The Grasshopper offered this helpful tidbit yesterday: “Most people with major problems need the help they don’t want.”

It’s easy to go to the world of abuses to see the wisdom of this observation: drugs, alcohol, overconsumption, etc. What’s not as readily apparent is the addiction to the idea, in other problem areas of our life, that we don’t need help.

Denial is the biggest demon I’ve encountered in this lifetime – personally and professionally. From my vantage point, denial that we aren’t in need of help is a global pandemic.

Sound solutions are available for most of our problems, but if we don’t acknowledge or recognize them, we don’t want help because, frankly, in our mind, we don’t need it.

One of the things I’ve developed over the years is a keen eye and ear for broadcast talent. I’m currently like the high school student of finance who picks an inordinate amount of winners and identifies a truckload of losers when doing mock stock picks. I know who is going to win and lose in broadcasting. I have a sense for up and coming stars as well as who will flame out. On one TV network alone, I predicted seven people who would go bust and three that would make it. This in a period of a year and a half.

This sense I get comes from the perceived attitude of these performers which suggests that they don’t need help. Most of the ones who were fired had an air of “I’ve arrived” about them but were in serious need of help to keep their new jobs. I can’t imagine I’m the only person who suggested they needed help. They, more than likely, heard it countless times but repeatedly ignored the counsel.

Having coached broadcast talent for a living, I can tell you there is a category of performer who thinks they are God’s gift to broadcasting who have very few gifts. They believed they didn’t need help to improve because they didn’t need improvement.

I was reminded the other day of an old piece of wisdom from writer Saxon White Kessinger called “The Indispensable Man.” She wrote:

Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,

Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.

You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example
Is do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.

My version of her poem was more succinct and less tactful. I would offer these indispensable talents this: “If they can forget about Johnny Carson, they can forget about you.”

If you’ve heard it from a number of sources that you’re “that way,” and they’re suggesting that it’s getting in your way, may I suggest taking one of those helping hands before your denial, again, has you pay.

All the best,

John