I was kind of stunned recently to learn how this one person has been donating his time and money in helping a person to help build his portfolio. That is a good deed of course which can be commended in many ways. The troubling thing about this though is despite offering all this help to the individual in question the recipient actually no-shows to a lot of the events that the person arranges for. Can you believe that? Imagine someone willing to video tape and edit a company promotional video for you for free and on the actual day of filming you actually don’t show up.
So this made me wonder why the person is trying so hard to help the other and the general answer is something along the lines of it’s the right thing to do. While I enjoy helping people as well I quickly learned that if people don’t appreciate or value the help that you are giving then for free then you need to stop as it’s only draining your time and resources. I think the problem is whenever we help people we tend to think they are like us where we think if we ever got that kind of free help we would value and not squander it. But you have to remember that the other person doesn’t necessarily think like you.
It’s kind of an important topic too because a lot of times we put ourselves in these situations that drain us and we could be using that to get bigger to the point where eventually we can help a lot more people in need too if that is your goal. If people don’t value what you offer professionally it shouldn’t be your job to spend your time and money to get them to change. That’s a road that they need to take on their own I feel. Just offer them an open door when they are ready.