Something You Should Know - How to Be the Best at Anything & Why It’s Hard to Ask for Help (But Do It Anyway)

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

What makes a good dancer? Some of it is subjective but there is one particular body part that seems to make all the difference. This episode begins with an explanation of the magic of good dancing. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep42435 How do you get to be the best at something? You might think those elite performers are just naturally gifted in some way. However, science says no. Anders Ericsson has been studying what it takes to get to the top of your game for several years and he joins me to discuss the surprising results. Anders is the author of the book Peak: Secrets of the New Science of Expertise. (https://amzn.to/3athIoj) People disagree over whether vitamin C can do anything for a cold – but there is no disagreement over the benefits vitamin C offers when you are under stress. Listen as I explain what it does and how much you need to take to get the benefits. https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/vitamin-c-stress-buster You’ve heard your whole life - “If you need help, all you have to do is ask!” Well that turns out to be more true than you probably ever imagined. Wayne Baker has spent a long time researching this. He is a professor of Business Administration & Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He is also author of the book All You Have to Do is Ask (https://amzn.to/2VMts12) and he joins me to explain the amazing power of asking for what you need.  This Week's Sponsors -Indochino To get an extra $30 off any purchase of $399 or more go to www.Indochino.com and enter the code SYSK at checkout.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, are you a good dancer? I'll explain which body part makes all the difference. Then how do you get to be the best at anything, whether it's your job or a sport like tennis? So just keep on playing tennis with your friends. We know it's not going to improve your ability when we can actually measure your

performance. But in contrast, when you're working with a coach, then we see substantial improvement. Also, vitamin C may or may not do anything for a cold, but it does wonders when you're under pressure. And many of us are reluctant to ask for help when we need it. And that's a big mistake. I'll always have someone take me aside and say, you know, I'm not going to ask for what I really need because I know no one here can help me. And my answer is always the same, which is that you never know what people know or who they know until you ask. Most people, in fact, will help you if you ask. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious

about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So, I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet.

Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably

just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hey, welcome to Something You Should Know.

Here's a question for you. Are you a good dancer? Judging how someone dances is at least partly subjective, but we do now have a pretty good idea of what makes for good dancing. Using motion capture technology, researchers turned real women into featureless dancing avatars and then showed the videos to 200 people, 143 women and 57 men ages 18 and over. By watching the avatars rather than watching actual women, the participants weren't distracted by clothing, facial expressions, or hair.

They then rated the moves, and the big conclusion was, it's all about the hips. Swaying hips and dancing in sync with the music was preferred. Bad dancers tend to wave their arms about too wildly, or they hold their limbs really rigid and close to their bodies, like dancing robots. Dancing is fun, but it also communicates a message. Good dancers are showing off qualities that people want in a mate, such as coordination,

strength, and creativity. And that seems to be best expressed with the hips. And that is something you should know. What does it take to be the best at something? Whether it's tennis or baseball, chess, math, writing, whatever. Are the very best people, do they just have something innately better about them? Do they have something that the rest of us just don't have? Or is being the best all about commitment and dedication and practice?

Or is whatever it is undefinable and unidentifiable? Well, it's something I've always wondered about, and my guest, Anders Ericsson, is someone who has made a career out of studying what makes the best performers the best. He's author of a book called Peak, Secrets of the New Science of Expertise. Hi, Anders, welcome. Hi, I'm looking forward to talking to you. So when you look at who's the best, what is it you're looking for? What makes someone the best? We really look for people who can do something that other people can't.

