Speaker 1: Everybody, It's Bill Courtney, Welcome into the shop. What's up, Alex,
Speaker 1: It's living the dream, baby, live in the dream. Me too.
Speaker 1: I've I've been traveling too much lately, and I'm so
Speaker 1: glad to be home and back in the shop.
Speaker 2: I feel so bad for your going to weddings and vacation, and.
Speaker 1: Well, vacation's fine. Weddings. You know, who actually goes to
Speaker 1: a wedding that's not in the family or being married,
Speaker 1: that actually looks forward to it? I think most wedding.
Speaker 2: It looks like it was in a beautiful spot though
Speaker 2: I saw Malli post pictures of is it ESTs Parker?
Speaker 2: You guys right, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember.
Speaker 2: I think you don't even know where you were hurt.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's you go to weddings more is
Speaker 1: an obligation than anything else. I mean, that's what people don't.
Speaker 2: I hope this couple here is this episode and that'd
Speaker 2: be amazing.
Speaker 1: I love them and I hope they have a wonderful life.
Speaker 1: And I was so happy to be at their wedding.
Speaker 2: How was that that was obligatory to keep going?
Speaker 1: It was shop talking number fifty four. Everybody, this one
Speaker 1: is titled Don't be Afraid to ask for Help, which
Speaker 1: reminds me of like the nineteen seventies parody where people
Speaker 1: before cell phones. People would drive around but the husband
Speaker 1: would never get out ask for help at the gas
Speaker 1: station and would just stay lost for hours because they're
Speaker 1: unwilling to admit they're loss to need help.
Speaker 2: But pride of every man.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's it. So Shop Talk number fifty four, don't
Speaker 1: be Afraid to ask for help. Welcome in the shop.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about this right after these brief messages from
Speaker 1: our general sponsors. Welcome back to the shop, everybody. Shop
Speaker 1: Talk number fifty four, Don't be Afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1: In Chicago Booth Review a publication of the University of
Speaker 1: Chicago's Booth Business School. That's where really smart people go
Speaker 1: to school.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: I mean University of Chicago's Booth Business School. I mean
Speaker 1: when it says in the University of Chicago's Booth Baby,
Speaker 1: if you have to have six names, six words to
Speaker 1: describe your school, it's probably hard to go to school.
Speaker 2: Now speaking of a normal folks. Thing for a little diversion, yeah,
Speaker 2: one thing like me go and all these fancy schools
Speaker 2: like that Sam Natius I was telling you about. By
Speaker 2: the way, they're not a church school. They're found in
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds. No, right, yeah, but or even UVA
Speaker 2: like living in Oxford, missive be now that all these
Speaker 2: people went to Old Miss It's amazing how many people
Speaker 2: make more money than me despite the fancy schools. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's like who cares, like the u went to
Speaker 2: these fancy schools?
Speaker 1: Whatever? Yeah, I mean we're in Oxford. Who cares? Right? Okay.
Speaker 1: In Chicago Booth Review, publication of the very fancy University
Speaker 1: of Chicago's Booth Business School, Cassandra ra Ball I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Br A ba w under Braba wrote
Speaker 1: an awesome article titled Don't be afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1: Walking in a park one day, Stansford's.
Speaker 2: See Stanford, it's not that I know.
Speaker 1: It's us. I'm gonna say, Jean, it's spelled x u
Speaker 1: A n z h A O. So. Walking in a
Speaker 1: park one day, Stanford's Jean Jao noticed an elderly couple
Speaker 1: trying to take a picture of themselves. She heard the
Speaker 1: husband whisper that they shouldn't bother a young man using
Speaker 1: a laptop on a bench nearby. Noticing their struggle, the
Speaker 1: woman offered to help. Really, the wife asked, you can
Speaker 1: help us take a picture? It was It was a
Speaker 1: common enough interaction, and it mirrored the findings of a
Speaker 1: study that Joao conducted with Booth's Nicholas Epley when she
Speaker 1: was a post doctoral scholar at Chicago Booth. The researchers
Speaker 1: find that people can be consistently reluctant to reach out
Speaker 1: for assistance because they underestimate how happy others are to comply.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Often it is our own preconceived notions that
Speaker 1: hinder us from reaching out and seeking help, even though
Speaker 1: people are frequently more more than willing to lend a
Speaker 1: hand when asked. This reluctance creates a barrier to a
Speaker 1: social interaction that would increase the well being for both
Speaker 1: the request of the helper and the helper. The researchers right.
