The Power In Serving Others
By: Brian Kim - February 28, 2007
There’s power in serving others and the power I’m talking about here is not the type that usually comes to mind when you see the word power. The power I’m speaking of is more like power in terms of opportunity, namely that serving others will result in powerful opportunities coming into your life that you never would’ve thought possible.
Let me stop here for one second. A lot of people might get the impression that I’m advocating that the only reason you should serve others is to get these powerful opportunities. That seems a bit devious and that’s not what I’m advocating at all.
What I mean by serving others is that you should serve others because you genuinely want to.
If your only reason for serving others is to get something back, you’ll only get that something back. That’s it. It’s like a transaction. 1 for 1. An apple for an orange. I do this, you give me that. But when you serve others because you genuinely want to, something big happens. A relationship is formed.
People are always complaining that there are no opportunities out there when they already have within them the power to create them naturally by serving others. They refuse to serve and because they refuse to serve, those opportunities don’t come about at all.
Now people who’ve made it a habit of serving others always find themselves with tons of opportunities and here’s why.
They’ve essentially made a habit of helping people with whatever they need AND they follow through on it. It becomes automatic. They don’t think – “What am I going to get out of this?” They just do.
As a result, the person that’s been helped senses this genuine desire to serve with no hidden agenda whatsoever and is compelled to help that person back. It’s natural. In fact, we tend to repay even more than what’s been given to us. Now since each person is so unique, filled with so much different knowledge, skills, abilities, contacts, etc., all of that can result in a myriad of opportunities that be given to you, without you even asking.
I ask you to take on this one simple task today. Go up to somebody you know and after some small talk and some discussion about their goals, say this to them:
“I really want to help you achieve those goals. What can I do to help?”
Say that with sincerity and I guarantee you that you WILL catch them off guard. They’ll probably do a double take (unless you already do this habitually) because this is VERY rare nowadays. VERY.
But it’s not enough to just ask what you can do to help. When they reply, see what you can do about it and if you say you can help, follow through on it.
Follow through. That will make you stand out even bigger. Following through creates a reputation of dependability. Word will spread about you. You’ll be known as “the guy who says he’ll help others – and actually does” (you’ll find that many people will talk the talk, but won’t walk the walk).
Your network will grow. More opportunities to serve others will arise. As a result, your number and different types of opportunities will increase as well and what you’ll get is a HUGE snowball effect.
Let me give you some short stories that’ll illustrate how opportunities you don’t expect come about from serving others.
A friend of mine volunteered for Habitat For Humanity because he had seen the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and he wanted to help. His sole purpose was to help build homes for those who needed it and he really wanted to do it. Other people treasure their weekends and use it to go out with their friends and relax, but he really wanted to donate his time and energy toward this worthy cause instead. He volunteered every weekend and while he did, he met a woman and they hit it off very well from day one. They had similar interests, they had the chemistry and eventually started dating.
They got married a year later. He’s never been happier. His simple act of serving others because he wanted to led him to finding the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with – something that many people have trouble with today.
I’ll give you another simple example. I know somebody who had a habit of always doing excellent work for his boss - doing the work well, following through, and going the extra mile. When his boss had to resign due to office politics, this person was left hanging so to speak, but his boss did not forget about him. He kept in touch and introduced him to a recruiter who helped him get an even better job, not to mention a big bump in salary as well.
We also see this concept of serving others in business all the time. If you read any business books, you’ll probably find a whole chapter about employees or business owners going the extra mile in serving their customers and as a result, having HUGE opportunities fall into their lap. The story tends to pan out something like this – a customer is agitated because of a mishap so an employee of the company personally makes sure the customer is taken care of, apologizes for any inconvenience, offers some sort of peace offering, - the whole nine yards. Turns out that customer was a big client the company was trying to woo and as a result of the employee’s efforts, the company grabs the client and the account.
You can call this whatever you want – helping others, going the extra mile, caring, but what it all boils down to is really serving others because you genuinely want to without expecting anything in return.
Serving others in it of itself is a powerful opportunity to help and when you start to serve others, you’ll realize the simple fact that we all need help and because you realize that, you’ll start to get in the habit of serving others even more. Imagine the avalanche of opportunities that fall into your lap then.
Develop the habit of serving because you genuinely want to, follow through, and you’ll be amazed at the opportunities that come into your life.
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4 Responses to “The Power In Serving Others”
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March 2nd, 2007 at
You can also help others out of self interest. It worked for so many. The main idea is not to expect the payback from the person you are helping, that’s not from where the payback will come… well not if you do your job correctly. If you want maximum output for your helping efforts I suggest helping those who cannot repay you. In doing this you create a great imbalance in the life flow and this imbalance will be compensated one way or the other.
If you are lucky… the payback will not be money altho sometime that’s what you’ll get… Most of the time the payback will be something so precious, so intangible that no amount of money could buy it. Maybe something like moments when a simple “Thank you!” sends shivers down your spine because you realize that with minimum effort/input you’ve changed the course of someone’s life a while ago. And if you practice this… you’ll do it easier as times goes by and that will multiply the effect because you’ll reach a point when you’ll fail understanding how the heck are you getting so much for doing so little.
Here is a quote by Charles M. Schulz that illustrates this:
“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”
March 2nd, 2007 at
Hi Peter,
Excellent addition! I was going to save that for another article, but you’ve stated it nicely enough that I don’t think I need to.
Serving other people who can’t repay you - that’s also what John Wooden advocated and practiced on a daily basis.
Thank you again for always adding to the article. Who knows - maybe by doing so, you’ve changed the course of the lives of the people reading it
Brian
September 4th, 2007 at
Thanks Brian , it is very inspiring to read your inspirational M.I.T. In essence I know this is true . But it is allways a mysterie to me how so many People are still in power and influence who are selfish and greedy. The power and reward of giving is behond opportunities coming your way , they may never come in an recognisable way. So is it right I wunder, to raise the expectation that they will ?
September 11th, 2007 at
Mica,
It’s a tough question to answer considering that each person is so different. I can’t really say. All I know for sure is that like Ghandi said, be the change you want to see in the world.