So that kind of requires that the people we're studying are really able to do something that other people, given the same sort of opportunities, wouldn't be able to do. So like, for example, a chess player who is winning and beating all the other people, that person is actually able to do something that other people can't. And I guess what's fascinating to me is that you can see now that the chess expert or master, he's thinking about the positions in a much more deep way than less skilled players. And he's sort of able to find the best move by exploring all sorts of possibilities and then ending up identifying the one move that seems to be the best for a given chess position. And I think that is quite different from a lot of people who think of basically experts

as being intuitive and not really understanding how they come up with their various actions. You know, so it's very automatic. So basically that's where we have that extreme contrast between sort of the idea here that people just automate and are able to do things intuitively. You said at the beginning that you look at people who can do something other people can't. Well, if no one else can do it, then why are we even talking about it? Is it something people can learn to do and they just don't or is that truly that these people do something that other people can never do well our research by looking now at how these individuals who reach the very high levels of performance how they actually do

things we've now basically looked at the kind of training that they engaged in in order to develop these abilities here. Like, for example, if you basically look at very good chess players, they can actually play blindfold. So they don't really have to see the board to play a very good chess game. They can basically do it in their heads. So we're interested in how do these kind of abilities here of mentally representing these situations develop? And what is the kind of training that people have engaged in, in order to basically be able to reach and execute these mental activities? And what we find is that it, you know it takes many, many years, sometimes decades, for people from the time they start to the time when they actually reach their peak performance.

Does it always? Or are there some people who are just inherently, for whatever reason, they're just incredibly good at chess or incredibly fast runners or incredibly good at something. And they don't have to go through all this training. They just have it. Well, you know, I've been looking for those kinds of people. And what I find in all of the cases where people suggest that individuals needed much less time or that once you more carefully look at what they were doing, I think there is an alternative explanation here that, you know, this really developed. There is one kind of general question that I have tried to address here in a couple of papers, and that is that when you start out as a beginner, now you can actually find that

some individuals, when they start playing chess, they seem to be kind of better for being now kind of a beginner. But what's interesting is that when you actually are now looking at very skilled chess players like international masters, there's basically no evidence here that IQ or cognitive abilities or other kinds of things can really explain sort of the differences in their performance. So you're saying that in the realm of beginners, that there will always be some people who have more natural ability in the beginning of learning to play chess or being a better runner or whatever it is, but that that only gets you so far.

If you really want to move into the realm of master, the best, that takes something else. That takes those hours, days, months, years of training. So what is it that happens during all that training that makes a master a master? Well, our research, you know, was focused in on instrumental musicians. And I think in that domain, it's very clear that nobody plays the violin at sort of the highest level so you can win competitions for violin playing without having had a very long history here of teachers. And what we find is that, you know, as children, sometimes as early as, you know, four years of age, you know, they start now kind of practicing

maybe only like 15, 20 minutes per day. And then eventually, as they get more skilled, they increase their practice. And when we estimated basically how much time the top level of musicians that we identified in a music academy, you know, on the average, they had spent 10,000 hours basically in this kind of individual practice, solitary practice, where they were basically relying on their teacher's recommendation about what they should try to change and improve and what kind of training activities they could use to effectively do that. In chess, there are similar results. Namely, there it seems that the activity that is the key, that is predictive of how good a chess player you are if you're playing in chess tournaments, which means that you obviously are a little bit better than the average chess player who is not even competing. But among those players, we find that the amount of time that people put in in solitary practice,

and typically what they do is get a book from an international kind of chess game. And instead of just reading what people are doing, you know, they can almost simulate playing against these world-class players. So that means that you can try to figure out what you would do, and then you can actually look what the international master did as a way here of getting feedback about whether your analysis of what the best move was was the best one. And today we have now chess computers that are actually even better at finding the best moves than human players. And so in that 10,000 hours, I mean, that's, you know, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a whole book about that, and was criticized, though, because there are also people who practice 10,000 hours and don't do it.

So it isn't just the time. There's something else going on, because some people can do the same thing over time and be the best, and other people will do the same thing over time and not be the best. If you're actually looking now at individuals who are being supervised and kind of guided by000 hours, so I'm going to be an expert. Basically, just doing your job is very, very different from what we're talking about, the deliberate practice, because deliberate practice means that a teacher is looking at what it is that you can do and now identifies something that you can't do and then giving you exercises that would allow you now to change that. And in most jobs where people refer to what they're doing as practice, they very rarely get immediate feedback.

