EP 820- Asking for Help

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Erica Blume Slater:

Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. This is Erica Slater, and today I’m joined by Liz Levy and Amy Gunn. We have a tight group this morning. How are you?

Liz Lenivy:

Good. Good, good. Thanks.

Erica Blume Slater:

I guess whenever you’re listening to this, it’s our morning. So you are the benefit of our good bright personalities this morning, at the beginning of our day. So today we’re going to talk about asking for help. And before you start cringing, thinking about the last time you had to fall on a sword and go grovel in someone’s office asking for help, we’re going to cut this into a couple different categories. There’s so many different contexts, both professionally and personally in which we have to ask for help. And just as we were kind of jamming on this topic before we started recording, we’re thinking about times that you need to ask for help when you are promoting yourself. If you’re running for something, if you are being nominated for something, if you need help getting some position, that’s a very certain ask of someone, will you help me achieve something?

Asking for help when you need assistance, when you need support, when you need staff, or asking for help when you are vulnerable and when you’re drowning, when you’re flailing at something, and having the courage and recognizing when you need to ask a colleague or someone you trust to help you get out of a bad spot. Liz, let’s start with you. You and I and Amy, you’ve been through this situation. I feel many times in your career. We’ve all run for things, been asking to be promoted to things, but you had a recent experience where you were in this position where you were asking for help in achieving something. Tell us about that.

Liz Lenivy:

Sure. So without getting into too much detail, I am currently in the process of trying to make a pretty big professional step for myself. And it is the type of process where I cannot do it alone. I cannot just rely on the mentors and colleagues that I have here. I really have to extend myself outside of the firm and frankly kind of outside of the practice a little bit too, in seeking support from people. And that is such an awkward thing for me. And it’s so weird because someone comes and asks me for help, I almost feel honored, like, oh my gosh, you want me to help you? But on the opposite side of that, when I’m asking someone for help, I feel like I’m burdening them or I’m bothering them, or maybe I’ve read our relationship wrong. I think one of my biggest concerns going to people who maybe I don’t see every day, I do my colleagues here and asking them to do something for me.

And it’s not just, oh, will you generally support me? It’s I’m asking them to actually take a physical action, take time out of their day to make a call for me to write a letter for me. And that is a really stressful thing. That is the thing that puts my stomach in knots because I don’t want to bother anyone, and I know how busy we all are, and I know how crazy life gets sometimes the thought of just adding something else to someone’s plate, I part of me just wonders, who do you think you are to put this burden on someone else? So it’s something that I am still struggling with, I’m still working on, I’m hoping I’m getting better with, and the thing that I think has helped me through this is that everyone I’ve talked to for help and asked for help has said yes and has not just said yes, but has been enthusiastic about it. They seem to have the same excitement that I have when someone comes to me for it. So it’s something that is awkward and uncomfortable and I am still struggling with it and I’m still working at it, but it’s something I think I’m getting better at.

Erica Blume Slater:

So Liz, when you’ve been in this position lately, what has been your strategy? Do you think that just getting the confidence from kind of proving yourself wrong and proving that gut feeling of what if they say no or are not enthusiastic? How do you keep getting the confidence to do that?

Liz Lenivy:

So I think part of this is strategizing before I talk to the person or deciding if I want to talk to that person. The other thing is I really have to sit down and say, well, I know this person in this context, but could they have conflicts that may make it difficult for them to support me? I don’t want to ever put anyone in an awkward position where they have to tell me, no, I can’t help you. So I think I do try to put a lot of thought into who is the right person to talk to? And then when I go into the conversation, I try to lead it off with explaining to them why I am seeking their help and explaining to them, you’ve had such a great career, you’re someone that I really admire, and this is not bs. This is truthful.

I’m being honest. I’m not going to go to someone who I don’t respect and who I don’t admire their career and ask for their help. I’m going to people who I think have shown me not only professional side, but also their personal side, that there’s someone I can rely on. So I try to explain to them, this is why our relationship matters. This is why I admire you, and this is what I want to do and why I want to do it. I think it’s important not only to explain what it is that you are trying to achieve, but why it matters so much to you. And so I’ve tried to give a little bit of an elevator speech. Now of course, you don’t want to lay it on too thick. And at some point sometimes I’ve had this where someone is asking me for help and I’m like, okay, I know what you’re going to just get to the point, get to the point.

