Exposed
photo credit: unsplash.com/CristianNewman
Why is it so hard to ask for help? I don’t think it used to be. In fact, in the past I don’t think we frequently had to ask. We depended on our community and our community depended on us. We farmed together, ate together, raised our families together and buried our loved ones together. Humans are inherently tribal. We want to belong. Somehow that desire to belong morphed into a desire to belong to the “right” community, to be identified with “success”.
Our belonging often isn’t about symbiotic relationships. It’s more about status. In these groups or tribes, we often aren’t asking for help. Asking for help puts us in a place of vulnerability, a place of lesser than or “needy.” No one wants to feel that. Being part of a community used to mean that naturally there would be a give and take. I had a great crop of corn and your apples were abundant this year. We exchanged. Not because one of us was “needy” or because I’m a better corn farmer and “have” to help out. But because we recognized that no one could do it all. I can’t raise a great crop of corn while I’m trying to focus on my apples as well. But when I focus on my gift, my talent for corn, the whole community wins.
Scott Dinsmore started a global community, Live Your Legend, on this notion of living your passion to change the world. It’s not about global influence of one person but about each person finding and doing what makes them great and how that greatness impacts their own lives, their community and the world. Not doing it in a vacuum but within local communities of support whose members share their journey supporting and moving everyone along the path to greatness.
We don’t ask for help for fear of exposing our vulnerability. But it is in being vulnerable that we find our greatest strength. What can you do to be a little more vulnerable today? What have you been struggling with? What is your special “gift” and how will you give it to the world? Find your community. Give. Take. Live.