The Best Entrepreneurs I Know All Have This Widely Accessible Superpower

You may not know Neil Peart, but you’ve surely heard some of the songs he wrote for the band Rush. Back in 2021, I stumbled across a question Peart regularly asked himself:

“What is the most excellent thing I can do today?"

Hold that thought for a second while I tell you about my friend Allan.

Allan’s Widely Accessible Superpower

Hmm… how to describe him?

Allan is always up to shenanigans: overhauling a sailboat, transforming a derelict auto repair garage into a “warehome,” starting a taco joint and brewpub, or mobilizing people in his hometown of Panama City, Florida, after a hurricane.

Because Allan’s a serial entrepreneur and always up to something interesting, he’s always in need of something.

The questions and requests in his Twitter and Facebook feeds were like portholes that provided glimpses into his latest project:

“Where can I buy a dozen church pews?”

“Who knows someone local who can sand a fiberglass hull?”

“Who can I pay to rewire a traffic light so that it works with an on/off switch?”

Again and again, Allan would ask for help, and he understood something long before I did:

If you ask for help, you give someone the gift of helping. If you don’t ask, you deny someone that joy.

How quick are you to ask for help?

I’ll admit that for most of my career I believed I needed to figure things out on my own.

That belief was a rat’s nest of other trash and half-formed impressions:

• Asking for help makes you weak.
• Being in need is the same as being needy.
• If you ask too much, people will think worse of you.
• People are busy. I don’t want to get on anyone’s nerves.
• I need to have it all together so people will perceive me as a professional.

Around and around the limiting beliefs went, like a carousel.

These days, I have the dubious gift of hindsight, and I can see how often I stunted my own growth because I did my own research, educated myself painstakingly, and formulated my own plan of attack slowly.

Pick up the power sander, silly.

The operative words are “my own” because there was an ugly streak of pride mixed in. Though I wouldn’t have come right out and say it, I wanted the credit.

Like Tom Hanks’s character in the film Castaway, I wanted to be able to dance around the fire and proclaim, “Look what I have created!”

There’s nothing wrong with educating oneself. There’s nothing wrong either with solo acts of creation.

However, building a business you love has more in common with sanding a sailboat’s hull than writing a novel.

If someone knows a faster, easier, or better way to do it, then why should you or I congratulate ourselves if we do it the hard, inefficient way?

There’s no Boy Scout leader bestowing merit badges because you bloodied your fingers when you might have slipped on gloves and plugged in the power sander.

Our first impulse should be to ask ourselves, “Who?” not “How?”

Asking for help is the power sander.

Or, to bring it back around to the Neil Peart question, the most excellent thing entrepreneurs can do many days is asking not “How can I do this?” but “Who already knows how to do this? Who can help me?”

Boy howdy, do I wish someone had smacked this better belief into my head back in 2009.

Instead of hacking together awful WordPress sites and disliking both the process and the outcome, I might have asked a developer who found it fun and easy BEFORE wasting precious time earning nonexistent merit badges.

Self-reliance is honorable until it’s slow, stupid, and prideful.

Austin, pick up the power sander, silly.

Choose the better strategy.

Can you save money by doing things by yourself? Maybe.

Can you figure things out on your own? Probably.

Does it make more sense to accelerate your progress by finding someone to save you time, mistakes, and frustration?

Absolutely.

If you find yourself thinking, “I need to figure this out on my own,” challenge that belief.

Shine a flashlight in its face: “Why do I need to do this on my own? Who said that’s the better way? Oh, no one? Just as I thought.”

Not trying to figure out everything or do everything on your own is the better strategy.

The best entrepreneurs l know ask for help early, often, without self-consciousness.

Being in need doesn’t make you needy. It makes you human.

No matter what you’re struggling with today, choose the better strategy and ask for help.

When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Freelance Fixes. This short guide walks you through 6 small but important “fixes” that you can make to raise your income without working longer hours. People really seem to like it.
2. Morning Marketing Habit. This course will help you build an “always be marketing” practice, become less dependent on referrals, and proactively build the business you want with the clients you want. My own morning marketing habit has enabled me to consistently make  6 figures as a freelancer.
3. Clarity Session. It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle. I've done well over 100 of these 1:1 sessions with founders, solopreneurs, and freelancers who wanted guidance, a second opinion, or help creating a plan.