There. I said it.
Asking for help doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve always been what you might call fiercely independent. Like, lift-the-washer-by-myself-in-flip-flops kind of independent. I was DIY-ing before YouTube existed and way before the TickeyToks started showing folks how to turn mason jars into chandeliers and wooden pallets into chicken coops. If something needed doing, moving furniture, building a kitchen island, changing the oil and blades on my lawnmower, I’d just put my hair up in a ponytail, roll up my sleeves, and mutter, “I’ve got this.” No help needed. Possibly just some Advil and a heating pad afterward.
I remember one day, I was getting ready to install a backsplash. I’d just opened a shiny new wet tile saw when Nolan, who was maybe 11, looked at the saw, then at me, then back at the saw like he was watching an episode of When Projects Go Wrong.
“Um, Mom… do you think maybe you should ask someone for help who knows what they’re doing?”
I laughed. “Nope. I’ll figure it out.”
That’s been my life motto: I’ll figure it out.
Years ago, before I returned to the world of finance, I started a homemade ice cream company. Our dairy farm was struggling, and I wanted to create value out of something we had plenty of—milk. We lived less than an hour from a college with a dairy incubator lab, the only one of its kind in the country at the time.
Only one teensy little issue: I didn’t know how to make ice cream. Or run a business. Or market anything besides sarcasm. But was that gonna stop me? Bless it, no.
The lab director asked me what my plan was to create, manufacture, and run an ice cream company.
I smiled, all bright-eyed and delusional. “I’m going to figure it out.”
He handed me a hefty book called Ice Cream. Turns out, this wasn’t a little-of-this, dash-of-that kind of situation. Ice cream is a science. You’ve got to calculate fats and solids using something called the Pierson Square Formula. I nodded like I knew what that meant. I did not.
I took the book home, studied it like scripture, scribbled notes, ran formulas, and cried real, actual, ugly tears. Weeks later, I walked back into his office with mascara-smudged defeat, and handed him the book.
“Thank you… but I don’t think I can do this.”
He asked a few questions about what I wanted the ice cream to be like, picked up the phone, made one call, and handed me a printout.
“Here’s your Ives Cream formula,” he said with a kind smile. “Katie, you don’t have to know everything. You just have to ask for help.”
Whew. There it was.
Fast forward to when we joined Good Life. Suddenly, I had a team. Actual grown-ups who know things. People who don’t try to wrestle with Excel formulas at midnight or threaten to toss the printer out the window. Folks who exist to take some pressure off so we can focus on what really matters—our clients.
And yet... I still catch myself spending half an hour trying to fix a spreadsheet or troubleshoot a tech issue like I’m auditioning for IT Survivor. That’s when Josh, our Advisor Liaison and my unofficial Jiminy Cricket, gently reminds me:
“Katie, you’ve got a team for that. Ask for help.”
I’m learning. Slowly. I don’t have to carry everything on my own. Or all the groceries in one trip, even though I’m absolutely going to try.
Now that I’ve had a few more birthdays, I feel every single “I’ll do it myself” decision in my back, hips, and sometimes deep in my soul. I’m convinced I still have freezer-moving trauma from the Ives Cream days. These days, I save the heavy lifting for when my boys come over. And sometimes I even let them carry two bags at once. Look at me go!
Asking for help doesn’t make us weak. It makes us wise. And slightly less sore in the morning.
Jesus told His disciples that even though He would be leaving them in body, they wouldn’t be alone:
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper…” (John 14:16).
So, as we navigate our new Southern Pines office, two locations, and new clients, I’m learning to pause, take a deep breath, and just ask for help.
I’ve got a team for that. And Lord, I’m so thankful.
We were never meant to do it all by ourselves. Even if we do own a wet tile saw.
