Reach out and try to see if you can help others. You don’t have to give away everything you own (if you don’t want to), just go out there and try to support somebody. The trick with helping is a little bit surprising: although it seems you’re giving, you’re in fact receiving. And you’re receiving a lot more than you think.
It all comes down to the understanding that you’re not alone, you’re functioning in a greater context than yourself. So, every time you help somebody you actually change something in this bigger energy field, you provide more value, you enrich the field. And, logically, the field will yield back more to you.
Although we all know that and all major religions have preached it, we’re still not doing it. And you know why? Because of our fear of loss. We fear that we may lose something if we help somebody else: we fear we can lose our time, our money, our energy.
Get over it. Helping others is the best investment ever. It always pays back. And it pays rather sooner than later.
How And Why Helping Others Pays Back
Last year I read one of the most interesting books I read in many years: it’s called The Diamond Cutter. I wrote extensively about it, so if you want to read the book review, go ahead. But if you’re planning to do this a bit later, let me give you a short glimpse of what you may expect, something related directly to the scope of this article.
In the Diamond Cutter System (we’ll be using the abbreviation DCS from now on) the only way you can get something for yourself is to give it to somebody else first. Yes, precisely. If you want money, you should first give money to somebody else. If you want a relationship, you have to provide support for somebody alone.
The way it works is relatively simple: by giving it to somebody else first, you plant a karmic seed, a seed that will stay in your mind until it will grow up and it will literally force you to see the world as you “planted it”. DCS is basically Buddhism (and Diamond Cutter is actually the name of one of the oldest sutras in Buddhism) and in Buddhism everything you experience is karma. As many of you know, “karma” simply means “consequence”, or the law of cause and effect. What we experience under the name of “life” is in fact a karmic projection unfolding in front of our conscience 65 frames per second.
So, by planting good seeds, you create good karma. If you help other people, if you give them what they want, this will plant a seed in your mind and that seed will flourish into the exact same thing happening to you.
I have to tell you that I find this system rock solid. I won’t go into details, but I will tell you that I really studied it and I am practicing it and it simply works.
But what happens if you don’t believe in karma? Because you have the right to do so, you’re free to believe in whatever you want. Is this “helping other” thing still staying on? In this case, how it works? How helping others will make you successful?
Helping Others Means Teaching Yourself
Well, let’s leave karma aside and try another angle, which may be more palatable, even if you world view differs drastically from mine, even if you don’t believe in karma or reincarnation, that is.
Suppose you’re helping somebody to improve his business, in the hope that your business will grow as well. Or, at least, that’s the idea promoted in DCS, remember? Well, what really happens if you start to do it is that by helping that other person, you learn what it takes to manage a business.
And that’s fundamental. Because there is a very interesting thing that happens when luck – or what we call luck – strikes you: you don’t know what to do. Or when success hits you. You’re simply unprepared. You don’t know what to do.
There are countless stories of people getting huge amounts of money an then losing all that money almost instantly, notorious being those about people winning the lottery. The reason why they won that money is not relevant here, what matters is how they lost it. And, most of the time, they lost it because they weren’t prepared, they actually didn’t know what to do it. They lost it by ignorance.
And here comes that thing about helping others. If you teach other people to make money and to take care of their money, you put yourself in the position of being prepared. It almost doesn’t matter how good you are at it. The simple commitment of being there, around that person and taking care of their money will force you to learn new stuff. All you have to do is to focus on that goal: helping the other to make more money.
And as you get better and better at it, something really interesting will happen: next time when you get some money, you will suddenly know what to do with it.
Every tiny opportunity will be better taken care of. Let’s assume that now, if you get 100 dollars you will lose it all. Because you’re not prepared to have 00 dollars more in your pocket.
But after you start teaching money management to other people, there will be some tricks you will discover. You will learn how to keep at least 1 dollar next time you get 100. Maybe your throughput won’t improve dramatically, but your science of managing it will get better. And better. And better.
That’s how it works in everything: relationships, career, you name it.
By helping others, you prepare yourself.
