DailyJim: How to receive money when we like to give informal, unstructured help?

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Daily Gym. This is the episode for two Wednesday, Wednesday, June 12th, 2024. Today I want to talk about a question of how do we receive money for doing informal, unstructured structured work or help or whatever we want to call it, so at our friend today um posted something and i commented and she said i commented something about like oh you know about my work and i want to help people with my work and she replied she says i don't know why you're so focused on your work she said just you being you has helped me and talked about a time when we had a conversation 15 years ago. And she said that conversation really helped her. She's like, you may not remember us having this conversation, but it really helped me before I went off on this journey. And I'm thinking, huh?

And the question she posed to me was, why do I focus so much on the work that I'm doing or calling it my work instead of just being who I am. And my answer had something to do with.

I find it hard to receive money in a way for doing very informal, subtle ways of helping people.

And i was thinking about this on the bus ride out to this project i'm on now and i think a lot of times the informal care that we give to other people, is not it's communal oriented it's not exchange oriented so it's the idea of that we give without the expectation of receiving we give maybe with the expectation of receiving emotion back or gratitude, but nothing physical or tangible, or we don't want the person to, if I, you know, cook food for you, that you immediately give me a massage, or you immediately do this thing to pay me back immediately. It's not that idea. It's I give this because I want to give it. And I think when we do it that way, it maybe doesn't look like work or doesn't look, like something that should be paid for. I don't know. Like, it's something I'm really trying to.

I look back on it and I think, and I'm sure a lot of people have done this, right? I'm sure a lot of people help each other in so many different ways. And maybe this is me just being so, as they call it, navel-gazing and just looking at my own impact that I've had on other people sometimes. But I've had people come up to me and tell me that a conversation with them years ago, like multiple people, a conversation with them years ago really helped them. Or even a friend of mine once said, yeah, I've never taken any of your classes or workshops, but just being around you helps me learn a lot of things.

And I've had people tell me that I just have this different energy and that being around me, just being around me and listening to me talk sometimes can really put them in a different state. Hell, even earlier, some guy was saying, you know, I interact with people from lots of different places. And this guy from part of Europe says, man, yeah, you definitely have a voice for a podcast. Guest i could listen to your voice and fall asleep to it i'm thinking okay i've heard this comment many many times but it's like i don't know i think i like helping people in these informal, unstructured ways where people ask me oh but what did you do and i'm like but i had a conversation with somebody that oh it's just a conversation i'm thinking but it's just a conversation wait so is but if i package it and i call it it's a consulting session and i slap on a time limit from this time to that time, 45 minutes, it starts precisely on the hour and ends 45 minutes later, and you have to visit me in this office to have this, and then I send out an invoice, and then I package it and do it. So that's more official and more helpful just because I wrapped it up in this fancy package. Why is the informal unstructured help not as valuable?

And if it is valuable, is there, maybe it's just weird to give money for that, or to give money later on for that, or like, I don't know, it's just, it's a question that I'm exploring more and more as I think about what I talked about before, which is this idea of like the business models of love, of varying levels of love and of high love, a high love business model. Model, what does that entail? And frankly, how does it receive money? And the way I put it this, because I think it's hard to interact with high love with everyone, including strangers, because if I meet a stranger, they'd be, I don't know who you are. You have to engage in a market exchange interaction with me. I give you a product, you give me money, and that's how it works. Okay, fine. I don't know you. I don't, but that's how you want it to work. That's how it works.

Um i just don't yeah i don't know so i'm curious to explore this more this is not a solution i'm giving you this is more just a reflection and kind of a question i'm trying to dive deeper into it's just that what what how to receive money for doing not for doing immediately but just how to receive money when one likes to give informal, unstructured, not immediately reciprocated help.

So I don't know if you are also struggling with this question. I imagine many of you aren't. Imagine many of you might say, just get a job. Well, yeah. I mean, getting a job is market exchange, structured, packaged, formalizing the type of help that I would give somebody else. But what if it, again, is more informal, unstructured, and sometimes can be more helpful because it's that way, because it's not sitting in a formal office as a psychologist or therapist and you're on a couch and then we have this time limit and once it hits the bell we have to end and then you have to fill out the insurance papers and we have to go through all this process what if it's just hey you're my friend we get on a phone call or and uh or i meet you on a bus and i'm talking to you on the bus and it really helps you i yeah i don't know yeah anyway so just really curious about how we may undervalue, not undervalue. I don't think we undervalue it, I think we appreciate it, but just this challenge of if that's primarily the type of assistance or type of things that we give to other people, the unstructured, informal things that we give to others, then how do we receive kind of, yeah, frankly, money? I don't know. I don't know if this is the right question. I'm curious to hear other people's perspective on this. So if you want, I've reset up and I'm calling it Jim and Friends. I like the name much better than Jim Clyburn Community or whatnot. So you can join on the Jim and Friends forum. It's friends.jimclyburn.com and would love to continue or start the conversation there. So I will talk to you all soon. Take care. Take care, bye.