So it’s kind of a balancing act, a little bit of giving your opening presentation, but not just piling on the information and rambling, but then eventually getting to the point. And I think it’s also really important to explain to people what exactly you need them to do. That’s sometimes what I struggle with. For example, if a LawClerk comes up to me and says, can you help me get a job? Yeah, I’m happy to help you get a job. What do you need me to do though? Who do you need me to call? What do you need me to write? Do you want to go over practice questions? Do you have questions you want me to answer for you? And if they just come to me with the sort of big question of, can you help me get a job? I can try, but I need you to show me that you’ve done some of the work on your end so that I know how to best help you.

How do I best use my time to help you? And so that’s the other thing that I’ve tried to do in these conversations is I say, okay, I need you to call this person, okay, I need you to write this and I’ll send you a sample and I will send you my resume and I will make sure to try to make this as easy for you as possible, but these are the specific actions I need you to take if you’re willing to do that. And I think that that has been the best strategy for me asking people for help is giving them a specific task. If you can just take the guesswork out of it and just say, this is what I need you to do. It seems like people are more willing to do that.

Amy Collignon Gunn:

Liz, I couldn’t agree more. First, it is hard to ask for help, whether it’s to help you achieve something when you’re overwhelmed. It’s hard to do, but I completely agree with you. It starts with knowing what you need. I don’t know what you need until you know what you need and until you ask for it. So that’s a very good example about when someone comes and asks, can you help me get a job? I start by saying yes, but then I start asking a series of questions because I need them to tell me, give me some parameters. I can help you putting you in touch with people and make some phone calls, but I need to know what you want. What do you need? When you look at the categories, I need help to achieve something, I need help because I’m overwhelmed. I think the first step is recognizing you need help, which I personally am very bad at.

It usually comes in the form of waking up in the middle of the night, waking up in a bad mood. Why I’m in a bad mood. Oh, because I need all these things to get done. Well, maybe you should ask for help. Recognizing that you need the help is a very important step. And going back, Eric, to what you said about needing to trust people, having those people in your life that you know can trust is wonderful, but sometimes you have to ask people that you don’t know or don’t trust for help. So getting your arms around the fact that everybody needs help and it’s not a weakness to ask for help. I wrote down what stops us from asking for help. I wrote weakness, fear of rejection, ego, all these things that I think get in the way of us asking for help, which then gets in the way of ultimately what the goal is.

So everybody needs help, period. Everybody needs help, period. Do not weak. Everybody needs help. So the next step is what do I need help with? Do I need help covering this thing on my docket? Yes, I do. I have a conflict. Who could I ask? I need help with things at home. Who can I ask to help with that? Then Liz, it’s so right. Make the ask. Also, listeners, don’t assume that asking for help is a one way street. This kind of gets back to our mentor mentee discussion. As a mentor, I benefit from that relationship. I know it feels like it’s one-sided, but it’s not. And Liz, you did this for me not that long ago, I asked you to help me with something, go somewhere, cover something. I can’t even remember what it was now. Oh, covering being a moderator for a panel that I couldn’t attend because I was in trial and you did me the favor of number one, agreeing to do that, but more importantly, coming back later and saying, I’m really glad you asked me to do that.

Here’s how it helped me. And that eases the guilt, if you will. Of course, y’all know I don’t really do guilt, but it eases that feeling that you’ve asked someone for a favor when they come back and they say, Hey, I really appreciate that opportunity. This is what I learned from it. So don’t assume, I think this stops us a lot from asking for help that you are asking for help and that there’s not going to be any benefit whatsoever from the person that you’re asking for help from. And when I hear those stories, I appreciate it for one. And I also digest it to the point where it makes it easier to ask for help from people the next time. Like maybe it’s not just a one way street, plus I think I’m bad because I don’t like asking for favors. And a lot of times asking for help feels like asking for a favor, but it’s not always.

