DailyJim: The more we believe a person is helping others, the more we probably want to help that person

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Tuesday, August 13th, 2024. I missed, I think, last Thursday and Monday. My goodness. Today, I want to... Oh, that was loud today. Today, I want to talk about this topic of the more we believe that a person is helping others, others, the more that we probably want to help that person.

So where does this conversation come from? Um, so I have a friend who, um, was dating this guy and the guy, maybe I talked about this before, but the guy said, you know, you're just, the guy was giving some money to help the person because this is quite common out here in East Africa. And, uh, the guy said something like, Like, you're only using my money on shoes and clothes or jewelry or whatever it may be. And I think he got really angry about that and frustrated, thinking, okay, this person is being very selfish. And yet, it's not the full story. This person is also helping relatives, older relatives and younger relatives who can't really earn an income who would be really inconvenient or risky or dangerous for them to earn an income. And I think often we forget that. So that's just one form of financial help. But there are so many other ways that some people can help others. But to go deeper on this financial help aspect, there's something called GiveDirectly, which was an NGO nonprofit that's existed for maybe 10, 15 years now. And the whole idea was they would give money directly to people in Kenyan villages when it first started. So Americans or whoever would donate to give directly and then 97% of the money would go directly in cash with no conditions to people in the village. And the expectation was that people would, you know, some people would think, oh, no, they're going to spend all their money on alcohol. They're going to spend all their money on whatever it may be. Right.

But when they did the studies to see where people actually spent the money, yes, they still spent a percentage of their money on alcohol. They spent a percentage on their entertainments, their clothes, whatnot. But they also spent on school fees. They also spent on feeding other people in their family. They also spent on helping other people in different ways. And I think so often we may be afraid to help someone because we think the help ends there. That it's a very that they may be asking for help and they're very selfish uh that they're selfish that they're greedy that they're entitled that they're and frankly they're this has affected me a lot because i think a lot of times people perceive me i don't know i think it's a mix people perceive me as being super helpful and super kind but also maybe don't think i'm doing much with my life, that they think, oh, maybe I'm being entitled or lazy or think I'm better than others or that I'm just kind of on these dream vacations while I'm traveling to other countries and that my life is just so beautiful, like I'm sitting on a beach and just sipping Mai Tais and relaxing and really taking care of only myself. And that is so far from the truth. But what have I done maybe to, what can I do to help people believe that I am helping others?

Um, and so this, this idea is that I think so often we may help people in very informal, intangible ways. If we're in a job, it's quite obvious if we have a very structured program or structured thing that we do, it can be very obvious how we're helping somebody. For example, somebody who is a chef is cooking food and giving food to people. It is very obvious. This is what what the person does, especially if they have a restaurant or especially if they have like a soup kitchen where they're giving out free meals to homeless people, which happens more in the U.S., then it's very clear that this person is helping in this way. But I think one lesson I learned in innovation consulting back in the day is that sometimes when we help people in less tangible intangible ways, it can be harder to realize that we're helping so many people. One story I believe I told on here was, and I told the security guard downstairs now, was that, you know, a guy at the 20-year high school reunion said, thank you so much for saying hi to me 20 years ago, because I had my head down. My dad said, why is your head down? And I realized, my goodness, why do I have so much social anxiety? And so he thanked me profusely. He said he wanted to talk to me for 20 years to tell me this. And I was like, what? Because I said, hi? We don't know the impact that we have on other people. And often other people don't know the impact that we have on other people. And as I think about this more, I think I just want people to, one, I want to know the impact that I'm having on other people, how much I'm helping people, And in which ways I'm helping people. But I also would love if other people realized how much I'm helping people because I think then they'll be more maybe excited to help me so that I can help other people. You know what I mean? And.

I think I talked about this, at least on the website the other day, about gifting. And the more that people gift to me, the more that I can gift to others. And I think it's also this attitude of the more that people help me, the more that I can help others. But if people don't think that I'm helping others, maybe they don't want to help me so much. Or the same thing, maybe I don't want to help somebody if I don't realize that they're helping others. The askari askari is swahili for security guard downstairs asked me he's like hey man can you do me a big favor and i was like hey i said as long as it's not financial man i'm really not in the financial space right now and he says well it is financial i was like okay and then he asked me for 100 shillings and i was like wait 100 that's it 100 shillings is 75 us cents normally when somebody asks me for money here even if it's a kid on the street he'll start he'll say 100 shillings and And then immediately he'll jump to 1,000 shillings. I'm like, 1,000? 1,000 is like seven or eight US dollars. I was like, hey, wait, what are you talking about? So he said, yeah, can you help me with 100 shillings? And I was like, dude, of course I can help you with 100 shillings. And he was super grateful. Because a lot of times when we help people, the gift that we give them is whatever the thing that we're giving. And the one that we receive is the gratitude, the appreciation, the love. And he seemed really grateful. And I was, of course, I'm happy to help, man. because I also realized he's not going to use this money to go buy a beer. Or if he does, maybe he uses this money to buy a beer, but he's not going to use all the money and all the help that he gets to buy beer because he can only buy so much beer. So he's probably also going to help his kids or his wife or another friend of his who needs money because maybe they have a hospital bill or they have school fees. And when I start to think of it that way, I start to realize that people have a lot of relationships. There's a lot of conflicts. There's a lot of desires to help.

I want to help more when I see that other people are helping a lot of other people. So I don't know if that resonates with you. I think what I'm going to do now, at least for today, but probably for the rest of the week, is just ask you to share with me what's one thing that I've done that has helped you.

And it can be a big thing. It can be a little thing. It can be a formal thing. It can be an informal thing, structured, unstructured, work-related, romance-related, physical-related. Maybe I carried something for you. I mean, it can just, it doesn't have to be huge, doesn't have to be profound, but it also can be.

And honestly, if you could share something like, if you could just share one thing that I've done to help you with me that can help me realize and help me believe how much i'm helping other people so that, yeah so that i you know have more confidence in what i'm doing and so i keep motivated and energized to keep doing what i'm doing um and also if you're willing so the default will be it'll be private it's just for me to help me understand maybe the impact i'm having on people, Ideally, as well, you would share it and opt in or allow me to share it with others, post it publicly, whether that's on my website or Instagram, or even talk about it on the podcast so that others understand.

Others start to believe or start to realize how much I might be helping others. Therefore, they might be more excited or motivated to help me, which therefore allows me to help others. And I can tell stories like this, and I have told stories of times that I've helped people, but I think it lands a lot more if it's told from that person specifically. So if you could, I would feel so grateful if you would share either something in text, written text, or something in audio, or ideally something in video, where you're just, again, answering that kind of one question of what's one thing that I've done to help you? One thing that I've done that really helped you. So if you can do that, I feel so grateful. um and i'm also curious maybe you could do this with other people and ask them that question and see what responses you get it seems similar to something called the reflected best self exercise based out of the university of michigan or created there i think with uh bob quinn and a couple other people um yeah but uh yeah so if you can please um reach out to me if you have my contact information. If not, find me on Instagram, heyjimklyber, or on Twitter, which is just jimklyber, or on various of those platforms. Or if you just go to jimklyber.com, there should be ways for you to reach out as well. So thank you. And I hope that I've helped people. Maybe even this podcast has helped you realize something. So ironically, if you respond on and say hey this episode helped me fantastic so all right i will uh talk to you all soon. All right take care bye take care bye that was fast hey 11 minutes out too late okay bye.