7 lessons I never forgot from the best bosses I ever had

I used to hate asking people for help — I believed that I could figure everything out myself.

But when I saw one boss asking her boss for help — I previously thought she knew everything — I realized that asking for help isn't a weakness. It's necessary and can help you complete your tasks more efficiently.

Sometimes, bosses will give you a seemingly endless number of to-dos because, in the past, you've proven that you can do it all. Why wouldn't they pile on more responsibilities? However, if you focus on quantity more than quality, the latter may suffer.

At one TV production job, I felt bad about saying no to any request, and was completely burned out as a result. When my boss learned I was the last person in the office each night, she told me to delegate tasks to a coworker if I had too many things on my plate. Saying no is critical if you want the quality of your work to speak for itself.

Most people, at some point or another, will have jobs that they don't love. But I think every job can help you figure out what you're truly passionate about. In one case, it was my boss's drive that helped me discover what I wanted to do.

A TV writer I worked with went on to executive produce, direct, and run a show himself. He'd verbally tell me and others that he was going to do X, Y, and Z in his career, such as adapt a book into a musical. Then he would make it happen — even when he had to deal with a lot of naysayers along the way.

He was a perfect example of creating your own opportunities to make your dreams come true. I took the message to heart. I'd always wanted to live and work remotely while traveling, and now I'm doing it.

When I worked as a script coordinator on the HBO show "Hung," the showrunner took us all to dinner every Wednesday night, no matter how busy we were rewriting the current script.

When you work on a TV show, eating dinner together — as well as breakfast and lunch, oftentimes — is usually a given, but leaving the production office or TV studio and venturing out to a restaurant is different.

When you share a meal outside the office with your team, you get to know your coworkers better, without work or work reminders around.

I worked in TV production for several years, and the hours are often long, averaging 60-80 or more per week.

One boss refused to let us work on a script more than 8-10 hours a day, something we were all used to. He said he wanted a healthy work-life balance, so that he could be home for dinner each night with his family, and that we should have one, too.

The more we practiced his work-life balance method, the more efficiently we worked, since we had to complete a certain amount of writing every day. Not only were we more productive in the office, but we were also more productive when it came to our lives outside the office.

We had more time for not just ourselves, but also for our friends, families, and significant others, and we didn't have to miss post-work social events either. With other jobs, it seemed we'd work all night, only to return to the office a few hours later with a bit of time to sleep between.

I was raised writing thank-you notes to people, for everything from gifts to invitations to dinner parties, but when I worked for one boss in particular, she re-instilled in me the importance of showing gratitude with a handwritten message.

No matter how busy she was at her job as a TV executive, she always took the time to write people thank-you notes by hand — whether she was thanking someone in her network for an introduction or thanking a coworker for lunch.

It only takes a few moments to write a thank-you note to someone, and just think about how much you appreciate receiving one! Plus, in the digital age we live in, it sets you apart from people who may write thank-you notes via email.