Helping Others, Helps You

Understanding this lesson is the basis for successful business and a successful life. You don't sell anything for a profit unless it helps others in some way and you don't gain self respect by just taking care of you.

Private business is vital to all of us. It supports individuals, communities, and governments. There is no source of wealth except business. When local businesses prosper there are jobs, paychecks, money for homes, taxes, charity, vacations. When they don't, there aren't.

Governments are not designed to make money through the sale of products and services. They collect taxes from individuals and businesses to fix the roads and other things public, provide police protection and courts plus a safety net welfare system for those in need.

Occasionally governments have decided to takeover businesses from private individuals and used the military and police to enforce it. Making the production of goods and services a non-profit enterprise supervised by politicians and distributed on the basis of need rather than greed has been a popular dream but is not realistic.

Businesses are not natural resources that are exactly the same no matter who operates them. Each one is unique, needs full commitment, specialized knowledge, constant attention and the ability to change rapidly when needed. The bigger they are the more complex and difficult the decisions. In the hands of people who believe businesses are just immortal cows giving endless milk they fail.

Nothing happens in business until somebody sells something. Whether it is an individual selling home made cookies or an international manufacturer there must be profitable sales and satisfied customers to survive.

You can avoid this problem by growing your own food and making your clothing from animal skins. You won't even need roads, sewers, electricity, phones, etc. Unfortunately, back to nature is not an attractive option for most of us today. We need businesses making sales.

Personal success is more than business success. The accumulation of money and stuff comes and goes but relationships are a separate and different thing. Self respect plus love and respect from others is more important than stuff. Those things are also accomplished by helping people.

Donating money and materials can be part of it but is not practical if you have no surplus. Being a good neighbor or family member in some way or volunteering your time is a great alternative.

There is more to "give and ye shall receive" than a pleasant saying. We gain positive feelings of self worth starting with the satisfaction of pitching in and helping. We can always handle more than we thought especially when we find that we like doing it.

Feeling good about yourself leads to a more relaxed, positive attitude that is attractive to others. It breeds success, helps balance the scales and get you through those tough negative times that come to all of us. Like a growing snowball rolling downhill life gets better and better.

A good vacation is nice for a week or two. Self respect is nice for a lifetime.

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