This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1828.
Why asking for help shows confidence.
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Do you pretend to understand when someone says something that you miss in English?
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Lindsay and Michelle talk about why asking for help actually shows confidence.
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Hey, Lindsay, today is a special day.
I always like to share my birthday with our listeners on the show.
Yes, today's my birthday and I'm not going to tell you what birthday it is, but I'm excited to share the day.
Well, happy, happy birthday.
I'm sure everybody listening wishes you just all the best, and from me too and the whole All Ears English team.
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
I mean, all I want is a chocolate lava cake.
OK.
Yeah.
So that lava just like oozes out.
So good stuff.
I hate when I don't get cake on my birthday.
I hate that.
So that's horrible.
Yeah.
So, Lindsay, I mean, what did like give us some wisdom?
Like what are what what have you learned in your life?
Oh, okay.
So I'd say the most important thing I've learned and I'm still learning it, by the way, I still struggle with this at times is learning to ask for help, having the confidence to ask for help when I need it.
And knowing that that's not weakness.
That's actually confidence when you ask for help.
That's a huge mindset shift, Michelle.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I mean, you said you're still kind of working on this.
I think maybe our listeners can relate to this.
And I mean, I certainly can.
This feeling of sometimes not wanting to ask for help, whether it's language learning or anything else, really not wanting to ask.
Out of fear of making a feeling like that makes it look like you don't know what you're doing, or that you know, I don't know, just not confident in some way.
Yeah.
Sometimes I wonder if this is also a pretty Western mentality because we're so individually minded.
Right.
Right. that we always say, I mean, we praise kids, oh, you tied your shoes all by yourself, right?
That's such a common expression.
We teach kids, we teach our culture to be independent.
So when it comes to asking for help, it's like we have to admit to ourselves we can't do it on our own.
But I've also seen our students all over the world in Asia, South America struggling, asking for help.
So maybe it's not just Western.
Maybe it's not just American culture, let's say.
Right.
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I mean, what about specifically for help when you are practicing a language?
I mean, you've lived abroad many times, like when you don't know something in a language, or have you felt that fear of asking for help.
Yeah, I mean I've tried, like when I was living in Japan, I tried to set up situations right from the beginning when I could, where I could always ask for help.
I had two great language language exchange partners, we would meet in the cafe before work.
I had my manager was Japanese and my assistant manager, and they loved that I was learning Japanese.
So I could ask them.
It was fun.
Like we made it fun.
I didn't put any pressure on it.
You know, that's the key.
So you set up people in your life that know you're learning, know you care and you can always ask them because you're being wholehearted about it.
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
So I mean, some of the things you might be asking right are like maybe asking someone to clarify something right.
You're not sure what they meant.
What else?
Okay, well, for sure, asking what a word or an idiom means.
Guys, you can't possibly, even if you've listened to every single episode of All Ears English, which some of you guys have, we know.
Yeah.
Yes.
You can't possibly know every word in the English language and that is totally okay.
Right, Michelle?
I don't know every word in the English language.
Do you?
Heck no.
No.
We have things on this show where I mean like we just had that episode like about to flag and I didn't really know what that meant.
It's just natural.
Like, no, I don't think anybody knows every single word in their own language.
No way.
It's impossible.
So we have to be able to ask this or, for our listeners, you may be in the situation where you're saying that you didn't understand what was said.
Right.
You know, don't pretend to understand.
I want to say that again, because don't do it, guys.
We know sometimes it might be easier to do that, but it's going to get you in trouble later.
That's right.
That's right.
Oh, my gosh.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So, I mean...
I think sometimes people don't want to ask because out of fear that it will show they're not confident.
Or maybe they don't want to ask.
But we're going to go over some misconceptions.
So a misconception is – well, what does that mean, a misconception?
That's a bonus word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Misconception.
Great word for today.
This means something that everyone believes, but it's not necessarily true.
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
So like a misconception about asking for help is that oh, that like oh, it sounds like you don't know, like what you're doing.
Yeah, totally.
That's a common misconception.
But that's not the case.
