
Speaker 3: I just slowed down. I was like, this is so scary,
Speaker 3: but my heart was calending.
Speaker 2: I was sweating.
Speaker 1: Well hear how all this turned out? When the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab returns in a moment want to be entrepreneur, Jan
Speaker 1: Jong wanted to beat his fear of rejection, so he
Speaker 1: began where a lot of us do when we're ready
Speaker 1: for a big behavior change. He did a.
Speaker 2: Google search, Google has Yoda.
Speaker 1: After a few clicks, Jean stumbled on a website that
Speaker 1: would change his life forever. Rejection Therapy dot com, a
Speaker 1: site that teaches a practice known as exposure therapy. Let's
Speaker 1: say you want to get over your phobia of heights.
Speaker 1: Exposure therapy would tell you to confront that fear by
Speaker 1: visiting locations a little bit above ground level and then
Speaker 1: over time climbing higher and higher, so that, through gradual exposure,
Speaker 1: you get used to heights. Rejection Therapy dot com applies
Speaker 1: that same logic to the fear of asking for help.
Speaker 1: The website suggests things like challenging stranger to a game
Speaker 1: of rock paper scissors or asking for a small discount
Speaker 1: the next time you buy something. The challenges even have
Speaker 1: different levels, so you can start with just a mild
Speaker 1: taste of rejection and gradually build up to going way
Speaker 1: out of your comfort zone. Jew was ready to dive in.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the best id I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: The site recommended a month long challenge, thirty days of Rejection,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want.
Speaker 3: To do thirty days because I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I want to go hardcore. Let me overdose on rejection
Speaker 3: and see what happens. So I did the one hundred
Speaker 3: days of rejection.
Speaker 1: And rather than performing these challenges privately, Jeaque decided he
Speaker 1: needed to film all his interactions and to share them
Speaker 1: with the entire world.
Speaker 3: I know if I do this by myself, I probably
Speaker 3: get a couple of rejections.
Speaker 2: This is quit.
Speaker 3: But if I declare that to the world and I
Speaker 3: will think people will hold me accountable.
Speaker 2: So I can't just quit that easily. So that's what
Speaker 2: I did. All right, This is my first try.
Speaker 1: Day one of John's rejection marathon started pretty spectacularly.
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to borrow one hundred dollars from
Speaker 3: a stranger.
Speaker 1: Joe picked a security guard sitting by a desk in
Speaker 1: the marble filled lobby of a nice mall.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, do you think I'm borrow a hundred dollars
Speaker 2: from you?
Speaker 1: The security guard looked confused, like he couldn't quite believe
Speaker 1: what he was hearing.
Speaker 2: No, no, why, all right? No, okay, sorry, thanks.
Speaker 1: Jew didn't wait around to answer the security guard's question.
Speaker 2: I just ran as fast as I could.
Speaker 1: Jaw was downhearted. He assumed the interaction had gone terribly,
Speaker 1: that the guard had badly rejected him, but all that
Speaker 1: changed once he watched the footage.
Speaker 3: I was like this NFL scout looking at the game film,
Speaker 3: you know, analyzing myself.
Speaker 1: Jaw was shocked by what he saw, and not by
Speaker 1: the guard's reaction, but by his own I.
Speaker 2: Looked so scared, and I was like, oh wow, I
Speaker 2: didn't know he was a security or someone. I don't know.
Speaker 2: He just sits there. He looks like a security guard.
Speaker 3: I thought he might pull off a gun or just
Speaker 3: yell at me or something.
Speaker 1: Watching the video revealed that Shaw had nothing to be
Speaker 1: scared of. He didn't get the hundred bucks, but the
Speaker 1: guard was nice. He even gave Jaw a window of opportunity.
Speaker 1: He asked Jaw why, like, why did he need the
Speaker 1: hundred bucks?
Speaker 3: Anyway, I could have said many things. I could have
Speaker 3: negotiated with him. I could have said, if you can
Speaker 3: do a hundred, can do five, you know he can
Speaker 3: do one. I could explained that was overcoming our fair rejection.
Speaker 2: I just ran.
Speaker 3: So I said, Okay, next time, no matter what happens,
Speaker 3: I am going to stay engaged. So I'm not going
Speaker 3: to run.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. I'm not going to run.
Speaker 1: One day two of his one hundred days of rejection,
Speaker 1: Jaw headed to his favorite burger joint, Five Guys Burgers
Speaker 1: and Fries. He purchased a cheeseburger and ate it, and
Speaker 1: then returned to the counter for the big ask.
Speaker 5: Yes, burgers it Can I get a burger reveal?
Speaker 1: Could he have a burger refill? That is another cheeseburger
Speaker 1: totally for free?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I'll like you guys a lot where
Speaker 3: you to have a burger riffing on him.