I mean, sometimes, and I guess if you phrase it, Hey, can you do me a favor? Okay, maybe that feels that way. But I just would encourage everyone to recognize that help is needed by everyone in every aspect of their lives and do it sparingly and be appreciative of it. Always say thank you and always check in to make sure that you’re not overusing that person that you’re asking for help. And this goes in your personal life too, but I think as soon as you recognize that it’s not just something that someone’s doing for you and only for you, it just makes it easier.

Erica Blume Slater:

And the people aren’t creating a checklist in the back of their mind like, Hey, these are all the things I’ve done for you. And I mean, I don’t know, maybe there are some people who do that, but you’re going to know that you’re going to see that person coming from a mile away, someone who everything is transactional. That person don’t go to them for help because like you said, Amy favors are different than asking for help. Favors are. It’s a quid pro quo almost as opposed to rising tide lifts all boats attitude of helping one another. And Liz, what you were talking about earlier of that feeling of am I burdening someone whatever, I think that is extremely common for people at any point in practice, but certainly anyone who is at the point that they’re looking for mentorship or sponsorship. And as an example, I had a lunch with a young woman the other day who just took theBar.

She should find out her results next week and is still figuring out career paths and where she wants to go. She was very nicely but profusely thanking me. I tried to step back and we spent two hours at lunch and I tried to step back and be like, I want you to know how much this fills my cup. And I felt a little silly like, is this just serving my ego that you give a crap what I have to say? I’ve worked very hard to get to the point where whatever I am saying right now has any sort of value. So I think that especially among professional people, and I’d like to hope, especially among professional women, we’ve worked so hard to be in any position of leadership where we have a voice and people care about what we say, and we’re in the process and we’re at the table.

So to ask someone to speak on your behalf or Hey, can you go call that person on this committee selection committee or can you write a letter to this agency for me that I’m trying to get on that gives that person who you’ve asked a voice in the process and pulls them in and gives them some influence that otherwise they wouldn’t have if they weren’t asked. So it really I think is kind of a full circle thing. And I’m sure once you’re the adult in the room for decades, that may get old if you’re always asked. But I think that people who understand that they’ve benefited from that too are always willing to pay it forward. And that’s literally what I told this gal the other day, and she even asked, can I consider you my mentor? Can I keep coming back to you for some things?

And I’m like, absolutely. And you have to understand, I can’t pay my mentors back. I can only pay it forward. So as long as you understand that’s what you’re accepting, that if you’re going to pay it forward and understand that people who are coming behind you from this moment, there are law students who are just starting that you have years of experience on that you have something to provide. So I mean from that point, I can’t imagine an attorney who doesn’t need some sort of help at whatever point in their career. I just think the balance kind of shifts whether you’re giving help or asking for help.

Liz Lenivy:

Okay, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation because it’s just reaffirmed something that I already knew, which is that when I’m asked for help, I’m always happy to do it. I’m excited. And it’s for the exact same reason you said, Erica, if someone thinks that I can be beneficial, oh absolutely, my voice matters, my thoughts, my influence matters. But it’s the exact opposite feeling when you’re on the other end asking for help or I just feel like I have to say thank you 50 times in this conversation. When you’re the person being thanked, you’re like, okay, I get it. I get it, I get it. And I know that and I know this innate feeling, but just sort of having this reaffirmed by you all, it kind of gives me a little bit of extra, just the extra reminder that I needed that I’m not burdening people. You have to do it the right way and you can’t go to that well too much. But this is something that actually people like helping and people like having that positive impact on people’s lives.

Erica Blume Slater:

And the respect aspect, like you said, is just being thoughtful. If you’ve been thoughtful, then the person feels respected for their time and the whatever perceived burden or task that it is, if they feel respected and being asked, then I think that that takes away from that.

Amy Collignon Gunn:

So if all those things are true that people appreciate being put in a position where they can help because it means that they’re important or valuable, you get as much out of helping then that you do as someone being helped. Why is it still hard? Is it weakness to ask for help? Does ego stop me from asking from help? Is fear of rejection so high that I don’t even want to ask?

