It was partly out of pride and a sense of privacy. “It’s nobody’s business,” the matriarch would say. She’d decline to fill out the income questions on school forms and avoid letting others see the struggle. (Although, of course, they could still see.)

It also was partly a belief that asking for help was the same as admitting failure. The right thing to do was to soldier on and know that there are others even worse off than you. To prove it, it was important to always give to others, no matter what.

So it’s no surprise that the children in this family adopted that same belief structure.  They marched on, doing the best they could, while understanding that they also must help others. It was OK for others to ask for help, but not them – that’s where the pride came in.

For the most part, it worked out OK. The children all grew up to become modestly successful and mostly productive members of society.

Until one of them really, really needed help beyond what the family could provide.

Slowly and reluctantly, they broke the tradition. They took small steps to see about getting help from a local agency, affiliated with the state. They filled out forms. And more forms. They made appointments. They cautiously talked with the agency and government workers. Over time, they began to imagine letting others help them.

It started with very small steps. And it took a very long time (years) to even allow the smallest bits of support.

Looking in from the outside, I can understand the uncertainty, mistrust and shame they felt at asking for help. Asking for help is an admission of incapability, and it is difficult to hold onto anything like self-confidence or pride when you do so.

So it was an act of courage for them to ask for help.

I know it didn’t come easily; I know they are still quite tentative. They are learning how to behave in a new way, allowing others to see the condition of their lives – and participate in making it better.

I tell their story only because it seems worth noticing this component of the human condition. It may be an odd belief system, but it may be more prevalent than we notice.  And it seems timely as so many are struggling in this economy, in one way or another, perhaps with this same discomfort of learning how to behave differently.

Perhaps I can come to recognize this and to understand that although they may not ask for help, I should be mindful enough to offer.

My evidence?

- Maker’s Faire. Coming to Kansas City, June 25 and 26, at Union Station. Organizers are expecting 100-200 participants, a good start. I’ve written before about the power of makers, the honor of the craftsperson, and the attractiveness of the maker movement. Now it’s becoming a respected and valid entry to entrepreneurship. And it’s bubbling in Kansas City. This nascent movement combines innovation, creativity and a little bit of anti-establishment attitude in focusing on making rather than consuming.

- Forbes magazine identifies Kansas City as 5th of the nation’s 50 largest cities in terms of the growth rate of college-educated adults, making Kansas City one of the top “brain magnets” in the country.  Here’s what Forbes said:

The two-state Kansas City region boasts strong population growth and net in-migration– and for good reason. The city has one of the lowest costs of living, one of the highest personal-income growth rates and one of the healthiest real estate markets in the country. Short commute times also add to the attractiveness of the city for families. The city is the second-largest rail hub in the U.S. and is actively growing its life science and technology sectors. Kansas City gained 38,398 graduates from 2007 to 2009, or 2.96 percent of its 25-and-older population.

- Life Sciences and KC Animal Corridor. This is perhaps the most tangible of the signs. Rising from the loss of Marion Merrill Dow, dozens of smart Kansas Citians chose to stay and build upon their expertise and passion. They could’ve left to take jobs on the East or West coasts, or gone to rebuild from there. But they planted roots here, and now those roots are flourishing. Now, I don’t want to see any of our other large corporations move out, but even if they did (thinking of the perennial Sprint rumors, for example), I now believe the same could happen again.

- Blossoming arts scene. Kauffman Center for Performing Arts, the Nelson-Atkins, the Kansas City Art Institute, the arts incubator, the Crossroads, and loads of additional artist/entrepreneurs are changing the vibes in this town.  There was a small performance last week, “A Gaelic Revival,” held at the Irish Center in Union Station.  A handful of equity actors, including some of the best in Kansas City, performed scenes from “Playboy of the Western World,” “The Plough and the Stars” and “Kathleen nee Houlihan” for an enthralled audience of about 50.  Multiply this by the dozens of events every weekend, heck, every day, and you understand what a gifted arts community we have.

- Final perspective: Six qualified and capable candidates are running for mayor. Local pundits have already noted that the city can hardly go wrong with this roster.  Even discounting that all candidates speak in glowing terms about the city’s potential, this time … it feels like most of them really mean it.  I’d like to see the next mayor embrace collaboration and build on this newly emerging power.

So, to all those HR recruiters and corporate executives who still believe that the best come from somewhere else — think again. Look here first.

Shocked, truly, to find myself sprawled and wet and suddenly aching. I couldn’t speak for a minute, I was so jarred.

And then I slowly understood — I’d slipped on the ceramic street tiles embedded in the sidewalk under the leaves. My cowboy boots were no match for all that slick stuff. I was bruised and shaken, but not broken and certainly not going to stop and linger.

Change hits us like that. And it takes time to absorb; sometimes you just have to let the bruise form to take stock of what happened, and what didn’t happen.

It’s a new year, which prompts taking stock and getting ready. Taking stock is a way of counting up the inventory you possess — customers, opportunities, friends, ideas, gratitude. Getting ready for the new year is preparing yourself for change — building up the flexibility and resilience to anticipate what might happen, or at least be strong enough and open enough to adapt.

I’m grateful to all the businesses who have entrusted me with their stories; I’m honored to be working with you. I’m grateful to the many friends who’ve given me support in this first year of business. I’m touched by your willingness to connect, to share, to listen, to guide me. I appreciate my generous colleagues and fellow entrepreneurs in the Kansas City chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, who welcomed me so warmly. The National Association of Women Business Owners offered a bounty of smart and fun women; and I’m glad to be part of it, too.

