0:15

Pushkin. We're

0:24

in a first grade classroom in Beijing, China.

0:27

It's about twenty years ago, ahead of the

0:29

annual holidays. To mark the occasion,

0:31

a teacher has brought and wrapped presents for her

0:34

students. The gifts are stacked up in a

0:36

corner ready to be handed out.

0:38

And if she's just stopped right there, it'll be a great

0:40

story.

0:41

Ja Jan was one of those excited kids.

0:43

But she had all of us come to the front of a

0:46

classroom and said, hey, why didn't you guys

0:48

say nice things about each other? If someone

0:50

calls your name and says something nice about you,

0:52

you can go get a gift and sit down.

0:54

One by one, the kids started sharing kind

0:56

words about their classmates.

0:58

It was great when it started. Someone's can

1:00

sing really well. Someone is helpful to other teachers,

1:03

and I'll applaud as with might turn with.

1:05

The flow of compliments soon slowed down

1:07

and then petered out. Comely worried,

1:10

Jaw's teacher asked, doesn't anyone

1:13

have anything nice to say about the students who

1:15

are still at the front of the class. No

1:17

one spoke. Three gifts

1:19

sat uncollected in the corner, and three

1:21

kids stood rejected. At the front of the

1:23

room, and I was.

1:25

One of them.

1:27

It was just a fleeting few minutes in Jav's life,

1:30

but the events of that day cast a long shadow.

1:33

Joh eventually graduated school, then

1:35

headed to college, and began a new life

1:37

outside China.

1:39

But the thing is, once I came to the United

1:41

States, I started following like a

1:43

path of almost like at least resistance.

1:46

Nearing his thirties, j'all felt like he was being

1:48

held back from chasing his dreams and fulfilling

1:50

his potential, and he traced some of

1:52

that back to the fateful day many years ago,

1:55

where he stood rejected in front of his classmates.

1:57

Pretty sure it didn't help.

1:59

You See, Jean needed all the confidence, self

2:02

belief, and drive he could muster because

2:04

he had a dream.

2:05

I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

2:08

You know, I actually come from a family of

2:10

teachers, but I didn't never want to

2:12

be a teacher. I want to be entrepreneur because

2:14

I was inspired by Bill Gates.

2:16

Becoming the next Bill Gates requires a willingness

2:19

to put yourself out there. You've got to be

2:21

prepared to tell potential investors and clients

2:23

about your big plans and you've got to

2:25

be prepared for them to laugh you out of the room. You

2:28

have to knock on door after door after door,

2:30

asking for support and backing until

2:33

you get the answer you want. And Jaw

2:35

just wasn't sure he could handle that.

2:37

I just felt like my fear of rejection was

2:39

really holding me back.

2:40

Though now fully grown, Jaw still felt

2:43

the pain of his six year old self.

2:44

And I was just miserable, to be

2:47

honest, because I feel like I'm getting

2:49

old. My wife was pregnant, and I

2:51

just feel like I probably missed my mark to be this

2:54

entrepreneur that I've always wanted to be.

2:56

So was shopping to admit defeat and give

2:58

up on his dream and remain miserable on

3:00

this path of least resistance.

3:03

Nope, So that's where I realized

3:05

I got to overcome this fear of rejection.

3:08

Even if you didn't get dissed by your entire

3:10

first grade classroom, you can probably

3:13

still relate to Jah's lack of confidence.

3:15

It's not just entrepreneurs who need to make

3:18

themselves vulnerable to others. Whether

3:20

it's in our careers or just in daily life,

3:22

many of us have a hard time asking for the

3:24

help we need because, like Jeah, we

3:26

fear rejection. We may worry

3:28

we'll get a big fat no from a friend or stranger,

3:31

or we may just hate the idea of bothering busy

3:33

people. We may fear being seen

3:35

as pushy or annoying or needy.

3:38

These fears may feel very real, but

3:40

do they match the reality of reaching out to the

3:42

people around us when we need help. By

3:45

not even opening the conversation, are

3:47

we actually making ourselves and other people

3:49

less happy than we could be. Our

3:54

minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.

