Something You Should Know - How Your Friends Influence What You Think, Feel and Weigh & Why It’s So Hard to Ask for Help (But Ask Anyway)

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

Identity theft is often NOT the result of some high-tech scam. It is frequently because someone digs through your trash and finds documents with personal information. I start this episode explaining ways you haven't heard before to protect yourself from low-tech but highly effective dumpster divers who want to steal your identity. It is amazing how people you know influence you in ways you don’t realize. The things you do, the decisions you make and the thoughts you think can all be heavily but unknowingly influenced by the people around you. Dr. Nicholas Christakis is a physician, sociologist and author of the book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (http://amzn.to/2BVJAQ3) and he explains how this phenomenon works and why it is so important. A lot of people have gotten very sick this winter from colds and flu. Often it is the result of touching things with germs on them then transferring those germs from your hands to your face. I’ll reveal all the things at work you want to make sure NOT to touch or at least clean before you do so you don't get sick. Ever struggle to do something, like carry too many grocery bags – and someone offers to help and you say, “No thanks, I got it.”? Why? You need help, someone offers – why in the world would you decline? But we do it all the time. It seems that people just don’t like asking for help. Nora Klaver, author of the book, Mayday! Asking for Help in Time of Need (http://amzn.to/2EDT0Tq) explains why it is that we are so reluctant to ask for help and why accepting help is often a much better decision for so many reasons.  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 making it easy for thieves to steal your identity? You're about to find out. Then it's amazing how the people you surround yourself with influence you. Even when it comes to deeply personal things like their body size or their sexual practices or their emotional state or

frankly we talk a little bit about suicide. I mean there's a shocking example whether you kill yourself or not might depend on whether your friends kill themselves. That's a very deeply personal decision yet it seems to be influenced by other people. Plus if you don't want to get sick this winter there are some things you need not to touch and asking for help. It's hard for most of us. We don't want people to know we can't do something and yet once you start asking people for help you will be so surprised at how much help you actually get people want to help us they want to do it all this today on something you should know something you

should know is sponsored by Health IQ. Health IQ is an insurance company that uses science and data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health-conscious people, like runners and cyclists and strength trainers, vegans, and more. Look, good drivers save money on their car insurance because they're careful. Why shouldn't people who are careful about their health save money on life insurance? That's the whole idea behind Health IQ. Save up to 33% on life insurance.

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Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to episode 145 of the Something You Should Know podcast. Let me ask you if this has ever happened to you. You open up your credit card bill, either in the mail or online, and you see a charge that you know is not yours. I think it's happened to pretty much everybody. It's happened to me. I remember opening up my bill once and seeing somebody had charged like $2,000 worth of building supplies from some big box store 2,000 miles away from me. And somebody else bought karate lessons on my visa card from a karate school another thousand miles away in the other direction. I don't know how that happens. I don't know how they're able to get the information they need to make those charges. And I'm pretty careful.

In fact, one of the things that surprised me when I looked into it was, I think of identity theft as being one of those very sophisticated online scams that very sophisticated crooks do. But a lot of identity theft is just the result of people going through your trash. When your trash leaves your property, anyone can legally take it. That's why on trash day, I don't take my trash out the night before. I always take it out the morning of, just before the truck comes, because I don't want people going through my trash in the middle of the night. And another thing I've started doing is to be careful about documents and shredding them. Reader's Digest put together a list of documents you might not think you need to shred,

but you really need to shred to protect your identity. For example, prescription labels, whether it's the one stapled to the bag or it's on the bottle. These labels usually list your name, the date of the initial dispensing of the drug, the name and the strength of the drug, and the dispensing pharmacist's name. Thieves can use this information to refill the prescription, and it may give them enough information about you to steal your identity. Your resume. I mean, think about it. Your resume, if it's just in the trash, your resume gives a crook your name, phone number, address, email address, employment past, education history,

all on one single piece of paper. Pet records. Now, you might not think you would need to shred documents because your pet's name is on there, but if you use, and a lot of people do, if you use your pet's name as all or part of a password for any of your accounts, you've just given a big clue to identity thieves of what your passwords might be. Return labels. You know those return labels when you buy something online

and they send the merchandise in and they send a return label in case you want to return it. Well, you should shred those along with any envelopes with your name and address because thieves often pair this with what you post on social media, like family member names, work history, and they take all that information, put it together, and piece together your identity and then steal it. Birth announcements.

