Robbie, why are you so generous?
‘Why are you so generous?’
This was the fantastic opening question when Neil Mackinnon interviewed me on his podcast, Creative Practice, back in 2021.
Even then, it stood out.
So many resources, created and available for free.
I can’t remember the answer I gave, but the question and its beautiful, cheeky, creative energy has stayed with me.
There are, I think, three answers to it, which combine, essentially, into one.
First, it’s good for business.
My business mostly works because people experience my work in some way, and then either we work together or they tell someone else about my work and we work together. (On that, if you know any individuals or organisations or teams…)
When I analysed what I’d learned from interviewing dozens of coaches and helping hundreds with their businesses, I saw that helping people create insight is one of the fundamental building blocks of a business like mine.
Once you’ve done that enough, you almost can’t help but end up in sales conversations.
And when you do, the more powerful the way you’ve already helped someone, the easier the sale becomes.
Second, once you’re going to be a bit generous, once you acknowledge that helping people who aren’t yet clients is good for business, it’s actually much harder work to try and be tactical than it is to go all in. If I’m going to help them, help them as much as possible. So whilst I might make a decision that it isn’t wise to prioritise coffees with everyone in the world, if we’re having a conversation and there’s any way I can help, it’s easier to just help. And more than that, it’s the right thing to do. It’s the honourable thing to do: at the end of the day, I can’t control the outcomes of my life and work. I can’t control how much money comes in or whether someone becomes a client. But I can ask myself The Honour Question. What would leave me at peace, regardless of whether someone becomes a client? Well, that I know I have given them everything I could.
The world is too full of people holding things behind a paywall or trying to manipulate us into buying things. The more I can help you right now, the more it’ll be worth it if or when you step over the threshold into something more. And if you never do that, I’d rather have left everything on the table, and have helped you in as many ways as I could. Because that makes the world better.
Third, I do it for me. And this, to be honest, is most of the reason I look generous. The things I make, I make because it is meaningful to me. Meaning partly comes from helping other people, but it also partly comes from the adventures that are required to make the things I make.
The barriers I have to push beyond.
The ways I have to grow.
The creative energy that pulls me on.
The calling of something more.
I’ve heard that in Adam Grant’s research about Givers and Takers, there’s a trick question: who comes first and who comes last? The answer is: the Givers. They come first AND last.
So if we are going to be generous, we have to be careful of our boundaries. And we have to be ready and willing to be paid. And we have to know when it’s better for someone to pay us than to have help for free.
But underneath, it’s good to be generous.
For business, for me and for the world.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.