How Helping Others Helps You and Makes the Community Better

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When I was in college doing work for my bachelors, I was a lab assistant and I was also a pretty active helper with my fellow students. Of course, being a lab assistant gave me instant authority with my peers, but that kind of authority only lasts if you're good at your job.

People would get upset with me because I routinely waited to complete my software development homework, but I would always get it done and earn higher marks than them. They were flabbergasted, and - on occasion - I had someone call me out on it. "How is it that I work on my stuff more than you do and get a lower grade?"

I've never considered myself that smart, and routinely answer, "When you've done something every wrong way you can, finding the right way gets a lot easier." I'm a person who reflects on the things they do though too - always wanting to improve just a little every day. I think that's the secret to my success every day. At least, it's a significant contributor, but that's not the whole story.

You see, I had an awesome resource that others did not have. I had people actively asking me to review the work they were doing and picking my brain for how they might do their work. This gave me a lot more time to reflect on things before I chose a path. Not only that, but I got to see first-hand what each path looked like and to consider why I might or might not prefer that direction.

As a result of being reflective and always trying to be a little better each day, I had a pretty solid method for actually writing the code for my assignments. While others would create a lot at a time and then struggle to find problems, I would build 'just enough' at a time and know exactly where my problems were. I think this is another secret to my success.

By the time I would sit down to actually do my own assignment, all I really needed to do is make some last-minute decisions about path, sketch a brief outline, build the things that were dependencies for other things first, and before you knew it I was done.

In case it's not clear to you what the point of my story is, I'll spell it out:

In helping other people, you're forced to think about the things you know. You want to provide the best help you can, right? So, you have internal arguments and really hash through things. Even simple things have something new to learn many times when you think deeply about them to explain them to someone else. Even if you learn nothing new about the thing, you may think about the thing differently and be able to harness its power more usefully going forward.

Here's another point that is hiding in there: Helping others causes people to come to you, and you learn about problems they are having. This can actually help you in at least two ways:

  1. You may learn about problems and possible solutions before you ever have the problem. This can help you get past the problem way faster when you're actually doing your own work.
  2. If people out of your target audience are coming to you for help - on your site - you learn first-hand about the pains and problems of your target audience and are able then to come up with solutions to those problems and offer them.

Well, that's it! I hope you will agree that helping others can not only make you better but give you a competitive advantage.

Now, go help everyone you can - and enjoy learning from the experience!

Eddie

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Recent Comments

27

Cool thoughts. I definitely agree with you.

Glad you like it, Julius :-) Thanks for commenting. I thought I had followed you back, but seeing your comment showed me I had not somehow. I've corrected that though ;-)

I so agree with you. I especially like the idea of doing the best job one can do. When you get good at something and you are doing a good job, that can ignite a passion for doing more of it.

Most people reach the other way around, they search for their passion first. I generally advise to search for where you can do an excellent job first, where you can make a difference, and that often comes through helping others. The rest will flow from that.

~Jude

My careers have been all about helping people and I have learned many lesson and have some great memories. Wonderful blog and many thanks.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing Eddie. Learn... do... teach - that's how we keep moving forward. ~Marion

Yep! It's amazing how much teaching can influence learning and doing. It really makes you consider things at a deeper level. At least, I've found that to be the case.

An absolute pleasure to follow you Eddie. Yvonne

Thank you! I'll try to avoid making you change your mind :-)

So true Eddie. I completed a post today commission junction and other affiliate networks. As I was writing, I was becoming clearer in my own understanding of how it all comes together. A distillation of sorts.
Thanks for taking the time to bring this up. J

Sure!

The more 'things' I do in life - programming, writing - whatever. The more clear it becomes to me that doing helps understanding. Also, helping others 'do' increases the helpers understanding.

It sounds obvious when said out loud, but academic understanding is a different thing from practical application. That seems to hold true across all disciplines.

Glad you found it consistent with your own experience!

Eddie, Right on. "Pay if forward and share"
Have a great day, Mike

You too, Sir!

So true

Hi Eddie!

I liked your blog! There are many great benefits to helping others. Along with the positive energy that you begin to attract due to your helpful actions. Just one question, how do you go about finding solutions to problems that you haven't experienced or gone through yourself yet?

Cheers!!

Thanks!

I tend to type something into the search bar up top. Generally, there is a good bit of wisdom - or at least information - to be found. That tends to be a good starting point.

I also find that I'll go look at peoples' sites. Especially people I think of as being good examples. ... and I'll try to ask how they handled that situation by looking at their material.

I'll ask people I trust on here too. Or, I'll just ask a question of the community. There's quite a wealth of information here in the form of historical documents, blogs, questions, trainings. It sure pays to have really smart people in your network though too.

If I had no clue about something, I'd probably try to get the attention of someone I felt did though. ... or just leave it alone.

Hope that helps some :-) If not, feel free to shout back.

Hi,
Thank you for the insite, that does really help answer my question. Thanks for the great advice! Cheers for Helpfulness and Community Minded People!!

Well, sure!

Don't be shy :-) Don't get stuck ;-) You came here - probably in part, and maybe a large part - for the community. Use it. There's lots of really great people here that - while they may be busy - will pipe up and help.

One of the things I do to learn too - and to add to my network - is just click the rank button and go look for a new person at the top to investigate. I've found some amazing sites that way, and there's actually a lot you can learn from those sites if you look at them as a student anxious to learn. ... and if I like the site, I put that person in my network :-)

(I think that's another secret to my success in general in life - I study people that are worthy of being studied.)

Almost always, people will follow people that follow them. It's a nice way to get the ear of people that you personally have an admiration for.

I think that's how I happened onto Nataniell's site(s). He's got a really interesting story and his sites are interesting to reflect on when trying to get out of your box. That's true of others' sites too though.

Explore :-)

Don't ignore your training though ;-) There's gold in those lessons!

... and don't judge me by my site(s). I'm still getting started and have a tendency to wander as I do that. LOL! :-)

I think scratchingyourniche.com is gonna stick though. I'm trying to put much love into that. I've got a few organizational things to work through, but what I'm coming to is clicking for me and I expect that site to flesh-out really nice as I'm able to get content onto it.

Thanks again for the awesome advice!
I have another question for you since you mentioned rank. What is the importance of following people on WA and the number of followers you get?

I'm going to let Kyle answer that :-) If you type 'rank' into WA search, you'll find: He'll take you through everything related to rank.

I think I must have skipped that one. It's a bit of a snore to watch, unless you're hyper-focused on it.

In short: the more active you are in the community, the higher your rank is probably going to be.

Hope that helps!

Cheers!

When you're done making mistakes, getting it right gets easier. But then many of us never learn, so we keep making mistakes.

The good news is, many do learn, and makes fewer mistakes as they grow older. In other words, we have hope. Thank you for sharing this Eddie, God bless you....
Shirley

Thanks, Shirley :-) God bless you too!

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