The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
You can give them understanding. Just tell the story. Tell it all. They’ll understand. He smiled at me. You’ll be fine.
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we’ve already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts—sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love—back into the puzzle of the world.
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
And so you will take the coffee, because the truth of the matter is that your acceptance of the gift IS the gift. And if you’re not in a hurry, you will also draw the barista a picture, or draw a picture for his friend who’s a huge fan, or tell her about the Ben Folds song. And when he’s not looking, you leave a ten-dollar bill in the tip jar. Beca
... See moreAmanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
If I learned anything from the surprising resonance of my TED talk, it was this: Everybody struggles with asking. From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us—it’s what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of t
... See moreAmanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
It’s not the act of taking that’s so difficult, it’s more the fear of what other people are going to think when they see us slaving away at our manuscript about the pure transcendence of nature and the importance of self-reliance and simplicity. While munching on someone else’s donut. Maybe it comes back to that same old issue: we just can’t see wh
... See moreAmanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
You can move your mouth to ask, but what is the rest of your body saying? What is the message behind the words? Everybody knows how it feels to be asked in a way that creates discomfort, whether the asker is a drunk homeless person on a street corner or the naked person in bed beside you. Can we have sex? It’s been a month. Could you spare any chan
... See moreAmanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
The entertainment industry, reflecting the world at large, has been obsessed with the wrong question: how do we MAKE people pay for content? What if we started thinking about it the other way around: how do we LET people pay for content?
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
Asking is an act of intimacy and trust. Begging is a function of fear, desperation, or weakness. Those who must beg demand our help; those who ask have faith in our capacity for love and in our desire to share with one another.
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
And so often, underneath it all, these questions originate in our basic, human longing to know: Do you love me?
Amanda Palmer • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
will you loves me if i do x y n z?
When you accept somebody’s offer for help, whether it’s in the form of food, crash space, money, or love, you have to trust the help offered. You can’t accept things halfway and walk through the door with your guard up. When you openly, radically trust people, they not only take care of you, they become your allies, your family.