The Stupid Tax We Pay for Not Asking

You took the leap. You became a business owner.

You absorbed the risk. The sleepless nights. The personal liability. The stress that shows up in your jaw, your shoulders, your bank account.

And for what?

To make the same revenue as last year? To keep spinning your wheels in the same patterns? To feel like you're working twice as hard for half the reward?

Here's the thing Tim Sharp points out in Lost & Found that should make every business owner sit up straight: we'll endure prolonged, compounding suffering rather than experience the brief discomfort of asking for help.

Read that again, but this time think about it in terms of your business.

The Trail You Keep Walking

Another year. Same revenue. Same problems. Same ceiling you keep bumping your head against.

You know what that is? That's the cost of not asking.

Not asking for advice. Not asking for introductions. Not asking that mentor for coffee. Not asking your network if they know someone who could help with the thing you've been struggling with for six months.

You took on all the risk of business ownership, the financial exposure, the uncertainty, the weight of payroll, the stress that follows you into every vacation and then you're getting a return that doesn't match that risk profile.

That's not noble. That's not "figuring it out." That's choosing to pay a tax you don't owe.

The Math Every Business Owner Ignores

Let's be brutally honest about the calculation you're making:

You'd rather spend another 12 months getting mediocre results than spend 30 minutes feeling vulnerable on a phone call.

You'd rather wonder why your competitor is growing while you're stagnant than ask someone who's been there what they did differently.

You'd rather keep throwing spaghetti at the wall than admit you need a different strategy and ask for help building one.

The pain of staying stuck in your business, month after month, year after year is objectively worse than the momentary discomfort of reaching out.

We just experience them on different timelines, so we convince ourselves we're taking the "safer" path.

What You're Actually Protecting

When you don't ask for help in your business, what are you protecting?

Your ego? Cool. That ego is costing you revenue.

Your image as someone who "has it figured out"? Great. That image is keeping you stuck at the same plateau.

Your independence? Fantastic. That independence is expensive, and the price is measured in years of your life spent grinding without the growth to show for it.

Meanwhile, other business owners, the ones who are growing, who are scaling, who are actually getting returns that justify the risk they're taking, they're asking. All the time.

They're not smarter than you. They're just less attached to suffering alone.

The Remedy Is the Ask

Here's what Sharp gets right: the first step to the solution often is seeking help. Not what comes after. The seeking itself is the remedy.

Because when you ask for help in your business:

You break the isolation loop that keeps you recycling the same ideas.

You get access to pattern recognition you don't have people who've seen your exact problem 47 times and know the three moves that actually work.

You stop burning energy pretending you have it all handled and redirect that energy toward actual growth.

You remember that business isn't a solo sport, no matter what the "self-made" mythology tells you.

The Real Question

You signed up for the risk of business ownership. You're living with the stress, the exposure, the responsibility.

So why aren't you signing up for the upside?

Why are you settling for results that don't match the risk you're carrying?

The gap between where you are and where you want to be? That gap is often just an ask away.

An ask for advice. An ask for feedback. An ask for an introduction. An ask for help seeing what you can't see from inside your own business.

Not asking hasn't been getting you different results. It's been getting you another year of the same.

Your Move

You've got two options:

Follow the same trail for another 12 months and hope something magically changes.

Or ask for what you need and actually change the trajectory.

The remedy might be simpler than you think. But it starts with the ask.

What's the ask you've been avoiding that could change your business? I'd genuinely love to hear what's keeping you stuck and if I can help or connect you with someone who can, even better.