Children are 51% more likely to be victims of identity theft than adults are. You should shred birth announcements you don't save because they typically have the child's name, birth date, weight, eye color, and other personal identifiers that make it so easy for thieves to steal their identity. And that is something you should know. So here is something fascinating. You are strongly influenced by all the people around you, in your circle. The people you associate with and the people they associate with influence you in ways you have no idea. They can affect your health, how you think, how you feel. They can affect your weight, how long you live.

It's really fascinating. And someone who has really dived into this is Dr. Nicholas Christakis. He's a sociologist, a physician, and author of a book called Connected. The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives, how your friends, friends, friends affect everything you feel, think, and do. Hi, Doctor. Welcome. So how did you get interested in this idea of social networks and how we all influence each other? I am a hospice doctor. I take care of people who are dying.

And for many years I was researching the widower effect, or the fact that when a person dies, their spouse's risk of death goes up almost immediately and for about a year afterwards. And this is a very simple example of a network effect. So if my wife dies, my risk of death doubles. That's a kind of person-to-person spread of illness, a kind of non-biological contagion of disease. And I had been studying these pairwise effects for quite some time, and at some point about 10 years ago began to realize that these pairs of individuals could be agglomerated to form

larger social networks, and that the effects shouldn't stop just from one person affecting another, they should spread more broadly. Well, yeah, I would think so, because, I, because if the death of a spouse, if that event can cause their spouse's risk of death to double for a year, I mean, that's a pretty strong influence, so it's got to go further than that. In fact, it was during the time I was, at the time, actually at the University of Chicago, taking care of patients who were dying, and I went to visit a woman who was dying of dementia. And her daughter was the primary caretaker. And her daughter was exhausted from caring for her mother. And the daughter was married. And her husband had become ill, as it were, from his wife's exhaustion caring for her

mother. And one day as I was driving home from my home visit to the patient, I get a call from the husband's best friend, who himself is now very concerned. And so here we have a kind of, you know, from the mother to the daughter, the daughter to the husband, the husband to the friend, kind of non-biological spread of disease or illness. And that sort of experience got me to start thinking about how it is that health-related phenomena can spread widely in social networks. So let me ask you, given the statistic that you just pointed out, that a spouse's risk of death doubles when their spouse dies, what is it that's going on there? I mean, it's not a biological

spread of a disease, so what exactly is it? So now you there? I mean, it's not a biological spread of a disease. So what exactly is it? So now you're asking about the issue of the mechanism. So not everything spreads in social networks, we should say, but many things do. But not everything that spreads, spreads the same way. So, for example, germs spread differently than money in networks, which spread differently than ideas, which spread differently than behaviors, which spread differently than behaviors, which spread differently, let's say, than emotions. All of these things can exhibit a kind of contagion, but they have different properties. And in the case of the widower effect, the mechanism by

which my wife's death increases my risk of death is multifactorial. So there are biological effects sort of on my immune system and my cardiovascular system. There are psychological effects on my mood. I get depressed. There are socioeconomic effects. My wife's death might tax me economically and otherwise. So there are many mechanisms which people have studied to show how it is the case that my wife's death will increase my risk of death. So just to be clear, when you talk about social networks, because that term has another meaning in reference to online, but when you're talking about social networks in this context, you mean what? Well, I mean real-life social networks. So, you know, it is the case that the online variety is also important.

And, in fact, we're taking our face-to-face networks, which have been with us for hundreds of thousands of years, we're taking them online in this new kind of hyper-connected world we're taking our face-to-face networks, which have been with us for hundreds of thousands of years, we're taking them online in this new kind of hyper-connected world we're in. But what we're most interested in is the very ancient fact that human beings live out their lives embedded in these face-to-face networks with other people. And as you've just said, there are many kinds of ties that you could have. You could be connected to friends, to family, to coworkers, to neighbors, to people who belong to groups of various kinds that you're a member of. But when we speak of the network in which you're embedded,

it's possible to define it differently. So, for instance, if I drew the network of sexual partners, that would be different than the network of business associates, which would be different than the network of personal friendships and so forth. So there are these kind of overlapping networks. But in some sense, there's just one big network. So I'm connected to some number of human beings via different kinds of ways, and they in turn are connected to others.

