Something You Should Know - Why People Do or Don’t Like You & The Power of Asking for Help

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

When you watch a great dancer, what separates them from everyone else isn’t strength, flexibility, or even rhythm — it’s one specific part of the body most people never think about. This episode begins with what it is and why it matters so much. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42435 Why do some people seem instantly likable while others struggle to connect? There’s real science behind first impressions, and small behaviors can make a big difference — for better or worse. Nicholas Boothman joins me to explain what makes people warm up to you quickly and what quietly turns them off. He is author of How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less (https://amzn.to/3RVLybP). Asking for help sounds simple — but for many people, it’s surprisingly difficult. We worry it makes us look weak or incapable. In reality, asking can make you stronger, more effective, and even more likable. Wayne Baker explains why people actually want to help — but only if you ask. Wayne is Professor of Business Administration and Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and author of All You Have to Do is Ask (https://amzn.to/2VMts12) Vitamin C doesn’t do much to prevent or cure the common cold — but it does have a proven effect on another everyday problem many of us face. This episode wraps up with what vitamin C really helps and why it works. https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/vitamin-c-stress-buster PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! QUINCE: Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince.  Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! AG1: Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://DrinkAG1.com/SYSK ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get a FREE Welcome Kit with an AG1 Flavor Sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D3 plus K2, when you first subscribe!  NOTION: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works . It's seamless, flexible, powerful, and actually fun to use! Try Notion, now with Notion Agent, at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://notion.com/something⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at⁠⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on something you should know, what is it that makes someone a good dancer? Then the science of getting people to like you and why it matters. When people like you, they tend to see the best in you and what you represent. When we don't like them, the opposite's true. If the guy's jumping all over the place and I like him, he's enthusiastic. If I don't like him, he's an idiot. It's all the same body language, really. Also, what vitamin C is really good for, and it's not to fight a cold.

And a lot of us are afraid 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. And so it's important to realize that most people, in fact, will help you if you ask. this today on Something You Should Know. Of the Regency era, you might know it as the time when Bridgeton takes place,

or as the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. The Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar History's new season is all about the Regency era, the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal. Listen to Vulgar History, Regency Era, wherever you get 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 you know how some people that you meet are just

they're just more likable people are drawn to them They have that instant rapport thing. So how is it that they do that? And could you do that? Well, Nicholas Boothman thinks so. Nicholas has been mastering personal communication strategies for quite a while. And he is author of a book called How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less. Hi, Nicholas.

Thank you. Good morning. Nice to talk to you. So it's interesting when I think about when I meet someone for the first time. there is that immediate judgment, that immediate sense of whether I like that person or not, right? That's what humans do. We make that instant judgment to some extent, right? The truth is that we decide how we feel about someone in the first two seconds of seeing them or hearing them if it's on the phone.

It's just part of the fight or flight response. So you can't really blame people for doing it. I mean, you can't stop them jumping to conclusions about you, but there's a lot you can do to adjust how they feel about you. And that idea that people like or don't like you within the first few seconds, so what's going on there? What makes that determination? Actually, the fight or flight response is for things in mammals.

We're actually deciding, do I eat it? Do I mate with it? Do I fight it or do I run for it? I mean, those are basically what we're deciding. and we just pick up signals from other people that tell us how we feel about them. But there are people that, you know, they don't make us necessarily want to run away, but there's, you know, there's something about them. They're not quite my kind of guy.

You know what I mean? But it's not like they're, I want to run away from them. No, absolutely. What does freak us out are mixed messages. Basically, we respond to the visual. the vocal and the verbal. In other words, when your voice tone, your words and your body language are all saying the same thing, we tend to trust you. I mean, that's what actors do. They're very good at that. But if they're not saying the same thing, you know, if someone's smiling whilst

they're angry at you or looking, I mean, I have people all the time when I do my talks come up to me. And I had a woman recently came up and said, you know, I have this problem. My kids are all saying, Mom, why are you so angry all the time? And she says, I'm not angry. I'm excited. So, well, you look angry. And that was simply because, you know, her body language and her words and her voice don't want all saying the same thing. That's what we, that's what freaks us out. You know, those people that smile at you when they're angry at you.