3:57

But what if our minds are wrong? What if our

3:59

minds are lying to us, leading us away

4:01

from what will really make us happy. The

4:03

good news is that understanding the science of the

4:05

mind can boin us all back in the right direction.

4:09

Listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie

4:11

Santos.

4:18

I was a former college football player, so

4:21

asking for helps not the kind of thing I

4:23

typically did very much.

4:25

This is Social Connection expert and Happiness

4:27

Lab regular Nick Eppley lake

4:29

Shaw. Nick grew up with a reluctance to

4:31

ask for help.

4:33

It's pretty strong and capable, and I could do

4:35

stuff, and that always made me

4:37

fairly reluctant to ask others for help

4:39

to do almost anything.

4:41

If you've heard Nick on other episodes of this season,

4:43

you may recall that he studies the way our minds

4:45

mess up when it comes to happier social connection.

4:48

Recently, his lab has turned to the fears

4:51

that he and so many of us have when it

4:53

comes to asking for help.

4:54

And our research and that of many others in the

4:56

field has been making it crystal clear that many

4:58

of those fears are miscalibrated, that

5:00

as they're exaggerated, we tend

5:02

to underestimate how positively these

5:04

interactions are going to go.

5:06

Nick's work begins from a premise that many researchers

5:09

argue is a universal psychological truth.

5:12

We enjoy doing nice stuff for other people.

5:14

I think feeling happy to have helped is

5:16

a very real thing. You go do something kind

5:18

for somebody else, you'll feel pretty darn good.

5:20

We usually notice how good it feels to help

5:22

others when we're in the role of the helper. We

5:25

forget that the same maxim holds for the people

5:27

we ask to help us.

5:29

Notice that asking for help from somebody else

5:31

gives an opportunity to do something kind for you.

5:34

And by not asking for help, you

5:36

are really missing out on an opportunity

5:38

to make somebody else feel good.

5:40

We sometimes worry that our requests will be a

5:42

burden on the person we approach, that

5:44

they'll feel pressured to say yes, but

5:47

Nick's research shows that that usually isn't

5:49

the case, Especially when we have a relatively

5:51

simple request, Calling upon another person

5:53

for assistance can be a gift not just

5:55

to ourselves but also to the person

5:58

we ask.

5:59

So in some ways, it seems almost selfish

6:01

to not ask other folks for help when they could give

6:03

it to you easily, because you're denying I'M an

6:05

opportunity to do something kind for you.

6:07

The problem is we you We usually don't see

6:09

it that way, and when we fail to ask for help,

6:12

we don't get to witness the happiness boost it gives

6:14

us or the person giving us assistance,

6:17

and so we continue to believe that seeking

6:19

help is an imposition rather

6:21

than a wonderful way to bond and make everyone

6:23

happier.

6:24

We only get feedback from the things we

6:27

choose to do, and we don't get feedback

6:29

from the things we choose to avoid, And

6:31

in an imperfect world like that,

6:34

we're going to get a systematically distorted

6:37

view of how these social interactions are going to

6:39

go that naturally confirms our

6:41

belief.

6:42

To test just how deeply ingrained these false

6:45

beliefs are, Nick designed a simple experiment.

6:48

He set up a photo op at a popular spot

6:50

on campus. But the camera he

6:52

put out there wasn't a modern smartphone.

6:54

It was a vintage Polaroid instant camera.

6:57

And that choice was key because

6:59

old school polaroids aren't built to let

7:01

you take selfies.

7:02

So in the old days, if you wanted

7:04

somebody to take a picture of you as a you got to go up

7:07

and ask them to do it.

7:09

Subjects had to find a stranger to assist them,

7:11

But before they approached anyone, the subjects

7:14

were asked how annoyed they thought the stranger would

7:16

be by being stopped, and how positive

7:18

their mood would be afterwards. Nick

7:20

later compared these predictions to what the strangers

7:22

actually said about taking the polaroids,

7:25

and.