Now, I should also say that it's not the case that anybody you're connected to directly, let alone indirectly, can affect you. You have to have some kind of personal connection to this person. And so this is most relevant when we talk about Facebook and so forth. What we find is that even though people might seemingly have hundreds, allegedly, friends online, actually those friends don't affect them the same way that their real friends do, the kind of face-to-face interaction with people who are truly their friends affect them. So while it is the case that we can have hundreds of social relationships

or use the Internet to maintain a broader network of people, so the fact of the matter is that we're influenced by the same kinds of people who are important to our lives that we always were. It all sounds very individual. It depends on who you are, and it depends on who your circle of friends are, and your family, and all that. But what's the takeaway here? What can we learn from this, knowing that there's all this influencing going on?

Well, we make a number of broad arguments. The first argument is that, in some sense, the book engages this very old topic of free will. And what we show is that people are not as autonomous as they think, even when it comes to deeply personal things like their body size or their sexual practices or their emotional state. Or frankly, we talk a little bit about suicide cascades in the book. I mean, there's a shocking example. Whether you kill yourself or not might depend on whether your friends kill themselves. That's a very deeply personal decision, yet it seems to be influenced by other people. So on the one hand, we talk about how all these seemingly very individualistic behaviors

are actually influenced by the behaviors of others, and not just people you know personally, but even the people you don't know. That is to say, the friends of your friends, and your friends' friends' friends can ripple through the network and affect you. This would seem to suggest that we have less free will than we might have thought. On the other hand, even as it is the case that you're being influenced by all these other people, you can influence all these other people. In fact, choices you make in your life can influence hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people. And so it's equally

important not just to realize that we are influenced by others, which might, let's say, decrease the relevance of free will, but also that we can influence others, which actually cuts the other way and increases the importance of free will. Because when we make positive changes in our lives, we don't just benefit ourselves and the people we know and love, but many other people as well. So that's one of the big ideas. Another big idea is that many public policy interventions and clinical interventions actually are much more effective when we take into account the structure of the network. So intervening in groups of people or targeting particular individuals, let's say for vaccination, for the flu, for example, or if we're working with an epidemic of violence in a school, figuring out what the structure of the network is and

which individuals are the most influential, or if we're dealing with a crime, for instance, in a community, or all kinds of other public health problems, apathy, voter apathy, for example, that a familiarity with how networks are organized and how they work can help us to structure public policy interventions to do a better job of addressing these social problems. My guest is Dr. Nicholas Christakis. He is a sociologist and a physician and author of a book called Connected, The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

Something You Should Know is sponsored by Health IQ. Health IQ is an insurance company that uses science and data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health-conscious people, like runners, cyclists, strength trainers, vegans, and more. As a Something You Should Know listener, you know the importance of living a healthy lifestyle. We talk about that a lot here. And I know I've thought, and maybe you have,

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promo code something when you talk to a Health IQ agent. That's healthiq.com slash something. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked 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,

and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a 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 Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or studied this and knowing what you know about how social networks work and all, and how we influence each other, how do you live your life differently knowing what you know? Oh, my goodness. First of all, I'm much more mindful of the impact that others have on me than I ever was. And I should say that we are much more affected by these networks in which we're embedded than we are even by media outlets. That is to say, whether you gain

or lose weight, for instance, has a lot more to do with whether your friends are gaining or losing weight than what the models look like on the covers of magazines. So I'm much more aware of that. But more importantly, I'm aware of the effect that I have on others. So for example, I know that if I come home in a lousy mood, not only will it put my family in a lousy mood, and I'm now much more keenly aware of this, but also that this can ripple through the network. And then that, you know, my children's friends will be in a lousy mood. And then the children's friends' parents will be in a lousy mood. Not deterministically, that is to say, it's not going to happen 100% that my bad mood will spread, but sometimes it spreads, and it's definitely detectable,

and to some extent it spreads. So I'm aware of the effect that I have on others, and am much more motivated to make certain changes in my life. The fact that you have this awareness and this deeper understanding of how this all works, does that make other people less influential on you? No, not necessarily. I mean, in some sense, we also argue that there's no way to avoid the effect of networks on us. Because human beings, you see, we also argue that there's no way to avoid the effect of networks on us.