They don't have the opportunities here of once they see something going wrong, they actually have to deal with that problem as opposed to being able now when they're practicing by themselves, if they make a mistake, they can actually repeat and gradually refine what they're doing so they can actually change their performance. A lot of people who play tennis recognize that if they were to commit to working with a coach, that they could actually be substantially better than they are currently. So just keep on playing tennis with your friends. We know it's not going to improve your ability when we can actually measure your performance. But in contrast, when you're working with a coach, then we see substantial improvement. And most of that change happens when the individuals are working and practicing by themselves,

but knowing now what they should be working on by basically having been told by their teacher. We're talking about what it takes to be the very best at anything. And my guest is Anders Ericsson. He's the author of the book Peak, Secrets of the New Science of Expertise. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

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to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices,

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that if you want to be the best at something, basically go get a coach. That is the first advice that I give to people. And there's been a number contacting me, you know, they want to maybe learn how to play a musical instrument or something like that. And what I think is the key here is that you find a teacher who has actually worked with other individuals. So you can actually see for yourself that this teacher has been successful in helping other individuals reach the level of performance that you want to reach. to have that validation of a teacher, because obviously somebody claiming to be a teacher wouldn't, you know, be convincing here that they actually have the knowledge so they can help individuals improve to the level that you aspire to reach.

Well, when you look at the top tennis players, the top athletes in anything, if you look at probably the top musicians anywhere, they all have coaches, they all have teachers, but they don't all get to the top. So there has to be something about just innate ability, doesn't there? You know, I've been looking for evidence for innate ability, and I think it's very clear that when it comes to basically height and actually more generally the length of bones, we don't really know any training the arm that they're playing, have their racket in, is going to have much thicker bones. So the thickness of the bones can actually be influenced now by the kind of vibrations that are being generated when you hit the ball. I've been trying to summarize the research on genetics, is that it's possible that we will eventually find some innate constraint. But so far, even with the new, you know, basically studies here of mapping the entire genome, even people within that field, you know, have to agree that at least right now, we don't know of any genes that we can individually pinpoint as being necessary here to reach the highest level of performance. with kids who will pick up the guitar and teach themselves, or will get really good at tennis

on their own, or really good at chess on their own. They don't have a teacher, they just get good. Is that not innate ability? And isn't that perhaps an indication that if this person keeps going, they'll get better and better. The problem is that if we're now looking at individuals who acquire their performance by themselves without now this, you know, individualized feedback from a teacher, it's likely that they are kind of learning incorrect things. So basically, I've talked to a lot of coaches in sports who say that that's the worst thing that they encounter is the 14-year-old coming to them who's been quite successful. And then basically, they look at how that individual is doing it, and they have to tell that kid that in their experience, if they don't spend a year relearning the fundamentals so they can actually do it in a way that the very best people are doing it, they are basically going to be constrained in their performance. We see that even in something as simple as typing speed. You can actually see how people allocate fingers to the keys on the keyboard.

It actually predicts how fast somebody can type. And there are some mappings that we know are the best, but other champions don't do them, I can think of, you know, the way baseball players will stand in the batter's box and they have these really weird stances that nobody stands like that, but they do fine. Or, you know, when the first tennis player started hitting a two-handed backhand and people probably thought, well, that's, you can't do that, that's crazy. But it turns out, it actually, for some people, works really well that they're pioneers more than they're doing it wrong. And I think that's a very good point, that obviously people who pioneered various activities

and became sort of very successful well before there was any teachers available. What they found out by themselves obviously was very successful, I guess particularly in long-distance running. Now everyone recognizes that interval training is a very effective way even to improve your speed and long distance running. But basically, there was one athlete who kind of discovered that by himself. And eventually, people realized that part of the reason why he was so incredibly good was that he engaged in this type of training activity.

