As a family we try to live a “pay-it-forward” lifestyle.  That is, we look for ways in which we can be a blessing to others. The blessings we give may be small - a ride to the grocery store for my neighbor who doesn’t have a car, or big – inviting a family of 4 to stay with us for 3 months while they were in the States on sabbatical.  But, regardless of what it is we do, we try to do it with the sole intention of blessing someone else.

This philosophy isn’t one we only try to foster in our private lives, but we live it in our business lives as well.  In fact, my husband, Chuck, recently blogged about the “pay-it-forward” lifestyle and gave tips on how you can begin doing it yourself.

His blog is called Forward 10 and the complete post can be found here http://www.forward-moving.com/blog/author/Chuck.  But, just to give you a taste, his 10 points were as follows:

1. Enter new business relationships without an agenda.
2. Remember where other people are coming from first.
3. Keep an eye out for ways you can help others.
4. Empower and encourage the Pay-it-Forward philosophy.
5. Stop cursing, start blessing.
6. Return all calls, emails and attempts to reach you.
7. Never be “too busy” to listen.
8. Network with the idea that you can connect others.
9. Realize that not all networking connections are going to be beneficial – yet.
10. Keep you motives straight and your attitude up.

Yes, his themes are very similar to mine (makes sense, since we are married), but he has given practical tips on how to pay-it-forward in business.

Regardless of whether you are paying-it-forward in your personal life or business, you will be surprised at how many blessings you receive just by being a blessing to others.  My neighbor without the car – despite our different backgrounds, she’s from Syria, I’m from the States, we have become great friends and spent hours sharing life stories.  The family who stayed with us – again, we have become lifelong friends.  Our families look forward to sharing time together whether here in Raleigh, North Carolina or there in Milan, Italy.  We are blessed.

Choose a Better Life by choosing to pay-it-forward.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under World of Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.