Because human beings, you see, we live in networks. We have evolved to live in networks. And while it is the case, as we talk a little bit in the book about how our genes help determine where in the network we are, not just how many friends we have, but other structural properties. For instance, are you located in the middle or on the periphery of the network? In part, it depends on your genes. This desire for connection and this desire for influence and this susceptibility to influence are so deeply rooted

that they're basically inescapable. And now people vary. Some are hermits and some are sort of life of the party and some people have networks where all their friends know each other, and some people have networks where none of their friends know each other. There's variation across people. But the fundamental reality is that we live our lives embedded in this web of ties, and that these ties affect many aspects of our lives.

I'm wondering if, in your research, you looked at how the influence that people have on you is determined by how many friends you have and the quality of those friendships. In other words, if you have a few close friends, are those few close friends much more influential on you than if, let's say, you have a broader circle of friends, but not as close? Absolutely, we did. But my favorite example of this is looking at the impact of whether your friends know each other or not on you. It turns out that this is a property known as transitivity in a network. So I could have five friends who don't know each other, or I could have, well, first of all, the average number of friends Americans have, the average number of social

intimates that they have is about four and a half. So there's variation from like zero to eight. Some people don't have anybody they can trust or spend free time with. Others have as many as eight or more. But on average, people have about four or five people that they feel socially close to, that they would spend free time with, that they would discuss personal problems with, and so forth. But there's variation. Some people have many, some have few. And that variation has the kind of impact you might think. But what's more interesting than that is not variation in how

many friends you have, but variation in whether your friends know each other. So I might have five friends, none of whom know each other. And you might have five friends, all of whom know each other. Or a third person might have five friends, some of whom know each other, and you might have five friends all of whom know each other, or a third person might have five friends some of whom know each other. So if I have five friends, there are actually ten possible ties amongst all those friends. And it turns out that how interconnected my friends are affects many things. For example, there was one study that looked at whether teenage girls are more likely to think about suicide depending not on how many friends they had, but on whether their friends knew each other. And a girl whose friends don't know each other or don't get along is much more likely to consider

killing herself than a girl whose friends do know each other or do get along. Voting behavior will vary according to whether your friends know each other. And even things like economic productivity. So if I have a moment, I'll digress and tell you some results of another scientist, the name of Brian Uzzi at Northwestern in Chicago. Brian looked at groups of people that had formed to produce Broadway musicals. And he found a very interesting pattern. If you put a bunch of people together who've never worked together before, so there's no transitivity, they don't know each other,

the individual's friends, let's say, in the middle, the producer's colleagues working on the production don't know each other, the musical's a flop. It makes no money, and it's a critical flop as well. Conversely, if they've all worked together before, and they all know each other, so there's high transitivity and high interconnection, it's a flop again.

The musical's a flop financially and critically. But if there's intermediate transitivity, so some of the people have worked together before, but they also tap into new people who nobody knew before, who bring in new ideas, you get the sweet spot so that the musical's a big success and a critical acclaim as well. So the point is here, whether your friends know each other, it's bad, bad is too strong a word,

but in many circumstances what helps is if your friends don't know each other, in other circumstances it helps if your friends all do know each other, and in still other circumstances it's ideal if it's in the middle. But it sounds like, from what you just said, that for most people in order to get through life, it sounds as if it's better if some of your friends know each other and some of them don't. In that it does.