Erica Blume Slater:

I think it depends on what type of help you need. I think when we were talking kind of about the other baskets of help, if you will, Liz, what you were talking about is you choose your audience, but when you need help from specific people who can provide that to you, like you said, covering your docket or I need more paralegal staffing on this project or something conditional or finite like that, I think that depending on where you are, especially if it’s professionally, that may be a culture issue. I mean, I’ve been in different professional settings where people are falling over themselves. How can I help you? If you need something, just ask. And then I’ve been in other settings where you send out a all firm email to attorneys asking to cover a 30 minute hearing and it’s going to 30 or 40 attorneys and nobody gets back to you and you’re like, excuse me, second, ask, knock, knock.

Really, I’ve seen all your calendars. And I think that it can be hard to navigate that politically if you have to navigate a culture that doesn’t promote that or they’re fine to see you sink. And I think that that exists. I mean, as much as I think we have benefited from not always experiencing that on a day-to-day basis, I guarantee there’s people who are sitting there thinking, not at my workplace. Not everybody’s there to have your back. We’re all competing or we’re all doing this and we’re not there to pick up the slack. I think that can be really hard to navigate.

Amy Collignon Gunn:

So what is the result of not asking for help if we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just too costly to ask for help because of these fears and weakness and ego and that kind of thing? What is the result of not asking for help? I mean, I think I have an answer, but I’ve got an answer. Liz, you think it’s all the same?

Liz Lenivy:

I mean, I think if you’re unable to ask for help at some point you’re going to crash and burn, right? That’s exactly what I was saying. You’re going to hit that wall at some point.

Erica Blume Slater:

Yeah, I was thinking even on the other side, if you’re in one of those cultures that’s going to be a systemic failure that you as an organization will fail, you will lose good talent, you will lose people who are frustrated by that because they’re people who would reciprocate if given the opportunity. I think that you’ll certainly individually crash and burn, but your organization won’t be fostered by that.

Liz Lenivy:

This is why everyone should be forced to play team sports when they’re kids. I’m not saying you have to go be an incredible college athlete like your wife, but at least like herd soccer when you’re a kid, just to at least learn the importance of teamwork and how being an individual and trying to do everything individually is not always the route for success. And look, and I will say I very much was an individual sports person. I played tennis and swimming, not only is that individual, but I have a divider between me and my opponent. Don’t come here and pick, right? I’m sure you were in a relay somewhere or a doubles match. I mean, I’ll use my doubles partner as an example. She and I were paired together because we had opposite strengths and weaknesses, alright? I was not a great hitter, but I was quick to get to the ball.

She was not the fastest to get to the ball, but man, when she got to it, she would smack the, can you bleep this, smack the shit out of it. And so we were specifically paired together because we had different strengths and that made us a very good doubles team. And I think about that when I am now in practice, who might be someone that has different strengths than me and who can I take my strengths and help maybe make up for what their professional weaknesses are? I think that that also speaks to our firm too. It seems like sometimes we try to balance trial teams out or we try to balance attorneys out based on who has a specific type of experience. And Amy, I’m thinking about you in particular when sometimes when you’re called up to join a trial team on a case maybe you haven’t worked on, where is it often that you are brought in? It’s on damages and it’s because you have the medical knowledge and also I think you have a particular touch with it that helps you connect with the jury and explains the damages, not just the medical sort of objective black and white side of it, but also the human side of it. So that is something that’s a strength that you bring to a trial team that they may be otherwise lacking. And I’ve seen that happen a couple of times. What’s interesting, we’re talking about when you’re asked for help, you’re asked for help all the time.

And I think we’re all asked for help all the time in specific ways. And so for organizations that aren’t utilizing people in a way that will help each team member, that I don’t see how that could ever be a model for success.