And so what is it because we all know those people that everybody is attracted to? They walk into a room and pretty soon everybody's around that. What is that? You know, first of all, I do get asked that a lot. And that's not exactly what really happens. Sure, there are some people that walk into a room that attracts people's attention, but they're not suddenly all around them. But there are people they feel comfortable with their body language is giving off.

Basically, it's what I talk about doing in the first two or three seconds of seeing someone. Look them in the eye, smile, open your body language, and synchronize with the people around you, and then look for common ground. When you see certain people and you tend to be attracted to them, Look, I was a fashion photographer for 25 years. I had studios on three continents. And, I mean, I know why people are attracted to models. It's things like their faces and are symmetrical.

That's a huge, a huge attraction when someone is symmetrical. When they do eye contact, look, it's simple. A smile says, I'm happy and I'm confident. Eye contact says trust is in the air. These are quite simple things. So when you want to make someone like you, I mean, it almost sounds phony. It's like, do I really want to make someone like me?

If they don't like me, they don't like me. If cooperation is what you want, then there are certain things you can do, which I just mentioned then. Look, I mean, the eye, smile, open your body language. And they will start to feel trusting towards you. And it happens in the first couple of seconds. But if it doesn't happen in the first couple of seconds, have you lost the opportunity or not? it's difficult it's difficult we do look here's here's the bottom line when people like you

they tend to see the best in you and and what you represent and we tend to look for opportunities to say yes to people that we like when we don't like them the opposite's true um we tend to see the worst in them or get out of here now you know your subconscious is saying uh-uh back away And we sometimes see the worst. If I like the, you know, if the guy's jumping all over the place and I like him, he's enthusiastic. If I don't like him, he's an idiot. You know, if I like the woman, she's warm and she's, you know, she's approachable. If I don't like her, she's dull and boring just by this, it's all the same body language, really.

And so it does matter because when we like people, you know, they tend to see the best of us in us. And that's really what it's all about. And not only in us, but in what we represent. I know that people who haven't heard your program and tune in it, tune into it. And the first couple of seconds that they're either saying, hey, I like this. I like this guy. Or they're saying, what else is on? It's just, well, I say that with the greatest of respect.

Of course. You have the voice I wish I had. You have a super charismatic voice and et cetera, which is what you should have. after 20 years. What about, though, because you say, you know, it happens in the first few seconds that when you open up the body language and everything, but it's also your personality, your attitude. I mean, what, I've seen people that look very appealing,

and then you start to talk to them and go, oh, my God, you know, what, so what is that? Talk about that. Well, first of all, that's the, that's the good news and the bad news about face-to-face communication is you're a genius until you open your mouth. But the fact that you said the word there, the attitude, the first thing we respond to in somebody else, well, in technical terms, it's the quality and the quantity of the energy they give off, but it's basically their attitude. It's your attitude more than anything else that determines your success or failure, because your attitude not only drives your behavior, it drives other people's behavior. I mean,

You know, if you came on the air now and you were angry, I would be responding in a defensive way or whatever, or if you sounded angry, but you sound completely cool and together. So, you know, it makes me respond in a certain way. And that's, you know, I have people all the time that's so when people get to know me, they really like me. But, you know, that's great for your next door neighbor and your family and anybody else who can't escape you. But, you know, when it comes to work or to dating, it doesn't cut it. what about this idea that people like people who are like them look it's all about finding common ground I mean that the whole the whole the bottom line in a first impression is the faster you can find common ground the quicker you you can you can just relax into it and so we tend to like people

who are like ourselves who have the same taste in I don't know holidays books music food we we we like them we get on with them we can find you know I in my in my talks and into I do audiences of up to 6,000 people quite regularly and I'll get them on the feet and I'll just say find common ground in in 20 seconds with somebody and you know they do it they can they you know they both they both like the movie Titanic they've got twins in the family they both enjoy certain sports as soon as that happens soon as you find common ground you've you've cracked it you've made a great first impression what's a good way to do that, though. When you meet someone and you start talking to them, you