It is okay.
It does.
It shows confidence.
Right?
Yeah.
Like when we were talking about this earlier this morning, it was our epiphany of the day.
Right?
Oh, yeah.
It was great.
It was kind of a cool moment.
It was a cool moment.
And we realized actually that is total confidence asking for help.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Or people might think that it sounds like your language skills aren't very strong.
Like if you have to ask what a word means.
Yes.
You know, oh, well, like, I don't want to show that I don't know what this word means.
Right.
Right.
What's another misconception?
Yeah.
Yeah, you may think so.
These are things that you guys might think are true, but they're not true.
You may think people will think that you weren't listening.
I just want to be clear of what we're saying here.
Yes.
Right.
It doesn't mean that people are not going to think that you know, especially hanging around people who have tried to learn other languages.
Now
Right, right, right.
So we want to kind of dispel these myths.
So to dispel a myth means to like kind of break it to show that it's not true, right?
Exactly, exactly.
So why do we think that asking you know, we have this epiphany this morning.
We're really excited about it.
Yeah.
You know, and we want to make sure you guys know this, that it does show confidence.
But why, Michelle?
Why?
Right.
Well, I think that it shows that you're not worried about admitting that you didn't hear something, that you don't know something.
Right.
Like you, you, it's like you're not too preoccupied.
Right.
Like you are confident with being like, okay, well, I don't know this and that's okay.
I mean, one thing is, you know, make sure it isn't something you really should know.
Like if it's like...
Like you know something that's been like you've gone over a million times and it just.
You know something like we want to be clear, like if it's something you can still ask, but you know, if it's something that's been gone over 100 times by your boss and you're and you never.
I don't know that because, you know, you never know.
But in general, it's OK to admit these things.
Yeah, completely.
And now that I think about it, you know, in as a native speaker, I think it does the same thing.
Right.
If I'm a native speaker talking to another native speaker and I ask them Oh sorry, I just I don't quite understand, or I didn't quite understand what you said.
Could you go over that again?
That shows confidence too, right?
So it's not just you guys learning languages that need to worry about this.
We also show confidence when we ask someone to slow down, right?
Um, This also shows that you're human, of course, which is endearing to people.
People like to see that someone is human.
Yeah, it sounds so silly, but it's true.
And guess what?
You can also show off your language skills just by asking.
So okay, maybe you don't know this word, but you know a ton of other words that can help you ask the question.
Exactly.
So you know, this morning we were talking about an example where you are imagining an object and then you have to describe that object, but you actually use very interesting language to describe that object.
So you show your fluency and you practice your fluency.
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Right.
Absolutely.
So, I mean, Lindsay, what's the danger of not asking?
We touched on this a little bit, but let's go over it again.
I mean, you could miss something important.
You might get the directions wrong and you could go down the wrong path.
You could be missing things.
You could be doing an assignment entirely wrong.
So that's what's at stake.
Yes right michelle, that's what's at stake here.
Yeah, you know, of course i'm thinking of an episode of seinfeld, because when am i not?
But like it's.
But yeah, i think it's like that.
George like what happened, I can't remember exactly, but he he like, didn't he?
I think they were in the bathroom or something.
And he was, and maybe he walked out of the bathroom for a second and didn't realize that someone giving was giving him an assignment.
And then the whole episode, he has no idea what he's doing.
I'm pretty sure.
So guys, if you've seen that one, let me know.
But yeah, you don't know.
Like if you just like, yeah, yeah, I got it.
I got it.
And then it becomes harder and harder to go back and ask.
Like that's uncomfortable.
I mean honestly, isn't it more stressful in the long run to pretend you know something, try to fake it and always be thinking am I doing this wrong, versus just asking and getting it clear?
I mean, that's more stressful the first way.
I completely agree.
So, Lindsay, let's do some key phrases.
Okay.
Yeah, because we need the vocab to do this.
Now that our listeners have decided they're going to start, you know, guys start asking for clarification.
Okay.
Sorry, could you repeat that is one simple thing you could say.
Or you could say, would you mind explaining that word?