Speaker 1: The cashier said no, But this time Jell didn't run
Speaker 1: away and.
Speaker 2: I started negotiating. I started to stay calm and actually
Speaker 2: explained myself.
Speaker 3: And when that left, I didn't feel us bad like
Speaker 3: I feel way better than the first day.
Speaker 1: Jah was rejected. Five guys does not offer burger refills,
Speaker 1: even if you ask politely. But the no Jah received
Speaker 1: from the cashier yet again came with more kindness and
Speaker 1: humor than he expected.
Speaker 2: Day two was the success on to day three.
Speaker 1: By day three, Jeall already felt like he was heading
Speaker 1: for a rejection gold medal.
Speaker 2: I'm driving to a Krispy Kreme.
Speaker 1: So his next ask took his odd requests to Olympic
Speaker 1: level heights of ridiculousness.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask them to make me some specialized donuts.
Speaker 1: Joh one of the folks at Krispy Kream to make
Speaker 1: him a set of five donuts interlocked in the shape
Speaker 1: of the famous Olympic rings.
Speaker 3: Well, there's no way they're gonna say yes to that,
Speaker 3: you know, And I would just come in and make
Speaker 3: a joke and get reject in and hopefully not be
Speaker 3: too scared.
Speaker 2: D Yeah.
Speaker 1: The employee, Jackie Brawn, got a penant paper and asked
Speaker 1: Joh to help her sketch out the design. She didn't
Speaker 1: look angry or confused. She kind of seemed to relish
Speaker 1: the challenge.
Speaker 3: And fifteen minutes later she brought me out a box
Speaker 3: of donuts that looked like Olympic rings. That is really good.
Speaker 2: That's really good. Yeah, man, you'll make me really happy today.
Speaker 1: Jackie didn't even charge Jah for the donuts. It's on me,
Speaker 1: she told him with a big beaming smile.
Speaker 3: So when I was walking out at that donut shop,
Speaker 3: I was like, Wow, how many yeses have I missed
Speaker 3: my life?
Speaker 2: Because I was expecting a no. So that was the
Speaker 2: magic moment for me.
Speaker 1: Pleased with his success, John went home and posted the
Speaker 1: Day three video, but it didn't get the handful of
Speaker 1: use he was expecting. Millions of people watched that donut clip.
Speaker 1: It got so much attention that his Olympic ring donut
Speaker 1: story wound up one daytime television shows.
Speaker 2: I think Krispy krim Stock actually went up that day. God,
Speaker 2: there's like a marketer's dream, right.
Speaker 3: Ask them for donuts that looked like Olympic rings and
Speaker 3: I was like, no way, they're gonna say yes.
Speaker 2: They couldn't say no to me. They were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: how can I make this?
Speaker 3: And when I left there, I just had tears in
Speaker 3: my eyes because I just couldn't believe.
Speaker 2: This world is much nicer than I thought. It's much
Speaker 2: kinder than I thought.
Speaker 1: Joe's donut success was a turning point for him. It
Speaker 1: convinced him that he could successfully ask for just about anything,
Speaker 1: and Shaw really did ask for rather strange things. He
Speaker 1: asked to become a mannequin in a department store, to
Speaker 1: give the safety announcement on an airplane, to slide down
Speaker 1: the pole at a fire station, and defeed a lion
Speaker 1: at the zoo.
Speaker 2: There you go, Hold hold on, It's okay, it's right.
Speaker 1: The videos that followed were as hilarious as they were popular,
Speaker 1: like when he asked for a haircut from a dog groomer.
Speaker 2: Can you see me like a German shepherd? Like tabetan
Speaker 2: mastiff or or child chow or something.
Speaker 1: Joe's video is eventually the attention of a certain psychologist, and.
Speaker 4: I thought, this is fascinating, right, this is an extreme
Speaker 4: version of what I did.
Speaker 1: Psychologist Nick Epley's research had already shown that people are
Speaker 1: more willing to help us out than we think, that
Speaker 1: they react more positively than we expect to simple requests
Speaker 1: like taking a quick polaroid photo. But watching Jav's YouTube videos,
Speaker 1: Nick realized people may also agree to far more complicated requests.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's off the charts what he asked people
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 1: Nick carefully analyzed Jav's videos, counting exactly how often his
Speaker 1: pleas for help got rejected, and it.
Speaker 5: Turns out less often than he's accepted.
Speaker 4: That most of the time, a little over fifty percent
Speaker 4: of the time, to these crazy requests, the person does it.
