How asking for help changed my life

Yes, I know… it's scary.

Asking for help is scary!

The world we live in has trained us to keep ourselves bottled up. To fend for ourselves. To figure everything out on our own.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

When you ask for help, you might be humiliated. You might look stupid in front of dozens or even hundreds of people.

In reality though, most of that is our own fear painting a vivid picture of the end of the world to protect us… from failure.

The problem is, walling ourselves off in an emotional batcave and “protecting” ourselves from the outside world is also protecting us from opportunities.

Here's how I started getting into the habit of asking for help.

I’ll throw in a few crazy stories, including how I got into $2000 worth of tech conferences for free, and how a 19-year-old scored an internship with Gary Vaynerchuk in 10 seconds.

Baby Steps: Get Into the Habit of Asking

In 2016, I was one of the organizers of a travelling coworking/coliving community of entrepreneurs called Hacker Paradise.

In the community, we placed a lot of importance on asking for help.

Every week, we ran an exercise called the Reciprocity Ring where our group of 20-30 people would gather around together in our co-working space.

After setting a tone of openness, we went around the circle and one by one, each member of the group had to ask for help with something.

The first week was always a bit awkward. That was the point.

We told everyone that if they didn't have anything in the realms of personal or professional development to ask for help with, they could just ask for help with anything else.

• Mom's birthday coming up? Great! Can someone help me find here a birthday present?

• Not sure how to cook Chicken Alfredo? Cool, let’s figure it out.

But everyone had to ask for help with something.

Throughout the exercise, we wrote down what each member of the group asked, and who offered to help them.

Here's where it got interesting:

After the first awkward week, people went about their regular lives and work, and naturally encountered a few challenges or roadblocks along the way.

Now that they had an outlet to ask for help, people started keeping a mental note of what they needed help with so that they could bring it up at the next reciprocity ring.

Brilliant software engineer:

By leveraging the power of our group's collective knowledge and skills, we got past roadblocks lightning fast.

Problems that typically took people days or even weeks to solve on their own could be resolved in a one-hour chat over coffee with a laptop and a couple of short follow ups.

People became unstoppable, and personal and professional development skyrocketed.

How I got into $2000 worth of conferences for free just by asking

After a year of being away, I got back to Toronto and was determined to create a peer-mentorship community for new grads looking for careers.

I spent hours and hours of my time every week helping new grads design their desired careers.

At the same time, I was trying to figure out my own life.

I wasn't really making any money, so I needed to be frugal while helping people, and made a bit of money on the side building websites for people.

I didn't have any concrete experience, but I was getting good at it through helping others. So I started looking for career coaches in Toronto to talk to and ask for advice.

How I got into Discover Your Personal Brand - $150

After a bit of digging on the internet, I found a really cool career coach who was running an event called Discover Your Personal Brand.

Unfortunately, their event cost $150 so I couldn't afford to spend that kind of money on something that I didn’t feel was 100% critical..

I thought to myself: "Ok this may be a shot in the dark, but why don't I just ask them if I can volunteer."

So I sent a tweet...

...and she replied!

I was pretty freaking excited!

It actually worked!

A SINGLE TWEET saved me $150.

I was empowered, I was on fire!

What ELSE could I get into for free?

How I got into FiresideConf - $800

Through the twittersphere and the Toronto tech community, I found out about something called FiresideConf.

Imagine this... a 3-day, 250 person tech conference.

Totally unplugged. No cell reception. No internet.

Out at a summer camp in the middle of nowhere Ontario.

We're talking the true summer camp experience, but for adults.

• Staying in cabins

• Roasting marshmallows

• Swimming in the lake

• Waterskiing

• you name it, they had it

SO COOL RIGHT?

Most importantly, the people attending were super influential. Super-connected, and super ambitious people.

I knew if I was going to break into tech, I needed to be here.

I was drooling to get in.

But this conference was $800. There was no way they’d ever let me in for free.

I felt terrified even asking.

So I shot them a DM

They told me if I could get 50 people to sign up for their mailing list, I would get a free ticket.

Alright, so I didn’t have to actually sell tickets.

So I made it MY MISSION to get into this conference.

I decided to leverage my personal network and just ask my friends and family for help.