7:25

We found that people tended to underestimate how positively

7:27

others respond, how willing they would

7:29

be to help, how happy they would feel

7:31

helping after they actually did. It was

7:34

a more positive experience for the

7:36

person you asked for help than people expected.

7:38

Nick subjects also grossly overestimated

7:41

how inconvenience the photo takers would feel.

7:44

Their guesses were six times higher

7:46

than what the helpers themselves later reported

7:49

six times higher. Our predictions

7:51

of how other people will react to our helping

7:53

requests are way way off.

7:55

They were likely to want to try to help

7:57

you, and given that they were perceiving it as an act

7:59

of kindness, given that you'd ask for it, they'll

8:02

feel good when they actually help you out.

8:04

Results like these prompted Nick to rethink

8:06

his own resistance to asking for help.

8:09

Here in Chicago sometimes snows in the winter, but

8:11

if I couldn't plow my drive I was often

8:13

reluctant to have a neighbor come

8:16

and shovel my driveway. And then

8:18

our work, in part, made it clear to me that

8:20

the neighbor would probably feel pretty good being

8:23

able to do that for me, And

8:25

so I now will ask him if he could

8:27

do that if I can't, if I can't shovel it,

8:30

and it's created lots of good conversations between

8:32

us where I get a chance to thank him for that. He feels

8:34

good for it, and I don't think I ever would have

8:36

done that before.

8:38

Asking for help to take a quick photo, or for

8:40

a friendly neighbor to lend you a hand shoveling snow

8:42

are great places to start. But aspiring

8:45

entrepreneur Jajong was in a hurry. He

8:48

wanted to supercharge his fight against his crippling

8:50

fear of rejection, so the approach

8:52

he took was rather a extreme.

8:55

He decided to ask people for some pretty

8:57

fantastic favors.

8:59

I saw this big guy. He looked like a security

9:01

guard of some sort, and he was sitting behind a desk.

9:03

And I said, okay, I'm going to ask him. Then

9:06

I said, just inching toward him, I

9:08

just slowed down. I was like, this is

9:10

so scary, but my heart was calending.

9:12

I was sweating.

9:14

Well hear how all this turned out? When the Happiness

9:16

Lab returns in a moment want

9:23

to be entrepreneur Jan Jong wanted to beat

9:26

his fear of rejection, so he began

9:28

where a lot of us do when we're ready for a big

9:30

behavior change. He did a

9:32

Google.

9:32

Search Google has not real

9:34

Yoda.

9:36

After a few clicks, Jean stumbled on a website

9:38

that would change his life forever. Rejection

9:41

Therapy dot com, a site

9:43

that teaches a practice known as exposure

9:45

therapy. Let's say you

9:47

want to get over your phobia of heights. Exposure

9:50

therapy would tell you to confront that fear by visiting

9:53

locations a little bit above ground level

9:55

and then over time climbing higher and higher,

9:58

so that, through gradual exposure, you get

10:00

used to heights. Rejection Therapy

10:02

dot com applies that same logic to

10:04

the fear of asking for help. The

10:07

website suggests things like challenging

10:09

a stranger to a game of rock, paper scissors

10:11

or asking for a small discount the next time

10:14

you buy something. The challenges

10:16

even have different levels, so you can start

10:18

with just a mild taste of rejection and

10:20

gradually build up to going way out of

10:22

your comfort zone. Jew was ready to

10:24

dive in.

10:25

I was like, this is the best idea I've ever heard.

10:27

The site recommended a month long challenge,

10:29

thirty days of rejection, and I.

10:31

Didn't want to do thirty days because I was like, you know,

10:33

I want to go hardcore. Let me overdose

10:36

on rejection and see what happens. So

10:38

I did the one hundred days of rejection, and

10:40

rather.

10:41

Than performing these challenges privately, Jaque

10:43

decided he needed to film all his interactions

10:46

and to share them with the entire world.

10:48

I know if I do this by myself,

10:50

I probably get a couple of rejections.

10:52

This is quit.

