Henna Pryor

And then it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning about people being afraid to ask for help.

Your illustration right now is a form of asking for help, right?

You're leveraging these contacts in order to help this person that you're submitting.

And often the narrative that goes through our head is, well, I don't want to bother people.

I don't want to bother people.

Our being in community

with others has now been reframed in our head as we're bothering people.

So I want to be very crystal clear about this.

You can bother people.

Believe me, you can bother people.

And it feels bothersome when the approach is wrong, right?

When the approach feels like, well, I haven't talked to this person in ages.

And the only time I hear from them is when they need something from me.

I have those people in my life, and I'll be honest, it bothers me a bit because I feel dehumanized.

I feel that I'm only useful to them when they need something.

But if you can frame that differently, I'm not saying you need to talk to them all the time, but to say, hey, hope you've been great, been following your journey, been trying to support your work.

And also, I couldn't help but think you would be such the perfect person.

Feel free to say no, but I just wanted to ask.

It's all in the framing.

It's all in the approach.