And in the coming year, I want to do my part to give back the kindness and support that I received. I’m planning on expanding my horizons — video! audio podcast! art! bird-watching! — and other delights as I find them. I’m open to adventure, I’m willing to experiment and take a few chances.

Even if I fall.

Here’s to a grand new year!

Credit: SALADELLES, an extraordinarily talented photographer with beautiful images from nature — go visit: http://saladelles.over-blog.com/

The series, conducted by Dr. Bill Ashworth, at Linda Hall Library (Kansas City’s hidden treasure) has been delightful.<Update: Maybe not-so-hidden? See November 1  NYTimes article with prominent reference to Linda Hall Library.>

Ashworth is curator of “The Grandeur of Life” exhibit and author of the exhibition catalog. He’s also an associate professor of history at UMKC and consultant for the History of Science at Linda Hall Library. Ashworth brings Darwin to life and is continually telling stories that paint the context of life and the knowledge of the day.

Darwin, I learned, really did not like his schooling — not his prep school time at Dr. Butler’s School in Shrewsbury, or his medical studies at Edinburgh University, or his clergy studies at Cambridge University. His letters talked about how boring his professors were, how dreadful the topics and, like most university guys, he even participated in a drinking club. (The club’s crest included a beer keg, tankards and a water pipe, and in Latin, the phrase “replete with barley and ale.”)

It’s not that he wasn’t curious or interested in learning. Not at all. He just wasn’t suited to the lectures and the classical training that was meted out. It was boring and outdated, and he had other interests — like exploring the estuaries at the Firth of Forth and, later, collecting beetles.

He indulged his passion for collecting things, and that changed the course of science.

It wasn’t always easy. Darwin faced some pretty harsh criticism from his father, who told him he likely wouldn’t amount to anything (I’m paraphrasing, but it wasn’t positive feedback at all). Despite his failures in school, and letting his family down by not following his father’s footsteps in medicine and rejecting a career in the clergy, he managed to follow his interests and that made all the difference.

I learned one other bit that fascinated me: When Darwin returned from his five-year voyage on the Beagle, he realized that he didn’t know what all of his collections of bones and fossils and specimens really were. He admitted that he wasn’t skilled enough to identify them.

So he asked for help.

He gave his collection of creatures’bones to Richard Owen, famous anatomist (known as the English Cuvier), and he gave his collection of 26 Galapagos birds to John Gould, the famous naturalist painter of birds. It was Owen who identified key items in the bones, including the giant sloth; and it was Gould who told him that 13 of the Galapagos birds were finches.

What he learned floored him and led him to ask: why? The rest is history — he kept searching for answers and produced “The Origin of Species” to explain the  questions.

Darwin had asked for help and shared his collections to get it. He’d had a bittersweet experience earlier: At Edinburgh, he’d been thrilled to discover a new type of seaweed but when he told his mentor about it, the professor told him to get off his turf and then took credit for Darwin’s find. So Darwin was seduced by the excitement of uncovering new knowledge, and yet he must have been frustrated by the pettiness and unfairness of the professor who claimed it.

Still, he took a chance again. He was willing to share what he’d found. I have to believe that, even though he didn’t know what he had, his passion for LEARNING overcame the risk of losing “credit” for it.

It was risky then and it’s risky now.

It takes courage to admit what you don’t know. It’s hard to ask for help. Darwin won’t be remembered for this, but he wouldn’t be remembered at all if he hadn’t done this.

There’s a sweetness in this little backstory lesson: take a risk, share information, collaborate. It still makes sense, 150 years later.

We’re in San Francisco, on business, but simply HAVE to stop at all of our favorite spots.   So it is that Saturday evening, we decide to stop by the Marines’Memorial Club for a drink. It’s on the 11th floor of a Union Square-area building with a lovely view of the bay and the city.

The club is sold out for dinner, but it’s still quiet. A piano man is playing and singing and we take a small table nearby.  We notice a woman who comes in and sits alone at the bar. She has white-grey hair, carefully coiffed; she’s wearing a once-fashionable suit, carrying an umbrella and the red rose that the doorman or host has given to her.  She is obviously comfortable at the bar, nodding to the bartender who knows to mix her a gin and tonic on the rocks.  And so she sits, ignoring the television, the piano man, the surroundings.

We move over to join her — it’s a chance to talk with someone. We buy her a refill and introduce ourselves; it’s easy for us to babble a bit about ourselves to let her relax. She is slow to let her guard down — she engages cautiously in our conversation.  Is she a regular here? Yes. A member of the club? No.

We explain that we are members and just in town visiting; we have a fondness for the club as it has introduced us to people all over the world in reciprocal clubs — in London, Edinburgh, New York City, Wellington, NZ.  At that, she perks up: it turns out she is Ellen, a native of New Zealand, and she is delighted when we tell her our impressions of that perfect and beautiful land. She asks if we visited the club in New Zealand, and when she learns we did, she tells us a little about herself.

When she was young, perhaps still in her teen years, she had met a US Marine there. And she thought she loved him, she thought he loved her, too. But her parents said she was too young, and she wasn’t allowed to see him again. Not long after, she moved to Australia and years later, to the United States. But she never forgot that Marine and was still wondering what might have happened…

We had a parallel story: our dear friend Gordon Smreker was a Marine at Wellington with the 2nd Marine Division in WWII. He loved it there, and he met a woman he loved. But he had to ship out and never was able to return. He later married and lived a full and generous life. But he had a certain look when he talked about New Zealand, always. I believe he also wondered … what if…

We hugged and kissed Ellen when we left the bar. She thanked us and told us we’d probably never understand how much it mean to her to talk this Valentine’s Day eve.  All I can do is take her lesson to heart, and know that even not taking a risk IS taking a risk.

Here’s to trusting your instincts.