10:52

But if I declare that to the world, and

10:55

I would think people will hold me accountable. So I

10:57

can't just quit that easily. So that's

10:59

what I did, all right. This is my

11:01

first try.

11:03

Day one of John's rejection marathon started

11:05

pretty spectacularly.

11:06

I'm going to try to borrow one hundred dollars

11:09

from a stranger.

11:11

Jah picked a security guard sitting by a desk

11:13

in the marble filled lobby of a nice mall.

11:16

Excuse me, do you think I'm borrow a hundred

11:18

dollars from you?

11:19

The security guard looked confused,

11:22

like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

11:24

No, no, why, all right?

11:27

No, okay, sorry, thanks.

11:29

Jew didn't wait around to answer the security guards

11:32

question.

11:33

I just ran as fast as I could.

11:35

Jaw was downhearted. He assumed

11:37

the interaction had gone terribly, that

11:39

the guard had badly rejected him.

11:42

But all that changed once he watched

11:44

the footage.

11:45

I was like this NFL scout looking at a

11:47

game film, you know, analyzing myself.

11:49

Jaw was shocked by what he saw, and

11:51

not by the guard's reaction, but by his

11:54

own.

11:54

I looked so scared, and I was like, oh wow,

11:57

I didn't know he was a security or someone. I

11:59

don't know. He just sits there. He looks like

12:01

a security guard. I thought

12:03

he might pull off a gun or just

12:07

yell at me or something.

12:09

Watching the video revealed that Shaw had

12:11

nothing to be scared of. He didn't get

12:13

the hundred bucks, but the guard was nice.

12:16

He even gave Jaw a window of opportunity. He

12:18

asked Jaw why, like, why did

12:20

he need the hundred bucks?

12:21

Anyway? I could have said many things.

12:24

I could have negotiated with him. I could have said,

12:26

if you can do a hundred, can do five, you

12:28

know he can do one. I could explained

12:31

that was overcoming our fair rejection. I

12:33

just ran. So I said, Okay, next

12:36

time, no matter what happens, I am going to

12:38

stay engaged. So I'm not going

12:40

to run. That's the thing. I'm not going to run.

12:42

One day two of his one hundred days of rejection,

12:45

Jaw headed to his favorite burger joint, Five

12:47

Guys Burgers and Fries. He

12:49

purchased a cheeseburger and ate it, and

12:52

then returned to the counter for the big.

12:54

Ask, Yes, burger,

12:57

Could I get a burger reveal?

12:58

Could he have a burger refill?

13:01

That is another cheeseburger totally

13:03

for free?

13:06

Okay, all right, I'd

13:08

like you guys a lot more, even have a burger ripping on

13:10

him.

13:11

The cashier said no. But this time

13:13

Jell didn't run away and.

13:14

I started negotiating. I started to stay calm

13:16

and actually explained myself. And when

13:19

that left, I didn't feel us bad

13:21

like I feel way better than the first

13:23

day.

13:25

Jah was rejected. Five guys

13:27

does not offer burger refills, even

13:29

if you ask politely, But the no

13:31

Jah received from the cashier yet again came

13:34

with more kindness and humor than he expected.

13:36

Day two was the success on to

13:39

day three.

13:41

By day three, Jea already felt like he was

13:43

heading for a rejection gold medal.

13:45

I'm driving to a Krispy Kreme.

13:47

So his next ask took his odd requests

13:50

to Olympic level heights of ridiculousness.

13:53

I'm going to ask them to make me some specialized

13:56

donuts.

13:57

Joh one of the folks at Krispy Kreme to make

13:59

him a set of five donuts interlocked

14:01

in the shape of the famous Olympic rings.

14:03

Well, there's no way they're gonna say yes to that, you know,

14:06

And I would just come in and make a joke and

14:08

get read jacked in and hopefully not be too

14:10

scared.

14:13

Yeah.

14:13

The employee, Jackie Brawn, got a pen and paper

14:16

and asked joh to help her sketch out the design.

14:19

She didn't look angry or confused. She

14:21

kind of seemed to relish the challenge.