So the message here is that if you really want to be good at something, you need to have a coach or a teacher or a mentor, somebody that can guide you as opposed to trying to do it yourself. Well, I would love to see basically examples that are inconsistent with that. Now, obviously, when it comes to new domains here, video games or whatever, there wouldn't be any really teachers because the very best people are the ones who are currently now competing and probably wouldn't be all that interested in advising their competitors about what they think they know about the game that other people don't.

Yeah, well, video games are a great example of there's no one teaching it so much as you just have to want to learn to do it and put in the time to do it. And some people get better at it than others. So that would seem to be just innate ability. But it also brings up another thing, and that is love of what you're doing. And video games are an example of people not only love it, they get addicted to it, but the people who get really good at it really do love what they're doing. And I would imagine that's true of anything, that if you're going to be really good at it, you've got to really like it. Well, I think that's a big question here about whether the love comes before or after you're

successful. And I don't know whether you know of examples here where people love something but are really stinking at it. To me, it's more kind of love is a word that people use for your commitment. And I've seen that in athletes who basically have been performing at a reasonably good level, but then they basically say, okay, I have two more years that I can play this game. I'm going to give it my all. I'm going to see here how good I can get. And that changes everything. It changes their sleep habits. It changes basically their priorities in terms of them going to practice when they're really, you know, full of energy, as opposed to trying to squeeze it in and compromising, you know, having practice being compromised by going to parties or having all sorts of other social interactions.

So what you're saying is counterintuitive, I think, for many people, but some might even say it's revolutionary, that you're saying that people who play at the top of their game, whatever the game is, work or sports or whatever it is, that they're at the top of their game not because natural ability got them there. Natural ability only gets you so far into the game, but to get to the top, the very top, that requires practice with a coach or a teacher who is correcting you and helping you improve your game, and it's not innate ability. And I guess that actually is good news. Because if you have an innate explanation, then there's not very much you could learn here from studying somebody with that innate, unattainable, basically, ability or capacity. innate differences like when it comes to height and length of bones. But I need to see the evidence as opposed to take the view that at least some people that I talk to, they say it's so obvious

it has to be genes. But when you ask them, you know, what is the empirical evidence and how would you even be able to predict how somebody is going to be good? Because now research is showing that the correlation between your performance as a swimmer when you're 12, 13 is uncorrelated with your ability as an adult swimmer. Well, it really makes you stop and think, because I think, generally speaking, people believe that the reason people get to be the best at whatever is because of their natural ability. And you have some science that says otherwise that makes you really stop and think. My guest has been Anders Ericsson. He's made a career out of studying what makes the best performers the best performers. And he's author of the book Peak Secrets of the New Science of Expertise. You'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes.

Thanks, Anders. Thanks, Mike. It's been a real pleasure. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events.

Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Something I've always found interesting is how so many of us are reluctant to ask for help when we need it, for whatever reason. And yet when people ask me for help, I'm usually willing,

and often flattered, that somebody asked. As it turns out, getting good at asking for help can really accelerate your success at anything. Wayne Baker is somebody who's really studied this. Wayne is a professor of business administration and faculty director for the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and he's author of the book, All You Have to Do is Ask. Hey Wayne, thanks for being a guest today on Something You Should Know.

Hi Mike, I'm glad to be here. So this all sounds incredibly, ridiculously simple. If you need help, you ask for help. Everybody knows that. So why is a university professor studying this and writing books about something that is so seemingly simple? Yes, it sounds simple, but it's often hard for people to do. And the reason that it's important for people to ask for what they need is they can be much more productive, efficient, creative, perform at a higher level. And we think about it, one way to approach work is to put our heads down and just work at that task. But we could be far more effective if we reach out and ask for input, advice and resources from other people. The research is very clear that that's what leads to superior performance for an individual, for a team or even for an