can't say, well, let's find some common ground so we can continue this conversation. How do you have that conversation so that the common ground reveals itself? I did this, exactly this on Good Morning America a few years back when they said, okay, so I walk into a room full of strangers, give me five tips on what to do. And I said, well, number one, when you walk into a room, head for the middle of the room. Well, no one wear great clothes. More people take you seriously. You don't have to wear spectacular clothes,

but just dress for the occasion. Walk into the middle of the room. As you walk into the middle of the room, walk slightly more slowly, and then I tell them about the three-second rule. You're probably at one of these events to meet people, so go up to people and how do you get people talking? You do what you do.

You do what podcasters do or talk show hosts do or journalists do. You ask an open question. You make a statement followed by an open question. So on the Today Show, she said, okay, well, what do you mean here? I say, okay, I hear New York's a fantastic place. If I only had half a day, what should I see? That's how you get me talking. You make a statement and you ask me an open question.

I'm talking with Nicholas Boothman, who has some very helpful advice. His book is called How to Make People Like You in 90 seconds or less. If Bravo drama, pop culture, chaos, and honest takes are your love language, you'll want all about Terry H podcast in your feed. Hosted by Roxanne and Chantel, this show breaks down Real Housewives reality TV and the moments everyone's group chat is arguing about. Roxanne's been spilling Bravo T's since 2010, and yes, we've interviewed Housewives Royalty like Countess Lewann and Teresa Judice, Smart Recaps, Insider Energy, and Zero Fluff.

Listen to All About Tier H podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. and new episodes weekly. When they were young, the five members of an elite commando group nicknamed the Stone Wolves raged against the oppressive rule of the Kradarokian Empire, which occupies and dominates most of the galaxies inhabited planets. The wolves fought for freedom, but they failed, leaving countless corpses in their wake. Defeated and disillusioned, they hung up their guns and went their separate ways, all hoping to find some small bit of peace

amidst a universe thick with violence and oppression. Four decades after their heyday, they each try to stay alive and eke out a living. But a friend from the past won't let them move on. And neither will their bitterest enemy. The Stone Wolves is Season 11 of the Galactic Football League science fiction series by author Scott Sigler.

Enjoy it as a standalone story or listen to the entire GFL series beginning with Season 1, The Rookie, Search for Scott Sigler, S-I-G-L-E-R, wherever you get your podcasts. So, Nicholas, some people just seem to have that gift, it seems, anyway, that they can talk to strangers and make everybody feel comfortable. Do you think that's true, or are they working at it? It just looks easy.

It just looks easy. I have five children. The total age of my kids now is actually 220. So I've got three of them in their 50s and, you know, a couple reliving in their 40s. And they weren't all naturally able to go up to complete strangers and start a conversation. But they practiced. And we had fun little things that we did when they were growing up that made one of my children in particular who might have been, other people might have used the label. I absolutely abhor, which is shy, attached shy to somebody.

And she could have been that way, but today she runs corporations out of Norway and high-tech corporations and networks all over the world, but only because we showed her how to do it and we encouraged her to do it. Look, the first thing I talk about to my audience is I asked them, a professor, Professor Harrell from Stanford Business School, spent 20 years looking for what he called the success factor. He went across all areas of work and business and private life, and they came up, their team with one thing, which was they called the number one identifiable predictor of success. And you know what it was? It was the ability to speak up. If you don't speak up, you're invisible. And that's what makes all of the difference in these things. That is so interesting because, and you had said just a few moments ago, you go into the center of the room.

and talk to someone. Well, to a lot of people, that's terrifying to just talk to someone. Here's something else, but I mean, I'm slightly off on a tangent, but, you know, something, we had to learn to have no confidence. We were all born with just two fears. The fear of sudden loud noises and the fear of falling. All the rest of the things we get scared about in this life, we had to learn.