14:23

And fifteen minutes later she brought me out

14:25

a box of donuts that looked like Olympic rings.

14:28

That is really good.

14:31

That's really good. Yeah, man,

14:33

you'll make me really happy today.

14:35

Jackie didn't even charge Jot for the donuts.

14:38

It's on me, she told him with a big beaming

14:40

smile.

14:41

So when I was walking out at that donut

14:43

shop, I was like, Wow, how many yeses have I

14:45

missed my life? Because I was expecting a no.

14:47

So that was a magic moment for me.

14:50

Pleased with his success, John went home and

14:52

posted the Day three video, but

14:54

it didn't get the handful of us he was expecting.

14:57

Millions of people watched that donut clip.

15:00

It got so much attention that his Olympic

15:02

ring donut story wound up on daytime

15:04

television shows.

15:05

I think Krispy Kreme stock actually went up

15:07

that day. God, there's like a marketer's dream,

15:10

right, ask them for uh donuts

15:12

that looked like Olympic rings and I

15:15

was like, no way, they're going to say yes. They couldn't

15:17

say no to me. They were like, yeah, how can I make

15:19

this? And when I left there,

15:21

I just had tears in my eyes because I just

15:23

couldn't believe. This world is

15:25

much nicer than I thought. It's much kinder than I

15:27

thought.

15:28

Joe's donut success was a turning point

15:30

for him. It convinced him that he could

15:33

successfully ask for just about anything,

15:35

and Shaw really did ask for rather

15:38

strange things. He asked to become

15:40

a mannequin in a department store, to

15:42

give the safety announcement on an airplane,

15:44

to slide down the pole at a fire station,

15:47

and defeed a lion at the zoo.

15:49

There you go, Hold

15:52

on, hold on, It's okay.

15:54

The videos that followed were as hilarious

15:56

as they were popular, like

15:58

when he asked for a haircut from a dog groomer.

16:01

Can you see me like a German shepherd like

16:03

tabetan mastiff or or child

16:06

chow or something.

16:07

Joe's video is eventually tracted the attention

16:10

of a certain psychologist, and.

16:12

I thought, this is fascinating, right, this is an

16:14

extreme version of what I

16:16

did.

16:17

Psychologist Nick Epley's research had already

16:19

shown that people are more willing to help us out

16:21

than we think, that they react more positively

16:24

than we expect to simple requests like

16:26

taking a quick polaroid photo. But

16:29

watching Jaw's YouTube videos, Nick

16:31

realized people may also agree to far

16:33

more complicated requests.

16:35

I mean, it's off the charts what he asked.

16:37

People to do.

16:38

Nick carefully analyzed Jav's videos,

16:41

counting exactly how often his pleas for help

16:43

got rejected.

16:44

And it turns out less often than he's accepted

16:47

that most of the time, a little over fifty

16:50

percent of the time, to these crazy requests,

16:53

the person does it.

16:55

Nick also watched to see the reactions

16:57

of the strangers that Jah approached. Did

16:59

the donut makers and flight attendants and zoo

17:01

keepers get mad and yell at him and tell them

17:03

to go away? Or were they genuinely

17:05

trying to be kind and accommodating nix'onnalysis

17:09

was striking. In the vast majority

17:12

of interactions, people reacted

17:14

completely positively. Jaw's

17:16

extreme experiment and rejection therapy is

17:19

a great example of two things that our lying

17:21

minds often get wrong. First,

17:23

we don't get rebuffed nearly as often as

17:25

we fear, and second, the people

17:27

we ask for help are usually much happier

17:30

to oblige than we expect. But

17:32

my guess is that hearing Ja's story didn't exactly

17:34

prompt you to go out and demand weird shaped

17:37

donuts, or to borrow money from strangers

17:39

on the street, or to head into a lion's

17:41

den at dinner time. So what

17:44

simple strategies can we all employ to

17:46

be more comfortable in asking for help, Things

17:48

that will allow us and the people around us

17:50

to enjoy the happiness benefits that come from

17:53

bonding over a helping hand. We'll

17:55

find out when the Happiness Lab returns. After

17:57

this quick.