Speaker 1: Nick also watched to see the reactions of the strangers
Speaker 1: that Jah approached. Did the donut makers and flight attendants
Speaker 1: and zoo keepers get mad and yell at him and
Speaker 1: tell them to go away? Or were they genuinely trying
Speaker 1: to be kind and accommodating. Nickson was striking In the
Speaker 1: vast majority of interactions, people reacted completely positively. Jaw's extreme
Speaker 1: experiment and rejection therapy is a great example of two
Speaker 1: things that our lying minds often get wrong. First, we
Speaker 1: don't get rebuffed nearly as often as we fear, and second,
Speaker 1: the people we ask for help are usually much happier
Speaker 1: to oblige than we expect. But my guess is that
Speaker 1: hearing Jaw's story didn't exactly prompt you to go out
Speaker 1: and demand weird shaped donuts, or to borrow money from
Speaker 1: strangers on the street, or to head into a lion's
Speaker 1: den at dinner time. So what simple strategies can we
Speaker 1: all employ to be more comfortable in asking for help,
Speaker 1: Things that will allow us and the people around us
Speaker 1: to enjoy the happiness benefits that come from bonding over
Speaker 1: a helping hand. We'll find out when the Happiness Lab returns.
Speaker 1: After this quick.
Speaker 3: Break on dividing my life into BD and AD Before
Speaker 3: donuts and after donuts. It was a watershed moment for
Speaker 3: me because he opened up this whole new.
Speaker 2: World to me.
Speaker 1: A decade after asking a Krispy Kreme employee to build
Speaker 1: him the Olympic Ring up donuts, John now runs the
Speaker 1: very company that inspired him. Rejection therapy dot com. He's
Speaker 1: also an in demand speaker and the author of Rejection Proof,
Speaker 1: How I Beat Fear and became Invincible through one hundred
Speaker 1: days of rejection.
Speaker 3: I didn't plan this. I didn't plan this seem to
Speaker 3: go viral, and someday I'll write a book. Some day,
Speaker 3: I'll do a blog. You know, someday I will give
Speaker 3: a Ted talk or beyond Laura Sentel's show. I'd never
Speaker 3: planned all that. All I did was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do something.
Speaker 1: And the viral videos joh made are now used by
Speaker 1: clinicians to help patients with social anxiety. They may seem extreme,
Speaker 1: but Jaw says they can still teach us important lessons
Speaker 1: that we can apply in everyday settings. His first takeaway
Speaker 1: is people.
Speaker 3: Are actually much nicer than we think. People are actually
Speaker 3: very open, especially if you awesome wacky stuff.
Speaker 1: A second lesson is that your fears that people will
Speaker 1: angrily reject you or think less of you if you
Speaker 1: ask for assistance are likely to be very, very misplaced.
Speaker 1: Jaw is living proof that you'll hear no far less
Speaker 1: than you expect.
Speaker 3: When I started, I thought I was going to get
Speaker 3: one hundred rejections. You know, maybe like I got some yes,
Speaker 3: as if you get really lucky. But as it turned out,
Speaker 3: sometimes just by asking you get it yes.
Speaker 1: But to get to that yes, Jaw says, we also
Speaker 1: need the courage to expose our vulnerabilities and to ignore
Speaker 1: any worries we may have about seeming needy.
Speaker 3: I don't want to bother other people, and you know
Speaker 3: I want to be independent.
Speaker 1: Right, And the research backs this up. Psychologists have long
Speaker 1: found evidence for what's known as the beautiful mess effect.
Speaker 1: We assume that people will avoid us if we seem
Speaker 1: needy or dependent on help, but it's actually just the opposite.
Speaker 1: People like us better when we show weakness, or express
Speaker 1: emotional vulnerability or seek their help. Being messy makes us
Speaker 1: seem more open and relatable.
Speaker 3: You're really good friends to ask for help, they ask
Speaker 3: for opinion, they ask for help, and they're vulnerable to
Speaker 3: each other. If you give and take, that really build relationships.
Speaker 3: In fact, sometimes the fact that you're asking shows that Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm asking you because I need you, and that's really
Speaker 3: increases the bond you have with each other.
Speaker 1: But connecting with potential helpers also requires changing the negative
Speaker 1: mindset the many of us have about soliciting assistance. Your
Speaker 1: tension while asking for help can make the whole interaction
Speaker 1: less comfortable for everyone. It's something that Jah learned early
Speaker 1: in his days of rejection therapy.
Speaker 3: So I was expecting rejection and all my focus is
Speaker 3: how I could deal with that rejection. I them couldn't
Speaker 3: even think the possibility that people will say yes to me.
Speaker 3: And if you don't bring this aggressive energy, you're not
Speaker 3: that tense. People actually relax when they talk to them
Speaker 3: to decrease that tension.
Speaker 1: Jaw advises that you really do need to come to
Speaker 1: terms with the possibility of being rebuffed and to relax
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: That's actually the key.