So, for example, let's say you wanted to hunt a mastodon. If you wanted to hunt a mastodon and you were getting your five friends together, would you rather your five friends don't know each other and have never worked together before or do know each other and have worked together before? Most people have the intuition that if we're trying to kill the damn thing, let's all get a group of people who work together and know each other well. Or at least know what a mastodon looks like. That's right. On the other hand, if you want to find a mastodon,

it turns out that having a group of friends who all know each other is not so helpful because everyone will have access to the same information. Do you know where the mastodon is? No. Do you know where the mastodon is? No. I don't know. So everybody will know the same things, whereas having five friends who don't know each other, they can tap more distant regions in the network and let's say know where the mastodon is. So here in this simple kind of example that is made, you know, is deliberately made to kind of evoke a kind of evolutionary sensibility of why whether our friends know each other might matter, suggests that in some circumstances it's best if we're trying to achieve a joint project, it's best if we all have worked together before. On the other hand, if we're merely trying to get access to information about stuff, it's probably best if you have

friends who don't know each other who might have unique information. But for some things, it might even be best if you had a mix of those kinds of connections. So for example, some work done by Professor Uzi, Brian Uzi at Northwestern, has looked at Broadway musical production crews and found that crews with intermediate transitivity, where some people have worked together before and some people are strangers to the group, is most likely to yield a commercial success. You'll have a runaway Broadway hit if the group that's producing it has a mix of people who've worked together and have not, and also some people who have not.

And if the group has always worked together before, you get a flop. And if the group has never worked together before, you get a flop. But it's in the middle that you get the best outcome. As I think back to this discussion that we're just about to wrap up here, a lot of what we've been talking about are some of the bad things that go through networks, the bad influences people have. But what about the good influences? I mean, are good things passing through these networks as well?

In general, we show that while bad things and good things spread in networks, the fact that good things spread more consistently helps justify the fact that we put up with the spread of bad things and, in fact, helps explain why we live our lives embedded in social networks. Because all kinds of positive things can spread. Positive changes in behaviors, smoking cessation, happiness, voting, kindness, love and affection, how people find their partners, valuable information about finding a job that you have lost. All of these kinds of valuable things spread in networks as well.

And so often without us even realizing it or noticing it. Dr. Nicholas Christakis has been my guest. He's a sociologist and a physician and author of a book called Connected, The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. You'll find a link to his book in the show notes for this episode of the podcast. 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, 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. filled shows. And 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. How many times have you been in need of help, someone's offered to help, and you said, no, that's okay, I got it.

You know, you're trying to lift something that's too heavy, or you're struggling with too many grocery bags, or you're struggling to find a job, and someone offers to help, and you say, no thanks, that's okay. Why do we do that? Seems odd. You need help, someone offers, and you decline.

And yet, it's so common. Nora Claver knows a lot about this. She's studied it, she can explain it, and she has some pretty good advice when it comes to asking for help. Nora is the author of the book Mayday, Asking for Help in Time of Need. Hi, Nora, welcome. Hi, Mike, thank you. So it is interesting that people have such trouble asking for help. And we see it like, you know, when you drop something at the store and you

reach down to pick it up and more things drop and then people say, can I help you? And we say, no, no, no, that's okay. I got it. Well, clearly I don't got it. And yet I still don't accept people's help. And it seems like a knee-jerk reaction. And it's so weird that we do that, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I really discovered this because I started realizing that I was living this incredible life, but I was exhausted all the time. And it simply was because I wasn't letting people help me. And I realized that it's really a universal cultural phenomenon that we really can't avoid for some reason. There's not a culture on this planet that is focused solely on helping each other. Although

we want to do it, we just really struggle to ask for the help that we need. So it's not cultural, you're saying, which implies maybe that it's human nature? I think certainly in the U.S., our culture is especially anti-asking for help. I think our focus on staying independent and pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. And this is something that we have to do on our own. Because why? Because that's, I mean, I would have guessed that that's kind of the American way, but you're saying it's cross-cultural.

So why do we, what's the thinking there? Well, actually, it's what's the feeling there. I don't know that we're actually thinking. I think we're feeling, and what we're feeling is fear. And I think there are different kinds of fears that get in the way of us asking for the help that we need. Fear of what? Well, for some people, it's fear of losing control. We feel like there might be a price to pay if we accept help from someone else.

Fear of being embarrassed or looking bad or incompetent. Fear of looking like we can't really handle it by ourselves. Those are two of the big ones. And I think the biggest one is all about just the fear of shame, fear of just feeling as though we should be better than we are and we're just not. Well, that's when you think about it and listen to it like that. That's just the stupidest thing in the world. Thank you. It is. It is. It truly is. Because once you start asking people for help, you will be so surprised at how much help you actually get. People want to help us. They want to do it. I was getting on a plane. I was exhausted.