Speaker 1: In six experiments, Epl and Jall surveyed hundreds of people
Speaker 1: to gather information about study participants expected and actual reactions
Speaker 1: to either asking for or being asked for help. For example,
Speaker 1: in their first experiment, John Epley recruited fifty visitors of
Speaker 1: a public park and asked them to find someone to
Speaker 1: take their picture on a Polari camera. Participants first filled
Speaker 1: out a survey that gauged both how they felt about
Speaker 1: making the request and how they expected the people they
Speaker 1: approached to fill and react. In forty seven the side
Speaker 1: of fifty now in forty seven cases, the first person
Speaker 1: approached agreed to help, and three others. The first declined,
Speaker 1: but the second person said yes. The researchers then approached
Speaker 1: the picture takers and surveyed them as well. To participants
Speaker 1: significantly underestimated the picture taker's willingness to help and overestimated
Speaker 1: the discomfort involved. The surveys revealed. Another experiment tested how
Speaker 1: willing strangers in a university laboratory were to help each other.
Speaker 1: Participants were paired up and seated at a computer desk,
Speaker 1: close enough that they could see each other but not
Speaker 1: the other's computer screen. They were then tasked with, within
Speaker 1: five minutes, counting the number of instances the letter E
Speaker 1: appeared in an academic article. One partner was given too
Speaker 1: much material to cover in that time, while the other
Speaker 1: was giving so little as to have lots of time
Speaker 1: left over. The overburdened participants were encouraged to ask for help,
Speaker 1: whether by asking their partners directly or by tapping the
Speaker 1: experiment instructor to ask on their behalf. As before and
Speaker 1: the other experiments, the results indicate that the people in
Speaker 1: need of help tended to underestimate how happy others were
Speaker 1: to provide help, and they overestimated the perceived bother involved
Speaker 1: in asking for help. We believe those asking for help
Speaker 1: are likely to focus on the inconvenience of helping, as
Speaker 1: the help required as likely to be their primary focus.
Speaker 1: That Pally says, someone being asked for help, in contrast,
Speaker 1: will focus on the inconvenience of helping, but will also
Speaker 1: focus on an enhanced sense of agency for being identified
Speaker 1: as someone who could provide help. Now that's interesting. Huh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read that again. This is in quotes. We
Speaker 1: believe those asking for help are likely to focus on
Speaker 1: the inconvenience of helping, as the help required is likely
Speaker 1: to be their primary focus. Someone being asked for help,
Speaker 1: in contrast, will focus on the inconvenience of helping, but
Speaker 1: will also focus on a hand sense of personal agency
Speaker 1: for being identified as someone who could provide help. In
Speaker 1: other words, we like to be helpful for the person
Speaker 1: being asked for help. The social connection and positive feeling
Speaker 1: of performing and active kindness most likely always outweigh the inconvenience.
Speaker 1: Sal and Epley say the finding change their own behaviors.
Speaker 1: Zu now proactively offers help, knowing how reluctant others are
Speaker 1: to ask. She gives the example of a recent vacation
Speaker 1: to Murewood's National Monument, where she offered to take photos
Speaker 1: for other visitors, even suggesting she use a panorama mode
Speaker 1: to capture the full grandeur of the monument's old growth
Speaker 1: redrig trees. Epley no longer hesitates to reach out for help.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it's actually unkind not to ask or help,
Speaker 1: and someone would be quite willing and even happier if
Speaker 1: you did ask. He says, pretty phenomenal stuff, But how
Speaker 1: does that all really relate. It's this an army of
Speaker 1: normal folks is only as good as an army, and
Speaker 1: we often take on a project and feel like it's
Speaker 1: our duty to finish it and oftentimes won't ask for
Speaker 1: help because we feel like we're inconvenience in somebody. But
Speaker 1: what the study tells us is people want to be
Speaker 1: asked for help and by asking people for help, you
Speaker 1: give them agency, ownership, you give them a place in
Speaker 1: a project. So if you're engaged in something and you
Speaker 1: want to grow an army around your idea, it might
Speaker 1: be as simple as just asking for help to give
Speaker 1: people agency in your idea. One, they want to help.
