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You Already Lost When You Stopped Asking · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved us a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on Lowe's.com, right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 0:30
  Here's a news flash, we don't know it all. If you don't ask, you've already lost. Not because someone said no, but because you decided the answer before the conversation even happened. If you don't ask, you didn't avoid rejection or even looking stupid, you stunted your growth and left yourself behind. Not asking is not only selfish, it literally is saying, I don't trust myself. Not asking is a decision.
• 0:58
  Silence is a choice and it has consequences. Welcome back to the Heart of the Life podcast. The solo Thursday one's my favorite. Just you and me telling you crazy stories of my life and what I learned about them. And hopefully you resonate and learn something as well. All these stories are true and I'm going to constantly pay it forward and hopefully get
• 1:24
  You live harder in life. So if you don't ask, you've already lost. Not because someone said no, but because you decided the answer before the conversation even happened. I built my life on not asking. I survived addiction alone. Built my company alone. Healed pretty much well alone. And for a long time, I wore that like a badge of honor. But here's the truth most people don't wanna admit.
• 1:53
  What got you here will not get you there. And what got you here will keep you here. Not asking didn't make me strong. It made me slow. It delayed my growth. Personally and professionally and probably romantically by years. I wasn't afraid of rejection. I was afraid of being seen as weak. Because growing up.
• 2:19
  Asking for help flat out didn't work. There was nobody there to even ask for help. And even if you did ask, probably met with a backhand. I learned to figure it out and suffer quietly and on my own. That's survival. But survival is not leadership and nor is it thrival.
• 2:43
  And it sure in the hell isn't going to expand. I'm holding up a card and it says, not asking equals choosing stagnation. Not asking is a decision. And it is a poor decision. Silence is a choice and it has consequences.
• 3:06
  dire consequences. And you hear many, many people talk about it. You want something done, right? Do it yourself. That is very, very wrong. The I'll handle it myself is because you don't trust yourself to communicate. You'll hear me talk about trust more and more and more and more and more.
• 3:24
  You don't trust yourself to be able to clearly communicate. Trust yourself to clearly hold people accountable. Trust yourself to clearly understand what the goal is, what the end goal is. Begin with the end in mind and work it backwards. These are all hard lessons that I had to learn and I've broken them down in many, many podcasts. If you want to know more about any of those, I will gladly do separate shows.
• 3:47
  Just DM me, Kelly.Siegel at 71. Not asking for help will guarantee you stuck in the same place, the stagnation I talk about. Because if you want to go further, go together. Success has help. You need a gaggle of people with brains that know the way. And here's a newsflash.
• 4:11
  We don't know it all. I'm pretty smart, but there's a lot I don't know. There's a lot like the attention to detail and the minutia that drives me insane. So I have people that do that for me.
• 4:26
  I have people that shut up all the techs. I have a team that edits this podcast that makes me sound smarter than I am. That's full disclosure there. This is what happens. Control feels safer than collaboration because I can always work harder and obtain a little bit better result. I can't motivate other people to do the same. It feels like I'm in control if,
• 4:55
  I am only driving my own car. It's a false feeling of control because, man, it feels good when you win together, by the way. So not asking is literally choosing stagnation. If you don't ask,
• 5:09
  You didn't avoid rejection or even looking stupid. You flat out avoided growth. You stunted your growth and left yourself behind. Not asking is not only selfish, it literally is saying, I don't trust myself. Hyper-independence is a learned behavior, not a personality trait.
• 5:29
  I used to say all the time, I've worked out alone. I do my best work alone. No, no, no, no. That was learned because I knew no other way. Every single night after school, I had to come home to an empty house.
• 5:45
  My stepfather would go out drinking early and he would come home early and my mother would go out drinking a little late and she would come out late. I'd sneak in in between when nobody was home because I didn't want to, the risk of getting beat. And I would go in and do all of my chores quickly
• 6:02
  And then I would run back out to miss my stepfather coming home. Asking for help was pointless. And even if I did ask, they would literally tell me, figure it out on your own. Because they were probably hungover or didn't care. It was on me. That worked for me great though when I was a child. Because that hyper-independence gave me that feeling of control. The challenge with it.
