The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Like most stage performers, I’ve always been most passionate about the final phase: the sharing.

That dad and his little girl didn’t want theater. They didn’t want to be provoked. They wanted to be entertained. But they also wanted something more. They wanted connection.

Effective crowdfunding is not about relying on the kindness of strangers, it’s about relying on the kindness of your crowd.

Despite the fact that the majority of passersby ignored me (and occasionally sent me into spirals of existential despair), I had come to have a sort of faith in the street, and in the general public, because they would instinctively protect me. I was truly vulnerable up there, but I felt a benevolent force field of human energy around me.

And so often, underneath it all, these questions originate in our basic, human longing to know: Do you love me?

bedraggled

The art of asking can be learned, studied, perfected. The masters of asking, like the masters of painting and music, know that the field of asking is fundamentally improvisational. It thrives not in the creation of rules and etiquette but in the smashing of that etiquette.

Minimal DIY doesn’t rely on trust; it relies on ingenuity. Maximal DIY relies on trust and ingenuity. You have to ask with enough grace and creativity to elicit a response, and you also have to trust the people you’re asking not to ruin your recording session, not to poison your food, not to bludgeon you with a hammer as you sit in their passenger

Let me finish, clown. You can’t ever give people what they want. But you can give them something else. You can give them empathy. You can give them understanding. And that’s a lot, and enough to give.