This is one of those pieces of advice that seems so obvious but I constantly forget. Seek out experts. In an earlier post I wrote about no man being an island. When I wrote about this my emphasis was emotional support, this post is about practical skills. You should look for people who know things you don’t. Simple.
I think two of the biggest reasons I’ve shied away from getting help are:
I self diagnosed myself with ‘I Can Do All Things’ Syndrome.
I’ve often associated help as something that comes at a cost.
‘I Can Do All Things’ Syndrome
Even if I can do all things, the question is, ‘should I do all things?’ I always think, surely I can work this out. And yes, with help of Google, you probably can. However, how long are you willing to spend trying? And what is that time costing you? Don’t get me wrong, I like to learn things myself and I will still go online and see if I can learn it easily enough myself. I try not to ask questions that can be easily answered with a quick search. However, I’m learning that if it’s taking too long or I don’t see a real long term benefit in me understanding the detail, then I need to go and find someone who can help me.
Help Costs Money
Yes, sometimes help costs money and I’m a firm believer that you should pay people for their skills. However, some expert help/advice that you may think is a big deal, could literally be NOTHING to an expert with the knowledge.
Networks and networking is such a loaded term in 2020 (to me anyway), but everyone has one. You don’t have to have some fancy, high flying, super creative career to have a valuable network. Take me for example, I come from a big Nigerian family and extended family…this has given me an automatic network. I have cousins…LOTS OF THEM. This is one network of mine. Then think of all the different groups of people you’ve collected in your lives thus far. For example, I have high school friends, uni friends, I have friends that I grew up going to church with, I’ve got family friends, I’ve got ex-work colleagues, I’ve got current work colleagues…all of these are valuable networks. These networks are filled with experts.
A perfect example of my network coming through for me happened a few weeks ago – I was having another Photoshop induced meltdown. I had been trying to make a design alteration and had watched many a Youtube video trying to crack the method. I stopped and thought, there must be a better way. This should not br this hard. I then remember I have a ‘cousin’ who is a talented graphic designer. A WhatsApp message, 24 hours and a TeamViewer ID later, my cousin was in my computer walking me through how to make the design changes I was stuck on.
Do you know how many times I’d struggled to work out that design alteration? Maybe it was a little bit of arrogance that made me think I didn’t need to ask anyone for help. This even stopped me thinking of who could help me!
Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Behaviour change can be really tough. This is a behaviour I’ve got to change. I need to start by thinking who can help me? How can I solve this quicker? Who are the experts in my network? It’s not always going to cost money, it may do sometimes, but if I don’t investigate I’ll never know. I’m surrounded by experts in many different fields. I need to stop trying to do all things and ask for help. And not wait too long before I do.
Hooray! Our trademark certificate came through. Back in December I wrote about how it had taken a while for me to get round to filing for a trademark at with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). In early March, the trademark was approved, and I received the paper work a few weeks ago. I was nervous …
I saw a friend of mine yesterday and she asked me, ‘How’s the business going?’, Surprisingly, this emotion wasn’t what I felt first. I went on to explain to her my current ‘dilemma.’ It made me realise this is what I should write about this week. I’ve named this dilemma, ‘ The Inventory Trap.’ When …
The more common version of this saying – I won’t dignify it by writing it out – involves felines. Now I’m not an animal rights champion, I’m not even vegetarian, but it felt inhumane to write that phrase down. Fortunately the clever people at http://theanimalrightsactionsite.blogspot.com/2014/01/animal-friendly-alternatives-for-common.html gave me this alternative and here we are. In my …
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Seek Out Experts
This is one of those pieces of advice that seems so obvious but I constantly forget. Seek out experts. In an earlier post I wrote about no man being an island. When I wrote about this my emphasis was emotional support, this post is about practical skills. You should look for people who know things you don’t. Simple.
I think two of the biggest reasons I’ve shied away from getting help are:
‘I Can Do All Things’ Syndrome
Even if I can do all things, the question is, ‘should I do all things?’ I always think, surely I can work this out. And yes, with help of Google, you probably can. However, how long are you willing to spend trying? And what is that time costing you? Don’t get me wrong, I like to learn things myself and I will still go online and see if I can learn it easily enough myself. I try not to ask questions that can be easily answered with a quick search. However, I’m learning that if it’s taking too long or I don’t see a real long term benefit in me understanding the detail, then I need to go and find someone who can help me.
Help Costs Money
Yes, sometimes help costs money and I’m a firm believer that you should pay people for their skills. However, some expert help/advice that you may think is a big deal, could literally be NOTHING to an expert with the knowledge.
Networks and networking is such a loaded term in 2020 (to me anyway), but everyone has one. You don’t have to have some fancy, high flying, super creative career to have a valuable network. Take me for example, I come from a big Nigerian family and extended family…this has given me an automatic network. I have cousins…LOTS OF THEM. This is one network of mine. Then think of all the different groups of people you’ve collected in your lives thus far. For example, I have high school friends, uni friends, I have friends that I grew up going to church with, I’ve got family friends, I’ve got ex-work colleagues, I’ve got current work colleagues…all of these are valuable networks. These networks are filled with experts.
A perfect example of my network coming through for me happened a few weeks ago – I was having another Photoshop induced meltdown. I had been trying to make a design alteration and had watched many a Youtube video trying to crack the method. I stopped and thought, there must be a better way. This should not br this hard. I then remember I have a ‘cousin’ who is a talented graphic designer. A WhatsApp message, 24 hours and a TeamViewer ID later, my cousin was in my computer walking me through how to make the design changes I was stuck on.
Do you know how many times I’d struggled to work out that design alteration? Maybe it was a little bit of arrogance that made me think I didn’t need to ask anyone for help. This even stopped me thinking of who could help me!
Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Behaviour change can be really tough. This is a behaviour I’ve got to change. I need to start by thinking who can help me? How can I solve this quicker? Who are the experts in my network? It’s not always going to cost money, it may do sometimes, but if I don’t investigate I’ll never know. I’m surrounded by experts in many different fields. I need to stop trying to do all things and ask for help. And not wait too long before I do.
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The Inventory Trap
I saw a friend of mine yesterday and she asked me, ‘How’s the business going?’, Surprisingly, this emotion wasn’t what I felt first. I went on to explain to her my current ‘dilemma.’ It made me realise this is what I should write about this week. I’ve named this dilemma, ‘ The Inventory Trap.’ When …
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