I wrote a book a couple of years ago. The whole thing started a few years earlier when I gave a keynote speech to the Graduate Women in Business at University of Texas Austin. It was a wonderful group of 250 new MBAs and I talked about resilience, using martial arts as a metaphor for life.
At the end of the speech, several young women encouraged me either to deliver a TED talk or write a book. The idea floated around in my head for quite some time until I finally wrote Don’t Fight Mad: A Black Belt’s Quest to Recapture Joy in 2021. The beginning of the book is a memoir, while the second section outlines seven steps to overcoming challenges and creating a joy-filled life.
But after I wrote those pages, I had the nagging feeling the book wasn’t complete.
And then it hit me: Overcoming challenges, tragedy, or setbacks isn’t the end of the story. When we come out the other end of hardship, we should share what we’ve learned, pay it forward, give someone else the benefit of our lessons.
We should help someone. And we should offer, because some of the hardest words to utter are, “Would you please…?”
In a perfect world, we’d use these words regularly. “Would you please help me get to the doctor?” should be as simple to say as “Would you please pass the salt?” Can you imagine a time when saying “Would you please sit here and hold my hand while I cry?” requires no more emotional strength than “Would you please pick up a loaf of bread on your way home?”
Words matter. And often the hardest words are the most important. It’s trendy to focus on self: self-care, self-love, self-actualization, self-reliance, self-whatever. But the hard truth is, we are made for community. Babies don’t survive without help and neither do adults. We may be able to cobble together a way to reach that dish on the top shelf without assistance. But what happens when the chair slips and we fall to the ground and break a leg? When our best efforts simply cannot keep the business afloat, the marriage alive, or the car running?
“I need help” are three of the hardest words to speak. “Would you please” is even harder, because we not only admit our lack, we put ourselves in a position of vulnerability, of risking someone telling us “No.”
And so, because words matter, when we have something to offer—when we’ve learned a gut-wrenching, powerful lesson—can we make the commitment to share it? To give someone else the benefit of our hard-won wisdom and to make it unnecessary to utter those painful, difficult words? To jumpstart the process of healing by speaking kindness into another person’s life without her having to ask?
We all need to get better at speaking the truth: We are made for community, we fall, and we sometimes need help.
And asking for help is so hard.
But if we use our words wisely—whether they are a gift or a supplication—we can all grow in community, in kindness, and in grace.
Would you please help me?
Wonderful wisdom here Cindy. Now I'm going to ask your readers to do something for you! "Would you please buy Cindy's new novel Bread Pudding in Barcelona and show your support by posting a review on Amazon?" BPB is a delightful read about how Azalea overcomes life's challenges with chutzpah and help from her friends. I'm already hooked on these characters, so Cindy would you please get the second novel published ASAP? :)
"We should help someone. And we should offer, because some of the hardest words to utter are, “Would you please…?”"
YES. You nailed it here. Those are super hard words, at least for me.
So how do we anticipate and kindly offer, "Can I help" or "how can i help" when we sense someone is in need of it?