Why are you struggling to grow your practice?
Part of it is your misguided belief that you should have answers to all of your problems.
Instead of…
- Twisting and turning all night
- Lying in bed, wondering whether you’ll fall back to sleep
- Worrying about how you’ll function tomorrow on so little sleep
- Breathing through heart palpitations
- Being unable to swallow your food because of the lump in your throat
- Holding your hand up to see if it’s still trembling
- Snapping at your spouse or children
- Rolling your head from side to side to relieve the tension in your neck
- Struggling with diarrhea
- Sweating when it’s cool
- Drinking, smoking, and eating
…you should ask for advice.
Get your team involved. Get everyone involved.
Supply information to anyone who knows anything. Make it clear you that don’t have all the answers. Present your problems to your team and other helpful people. Let them figure it out.
They won’t think less of you. They won’t lose respect for you. You won’t lose your authority. You won’t be embarrassed.
Stop telling yourself you’ve considered all the possibilities. Stop convincing yourself that you’ve already explored every option. Stop believing that you’re the only one who can possibly dig your way out of this mess.
Let them help you.
They’ll feel respected, appreciated, and valued. They’ll take on more ownership and they’ll have more pride. They’ll know they played a part in the outcome and they’ll appreciate the rewards of their contribution and accept the consequences of their mistakes.
The best path is one that takes advantage of the synergy of many minds coming together and directs all efforts toward solutions.
Not every problem can be solved. There isn’t an answer to every question. Sometimes we fail.
You don’t have all the answers and that’s okay. No one expects you to know everything all of the time. If you always expect to have all the answers, you’ll never achieve your goals.
What if it’s just you by yourself? What if you work solo and have no one to turn to? If you think that, you’re wrong.
Sadly, the same forces are at work here. They keep us from asking outside helpful people just like they keep us from asking our teammates. Instead of asking other Rosen Institute members, we keep it to ourselves. We don’t want to look dumb, incapable, or ineffective. We want to maintain our image, keep on our armor, and project strength to the world.
There’s always someone willing to help. Truly, there is always someone.
Instead of asking for help at our bar association or on the local lawyer listserve, we keep our problems private so we don’t feel vulnerable, exposed and inept.
We don’t ask for help when we need it the most. We don’t ask for help when others are ready, willing, and able.
We don’t ask for help even when we’re part of a group designed to offer help. In these groups, we like to believe we’re the helper and not the helped.
It’s such a shame when we maintain our belief that we should have all the answers. Those others on the listserve or in the community would have felt good when they offered assistance. They would have invested themselves in the advice they gave and felt ownership in your success. They would have come forward and done more to be certain that the outcome they predicted actually took place.
Everyone loses when we don’t ask for help. Everyone loses, especially us, when we stick to the belief that we need to have all the answers.
