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 stop doing that today Lindsay and Michelle talk about
why asking for help actually shows confidence get more details today
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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 all right 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 okay yeah so just how that lava just
like oozes out so yeah that's good stuff I hate when I don't get cake on my birthday I hate that
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 did 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 have you I mean you said like you're still kind of working on this like
um yes why do you think 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're I know yeah 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 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 you know maybe it's not just a 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 exchange Partners we would meet in the
cafe before work I had my 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 pass it even if you've listened to every single episode of
allers English which some of you guys have we know yes uh 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 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 okay 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
um 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 gonna go over some some
misconceptions so like so a misconception is what but what is what does that mean a misconception
that's a bonus word 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 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 no people
are not going to think that you know especially hanging around people who have tried to learn
other languages you know 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 had this Epiphany this morning and we're really excited about it
yeah you know and we want to make sure you guys know this that it does to 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 proud right
you 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 some
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 a hundred times by your boss and your and you never I don't know that
because you know you never you never know but in general it's okay 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 yeah if I'm a new speaker talking to another other native speaker and I asked 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 yeah like
um and guess what you can also show off your language skills just by asking yeah so okay
maybe you don't know this word but you know a ton of other words that 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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foreign
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 ah 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 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 um 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 that's stressful I mean honestly isn't it more stressful in the long run to pretend
you know something try to fake it uh and 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 gonna start you know guys start asking for clarification
um 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 right I like the intonation there Michelle too could you repeat that one for us too
with your intention 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
um and then you can also if you're really not sure you can ask someone to write something
down sometimes that helps me um so you could say something like are there any written directions
or could you write that down or something like that 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 I think people can see through totally to like you know
that fear of not of not asking like you should ask like you are the consumer you need to 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
you I mean the other way to do it would be just if you're kind of nodding your head and you're like
uh 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 they're 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 logging out of there with a 500 credit at Home Depot 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 you know talk to the people but like we figured it out even though I didn't really
understand much that we were talking about 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 um so all right so we're
gonna do a little role play just with one of these examples but yeah uh 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 uh uh okay um what was that last thing you said oh step three oh yeah it's a bit
odd so basically and then I'm gonna I'm gonna 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're on a call and we just didn't hear a part of the question that was asked to us right Michelle
um 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 um 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
um 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 you know 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 all earsenglish.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 bye foreign
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