A founder’s reflection · October 2026
They know they should ask
Why asking for help is a feeling problem, not a knowledge problem
Ask most people whether it is wise to ask for help when you are stuck, and they will say yes. Ask them whether they actually do it, and the answer is often quite different. The students I worked with understood perfectly well that support existed and that they should use it. What stood in the way was not a lack of information. It was a feeling: the fear of looking foolish, of being a bother, of being the only one who did not understand.
This matters, because so many of our efforts to help are informational. We put up posters, send emails and list the services available, and then wonder why the people who most need them do not come. Telling someone that help exists does little for a feeling. What changes a feeling is experience, and what other people around us seem to think is normal.
Telling someone that help exists does little for a feeling.
One of the most encouraging findings in our published work was how strongly students agreed, after hearing senior students' stories, that asking for help is normal. Hearing people a little further along the road say it out loud, and describe how they learnt it themselves, seems to give permission in a way a brochure never can.
Communities can do the same. A few habits make a real difference. Leaders go first, and say what they needed help with this week. Asking is made small and specific, so that it does not feel like a confession. Giving is made easy too, because people ask more readily where they can also give back. And when someone does ask, the response is warm and quick, because everyone else is watching to see what happens.
Adam Grant and Wayne Baker have both written about how a culture of asking and giving can be built on purpose. I have come to believe it is one of the most practical gifts any community builder can offer. In a group where asking is normal, nobody has to struggle alone for long.
Dr Alten du PlessisFounder, BelongWell4Life
Take it further
- Ask and Give: build the habit of asking and giving in your group
- Hold Well: when someone in the group is not okay, and when to refer on
Further reading: Du Plessis et al. (2024), WEEF-GEDC, IEEE; Wayne Baker, All You Have to Do Is Ask (Currency, 2020); Adam Grant, Give and Take (Viking, 2013).