• 6:28
  is it was suffocating and survival does not scale whatsoever. What kept me going as a child, all those little things keep me small as a leader. Did you guys just hear I said that? All the things that made me who I am, this hyper-independence, I started a business on myself, I started a podcast by myself, is also what's holding me back. Because the hardest piece of me
• 6:56
  is looking at people going, I don't know what to do right now. And I need help. There is so many things that I am unclear on. That's survival. What got me here will keep me here. And I cannot scale on it. That little thing,
• 7:15
  Worked for me as a child. I was massively successful at maneuvering through my parents drinking and drunk and getting all my work done. I was a student athlete. I also had a job. I did it all. That taught me how to grow and how to be tough and how to be very resilient and how to juggle many, many things. What I did not learn is how to trust others and trust myself.
• 7:44
  There's a real big fear and it's really to be seen as weak. Most people don't fear no. They're not even told no. They fear exposure. Asking for help a lot of times does feel like I'm surrendering control. What if I ask for help and somebody grabs the spotlight and runs with it? What if you don't ask for help and you fail? That is...
• 8:11
  beginning or taking and having your focus on what the end goal is. If the end goal is we need to finish this project for everybody to win and the better person to do it is your teammate, by all means do that. Control is a myth. There's a myth that strong people don't need help. Everybody needs help.
• 8:30
  Everybody. I joined a fraternity, Sigmund Altham U at Western Michigan University. And we used to do things individually, we were great. But when we got all 80 men together, we built a deck, a deck in one day. We could go and change people's lives when we were able to do philanthropy. When we all rode in the same direction, it was unlimited of what we can do. If we don't ask and we don't work together,
• 9:00
  We become the bottleneck. And believe me, this happened multiple times at NTM. And it took me implementing the EOS operating system to understand I was the bottleneck. I had to be involved in every single decision because I didn't trust myself to be able to trust everybody else. It all started by looking in the mirror, trusting myself, and then trusting my team. And I got out of the way. And guess what happened? Everything scaled.
• 9:29
  I had to ask God for permission to get out of my own way.
• 9:35
  How about that? Now, you'll hear me on a daily basis walking in and asking people. It feels weird too because I gotta ask people to do things that I can do in seconds, but they love it and that's their job and that's what I pay them for and that's how they show me that they're dedicated and they can grow to the next level and we build trust and confidence and that's how you grow a team. I'm holding up another card, asking is not a weakness.
• 10:05
  Weak leaders hide, strong leaders inquire. And what did that mean by that? Leaders go first. What I mean by that is they make it safe and give you permission to understand that they haven't got everything figured out. I just recently learned this. I always would sit there with a stiff upper lip
• 10:25
  And with the advent of AI right now, guys, life is insane, business is insane. I'm scared, I really am. At what point did these podcasts become all AI? So you can know that with this, why I'm doing the prop thing that you're seeing here. You can tell this is not AI, this is really me. All flaws, all unshaven, sweating,
• 10:49
  Weak leaders hide, strong leaders inquire. This goes back to the big hat, no cattle. If everybody's always got it all figured out, they're bullshitting, you guys. Asking is a strength.
• 11:01
  and ask away, and it's also being comfortable being denied. Because if I told you guys how many people I reach out to daily to ask to come on the podcast or ask for something, I'm fearless when it comes to no. That's the worst thing that happened. They can say no, big deal. Truth bomb here.
• 11:23
  When people say nothing, drives me nuts. That hurts my feelings. At least just have the courage to say no, or that doesn't work for me right now. Who's great at this is Dan Martel. It's a really good thing. Saying no, I have to do another podcast on saying no as a strength.
• 11:43
  man it is wild no is a complete sentence and it doesn't hurt there's nowhere to go from that somebody says no that's it i love no being the person that everybody comes to for everyone feels like a strength but it becomes a prison strength needs support the strong ones need help too and i consider myself a strong one if you're listening to this podcast you're one of the strong ones
• 12:10
  So what would happen to me, this is what kept me from asking. Because everybody would always come to me and ask me. And I would feel like, well, who do I go to? And I felt like an alien. I talk about the loneliness of leadership, but it's only lonely when you're holding it all in. When you don't have support. And believe me, if you don't have support,
• 12:39
  It's because something you're doing. You have to look in the mirror because as humans, we all wanna help each other. Believe me, strength needs support and everybody's willing if you just ask.