It was late. It was probably around midnight. Our flight had been delayed because of snow. And there was a gentleman walking behind me as we were getting on the plane. And I was trying to get my bag up into the bin, and I could not make it happen. And he said to me, oh, here, let me help, let me help. And I, of course, naturally refused him. And I said, no, no, I can do it, I can do it. And I tried a second time and couldn't get it up. And he said, no, seriously, let me help, let me help. And again, I rejected him. And then the third time I slammed the handle of the

case down into the case, catching my thumb, making me scream a little bit like, ow. I'm now sticking my thumb in my mouth and he looks at me and he goes, seriously, let me help. I was just like, okay. And he was so, the look on his face was so giving, so pleasant, so neighborly, that it just struck me that there was absolutely no reason why I should have resisted what he had offered to me. That is a great example, because I think a lot of us would do that in that situation. You know, it's especially hard to ask for help from a stranger because, well, they're a stranger, I guess, because they're a stranger. But clearly, you could have prevented a lot of pain and suffering

if you just said yes in the first place. Exactly. And yet, we work against our own basic needs by insisting on doing it ourselves. And what's so interesting, and you said it as plain as day, people love to help. People like to help other people. It makes them feel good. And if it helps you, it's nothing but a win-win situation. So what's the problem here?

Yeah, yeah. Well, the problem is, a part of it is we have really never been taught how to ask for the help that we need. And that makes it really hard because it's a basic skill that we should all have, but we don't. We teach children when they're very young how to share, to give of their abundance, but we're not necessarily teaching little children how to ask for the help they need. We don't tell them, hey, it's okay if you need help. It's okay if you don't have what you want or if you need a little assistance. I know so many stories about people who have struggled with asking for the help that they need. So what is the right way to ask for help?

Well, what I suggest is, first of all, that we have to pay attention to the voices in our head, the fears that are cropping up, and to recognize them first as fears, that that is all it really is. It's taking maybe a kernel of truth that perhaps maybe you might get rejected and recognizing that that's just an atom. It's a tiny little part of the story. And the rest of our fear has built up this big hill of a story around it saying, oh, no, it's definitely going to happen. And people are going to think less of you.

And they're not going to want to hang out with you anymore. We have to recognize the stories that we're telling ourselves first and then we have to replace them with stories that are actually better and so instead of saying oh I could never ask for help people will think I'm inept or incompetent you say I want to ask for help because I want people to understand that I'm still learning or that I want to learn how to do this or that this is something beyond what I can do right now, but I really need some help and I deserve it. And I think that's part of the next step is to recognize you do deserve the help. A lot of us think that we don't, that other people are busier, more struggling more than we are, and so that we can't ask for help.

It's interesting that we're talking as if, you know, we need help and others could give us help, but we're often the giver and we know how good it feels and yet when we need the help we don't ask for it even though we know intellectually that when you ask someone for help and they give it it makes them feel good right and so what i suggest to people is that they start practicing that they start asking for help maybe three times a day. And if you can't do that, maybe it's three times a week. And maybe it's small things and you start small. Maybe it's opening a jar or maybe it's reaching for the top box of cereal at the grocery store. Whatever it is, get comfortable asking for what you need because the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It's just

like any other muscle. You want to build it up over time. Everybody has had the experience of, especially men, of not wanting to ask for directions because you don't want to ask for directions because that means you're an idiot. And yet everybody has had the experience that when someone stops and asks them for directions, it kind of feels good to be able to help somebody find their way. It doesn't, somehow we don't make that transition that it's okay to ask because the other person doesn't mind. It's not an imposition. In fact, it makes them feel better. And when you're in that position, you know it. And yet here you are, you need to know where to go to get to where you're going,

and you don't want to bother anybody. Right. I know. It's so crazy. It is crazy. It is crazy. But again, it goes back to we're never taught that it's okay to do that. It's okay to admit that you need a little bit of help. You know, really, if we started early on, I mean, we talked to children about using their inside voices and about sharing and, you know, not hurting one another, but we're not talking to them about, you know, there are going to be times when you are going to need help. And not only are we going to be there for you as your parents, but there are going to be other people who want to help too. I don't think that lesson gets heard. And so we live our lives getting lost in traffic.

