How to Make Friends By Asking for Help
Benjamin Franklin and the Power of Vulnerability
Benjamin Franklin learned to turn enemies into friends by asking them for favors. Which, on the surface, doesn’t seem to make much sense. Everyone knows that you make friends by first serving them, right?
The story goes that while Franklin served as clerk for the Pennsylvania Assembly, a man publicly spoke out against him. At the time, Franklin didn’t have much to his name (though his stock continued to rise). His opponent, however, was rich and connected. Here’s what Franklin did to form a friendship:
I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.1
Franklin humbled himself, asked for help, and created a bond that withstood decades. He turned an enemy into a friend by asking that enemy to do a favor for him.
This method seems to defy all logic—I make friends by asking for them to serve me?—but over the course of my life I’ve found that Franklin’s approach works. Some of my best friends are people who first asked me for help.
I’m reminded of a friend who called me up years ago and asked me if I could change one of his wife’s tires. She had a flat and he wouldn’t be able to make it to her location for another hour. I gladly rushed over to help, despite the hot Texas weather. He may have felt like I paid him a favor, but I think I benefited the most. He trusted me to take care of the situation. He genuinely needed me. I felt like a true friend!
When it comes to relationships, we often believe people just want something from us, and that if we give it to them they will want to be our friend. But what healthy, mentally stable people really want is to feel needed and to feel like others trust them enough to be open and vulnerable.
Asking for help requires humility—especially when we elicit our “enemies” for a favor or advice. When we ask for help, we essentially say: “I can’t do this without you. I need you in my life.” I’m convinced that humility is the soil by which all good friendships grown.
Sadly, some exploit our desire to be known and needed. I’ve seen people ask others for help when in a bind, only to ignore them every other day of the month. This leads to hurt and confusion because the person being asked for a favor genuinely anticipates friendship, and then can’t understand why they are later left out. This game can go on for a long time—request help and ignore, request help and ignore. Repeat.
So we shouldn’t use this principle to manipulate others, but it does teach us that if we want genuine, deep friendships, we need to live like we need others. Asking for help reveals the type of friendships we value. Not asking for help tells people that we don’t truly need or want them in our lives. Instead, it says that our friends just exist for fun and enjoyment—nothing more.
As a private person, I often have trouble expressing my feelings to others. In most conversations, I don’t go very deep. I don’t usually talk about my problems, my struggles with OCD, or the stresses I go through on a daily basis. As a result, my relationships have suffered. By not being vulnerable, I’m communicating to others that I don’t think enough of them to share the deep places of my life.
When I do express openness, however, I see the good soil of friendship develop. Not a superficial friendship, but friendship as it’s meant to be.
I ask for help. They ask for help. Repeat.
Quoted in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 114. I’ll be the first to note that it’s not always clear how pure Franklin’s intentions were toward others. Sometimes he seemed less inclined toward friendship and more inclined toward using relationships as a way to personal advantage. The principal here still seems true regardless of whether Franklin always acted out of a heart of gold.