They learned fears. And I deal a lot of the time now with, I'm dealing, working with our local police force and with human trafficking and helping in that area, doing a little bit I can to help. But, you know, a lot of it comes down to not having confidence. Confidence is a huge topic right now with digital distractions and political correctness and polarized politics. We've made strangers out of everybody. and the result is an epidemic of anxiety and depression and the lack of confidence. But, you know, confidence is, they say, oh, we'll face your fears and do it anyway, or, you know, or fake it till you make it.

This is to answer your question about going into a room and talking to people. But the simple thing about confidence is that people who are confident are comfortable with rejection and they're comfortable with failure, just those two things. So I have some simple steps where anyone can get comfortable with rejection and anyone can get comfortable with failure. That's what makes people lack the confidence. And so to walk into a room and talk to people, you just need a couple of steps to explain to people that there's no such thing as failure. There's only feedback. The whole idea of failure is that we learn to get better.

And the whole idea of there's no such thing as rejection. There's only selection. Thank God when I was 15 and used all my pocket money to go and have chacha lessons so I could get the girl from the local hairdressing salon to fall in love with me. Thank God she rejected me or I wouldn't be where I am today. So those invisible signals, those things that you send off that make people say to themselves, oh, this is a likable guy, those are what? Yeah. Well, eye contact is huge. What I tell people is when you meet someone for the first time, look at me in the eye, smile, open your body language, and find common ground. But first, you have to adjust your attitude. And you have to adjust your attitude to what I call a really useful attitude instead of a really useless attitude. A really useful attitude could be welcoming, curious, enthusiastic, warm, really useless attitudes are things like bored, rude, hostile or appearing that way. A lot of people don't realize with their arms folded and looking at the ground when they're

talking to you for the first time that they just come across as hostile. So first you adjust your attitude, which is before you even approach somebody or even walk into a room. We all do it when we walk into a room. Well, we should. We adjust our attitude to something or other words, you know, put a smile on your face and get on with it. And then eye contact.

Just notice the color of the eyes of the people. that you're talking to you. That's enough eye contact to put trust in the air. I did some work for one of the large automotive company, well, I've done all of them, but in one of them, and when we got on this subject, they now have on their worksheet in their technical, in their service department, customer's name, customer's address, customer's eye color, just obliges the mechanic for a second to look into the eyes of the customer. That says trust is in the air. A smile, whether you have a natural smile or not, a smile says that person is happy and confident.

Not everybody has a natural smile, and not all professional models have a natural smile. But there's a trick I learned from models when I was a photographer. They simply say, they'll say to themselves the word great in bursts of three in stupid voices, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, when they're on the set. And eventually, their eyes are warm and they look like they're smiling. You can say that to yourself as you approach somebody. Open your body language just means, you know,

Don't have your arms folded across your chest. In other words, simply kind of almost point your heart at the heart of the person, not in any stupid way, but just expose your heart. And then start saying something. And it's perfectly normal to make a comment about where you are. I had an awful time parking today and what about you? Isn't this a great place? I've never been here before.

It's just making statements. What do you mean by talking in color? Talking in color, there's three things really. One of them is adding sensory information to whatever you're talking about. Talk about the way, if you're telling someone you went on holiday, you talk about the way some of the things that you saw, some of the things that you heard, maybe the smells and the tastes involve all the senses.

We're hungry, we're desperate. We're desperate for stories. Stories are to the human mind, what food and fresh air out of the body. We just crave stories. That's what your podcast is. It's a lot of stories. It's getting into people's imaginations.

The other part about talking in color, the big part, is being able to condense things into simple images. And one of the best people at doing this in the States is Warren Buffett. He makes pictures to describe things. When he was asked how he felt about his job, he said, I tap dance to work. That's talking in color. Because people who have kind of visual can see it.

