We All Have Something to Give

Selling exquisite hand-bound leather journals from a sidewalk table, amongst a line of other street vendors near Embarcadero Center in downtown San Francisco, was the first gig my friend Paul Geffner had when he came to San Francisco from New York over 20 years ago.

Since then, he and friends have started several successful businesses including Captain Video, Amoeba Music, Purity Organic and Escape From New York Pizza – and a short-lived chicken takeout place called Poultry in Motion.

But from those early days Paul made an observation that has stuck with me. Some people would stop, pick up a journal and after asking a few questions about the cost and how it was made would start asking about how to start a business like his. Others, with the same interest, would first buy at least one journal then as if they could meet later to seek his advice.

Something similar happened to me when my main income came from public speaking, and this happens to every public speaker I know. Several times a week an acquaintance or friend of an acquaintance would ask to meet, sometimes for several hours to learn “how to get onto the speaking circuit.” (Hint: there isn’t one circuit.)

Less frequently someone would approach one of us, and offer to pay for consulting time or have some specific idea for trading services. This demonstrates, not only respect for the other person’s time and knowledge, but also self-respect.

Even in a wobbly economy we all have something to offer and the capacity to structure that offer to make it mutually beneficial.

You see strong evidence of this in the flourishing sharable movement and the growing wave of inventive startups that are based on that notion.

There is a Sufi saying that God makes only co-equal partners. Now that’s not quid pro quo but the notion of a balance of give and take that makes the flow of power productive rather than destructive.

It is the life-affirming, opposite effect of absolute power that corrupts absolutely.

Consider the leveraging of value among all participants in even a small scale partnership between the Stanford Blood Center, some company recruiters and career experts Lisa Stotlar and Ellen Schulman dubbed “Giving Blood Works.”

Job seekers who donate blood by Labor Day at one of the three blood center locations can attend a” free career-counseling and networking event” and get counseling on their resumes.

How can you partner with other individuals and organizations to better reach and serve a mutual market by providing a much-needed service? I’d love to share your idea.