***How to Be and Get Dream Partners for Success: #9 Give of Yourself

"We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest." Orison Swett Marden. Giving of yourself not only benefits others, it benefits you. Not only do you feel good because you have helped others, but you have deposited something in the other person's emotional bank account. Giving is good for your self esteem, your health, your overall well being and it makes you more likable. Paul Wiener sums it up nicely: "But few have spoken of the actual pleasure derived from giving to someone, from creating something, from finishing a task, from offering unexpected help almost invisibly and anonymously."

Do you want to partner with selfish people? I know I don't. In this 'what's in it for me' culture, many people are out of touch with the powerful principle of generosity. I meet a lot of women networking for the Redwood Sisterhood and I can tell right away when people just want to see what they can get from the membership free. I can tell by the kinds of questions that they ask that they are not right for our community. They just want to take, take, take and never contribute anything for what they expect to receive. We live in an era of entitlement and it can make us distastefully selfish.

Don't you want to surround yourself with people who have a generosity of spirit about them? Be generous with your time, money, gifts and talents and you will cause generous people to want to come along side you. Dream partners are your cheerleaders, challengers, helpers and truth tellers. They become your unpaid sales force. But, you have to earn it. Just like the biblical principle of sowing and reaping, your actions determine the actions of others around you. Sow seeds of generosity and you will reap generous relationships. What would happen to this world if instead of asking 'what's in it for me?' people began to ask 'how can I help you?'