• 12:57
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved us a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on lowes.com right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 13:28
  Before I learned this, if everyone leans on you and no one holds you, burnout is guaranteed. I know that sounds kooky, but it's true. If everyone leans on you and there's no one that has your back, your burnout is gonna be guaranteed because you feel like you're alone. And it's an internal thing, guys. It is, that is a learned behavior. You are never alone. Heck, if you reach out to me, you feel alone, DM me and I'll talk to you. Not AI, I will talk to you.
• 13:59
  Feel free to always email me to kelly at heartandlife.com if there's any times that you feel alone. These are very heartfelt things. I have a reframe that changes everything. Stop asking for permission. Start asking for processes. There's a common misnomer about would you help me
• 14:22
  that feels like you're handing your power off. At least this is how I felt. Would you give me a hand here? Would you help me here? That sounds like a power. I flipped the script and I call it, what would it take for you to give me some assistance? What would it take for you to give me an upgrade? What would it take for you to consider? Reframe instead of can you or would you to what would it take?
• 14:50
  It's an ownership-based asking instead of approval seeking. It's just a little goofy reframe, but I find that it doesn't put people on the spot. And sometimes they'll give you the answer. What would it take? It would take me to have some free time. Okay, well, if I help you with this task that you're doing now, would you help me with that? And then it creates camaraderie and you get compounded interest, compounded efforts. What would it take?
• 15:20
  A lot of times I'll do that when I'm talking to my employees. What would it take for us to get this job complete in 30 days? And then they start listing down, you have a whiteboard out, they start listing down the answers. And then we start looking and going, is this impossible? And they'll know. Guys, use the reframe, what would it take? And what I want you guys to remember
• 15:46
  is don't ask if it's possible, ask what it would take. And remember, impossible only describes the degree of difficulty. And in fact, it says I'm possible. I'm just pouring my heart out to you. So asking is a skill and skills are trained. Practice makes the master. Start small. Don't jump into...
• 16:11
  Can I have a million dollars? Start asking for clarity. Hey, I didn't understand that. Could you spend a few more minutes giving me clarity, understanding what exactly did you mean when you said this? But ask one question and then get the answer and then ask the second question, but let them complete it. That gives you kind of a respect and a trust and an ownership. And do not ask...
• 16:41
  with emotion and the feels, just ask the question point blank. Don't beat around the bush. I can't stand when somebody's, well, if that, what are you really saying? And then again, I told you a thousand times, God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. Ask, then listen. Here's an important one, pro tip.
• 17:09
  Ask and then don't say another word, even if they go absolutely still and quiet and don't say a thing. The next person that speaks loses. Some live examples of asking is ask for delegation. Say, who on the team wants to own this?
• 17:32
  Believe me, people will speak up. Ask for emotional support. I do this a lot. I had a really poor night's sleep last night. My brain's a little foggy. Can someone remind me of the word I'm looking for? That happens to me a lot. Ask for feedback. What could I do better? And then actually listen. Don't make excuses and do it. They'll give you more feedback.
• 17:58
  And then always ask what people's boundaries, what's out of line for them. My last one is clarity beats control. Control feels safe. It feels like you're doing something. Clarity though creates the momentum and momentum is unstoppable. Just keep in mind, control is an illusion. Not asking didn't make me tough,
• 18:28
  It made me tired. The moment I learned to ask more and better and frequently, my life sped up. Leadership improved, peace increased, my growth accelerated. And if you don't ask, you've already lost. But when you ask the right way, you give people the chance to rise with you. And remember,
• 18:56
  United we stand, divided we fall, together we rise. And stop asking, would you? And start asking, what would it take? It's not a weakness. It's leadership. Leaders go first. It's harder than life. But if you don't become harder than life, life becomes harder on you.
• 19:20
  If you're listening to this show, you're trying to get better and better and better. Share this with anybody who never, ever asks for help and say, hey, this may create safe space for them. Guys, I love you all. Thanks for listening. Till next week, be harder than life.
• 19:36
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.