Top 13 of 50 Ways To Do Well While Doing Good

In my reading, I have learned of an article published by Forbes several years ago, “50 Ways to Do Well While Doing Good,” by Bruce Kasanoff, ghostwriter for entrepreneurs, executives, and social innovators. It’s an impressive list of ways to do good—simple, practical, somewhat challenging, and many transformative.

Because the list relates so closely to serving others, I thought I would share some of Kasanoff’s list with my readers. You would find all 50 items on the list interesting, but for the sake of space, I have selected what seems to be the Top 13. Here they are (in no particular order of preference, with my comments in italics):

1. Any time you interact with another person, the first three words that should come into your mind should be—help this person. If we would just do this one thing, our world be vastly better than it is!
2. If you can read and write, you can help someone land a job and a measure of self-sufficiency. Have you ever thought of your literacy being the key to someone else’s quality of life?
3. When you help another, you are demonstrating the kind of person you are, and you are creating the kind of world in which you want to live. Every person matters especially every person who serves others.
4. Always be yourself unless you are a self-absorbed, self-centered person. In that case, act like someone else for a change. There is nothing I can add to this.
5. Don’t try to teach a starving person how to fish. First, give him a fish, then teach him how to fish when the pressure to eat is gone. A better way to think about serving others.
6. When you consider whether you have yet lived up to your potential, ask whether there is more you could be doing to help others in this world. On her deathbed, my mother-in-law expressed her regret that she had not done more to help others.
7. The first rule of understanding others is that human beings are complicated. You need to look beyond the surface. And doing so requires more effort than many of us are willing to give.
8. People are at the core of all business and life. Not technology. Not financials. People. Something to remember as we embark on the age of AI.
9. It’s always sunny. The only question is how high you have to go. Take that!
10. Do something 21 times, and it becomes a habit. Do it 210 times, and you become lucky to be so successful and healthy . . . . Unless your habits are selfish.
11. Be as persistent at helping others as you are in getting what you want. A lofty goal for most of us.
12. Imagine yourself at the end of life, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. Ask yourself, “Will I sit in that chair and be glad I (spent 60 hours a week in the accounting department)? If you can’t find a rocking chair, go to the nearest Cracker Barrel.
13. If you imagine the happiness others will experience as a result of your actions, you will feel just as good as they do. A Chinese proverb says, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.”

What do you think?

Are there proverbs, sayings, quotes that inspire you to serve others? What are they? I’d love to know. Share them in the comment section below.