Dr. Peter J. Weiss

Hi, I’m Dr. Pete Weiss of More Health Less Care, and today I’d like to talk about the three most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. No, the three most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage are not, “I love you.” A lot of peo­ple say that, but I think the 3 most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage are “Please help me.”

Think about the power in ask­ing for help. You can get almost any­thing you need done. If you’re hav­ing a prob­lem, find some­body who’s an expert, some­body who can help you and say, “Please help me.” — Please help me get well. Please help me do bet­ter at my job. Please help me be a bet­ter par­ent. Please help me be a bet­ter hus­band, or wife. You can accom­plish a lot if you’re will­ing to ask for help in life.

But it’s hard! You know, a lot of peo­ple don’t ask for help, and men pro­vide good exam­ples. Think about the man dri­ving, lost and unwill­ing to stop and ask for help by seek­ing direc­tions. Even though his wife is say­ing, “Honey, honey, can’t we ask for direc­tions? We’re lost.” He replies, “No, we’re not lost! And I don’t need any help!” That’s the way a lot of us are. It’s very, very hard to ask for help.

I think that’s because we’re wor­ried about what other peo­ple will think of us. Or who are we if we can’t do it on our own? What will peo­ple think of us if we admit that we need help, or that we have a prob­lem that we can’t han­dle? And we give that power over us — that fear of what other peo­ple will think about us. This is very, very com­mon. But it’s also very harm­ful, you will have a hard time in life if you go around wor­ry­ing all the time what other peo­ple think of you. So try to free your­self up a lit­tle bit and not worry so much about other peo­ple. And the truth is, other peo­ple really aren’t think­ing of you all that much.

I have a lit­tle story about that. Per­haps you’ve noticed I have acne on my face. It’s not so bad today but you can see some scar­ring. When I was a kid I had acne that was pretty bad, and the doc­tors always told me, “Oh, you’ll grow out of it. When you’re older it will go away.” Well it didn’t go away, and here I am in my fifties, and I still have it. And it both­ers me from time to time. Now I get a zit on my face and I think, “What are peo­ple going to think?” I’m walk­ing around with zits on my face and peo­ple see that and I just wish it wasn’t there. What are other peo­ple going to think of me? You know, I’m like every­body else.

So one day I was with a friend that I’ve known for a long time and I men­tioned to her that my face was both­er­ing me — that I had this acne and it still both­ered me. Other peo­ple would see these zits on my face, and that would be bad. You know what she said to me? She said, “You have acne?” It wasn’t even part of her per­cep­tion of me that I had acne.

So here I am, you know, wor­ry­ing what other peo­ple think of me, and this is my friend who just thinks of me as her friend and isn’t really focused on the acne on my face. And that’s really the truth of the mat­ter. The truth of the mat­ter is most other peo­ple are not think­ing about you all the time. They’re doing the same thing you’re doing, which is think­ing about what you think of them, and they’re wor­ried about look­ing good in your eyes. So try to get over that.

Any­way, my mes­sage today is, try to get over this idea of that you can’t ask for help. And just try ask­ing for help. And try to get over this idea that what other peo­ple think of you mat­ters, because in the long run your life really isn’t about other peo­ple, it’s about you. So free your­self from other people’s opin­ions, and ask for help.