Category: Helping Others

I read a super basic personal development post the other day.

It offered basic listicle style advice (think: S.M.A.R.T. Goals) and included pretty standard examples.

And there’s nothing wrong with this.

But the more I read and write, the more I realize how important story is.

Like… give me some personal context… some uniqueness… make me travel somewhere new… tell me how you’ve fallen, and clawed, and survived… tell me about your North Star; your light. Tell me what got you through the dark… through the dirt. Tell me what helped you… who helped you. And what they said. Tell me specific examples and yes… get into the nitty gritty. Tell me what also fell flat. Tell me a story like this and reel me in. Tell me how you’ve bled.

Teleport me somewhere and make my screen disappear.

Then…

Tell me the insight/advice.

Leaving everything above out with just the few lines of advice does very little for me. And not to mention you’re not even a real life, in front of me human… you’re pixels popping up on my  screen. Write something that’ll make me connect with you. In a way that doesn’t extend screen to eye, but in a way that travels eye to eye… where screen and pixels disappear… where the internet and clouds and apps do what they were originally intended to do… and connect us human-to-human with just a few clicks. One mind being downloaded, encoded into 1s and 0s, sent like lightening to the other, decoded back to word and phrases… and read seamlessly within seconds.

Yes… tell me your story.

Forget a few lines of naked advice.

When his wife texted me about it, I offered my condolences and told her not to hesitate about reaching out if there’s anything I could do.

She replied in a way nobody has ever replied to this sentiment before.

She said, “Thank you! If you have time to stop by our house and just sit with him for a while that would mean a lot. We are here all weekend.”

And so I did.

And let me tell you, it felt like the best thing I could’ve done.

…Better than cards, flowers, or heartfelt text messages—not that there’s anything wrong with these.

…It’s just to say presence is one of the—if not the—best forms of support during indescribably hard times.

I have a student who will often say she’s lazy.

Yet, she shows up consistently to class and works hard while she’s training.

She’ll frequently talk about how she’s “not good.”

Yet, she has close to full splits, is quite strong, and is getting better and better martial coordination after each class.

She’ll even bring up times when she “failed” or talk about her struggles to illustrate her points.

Yet, she competes in most tournaments, completes every belt test with stand out performances, and gets extra training in whenever she can.

It’s in situations like these that you have to listen to what the student is really saying.

…Because her words aren’t saying it.

If you pay close enough attention, what you might realize is that with all people, what they do and how they act speaks way louder than anything they say.