masterwordsmith-unplugged

By Dr John C. Maxwell

In the early years of my career, I did not have a correct view of life. I approached life as if it were a slot machine. I wanted to put as little as possible into it, and I always hoped to hit the jackpot. I’m embarrassed to say that I often had a similar approach in my interaction with people. I was more focused on what people could do for me than what I could do for them. As a result, I would try to make relational “withdrawals” without ever having made any “deposits.” Needless to say, I was not very successful.
As I spent more time working with others, my thinking slowly began to change. I began to learn the Big Picture Principle, to see people in a different light, and to place a higher value on them. Once my attitude started changing, so did my actions. I started to invest in people simply because they had value. They were important. And I found that when I focused on what I could give rather than what I could get, people blossomed, relationships matured, and life was more rewarding. After I started to make giving my goal, I often felt that I received more from people than I was able to give.
Over the course of many years, I began learning to invest in people first and often. Somebody has to make the first move in relationships. So I figured, Why not me? I started to take a giver’s approach to life, focusing on what I could give in relationships. And I often tried to do it without an expectation of receiving something in return. I discovered that when I added value to people, many desired to add value back to me. When that happened, the relationships developed an incredible synergy and went to a new level.

WHAT GOES AROUND

Where do you stand on the subject of giving to others? I believe there are only three kinds of people when it comes to this subject:

1. TAKERS RECEIVE AND NEVER GIVE. Many people focus on themselves and rarely go out of their way to do anything for others. Such people are takers. They worry only about what they can get, and they are never satisfied.

2. TRADERS RECEIVE AND THEN GIVE. Some people focus on keeping score. They are willing to give, but their primary motivation isn’t to help others. They see relationships as an exchange. Often they give because they think they owe something to someone who has helped them, and they desire to make things “even.” I was like that early in my career. I was grateful to people who helped me, but I didn’t understand the value of adding value to others. And I didn’t initiate giving.

3. INVESTORS GIVE AND THEN RECEIVE. In this third group, people focus on others. They give first and then receive if something is offered in return. They believe that success comes from being helpful, caring, and constructive. They desire to make everything and everyone they touch better, and they understand that the best way to accomplish that is to give of themselves. Ironically, by possessing an agenda to give first, they are the ones who most often experience the synergy of win-win relationships.

People who invest in other people have some things in common:

Investors Understand That People Are of Great Value

Once when I was speaking to employees at BellSouth, an executive for the company stated, “People are our company’s most appreciable asset.” I heard good news and bad news in that statement. The good news is that he truly valued his people and cared about their well-being. The bad news is that what he said is only partly true. People are an appreciating asset only if we are willing to invest in them. Most people, if left alone, remain much the same.

Investors Embrace the Boomerang Principle

People who invest in others know that the best way to help themselves is to help others. They start that investment process by investing in relationships. They see everyone as a potential friend. Counselor and author Alan Loy McGinnis noted:

In research at our clinic, my colleagues and I have discovered that friendship is the springboard to every other love. Friendships spill over onto the other important relationships of life. People with no friends usually have a diminished capacity for sustaining any kind of love. They tend to go through a suc­cession of marriages, he estranged from various family members, and have trouble getting along at work. On the other hand, those who learn how to love their friends tend to make long and fulfilling marriages, get along well with the people at work, and enjoy their children.’

When you invest in a friendship, you open the door to investment— and ultimately the possibility of a return.

Investors Practice the Principle of Sowing and Reaping

There has never been a person who gave that did not receive in return! You may not believe that, but it is a fact. The Boomerang Principle is true: when we help others, we help ourselves. Here’s why I say that. Whenever you give to another person, you will receive something in return that affects your valuables, your values, or your virtues.

• VALUABLES: the things that provide financial worth. When people think about receiving something in return for giving, their thoughts often turn to material benefits. Sometimes when you help others, you do receive something of financial worth. But that is only one kind of benefit and perhaps not the most common kind.

• VALUES: the things that bring fulfillment. Have you ever given anonymously? If so, then you understand that while you received nothing tangible in return, you benefited emotionally or spiritually. Anytime you do something to fulfill your values, you benefit.