Speaker 1: The research shows people want to help. And two you
Speaker 1: grow agency and ownership by involving people into help. And three,
Speaker 1: as pointed out at the very end there, you're actually
Speaker 1: doing the service to other people by not asking them
Speaker 1: for help, because you're not giving them the opportunity to engage.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting stuff, Alex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, curious where'd you find this?
Speaker 1: This is all Alex's idea.
Speaker 2: By the way, so our good friend Evan Feinberg shared
Speaker 2: the article on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't it be Evan fiden He.
Speaker 2: Posts a lot of good stuff like this that are
Speaker 2: good shop talks.
Speaker 1: So this actually came from Evan Biberg. Yeah, yeah, shout
Speaker 1: out to Evan. That's pretty cool. So shop talk number
Speaker 1: fifty four, don't be afraid to ask for help. Here's
Speaker 1: the asterisks. Why shouldn't we be afraid to ask for help? One?
Speaker 1: People want to help, That's what the research shows two
Speaker 1: people take on agency when they're allowed to help, meaning
Speaker 1: they get involved in your work, your idea, your need.
Speaker 1: And three because people want to help. When you're afraid
Speaker 1: to ask them for help, you're actually doing them a
Speaker 1: disservice because you're precluding them from engaging in something that
Speaker 1: will make them feel better. So don't be afraid to
Speaker 1: ask for help, not just because it's good for you,
Speaker 1: but it's good for the people you ask for help too.
Speaker 1: Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think for all of us to be healthy
Speaker 2: as healthy as possible, we all need help. And so
Speaker 2: I hate asking for help. It's not like I really
Speaker 2: hate it, but you know, for me to be the
Speaker 2: best version of who I can likely is going to
Speaker 2: require help from other people. Therefore I'm going to be
Speaker 2: a healthier person. Therefore I can actually given help more
Speaker 2: people myself at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and they're healthier too because people want to help.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. That's actually kind of an army and
Speaker 1: normal folks kind of thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2: How we did it is a shop talk bro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there it is Shop Talk number fifty four. Don't
Speaker 1: be afraid to ask for help because you're doing yourself
Speaker 1: and others are disservice by doing it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, or a new plug. This is a good
Speaker 2: playoff of our recent new plug go for it. Speaking
Speaker 2: of asking.
Speaker 1: For help, oh, we want your help.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can help other people by doing this too.
Speaker 1: This is just a big old help thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We're all just helping each other in one big circle.
Speaker 2: So if you do a good act, whether it's like
Speaker 2: giving blood like John Norman is, or you're running with
Speaker 2: the homeless like Michael Lignosis and all the amazing thing
Speaker 2: Army members are.
Speaker 1: Doing, yes, anything, post.
Speaker 2: It on social media and write some kind of message
Speaker 2: like join hashtag an army of normal folks. Together, we
Speaker 2: can solve our problems tagging us tag us in it too.
Speaker 2: We want to shift start sharing a lot of those
Speaker 2: we'll post all that on our accounts, yep. But also
Speaker 2: those posts can help other people by seeing look, normal
Speaker 2: folks like me can solve these problems, and together we
Speaker 2: can solve almost all the problems.
Speaker 1: And hopefully it brings more people to the ship. That's true,
Speaker 1: So we help each other.
Speaker 2: We're all helping each other. There's kind of post. You
Speaker 2: just got to be humble about it, right, you can't
Speaker 2: be a Turkey person bragging about how great you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just do it and send it to us
Speaker 1: and we'll repost it and who knows, maybe something goes viral.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, growing the Army sharing our stories.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. Hey, if you liked this episode, rate and
Speaker 1: review it, Join the Army at normal folks dot us,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker 2: You're really nailing it in right now.
Speaker 1: I think I got it all, didn't I.
Speaker 2: You can become a premium member of normal Folks out
Speaker 2: us that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and besides that, we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: Yes, next week, yes, next week.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's shop talk at number fifty four. We just
Speaker 1: ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 1: Let's grow the Army and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining