Why I believe it’s wrong to “give until it hurts!”

Have you ever heard the saying; “give until it hurts” and wondered what it means?

I believe that many misunderstand the statement.  They think that it means we should just give, give, give and only stop when we are out of resources; (time, money, energy etc.)

The wise man or woman knows that the time to stop giving, is BEFORE they feel the pain of giving so much, that they end up hurting – and unable to help anyone else.

Andrew Carnegie, perhaps one of the world’s best known philanthropists, is reported to have decided as a young man, that he would spend half his working life building a massive fortune, so that he could spend the second half, giving all his billions away.  Yes, he helped people along the way, but not to the point where it hurt him or his business so much, that he was unable to help all those millions of people later in his life.

This may sound like a contradiction, but I believe the key to successful giving, is to help as many people as you can!

Help as many people as you can, but as efficiently as possible

Through this blog, I provide free marketing tips and advice to thousands of people.  At the moment, I spend around 3 hours a week writing content; which I can do without it “hurting” or harming my business.  Just think how much LESS of an impact it would have, if I used those same 3 hours each week, to give 3 people an hour of my time.  If you are currently giving until it hurts, you may want to consider a similar approach.  Try putting your expertise in one place and then allowing as many people as possible to benefit from it.

I believe we each owe it to our families and ourselves, to get the balance right – So that we learn how to help as many people as we can, without the pain of neglecting our families or our own businesses in the process!