Amy Collignon Gunn:

Don’t you think that does describe, I mean the competition describe a lot of law firms. My first firm was a firm where we had to bill hours and there was a good deal of healthy competition, I would say, among the new associates to bill the most hours. But I didn’t feel like if I wasn’t the one billing the most hours that it was detrimental to me. Maybe that was naive. I don’t know. I think there can be some healthy competition, but just getting back to this notion of asking for help and getting back, I guess to my question to the group and to myself was what’s the harm of not asking for help? And I think the answer is burnout, dissatisfaction, not feeling supported. Because maybe at some point you feel like someone should be recognizing that I’m burning out and that I need help.

Why isn’t anybody helping me sort of internalizing that? Not so much as I’m a failure because I haven’t asked for help, but what the hell is wrong with everybody around me that they can’t notice I need help? And then where does that spiral to? So if you’re in an environment where you’re not getting help, you’re not comfortable asking for help, gosh, I think that’s going to really burn you out quickly. I think it’s incumbent upon you, all of us, to assess how we’re feeling and why we’re feeling that way. Burnout can be caused by a lot of different things, not the least, which is being overwhelmed and not having enough help with what you’re doing. Now, I also learned from my mother a long time ago that after you reach a certain age, no one is there simply to take care of you. And barring spouses and parents, I mean there are some exceptions to that, but when you are in a professional place, you shouldn’t assume, and I don’t think it’s the firm’s job or the partner’s job or your boss’s job first and foremost, to constantly be checking with you. It’s incumbent upon you to know when you need to ask help. And gosh, that feel like we have kind of come full circle, which is you need to start with what do I need? So recognizing what is causing me this angst and then knowing how to fix it, and then knowing who to go to ask for help and

Erica Blume Slater:

Being direct with what you need. Amy, you said if you’re having that feeling of shouldn’t someone be recognizing unfortunately, at least in a professional setting, whatever your personal interactions are, we’ll leave that aside right now. But you have to be direct and have the self-awareness to evaluate that because right, nobody is sitting there watching exclusively for you over and above what they would be professionally. They’re not responsible for your wellbeing more so than you are. And as we’ve been talking too, like Amy, you said, why am I in? Why am I waking up in a bad mood? And I wrote down bad mood equals help mark what a revelation. It does. It totally does. And even recognizing some of those signs, if you feel more irritable or annoyed, maybe it’s because things are getting too stressful and you need to offload something or you need to engage, help to help some area of your life, whether work or professional run smoother.

But Liz, what you were talking about earlier too, something that I’ve learned, and I know I’ve talked about this, I ran for this judicial commission position and had an 11 month campaign. And honestly, that experience win or lose was such a professional milestone for me because I had to flex that help muscle and ask people to vote for me and talk to other people about voting for me for this position all day long, for 11 months. And that it first felt exhausting and then it just picked up pace and that muscle flexed. And I got over that feeling that you were talking about Liz. Not saying that I run out there without self-awareness of any asks that I have, but it really felt like a muscle that I needed to flex. And if you’re not forced to do that, I was in that very acute time period. It just felt like there was a barrier to entry. And now on the other side of that, it’s not nearly as intimidating as it was to me before. And honestly, it’s made all the difference in how I think about what I can, what is possible if that component is part of it, because that no longer makes me want to throw up it used to. So listeners, you can get to the stage of not instantly becoming nauseous if that’s your

Amy Collignon Gunn:

Goal. I think that a final thought is you’ve done all the things you’ve recognized, you need help, you’ve asked for specific help that the person has given it to you. Be gracious, show your gratitude. And it can just be as simple as saying, thank you. A quick note, don’t ever take it for granted. And I think that’s how it does make it easier to ask in the future or certainly easier for the person you’ve asked to continue to volunteer, to be someone to go to. And again, it doesn’t have to be some grand gesture, but certainly just showing gratitude a necessary component to the success of asking for help.

Erica Blume Slater:

Well, ladies, thank you for the discussion today. I really needed help to record this podcast because nobody was going to listen to me talk about this by myself. So thank you for your help today. You are welcome. Thanks for the gratitude too. Good practice. Thank you for joining us today, and you can catch our episodes every other Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have any questions or comments for us, drop us an email at comments at heels in the Courtroom law. Bye.

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