People who are sound, auditory can hear it, and people who are feeling-based can feel it, can feel what it feels like. When he was asked to explain the 2008 financial bust, he said, the tide's gone out and we can see who's been swimming naked. Really great communicators, Steve Jobs, all those guys. They use metaphors all the time. They say it's kind of like a, and that's talking in color. and it's very charismatic look for those for those of your listeners old enough to remember

Cassius Clayle Muhammad Ali he said I'm going to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee this life is a bowl of cherries this is absolutely beautiful for the minds for the minds of other people for the imagination imagination is the strongest force we possess it sure makes sense

what you're saying and yet it is so hard it is hard for a lot of us to talk to people the way you're talking. Just say hello to three people today at the strangers. Just say hi. Make it your goal to get rejected three times. Keep doing it if you want until three times nobody responds to you.

That's all. Just or just, you know, I work with kids. I was interviewing four kids in a cafe there that I walk up to them. And they've never been talked to talk to strangers. They've been told not to talk to strangers. You don't talk to strangers. You've got no life. Everything you do in life, you're going to be healthier, wealthier,

smarter, wiser, richer. The only way you're going to do it is you're going to need a stranger's help to do that. But this one girl said, well, she said, I mouth high people. I thought that's a great word. As she's walking by, and she's only 14. She just goes, with that mouth, you know, and look away again. And that's how they're learning to talk to strangers. Yeah.

Well, I've always thought about this whole don't talk to strangers thing that it's not necessarily such a great idea because, as you. you say, if you don't talk to strangers and you don't learn how, think of all the opportunities you're not getting. Talking to strangers isn't just the right thing to do. It's a matter of survival. Everything we want in this life, be it tickets to the Rose Bowl, to be on your show, to have a great career, whatever, the perfect partner, you're going to need a stranger's help to get it. So all those people, you know, they tell little children don't talk to strangers. So the kid gets lost in the mall and goes to hide somewhere.

Much better to say, if you get lost, go and talk to another mummy or go and talk to the lady, somebody behind the counter. You know, that's useful. It's about, you know, there's this stranger danger, this fear of strangers is unbelievable. Do you know what your chances of a kid being kidnapped by a complete stranger are in the United States? The latest available figures were from 2016.

The chance of your child being kidnapped by a complete stranger, is one in 675,000. And yet we tell them all, don't talk to strangers. I've interviewed. And what have we got? Now, we have one and a half generations of soft narcissistic decadent,

over photographed, underinspired kids because it's not their fault. It's the way they've been brought up and brainwashed. Well, I like your advice because it's simple, it's easy to follow, and I think people have a sense that it's probably pretty effective. you just have to go out and try it. Nicholas Boothman has been my guest.

The book is How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less. And you will find a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Nicholas. I'm really grateful. Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Adam Gidwitz, host of Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmist. On every episode, we tell a grim fairy tale. Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times. No. We tell the real grim fairy tales. They're funny. They're weird. Sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry, we rate every episode grim, grim, grimmer, or grimist. So you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you.

Tune in to Grim, Grimmer, Grimmist, and our new season, available now. Something I've always found interesting is how so many of us. 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 when you 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,

but 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's 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 bearer. 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 is that most people, in fact, will help you if you ask. Is that true? 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.

You know, 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 and 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 next. Netherlands, who was engaging in one of my exercises, 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. You know, well, he got no help whatsoever. But, you know, it's 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, measurable. Measurability is nice, but here the M is meaningful. It's the Y of the request. How is this going to enable you do your job better or to help your boss meet his or her objectives or 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.

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 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 you're not giving you're 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 to burn out. 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

to, he used to be a consultant. He said, oh, we called 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-requestor 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 want to 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, you know, 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 really 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, coworkers, 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 a kind of an innovatrium, an innovation entrepreneur space, and 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 their advice is horrible and you know it's like the dumbest thing you've ever heard of well how do you then not incorporate their advice and and 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 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 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 you get rewarded. And so, you know, 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, is that, you know, 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 import or review on a report, that's, you know, 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, you know, social support or it's financial resources. And that's what you need to 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, 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. 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, 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, is 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, you know, that's fine, I understand, but perhaps could you say, could you explain a little bit so I could come up with a, you know, a better request the next time I ask somebody and ask, 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 Herruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Inns, and I'm sat next to. to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series? Primarily eels.

And what else? It was fascinating, though, the eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit. Brain computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels? Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Seagas O.C?

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