Me.

We can't deny the fact that when we meet people through work or in a social setting, we often only keep in mind the people whom we feel can be professionally or personally beneficial to our own selves. While this may be a productive way to network, we're forgetting one important thing—and that is, in order for us to succeed in life, we must first help others to succeed.

This certainly doesn't mean you have to completely forget about yourself in order to be helpful. It doesn't even mean you have to be rich, educated, or popular. It just means you need to be thoughtful and make the time to care about others. Helping others succeed could involve the sharing (or giving) of your materialistic things, experiences, ideas, time, or even advice. Though all this may seem obvious to some of you, what I'm about to share however, may be something new to you!

At a Penny Best Sales Event

As I mentioned earlier, we often only keep in mind the people we meet whom we feel can be professionally or personally beneficial to our own selves. And though there's nothing wrong with this way of networking, however, if you challenge yourself to think more carefully, you'll discover that you can use networking as a powerful tool to help others succeed—and doing this, will in turn lead to your own success.

Me and Chris Rock after concert in D.C

When I meet people in a business or social setting, I don't just keep the information (or business cards) of people I feel would be beneficial to my business or personal matters. Instead, I also make a point of keeping their information so that when I recognize synergy between some of the people I meet, I could introduce them to one another. It's no different than you meeting someone you feel has much in common with a friend of yours, and with good intentions for the both of them, you introduce them to one another. There! Now those two could end up being best friends. Perhaps they could even start a business providing a service that would help hundreds of people. This is just one of the many ways you would have helped them on their journey to success. Every introduction you make has the potential to become something great. You don't even have to be rich, educated or popular to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Me and awesome Kelly

So the next time you meet someone whom you feel is not a good fit for your business or personal matters, don't disregard meeting them. Keep them in mind for another time, for another person. You could be a furniture designer and see no reason to do business or discuss opportunities with a housekeeper whom someone casually introduced to you. Though you may feel the housekeeper has no purpose in your life at the moment, perhaps someday you could be of help to her. So you could choose not to disregard your chance encounter with her and keep her information, just in case. Then perhaps one day you get a call to design furniture for a very wealthy client and you find out he needs a housekeeper. So you introduce your client to the housekeeper, and soon their lives are enriched from your introduction. Your client gains a loyal, hardworking housekeeper who keeps his home organized so he can go about his business without any worries about his sanctuary. And the housekeeper is now financially stable and can send her children to college. Perhaps your client will even send you more business to show you his gratitude. One thing will lead to the next. It's that simple!

Me and my precious pregnant Nat

Nobody makes it in this world alone—nobody. Ever notice that every success story has many people to thank? One thing could not lead to another if it wasn't for the actions of people. We are the greatest tools for one another. This is why it is our job as global citizens to not just think of our selves, but to often think of others with intentions to help one another succeed.

Nat's b-day dinner

When you're truly taking action with the intention of helping another person succeed, you wouldn't care to ask questions such as, what's in it for me? And you would never need to ask such questions. When you do things from the goodness of your heart, life has a way of rewarding you in its own perfect time. It's not your job to demand for when and how you should be rewarded.

Sluurrrp...

Aside from the rewards that life will present to you in the time to come, being thoughtful and doing something from your heart does have its own immediate rewards for you. Next time you take action to help someone else succeed, recognize what happens to you inside. Recognize the feelings that ignite you; these feelings are the gifts from your action. Recognize these gifts—the feeling of peace, inner strength, certainty and faith. These are gifts that can create a powerful state of mind for you—a state that will put you on path to your own success. And to top it all of, these are just the immediate gifts you get from the action you take to help others succeed. These are not yet even the gifts from life that will be rewarded to you, in time...