17:58

Break on

18:07

dividing my life into BD

18:10

and AD Before donuts and after donuts,

18:12

It was a watershed moment for me because

18:14

he opened up this whole new.

18:16

World to me A decade after

18:18

asking a Krispy Kreme employee to build

18:20

him the Olympic Ring Up Donuts. Jean

18:22

now runs the very company that inspired

18:24

him, Rejection Therapy dot Com.

18:26

He's also an in demand speaker and the author

18:29

of Rejection Proof How I Beat

18:31

Fear and became invincible through one hundred

18:33

days of rejection.

18:34

I didn't plan this. I didn't plan this seem

18:36

to go viral and someday I'll write a book,

18:38

someday I'll do a blog. You know, someday I

18:40

will give a Ted talk or Beyond

18:43

Lauras Angels show. I've never planned all that.

18:45

All I did was like I'm gonna do something.

18:47

And the viral videos Jah made are now used

18:50

by clinicians to help patients with social

18:52

anxiety. They may seem extreme,

18:55

but Jaw says they can still teach us important

18:57

lessons that we can apply in everyday settings.

19:00

His first takeaway is people are

19:02

actually much nicer than

19:04

we think. People are actually

19:07

very open, especially if you oftome

19:09

wacky stuff.

19:10

A second lesson is that your fears that people

19:12

will angrily reject you or think less

19:14

of you if you ask for assistance are

19:17

likely to be very, very misplaced.

19:19

Jaw is living proof that you'll hear no far

19:22

less than you expect.

19:23

When I started, I thought I was going to get one hundred

19:25

rejections, you know, maybe like I got

19:27

some yes as if you get really lucky. But as it

19:30

turned out, sometimes just by asking you get

19:32

it yes.

19:33

But to get to that yes, Jaw says, we

19:35

also need the courage to expose our vulnerabilities

19:38

and to ignore any worries we may have about

19:40

seeming needy.

19:41

I don't want to bother other people, and you know I want to

19:43

be independent, right.

19:45

And the research backs this up. Psychologists

19:48

have long found evidence for what's known as the

19:50

beautiful mess effect. We assume

19:52

that people will avoid us if we seem needy or

19:54

dependent on help, but it's actually

19:57

just the opposite. People like us better

19:59

when we show weakness or express emotional

20:01

vulnerability or seek their help. Being

20:04

messy makes us seem more open and relatable.

20:06

You're really good friends to ask for help. They ask

20:08

for a pig, they ask for help, and they're vulnerable

20:11

to each other. If you give and take,

20:13

that really built relationships. In fact, sometimes

20:16

the fact that you're asking shows that

20:18

Okay, I'm asking you because I need

20:20

you, and that's really increases

20:22

the bond you have with each other.

20:24

But Connecting with potential helpers also

20:26

requires changing the negative mindset the

20:29

many of us have about soliciting assistance.

20:31

Your at tension while asking for help can make the

20:33

whole interaction less comfortable for everyone.

20:36

It's something that Jah learned early in his days

20:39

of rejection therapy.

20:40

So I was expecting rejection, and

20:43

all my focus is how I could deal with that

20:45

rejection. I think couldn't even think

20:47

the possibility that people will say yes to me. And

20:50

if you don't bring this aggressive energy, you're

20:52

not that tense. People actually relax

20:54

when they talk to them to decrease

20:56

that tension.

20:57

Jaw advises that you really do need

20:59

to come to terms with the possibility of being

21:01

rebuffed and to relax

21:03

about it.

21:04

That's actually the key. If I'm coming in and

21:06

if I'm open to rejection, then I'm

21:08

fine. If I give the other person the freedom to say

21:11

no to me, I give myself the freedom

21:13

to ask whatever I want.

21:14

One way to do that, Shaw says is to

21:17

explicitly admit that what you're asking for might

21:19

not be doable, and that it's totally

21:21

cool if the person can't help you, that

21:23

you know they're not doing it. Just bite you or

21:26

because they don't like you.