There was one problem. I was afraid.

I was afraid of being spammy or shitty. What would people think. I almost didn't do it.

Then I thought: “Ok why don't I just be really really transparent?”

So I crafted my Facebook post and asked for help on my personal Facebook and 2 entrepreneurial/leadership Facebook groups.

And this is what happened...

There were a total of 82 likes on this post, and 48 comments.

Within 37 minutes, I had a free ticket to this conference and saved $800.

Holy shit.... HOLLLY SHIT!

I've been trying to figure out a way to get into this conference for 2 months, and all I had to do was ask for help...

On top of that, when I was at the event, I got to connect on a very personal level with some of the coolest and most interesting people in the tech community in Toronto.

I even scored 2 job interviews just through some great conversations I had there!

Incredible! I was hungry for more.

How I got into ArchangelSummit (with an upgraded ticket) - $700

I found out about this event through Kamara Toffolo, the career coach from that previous Discover Your Personal Brand event.

When I met up with Kamara, she asked me if I was going to ArchangelSummit.

I hadn't heard of it at the time but it sounded awesome.

Speakers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, Gretchen Rubin...

Woah…

So I tried my usual tactics:

• I tweeted at the organizers. - No response.

• I sent the organizers an email. - No response

Hmm... no luck. Kamara told me to reach out to the organizer over Facebook as that's where he was more active.

Still no luck.

Ok... this was going to the be one I'm not going to get to go to.

That night, I went to monthly Toronto tech meetup called TechTO.

During the event's community announcements open-mic, someone announced that their organization Programmed For Impact was giving away 120 free tickets to ArchangelSummit.

All you had to do was submit a 60 second video about a startup idea you have.

I literally RAN home to record that video.

The next morning... boom...

Not one but TWO free tickets.

“What on earth is happening?” - I thought

Did I somehow find some cheat code to life?

Yes. The cheat code was asking for help.

On top of that, I made an announcement on Facebook and told everyone I knew that they should do the same thing.

From doing that, 5 of my friends got tickets to the event as well.

And that brings me to the last big shebang... Gary Vee.

How a 19-Year-Old Kid Scored An Internship with Gary Vee

ArchangelSummit was incredible.

The speakers were killing it, I was furiously taking notes the entire time.

I was so energized, and met some incredible people! I was loving every minute of it.

Towards the end of the event, they brought out the final speaker, Gary Vaynerchuk.

He walked out.

Applause, excitement.

Exactly what you’d expect from a celebrity.

Then he decided to feel out the crowd. He turned his part of the event into a mishmash between a talk and a live session of #AskGaryVee.

During the Q&A, people piled up along both isles in the audience to ask their questions on the microphones that were set up.

Questions ranged from how to start a business, to what to focus your time on, to how to raise money to a charitable cause.

The most memorable moment for me was a 19-year-old kid got up to the microphone.

This kid came all the way from New Jersey to be here.

He walked up to the microphone and nervously started telling Gary Vee about how he had missed an internship fair back home to make it to this event.

He was looking to

The crowd went *wild*.

Gary Vee, man. He knows how to have fun with a crowd.

You know what the best part is though?

The ripple effects.

From being inspired and motivated by this incredible opportunity, Abhi got excited to motivate and help others as well.

Inspiring right?

The takeaway? Just ask.

What's the harm in asking?

Most of the time, the worst case scenario is a total fabrication in your mind.

A spiral of negative self-talk, worst-case thinking, and broken confidence.

Pull up those pants. Ask.

Realize that if you are genuine, if you are authentic, and if you actually care about what you're trying to do, people will want to help you get there.

Action Item:
Get in the habit of asking for help in small ways, Once you see how well it works, take bigger steps.

This is something I need to keep working on as well.

So… what do you say?

I’ll be in touch within a few days with more details!

I hope you have restful weekend!

Izzy

If we haven’t met yet, I’m Izzy 👋.

I’m the guy who takes you from “I have no idea what I’m doing” to having a crystal clear career path, and burning confidence after even the shortest 30-minute chat.

Here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Follow me on LinkedIn (and hit the 🔔) for daily motivation

2. Join the Community for bottomless motivation, and support

3. Book a discovery call to explore 1-on-1 coaching with me

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