organization. And why don't we do that? It just seems like, well, if we have to ask for help, maybe that means we don't know what we're doing, we'll look weak, we'll look stupid, or is there something beyond that? There are a number of reasons, and the one you just mentioned is one of the main ones, is that often we don't ask because we are concerned that we

might look foolish, needy, incompetent, weak, ignorant, don't know how to do our job. But what's interesting is that here the research is helpful. Research shows that as long as you make a thoughtful request, people will think you are more competent, not less. And there is an approach that I advocate for coming up with a thoughtful request. And when you follow that, I see that people make requests that are effective and get the resources that they need and actually increase perceptions of that person's competence. And when you look at the research, what is the big overarching benefit to asking for help? Well, the main thing is that you can be much more effective and productive if you do it. And what we found over the years is that

the main barrier to generosity is not that people are unwilling or unable to help, but that people don't ask. It's the ask that's the catalyst or the driver of the whole giving, receiving process. So another common barrier is that we don't ask because we figure no one can help us. And I've done many exercises and many sessions on this over the years. And I'll always have someone take me aside and say, you know, I'm not going to ask for what I really need because I know no one here can help me. And my answer is always the same, which is that you never know what people know or who they know until you ask. And so it's important to realize that most people, in fact, will help you if you ask. Is that true?

There was a fascinating study that was done by Frank Flynn and Associates at Columbia University where they asked study participants to go out into New York City and they had to approach a stranger and ask to borrow a cell phone. And all they could say was, can I borrow your cell phone to make a call? They couldn't give a sob story or explain or plead. And it's funny, Mike, that a lot of the people who signed up for it said, forget it. I'm not going to even participate in this experiment once they realized what they had to do. And they were getting paid as well. But a number of people did. They went out and they were shocked to realize how easy it was to get a cell phone from a

stranger in New York. They thought maybe you'd have to ask four, five, ten people before you got a phone. But what the research shows is that it's the first or second person that lends you their phone. And there are many other studies that support that finding, getting people to fill out a questionnaire, make a donation, can go on and on. Most people do want to help as long as you ask. When people ask me for help, I'm often flattered and willing to help. I mean, I like when people ask me to help. So I imagine other people do too.

That's right. And that's what the research shows, you know, is that people come to you for advice, they're acknowledging that you have advice that's worthy, you know, that they want to come to you because you're the expert or that you know, and they're acknowledging that when they make that request. So I imagine there is a right way to ask. There's a prescription for how to ask. Well, the main prescription is to be prepared before you make a request. So you want to know, what's the goal? What are you trying to accomplish? And then once you have that in hand, say, well, what's the resource that you need? And you want to think very broadly. Maybe it's advice, information, referral, a connection, an opportunity,

a brainstorming session, financial support. The list goes on and on. But think, okay, if I have that goal in mind, all right, what's a resource that I need? And then you want to formulate what I call a SMART request. The SMART request is a little bit different than SMART goals. So the S is for specific. You want to ask for something very specific. The reason is that a specific request triggers people's memories of what they know and who they know. A general request won't do that. The most general request I ever heard was from an executive from the Netherlands who was engaging in one of my exercises. And he said, my request is for information. And that's all he said. And he said, my request is for information.

And that's all he said. And I said, well, can you elaborate? And he said, no, it's confidential. I can't say anything more. Well, he got no help whatsoever. But people often think that a general request is more effective. You're casting a wide net, but that's not true. You want to ask for something specific.

The M, and this is very different than the M for SMART goals, which is measurable. Measurability is nice, but here the M is meaningful. It's the why of the request. How is this going to enable you to do your job better or to help your boss meet his or her objectives? How is it aligned with the organization's goals and objectives. The A is for action. You ask for something to be done. The R is strategically realistic. I encourage people to make stretch requests, but it's got to be within the realm of possibility. And then the T is time or deadline. You have to have a deadline. And the more specific the deadline, the better. If you say, oh, sometime in 2020, that's less likely to motivate people to respond. But if you say, you know, I really need it by end of business on Friday, and here's why,

that will motivate people to respond. How much asking is enough or how much is too much? Because you don't want to be the guy where people are going, oh, you know, here comes Bob. He's going to be asking for more because all you're doing is asking. Yeah, it's a very good question. It is possible to ask too often and it's possible to not ask often enough. So you want to be somewhere in that middle ground. And there's four types of people that I've seen, and we've done research to show that this is the case.

