For the past couple of weeks a person has been generously helping me out by giving me advice and direction for a situation that he would normally expect to be receive some upfront financial compensation for before doing anything. I even made a comment to him on how it felt like I was being a freeloader of sort. Although, he told me not to think that way as it is his decision to do it.

I always believed in trying to help others as much as possible. It’s kind of awkward to be on the receiving end of it though when it comes to a situation that should technically be a commercial transaction. Now it’s just crossing my mind on what I can to repay the person, so to speak, for going through all this effort.

It’s usually things like this that motivate me to try and do more when it comes to accomplishing things financially too. It’s not so much what you can get for yourself but rather what you can do for others afterwards too.

Recently here there was this lottery jackpot for about $34 million and as you can imagine tons of people flocked to buy a ticket in hopes of winning it. There were a couple of winners and one story in particular was inspiring to me. Essentially, one person named Jorma Hogbacka won the lottery and has publicly said that what he planned to do with some of his winnings was that he was going to give about $30,000 to some Tim Horton employees just for getting his coffee orders right over the years.

I love reading stories like that personally as you have to have a good sense of value/appreciation for the things around your life I’d say to even have the thought of doing things like that. On a side note, apparently he wasn’t too surprised about the winning as he claimed that a psychic told him that he was going to eventually win over two decades ago except he wasn’t given a date. I hope that isn’t a sign that he will be gullible with his money going forward.

But in general, this story reminded me how most people that I know who have ambitious plans to earn a lot financially always seem to have some kind of list of the people they want to help back in this way too when the time comes. I’m not talking about one of those “If I win a million dollars I’ll give you some” goals but rather it’s almost like they want to reach that goal for themselves and the people around them too.

Example, it could be to help out family members, wanting to create something to enhance people’s lives, etc. That kind of goes back to the give more to receive more mentality I suppose.

You all may remember my post awhile ago in regards to me trying to help a stranger to get his website back in my post about helping other people’s customers. I was happy to hear that the site was fully recovered. The company that was hosting it had all kinds of primitive excuses it seemed that created the ordeal. The person wrote me an e-mail that started with:

Hello Alan,

I would like to thank you for any time and efforts that you made on my behalf of my website and –name of hosting company-. It was very nice of you and I hope that one day I or some other stranger grants you the same respect.

He was very grateful and went on to express how I should contact him if I ever require any help especially if it dealt with something that was in his local area that I wouldn’t normally have a lot of contacts in.

With all the twists and turns that life throws at you, I wouldn’t be surprised if I somehow bumped into this gentleman in the future and needed his help too. Of course not everyone will necessarily return the favor, but you will be surprised on how many opportunities and genuine contacts you can create with like minded people this way.

Even for myself, it can be very delightful to see everyone that you have helped in the past come out of nowhere when you are the one in need all of a sudden. Besides, it’s great knowing that you helped to make a difference.