But there are people, I can think of people that I know that are very needy and are always asking for help. And they ask it in the wrong way. They make it sound so, if you don't bail me out of this, I don't know what I'll do. It's a real turnoff to hear, like you have to ask in the right way in order to get the response you want. I think you do, because that's really coercion, what you're describing, and it's an emotional blackmail situation oftentimes. And that's not what we're looking for. What we're looking for here really is having a conversation about what it is you need and what the other person might be able to provide. And it's important to make sure that it is a conversation, a back and forth. You may have an idea of what you need,

but the other person that is now involved actually may have a better idea of what would help you. And I do think that it's okay for people to protect their own boundaries so that they're not constantly giving in to the blackmail, the emotional blackmail. It is okay to say, no, I can't help you this time. And perhaps you know someone else who might be able to, or perhaps you just have another conversation that says, you know, I've helped in the past. This is starting to become a pattern. What do you really need long term? Because we can't keep having this conversation.

That's a really good question. What do you need long term? Because I'm tired of having this conversation. Yeah, I like that. Because I've seen that happen plenty of times. I mean, we all have relatives who have asked for money. And it's like, okay, you give them 50 bucks here and 50 bucks there, or maybe more.

And this is not solving the issue here. What is the big issue and how do we help you solve it? There's also something in our head that says, you know, at some point enough is enough and, you know, all I'm doing is helping you and this needs, I could use maybe a little help myself and all I'm doing is giving and all you're doing is taking. And that doesn't feel good to anybody after a very short amount of time. Right, exactly. And so it's okay to say in response, hey, well, you know, I might be willing to help you this time, but this is what

I need help with. Do you think we could work something out? Because we are so generous of spirit, I think, as human beings, we naturally want to say yes. But at some point, the no may be necessary. And that's okay. It really is okay. Because it may be exactly what the other person needs to hear. I think when you stop and think about all the times you could have asked for help and didn't, if you had, how much better would your life be now? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Tons. And I've written the book on it. And it's still a challenge. I still practice it. And my husband and I laugh about it all the time. He'll say, oh, you know, I've got this book you should read. It is something that we rarely get really good at,

but it's still something that we should be developing. Because just as you said, our lives could be so much better and our relationships could be so much stronger. And we could be attracting the right people in our lives rather than maybe the wrong ones. If you do it the right way. Yes. Yes. Well, I appreciate the conversation. It's something that everybody has had experience with, but nobody ever talks about this. So I'm glad you were here to do that. My guest has been Nora Claver. She is author of the book Mayday, Asking for Help in Time of Need. And there's a link to her book in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Nora.

Oh, well, great. Thank you. This winter has been particularly nasty in terms of people getting sick. Everybody in my house has been sick this winter. There are stories in the paper of people getting colds and the flu and people dying from the flu. This winter has been particularly difficult. And we know that the way people usually catch these things is by touching something and then putting their hand to their face. So one of the best ways to avoid getting sick is to not touch those things that have all

the germs. And if you're going to work, here are the likely things that you are going to touch that could make you sick. The elevator button. If you work in a building that has an elevator, it's probably one of the first things you touch in the morning. and research shows that elevator buttons can host up to 40 times more bacteria than a public toilet seat. The fridge and microwave door handles in the office kitchen. Nobody cleans them, and everybody touches them, and it only takes one person being ill to contaminate that handle on all the break room appliances. The coffee pot handle.

It's one of the germiest things in the office. Your computer keyboard is pretty gross, even if nobody else touches it. And if you share a keyboard, that's really disgusting. And your desk. When was the last time you actually cleaned the surface of your desk? Probably not in a long time,

because you probably don't think about it, but your desk can harbor more bacteria than any surface in your bathroom. And that's why it's really smart to have antibacterial gel and antibacterial wipes with you at work. And that is something you should know. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter. We post great content there that is similar to what you hear in the podcast, but isn't in the podcast because there's only so much room.

I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer,

unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. 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. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories

remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.