Who Comes First (9/9/14)
You are burdened with a mutually exclusive decision. You can either work on your massive project with an impending deadline that you are about a week behind on, or you can help a friend on his project. Which do you choose to do?
I really needed to spend about seven 12 hour days on lining up cities for my book tour when my friend Alex sent me an IM on The Facebook. Alex was in the process of writing his first book, and he asked if I would be willing to give him some feedback. I was in his shoes less than a year ago, and I remember groveling at people’s feet for help. So I decided to help out a friend. Plus I work better under the pressure of unrealistic deadlines meaning that procrastinating on my project would be better for me in the long run.
Over the course of six and a half hours I read Alex’s creation taking notes on some specific areas that he was interested in. I also threw in some insight that a handful of experts had shared with me on some unrelated topics. In all I provided Alex with about two pages of notes that hopefully provided some value.
Even though I really wanted to spend the entire day focusing on me, I couldn’t. On this day a friend came first, which served as a good refresher course to an old lesson, Givers Gain. Givers Gain was a principle I was introduced to out in California a few years back. The principle simply means that individuals who are willing to selflessly give to someone else will inevitably prosper as a result. I have had people laugh off my belief in this principle saying all you get out of it is the euphoria of doing a good turn.
That may be true if you buy some random stranger a cup of coffee, but that isn’t always the case. By reading, analyzing and critiquing Alex’s manuscript I was actually looking at mistakes I know I have either made or continue to make in my own writing. The problem with trying to self-edit is that you can’t effectively do it. You inherently know and understand what you are trying to say, even when the reader is confused by what they are reading. By reading Alex’s manuscript I was thinking of structure, confusing pronoun usage, and a host of other grammatical issues.
By sacrificing a couple hours of my day and providing Alex with some feedback I was becoming a better writer…Givers Gain. Try it out somewhere in your life and let me know if the principle holds true for you too.