The main position you want to be, the main role as an individual or a team or even an organization is what I call the giver-requester. That's someone who is generous, who freely helps other people, who doesn't keep track of who helps whom. It's not about keeping score. And they make requests for when they need something. The opposite of the giver-requester would be the lone wolf, the person who doesn't ask, the person who doesn't give. It's probably the most tragic role to have because you're just disconnected from the world. You're not giving. You're not helping. You're not asking for what you need. The most common category, there are not helping, you're not asking for what you need.

The most common category, there are four, the most common category is what I call the overly generous giver. And that's the person who is extremely generous, but doesn't ask for what they need. And that leads to burnout. In the extreme, it could lead to compromising one's resources or not taking care of oneself. And the remedy there is to, sometimes you have to put boundaries around your generosity and balance it by asking when you have something that you need. And then the fourth type, which is the opposite of the overly generous giver, is the selfish taker. That's the person that you were thinking about before. They see that person coming and they say, okay, they're going to ask for something else. They're not going to help anyone. I have a friend of mine, I described this to him. He used to be a

consultant. He said, oh, we call those people sponges. You know, they just suck in everything and they never give a thing back. So most people are in the overly generous category, but the most effective people are in the giver requester category. And I would imagine that you want to be careful not to look weak or whiny. You know, I don't know how to, I need some help. I don't know what to do. That doesn't play well. Yes? Absolutely. That's when I think back on that process of, you know, you need to communicate to the person and to do it, you know, at a time and a place and a method of communication that works for the person and say, look, here's what I'm trying to accomplish. Here's the resource

that I need. Think about those five smart criteria, explaining why it's important, why it's meaningful, when you need it by. That's much more like, that's a strong request. That's an effective request. That's not a whining request. You know, sometimes when people go through that preparation process, they realize that the resource that they thought they needed was not what they really needed, or the person they thought they needed to ask was not the person. And so I encourage people, that's the last step in the process is, who do you ask? You know, of course, you know, we always think of the usual suspects. Those are the people are, you know, our friends, family, co-workers, the people right around

this. And sometimes that's the right person. Sometimes it's got to be the boss that you've got to ask. But I encourage people to think beyond that. So there's another way. It's called the two-step or two-degree method, which is that I might not know who the expert is, but I know who to ask who knows who the expert is. I have a colleague of mine who runs an innovation entrepreneur space.

He's used that two-step method. He told me he keeps track of it 180 times in one year to incredible success. Another is to use our dormant connections. A dormant connection is someone that you once had a relationship with, but your lives have gone in different directions. Now, we might be very reluctant to try to reactivate a dormant connection like through LinkedIn, but to hear the research is helpful because the research says that most of your dormant connections are delighted to hear from you again, and they are delighted that you're

reactivating the connection and they want to help. And they're even better sources of help because your lives have gone in different directions. That means what they know and who they know is really quite different from your. What happens though, when you ask someone for help and, and, and, and their advice is horrible and, and you, you know, it's like the dumbest thing you've ever heard of. Well, how do you then not incorporate their advice and not upset them? Yeah, I think it's important to express gratitude for help that is offered, even if it turns out not to be the best help. Or maybe it's the worst help, you know, the person at least tried. I think it's important to do that.

