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A couple of months ago, I hosted an event in Philly. It didn’t have the turnout I was expecting and so I was a little bummed. My friend Valeria Maltoni came up to me and said “It’s hard to help people help themselves.”
Those words really stuck with me. I’ve given it great thought. Why wouldn’t people want to be helped? Are they just lazy? So lazy that they wouldn’t even do the bare minimum to get something? Or is it something else?
Then, I read Chris Brogan’s newsletter today…and it all came together. He said,
“Look at your efforts through others’ eyes. Now, in measuring your self-worth, your own eyes are the only ones that matter, but in trying to better understand how well you’re serving people’s needs, try to see it from their side. Are you quick to pounce? Do you have their interests at heart or yours? The more clarity you can bring to this, the better you’ll do.”
So many “professionals” claim to be providing a valuable service, but are really just interested helping themselves. They have a backwards mentality. Instead of building a more valuable product, they’re concerned with making their product LOOK more valuable. They’re pretending to help customers.
There are many of you that are really trying to help. Unfortunately [potential] customers don’t believe that you’re actually trying to help them. They think that you’re trying to take their time and money for your own gain.
They don’t believe you because they’ve been fooled too many times. They’ve lost trust.
That’s why it’s hard to help people help themselves.
Are you really helping or are you just pretending to help?
btw…if you haven’t signed up for Chris Brogan’s newsletter yet, you’re truly missing out. It’s really the only newsletter I’ve ever enjoyed and the only one I actually read through. I highly recommend you try it out.
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Comments
11.04.09
Your title caught me. I'm a volunteer coordinator in social services and we do go over this in our training for volunteers.
Our volunteer manual/handbook includes a speech by Rachel Naomi Remen called "In the Service of Life." It's available online: http://www.rachelremen.com/service.html
You might like it.
11.04.09
Thanks for the link Marissa. Will definitely check it out. Sounds interesting.
11.04.09
It probably won't show up here, but I added a link to the speech at the end of this post on my blog. It was very relevant and, I thought, very interesting. Thanks again for sharing.
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