How to ask for help
By Mr.Pancake on Sunday, 5 of July , 2009 at 6:38 am
When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude
Someday we all have to turn to an ally for help. If you are in that situation please do not bother to remind her of your past assistance or the earlier help you have given. She may just find a way to ignore you. Instead uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with her, that will benefit her, and emphasize with her, and emphasize it out of all proportion. She will respond enthusiastically when she sees something to be gained for herself.
Remember there is an art to asking for help, an art that depends on your ability to understand the person you are dealing with, and to not confuse your needs with theirs.
Must people never succeed at this, because they are completely trapped in their own wants and desires. They start from the assumption that the people they are appealing to have a selfless interest in helping them. They talk as if their needs mattered to this people who really couldn’t care less. Sometimes they refer to larger issues: a great cause, or grand emotions such as love and gratitude. They go for the big picture when simple, everyday realities would have much more appeal. What they do not realize is that even the most powerful person is locked inside needs of his own, and that if you make no appeal to her self-interest, she merely sees you as desperate or, at best, a waist of time.
A key step in the process is to understand the other person’s psychology. Is she vain? Is she concerned about her reputation or her social standing? Does she have enemies you could help her fighting. Is she simply motivated by money and power.
Self interest is the lever that will move people. Once you make them see how you can in some way meet their needs or advance their cause, their resistance to your request for help will magically fall away. At each step on the way to better your life, you must train yourself to think your way inside the other person’s mind, to see their needs and interests, to get rid of the screen of your own feelings that obscure the truth. If you master this art there is no limits to what you can accomplish.