21:27

I say, Okay, I know I'm making a big request

21:29

here. I know this is a little bit weird, and

21:31

it's okay if you can't do it. If I put

21:33

that thing what they're doubting up

21:35

front, it actually put people at ease.

21:38

He's saying that I can say

21:40

no to this.

21:41

And if you're still feeling guilty about your request,

21:44

Jaw suggests thinking back to how you felt

21:46

when someone asked for help. Would you

21:48

really be annoyed if the situation was reversed.

21:51

Joe says he even thinks back to cases where

21:53

he felt frustrated when good friends failed

21:55

to call on him when they were in need.

21:57

I had a friend and he spent

21:59

like almost a year looking for a job

22:01

and he didn't ask friend help.

22:04

It was really hard for him, and I was like, you

22:06

could have told me earlier at that job.

22:08

I know someone who who was hiring for that job.

22:10

Why didn't you tell me earlier?

22:12

But Jaw has one final strategy that

22:14

makes seem counterintuitive given his own experience.

22:17

He recommends not going as hardcore

22:19

as he did.

22:20

Go outside of the comfort zone a little bit.

22:22

Don't go like way out. You

22:24

don't have to come in and ask for one hundred dollars

22:27

like I did. That was a big step. It's

22:29

like an exercise, right if you never lifted

22:32

weights, you don't want to come in and bench press

22:34

like three hundred pounds. You're gonna get crushed. But go

22:36

out of the comfort zone a little bit and just test the

22:38

water and then gradually expand your comfort

22:41

zone. You can start doing this again and

22:43

again, and every time you do. He becomes so much

22:45

better than before.

22:46

And Jaw should know because asking for what he

22:48

needed publicly and fighting his fear of rejection

22:51

didn't just change his life.

22:53

Jackie from Krispy Kreme right that the person

22:55

said yes to me to make Olympic donuts,

22:57

it changed her life too.

22:59

Jackie Brown also went viral for those

23:01

Olympic donuts. A viewer of

23:03

Jaw's video even made her a Facebook page

23:05

entitled give Jackie a Krispy Kreme

23:07

a raise. Thousand of people signed

23:09

the petition thank you.

23:11

Thank you, thank you, thank you, I

23:13

mean very very much.

23:16

She received a personal visit from the CEO

23:18

of Krispy Kreme, and she now stars

23:20

in training videos that are used by the entire

23:23

corporation.

23:23

She become like a celebrity within her company,

23:26

just all because she say yes. Sometimes saying

23:28

yes is more fun than saying though.

23:30

And Joah thinks we'd all benefit from the fun

23:32

of asking for help more often.

23:34

The rejection therapy has become a movement. It

23:37

just feels my heart because I hope

23:39

this movement can keep going and to help

23:41

people overcome their fear.

23:46

So many of us are missing out on making new

23:48

social connections or deepening our

23:50

bonds with existing friends just

23:52

because we don't want to ask for help or favors

23:55

that. Maybe because we don't want to appear annoying

23:57

or vulnerable, or because we fear the

23:59

humiliation of our pleas being rejected.

24:01

But the science shows that our worries about being

24:03

pushy and needy are unfounded. People

24:06

are way more happy to help than our lying minds

24:08

think. And our reluctance to ask for help,

24:10

why's it preventing the people we care about from

24:12

receiving the happiness boost that comes with

24:15

being kind. So

24:17

why not follow Jah's advice and push

24:19

your rejection comfort zone a bit. You

24:21

don't need to ask a stranger for money or demand

24:23

specialized donuts, but you can make

24:25

sure you give the people in your life opportunities

24:28

to support and care for you. It'll

24:30

make them and you feel much better than

24:32

you expect. The

24:44

Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan

24:47

dilly Our. Original music was composed

24:49

by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,

24:51

mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Jess

24:54

Shane and Alice Fines offered additional production

24:56

support. Special thanks to my agent,

24:59

Ben Davis and all of the Pushkin Group. The

25:01

Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

25:03

and me Doctor Larry Santos