There is a joke that says, “If you want to get rid of a cold, give it to someone else”. When you give things to people, a cold is the last thing that comes to mind. An interesting study called, “World Giving Index” was released in 2010. The study was carried out on charitable behavior across the globe, and found that happier people are more likely to give money to charity than those who are wealthy (and unhappy).

 

Share Success: World Giving Index

The “World Giving Index” used a Gallup survey on the charitable behavior of people in 153 countries representing 95% of the world’s population. For all countries, WGI compared the strength of the relationship between giving with both a nation’s GDP, and the happiness of its population. The survey asked people whether they had given money to charity in the last month, and rank how happy they are with life on a scale of one to ten. WGI found that the link between happiness and giving is stronger than the link between wealth and giving.

The findings concluded that when a person gives to charity, not only the charity improves, but so does the happiness of the individual. It also concluded that happier people are the more likely give, and not because they have more wealth, but because they have more happiness.

Remember our success can directly affect the lives of those around us, whether it is for good or bad. I firmly believe our success is meant to be shared with others. The universal truth, you reap what you sow, plays an important point in this. When we learn to share our success, we not only help others, but we help ourselves. Like the Bible says, “Give and it will be given to you… for with the same measure that you use, it will be given back to you”. Not that we help others out of selfish reasons, or for personal gain, but because we want to share our success to help bless others.

 

Share Success: A take from Michael Jordan

If you ask anyone to identify a successful person, you will find a majority of those chosen are people who have used their success to help others. The great basketball legend Michael Jordan said, “To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.”

Now obviously, we all have the freedom to use our success to build our own little empires, and stay detached to others around us. Although we have the freedom to do so, we will soon find out that we are no longer free. The person who becomes stingy and self-centered will soon find they spend all their time and energy trying not to lose their success. Then only to find out they have no time or energy left to use their success. John Maxwell summarized this idea nicely when he said, “It’s a shame people use all their health to create wealth, only to use all their wealth to regain health.”

So the moral of the story is to focus on the right things, and to share our success with others.

 

Ten Commandments of Success Conclusion

In closing, the Ten Commandments of Success were designed to help people find, quantify, design, organize, activate and support principles of success for all their endeavors. They are intended to help you fulfill all the various goals and dreams for your life and those around you. Being successful is not a means all to end all, but a series of steps we can take to help us live healthy, full, and productive lives, as well as leaving a positive legacy for others to follow.