Isn't it interesting? I guess it's just cultural that this idea of asking for help is so, I don't know, just so not natural. And yet, it's like how, like, and men are often accused of this, you know, not asking for directions when they're trying to get somewhere, although now you don't really need them. But men for a long time have been accused of, you know, you really just ask that guy how to get to the street. And yet when people have asked me for directions, I've always, I'm happy to help, flattered to help. I hope I can help this person. It's, I don't know why we don't get that. Why we, we, we don't mind giving help, but we're so reluctant to ask for it. Yeah, I think we can blame our educational

system for part of that. Most students growing up, most kids growing up, you know, you're taught to focus on your work, take your test by yourself. It's all about individual achievement and individual performance. And that's how about individual achievement and individual performance, and that's how you get rewarded. That kind of reinforces the idea that you really shouldn't ask for help. In fact, in an educational context, asking for help is sometimes considered cheating. But the fact is that work is a team sport. Once you get into an organization, it's a team sport. And the only way you're going to be effective is to overcome the reluctance to ask for what you need. I don't know how you would ever measure this, but when people ask for help, generally speaking,

is the help all that great? In other words, is the benefit of this because you get insight that you wouldn't otherwise have because this person had something brilliant to say, or is it that it just helps to create a better atmosphere, or both? I think it's both. But you want to think about what you can ask for as including lots of things. So going to somebody asking for advice or input or review on a report, that's one thing. But sometimes what you need is a connection or a referral. That's a different kind of help that people can give. Sometimes you need social support or it's financial resources, and that's what you need

to ask for. Or it could be that you need sponsorship, sponsorship to be a part of a program, or perhaps you need a mentor. That's something else you can ask for. Or it could be that you need sponsorship, you know, sponsorship to be a part of a program, or perhaps you need a mentor. That's something else you can ask for. So it all comes back to what's the goal? What are you trying to accomplish? Then what are the resources? And there's, you know, probably an endless list of the resources that are possible. So you want to think through all those about, you know, what is it that you really need to accomplish that goal? Yeah, well, and, you know, it occurred to me, too, one of the reasons that I think people are reluctant to ask, and it depends on what you're asking for, is, you know, the fear of being rejected, being told,

no, no, figure it, go, you do, no, I'm not going to help you. But it probably doesn't happen anywhere near as much as people fear it will. It doesn't happen as often as you would fear, that's for sure. But it does happen sometimes. And so it's important to think about what does a no really mean? Maybe the person was just having a bad day, or they want to help, but the timing was bad, or who knows? It's that you really don't know why someone says no. It could be a whole number of things. Another is to realize that a no is information. So sometimes you could follow up with, okay, that's fine, I understand. But perhaps could you explain a little bit so I could come up with a better request the next time

I ask somebody. And sometimes the explanation for the no is something you didn't expect at all, something completely different. So think of a no as information that you can use to refine a request to make a more effective one later on. Well, it seems pretty clear that if you need help, probably the simplest, easiest, and most effective way to get it is to ask. And I appreciate you sharing your work. Wayne Baker has been my guest.

He is a professor of business administration and faculty director at the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. The name of his book is All You Have to Do is Ask, and you will find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Wayne. Well, Mike, this has been wonderful. I've enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. People have argued for quite a while now about whether or not vitamin C is very effective at preventing or treating a cold. But one thing scientists don't argue much about is how good vitamin C is for stress. Studies show that people who take vitamin C before giving a speech have lower blood pressure and less of the stress hormone cortisol

compared to people who don't take vitamin C. People who have high levels of vitamin C do not show the expected mental and physical signs of stress when subjected to other acute psychological challenges. What's more, they bounce back from stressful situations faster than people with lower levels of vitamin C in their blood. Vitamin C is present in fresh, uncooked fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits and red and green peppers. Vitamin C is an unstable substance, and it is destroyed by cooking and by exposure to light.

It's generally agreed that to get the stress-reducing benefits of vitamin C, you would need to take about 1,000 milligrams or more. And that is something you should know. I'm sure you have friends, family members who would benefit from all the things you learn in this podcast. So please share something you should know with someone you know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

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