• VIRTUES: the things that develop character. Many benefits we receive from giving come in the area of character. Every time you overcome the inclination to be greedy by giving, you become less selfish. Every time you help someone and don’t see an immediate return, you become more patient. Such things build character.

In nature, if you sow, you reap. What you reap depends on what you plant. And you always reap later than you sow. The same is true when it comes to relationships. As in nature, they take time.

Investors Believe That Helping Others Is the Divine Work of People

American literary giant Ralph Waldo Emerson advised:

Don’t be a cynic ... [and] bewail and bemoan. Omit the nega­tive propositions . . . Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good ... Set down nothing that will not help somebody. It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action: This, though not easy, is the work of divine man.

TAKE INVESTING IN OTHERS TO A NEW LEVEL

Investing in others is one of the most noble and productive things we can do. Whatever we can do to help others makes the world a better place. As President Woodrow Wilson said, “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
So how do you enrich the world and become someone who invests in others? Begin by taking these five steps:

1. Think “Others First”

Good, healthy, growing relationships begin with the ability to put other people first. Remember the Big Picture Principle, and work to develop an attitude of kindness toward everyone. Begin every relationship by giving the other person respect—even before he has had a chance to earn it. Initiate acts of kindness with everyone.

2. Focus on the Investment, Not the Return

Novelist Herman Melville believed that “we cannot live only for our­selves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” We are intimately linked with other people, and our destinies are interwoven. As a result, when we help others, we will benefit. But that is not where we should place our focus.
Investors in people are like investors in the stock market. In the long haul, they will benefit, but they have little control over what that return will look like or how it will occur. But they can control what and how they invest. And that’s where they should focus their time and energy.

3. Pick Out a Few People with Great Potential

In 1995 when I began investing in people full-time, I felt called to invest strategically in ten people. My desire was to pick people with great potential and invest in them to help them become better leaders. The list of people has changed over the years, but my commitment to serving others has not. If anything, it has intensified. In 1995, I simply wanted to add value to others. Now ten years later, I want to multiply value to others by adding value to leaders.
When people prepare to make financial investments, the wise ones don’t put all their money into a single stock or fund. They diversify by investing in several areas. (If you invest in only one and it doesn’t perform well, you’re in trouble.) But good investors don’t spread themselves too thin, either. They know they can give only so much time and attention to each particular investment. Wise investors in people follow a similar pattern. Pick only as many people as you can handle with intensity, choose only people with great potential for growth, and choose only people whose need for growth matches your gifts and talents.

4. With Their Permission, Begin the Process

You cannot help someone who does not want your help. That seems so obvious that I hesitate to say it, but I feel that I must because I see people with good intentions trying to initiate the process without getting the buy-in of the person they’re trying to help.
In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, the Law of Buy-In says that people buy in to the leader, then the vision. Mentoring relationships possess a leader-follower dynamic. The people being mentored must trust and believe in their teachers. The stronger the relationships and the greater the trust, the higher the likelihood that the investment process will work. But it must begin with agreement.

5. Enjoy a Return in Due Season

Poet Edwin Markham wrote.

There is a destiny that marks us as brothers;
No one goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I am convinced that when people’s motives are pure and they genuinely desire to add value to others, they cannot help others without receiving some benefit. The return may be immediate, or it may take a long time, but it will occur. And when it does, the relationship begins to resonate with synergy.
You are probably familiar with the story of Helen Keller, the deaf and blind girl whose life was transformed thanks to the efforts of Anne Sullivan. Keller, who was only seven when Sullivan came into her life, lived almost like an animal. But Sullivan taught her to communicate and opened the world to her. By the time Keller was an adult, she was able to take care of herself. She went on to receive a degree from Radcliffe College and to become a famous author and lecturer.
What you may not know is that when Anne Sullivan became ill years later, the person who took care of her was none other than Helen Keller. The helper became the one who needed help, and the one to whom she had added value turned around and added value to her. Invest in others, and like a boomerang, it will come back to you, sometimes in a most unexpected way.


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