Or would you mind explaining that idiom?
Or what was that last thing you said?
Right.
I like the intonation there, Michelle, too.
Could you repeat that one for us, too, with your intonation?
Sure.
What was that last thing you said?
Yeah.
So that's it sounds interesting.
We've got intonation going here.
We've got fluency.
So you just need that that last piece.
Okay.
Exactly.
And then you can also, if you're really not sure, you can ask someone to write something down.
Sometimes that helps me.
So you could say something like are there any written directions, or could you write that down?
Or something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Totally.
I love that idea.
Oh man, I was actually at Home Depot the other day and trying to return some shades that we measured incorrectly, Michelle.
Oh, quite a task.
And I was out of my wheelhouse, being at Home Depot and not knowing what they were talking about with these shades.
So I had to really like slow down, ask for clarification.
What do you mean by this and this and this?
You know, it happens to us a lot.
We're out of our – where we hang out normally.
Yeah.
And it's good that you asked because yeah, if you had just stood there – like I think people can see through to, like you know, that fear of not asking.
Like, you should ask.
Like, you are the consumer.
Mm-hmm.
You need to understand what you're doing, you know?
So, like, you should ask.
And I think that that shows confidence, too.
Even though, yeah, you're showing, oh, you're not a shades expert, you know?
That's okay.
You don't work at the store.
You're not to, like...
So that's fine.
It's okay not to be an expert in everything.
So admitting that and asking the questions shows you're confident.
Whereas you know, do you ever see in?
I mean, the other way to do it would be, just if you're kind of nodding your head and you're like Oh yeah, okay.
Uh huh.
Yeah, you know, and people can see through.
Yeah.
And I mean, in this case, you know, there was a lot of money on the line, right?
Shades are really not cheap at all.
So guys, it's not, you know, stick with yourself.
You know, whether it's you need to get money back, it's something important like that.
I ended up walking out of there with a $500 credit at Home Depot.
Oh.
And if I had just pretended to understand and said okay okay, no problem, I would have lost 500, right.
Well, that is very exciting.
I spent two hours and I dug in my heels and obviously I was very polite and talked to the people, but we figured it out, even though I didn't really understand much that we were talking about it.
So it's not always money on the line, but sometimes it is.
If you're living in the United States, you have to return something.
You have to figure something out.
Stick with yourself, right?
Because you're worth it.
Absolutely.
I love that.
So, all right.
So we're going to do a little role play just with one of these examples, but just a little taste.
All right.
So Lindsay, you just explained a new project and I didn't hear what the last step was.
Okay.
All right.
So that's it.
OK.
What was that last thing you said?
Oh, step three.
Oh, yeah.
It's a bit odd.
So basically and then I'm going to I'm going to go on and explain it to you again.
Right.
Yeah.
So that's fine.
The other thing I could have said was just, oh, okay.
And then had no idea what I'm doing.
I know.
Well, that's the problem.
And honestly, sometimes we just don't hear someone.
I mean, today we were on a call and we just didn't hear a part of the question that was asked to us.
Right, Michelle?
Right.
And we just had to ask for that clarification.
You have to do it. you know, and that can be frustrating when you don't hear something well.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it certainly can.
So yeah, I mean, Lindsay, what's the takeaway for today?
All right, so guys, it's about admitting that you don't know something.
It really does show confidence.
It's also about having faith in yourself that you are worth it.
Your task is worth it.
Whatever it is you're trying to do, whether it's at work out in the world or trying to return something at a store and trying to work through all these details, right?
Stick with it and ask those questions because it actually does show that confidence.
Absolutely.
I love it.
Okay.
Well, this was a lot of fun.
I'm glad we came to our epiphany today, our famous epiphany.
So good for our listeners to get this.
Guys, keep us up to date.
Send us your questions, by the way.
We love your questions to base episodes on your questions.
So send them to lindsay at allearsenglish.com.
All right.
Good stuff, Michelle.
All right.
This was fun, Lindsay.
Guys, be confident and ask the question.
All right.
Talk to you soon.
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