Speaker 3: If I'm coming in and if I'm open to rejection,
Speaker 3: then I'm fine. If I give the other person the
Speaker 3: freedom to say no to me, I give myself the
Speaker 3: freedom to ask whatever I want.
Speaker 1: One way to do that, Shaw says is to explicitly
Speaker 1: admit that what you're asking for might not be doable,
Speaker 1: and that it's totally cool if the person can't help you,
Speaker 1: that you know they're not doing it just bite you
Speaker 1: or because they don't like you.
Speaker 3: I say, Okay, I know I'm making a big request here.
Speaker 3: I know this is a little bit weird, and it's
Speaker 3: okay if you can't do it. If I put that
Speaker 3: thing what they're doubting up front, it actually put people
Speaker 3: at ease. He's saying that I can say.
Speaker 2: No to this.
Speaker 1: And if you're still feeling guilty about your request, Jaw
Speaker 1: suggests thinking back to how you felt when someone asked
Speaker 1: for help. Would you really be annoyed if the situation
Speaker 1: was reversed. Joe says he even thinks back to cases
Speaker 1: where he felt frustrated when good friends failed to call
Speaker 1: on him when they were in need.
Speaker 3: I had a friend and he spent like almost a
Speaker 3: year looking for a job and he didn't ask for
Speaker 3: any help.
Speaker 2: It was really hard for him, and I was like,
Speaker 2: you could have told me earlier that job. I know
Speaker 2: someone who who was hiring for that job. Why did
Speaker 2: you tell me earlier?
Speaker 1: But Joe has one final strategy that makes seem counterintuitive
Speaker 1: given his own experience. He recommends not going as hardcore
Speaker 1: as he did.
Speaker 3: Go outside of the comfort zone a little bit. Don't
Speaker 3: go like way out. You don't have to come in
Speaker 3: and ask for one hundred dollars like I did.
Speaker 2: That was a big step. It's like an exercise right.
Speaker 3: If you've never lifted weights, you don't want to come
Speaker 3: in and bench press like three hundred pounds.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get crushed.
Speaker 3: But go out of your comfort zone a little bit
Speaker 3: and just test the water, and then gradually expand your
Speaker 3: comfort zone. You can start doing this again and again,
Speaker 3: and every time you do, he becomes so much better
Speaker 3: than before.
Speaker 1: And Joe should know because asking for what he needed
Speaker 1: publicly and fighting his fear of rejection didn't just change
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 3: Jackie from Krispy Kreme right that the person said yes
Speaker 3: to me to make Olympic donuts, it changed her life too.
Speaker 1: Jackie Brown also went viral for those Olympic donuts. A
Speaker 1: viewer of Jaw's video even made her a Facebook page
Speaker 1: entitled give Jackie a Krispy Kreme a Raise, and thousands
Speaker 1: of people sign the petition.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you, I mean very very much.
Speaker 1: She received a personal visit from the CEO of Krispy Kreme,
Speaker 1: and she now stars in training videos that are used
Speaker 1: by the entire corporation.
Speaker 2: She become like a celebrity within her company just all
Speaker 2: because she say yes. Sometimes saying yes is more.
Speaker 1: Fun that saying no, and John thinks we'd all benefit
Speaker 1: from the fun of asking for help more often.
Speaker 2: Rejection therapy has become a movement.
Speaker 3: It just feels my heart because I hope this movement
Speaker 3: can keep going and to help people overcome their fear.
Speaker 1: So many of us are missing out on making new
Speaker 1: social connections or deepening our bonds with existing friends just
Speaker 1: because we don't want to ask for help or favors that.
Speaker 1: Maybe because we don't want to appear annoying or vulnerable,
Speaker 1: or because we fear the humiliation of our pleas being rejected.
Speaker 1: But the science shows that our worries about being pushy
Speaker 1: and needy are unfounded. People are way more happy to
Speaker 1: help than our lying minds think, and our reluctance to
Speaker 1: ask for help once at preventing the people we care
Speaker 1: about from receiving the happiness boost that comes with being kind.
Speaker 1: So why not follow Jah's advice and push your rejection
Speaker 1: comfort zone a bit. You don't need to ask a
Speaker 1: stranger for money or demand specialized donuts, but you can
Speaker 1: make sure you give the people in your life opportunities
Speaker 1: to support and care for you. It'll make them and
Speaker 1: you feel much better than you expect. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley. Our original
Speaker 1: music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Evan Viola. Jess Shane and Alice Vines
Speaker 1: offered additional production support. Special thanks to my agent, Ben
Speaker 1: Davis and all of the Pushkin proved. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and me, Doctor
Speaker 1: Larry Santos