I had one question for my professor when I was preparing to leave Rome: “know any good coffee spots?” 

About a year ago I was studying abroad in Italy, and I was taking a day trip to Turin, a small city in the northeast. Knowing my Roman architecture professor was well-traveled from having lived in the area, I consulted her in hopes that she’d have a recommendation for a good coffee shop when I arrived. Instead of a particular spot, she advised me to order a specific drink that was only available in that region of the country. It was there I tried bicerin, the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted. Asking for her help was my best decision that semester.

Asking for help can be a difficult task, but it always comes with its rewards. At the very least, asking for help can confirm your pre-existing knowledge. At its best, asking for help can lead you to answer problems you originally found unsolvable. No two people have the same vault of knowledge, skills, and ideas. When you ask someone else for help, you unlock a whole new breadth of information that you can’t access by yourself.

Last year, I had an internship in my local bank’s credit department. I worked alongside the full-time credit analysts to sort through customers’ tax returns and other financial information to determine their financial health and how well they could support the new loans they wished to acquire. Having not yet been exposed to this field in my college courses, I came in as a blank slate. I spent the first week taking online courses, reading procedural manuals, and watching videos on how to successfully use the tax spreadsheet software. According to the training manuals, I should’ve had all the knowledge I needed to be successful.

I knew absolutely nothing. Studying is one thing, but performance is an entirely different skill. When it was inevitably time for me to try spreading a customer’s tax return by myself, I was stuck within five minutes. Having had good conversations with the leading analyst over the past week, I strolled to her desk and told her my situation. To my surprise, for the next hour I asked dozens of questions, and she responded with dozens of solutions. Some of the explanations didn’t stick with me, but some of them did. By asking questions, I was able to start building a base of knowledge which you can only get from reaching out to people who know more than you do.

The beautiful thing about building knowledge in your career is that every coworker knows more than you about at least one topic. The challenge lies in figuring out who to ask and what that topic might be. In some cases it’s simple: it’s clear to me that my accounting professors know more about advanced accounting concepts than I do. In other cases, more thought is required. 

In order to ascertain what topic a coworker is knowledgeable in, all you have to do is spend time with them. People tend to talk about what they’re passionate or knowledgeable in. After just a few conversations, you should be able to piece together what strengths someone has, and once you have that you know who to ask whenever you need advice on that particular topic in your line of work.

If you know a few different people that can all help answer a question, you need to understand what is most beneficial to you. If it’s an extremely complex issue that can’t afford to be done wrong, then choose whoever you believe has the most knowledge (and ask more than one person just to be safe). If embarking on a more creative task, you might want to ask someone you haven’t spoken to in a while to keep the connection from decaying. Different scenarios might call for different people to solicit advice from, and it’s up to you to make that determination.

Asking for help builds connections and gifts with a library of knowledge to choose from. Any obstacles in your career can be overcome with the help of your peers, all you have to do is reach out. Whenever you’re curious about something, just remember the answer’s often just a person away!