Receiving

I love to give. Whether it's a gift, an experience, advice, a coffee or a lunch with somebody, I like to be the person doing the giving. Being the receiver makes me a little uncomfortable and is something I have been working on over the last few years. What has helped me is knowing what it feels like to be the giver and changing my belief.

Now I know that it's a gift for the other person when I receive gracefully and allow them to be the giver.

This actually happened to me twice yesterday. In the morning, I was gifted a coffee and in the evening I was gifted dinner. I was also also gifted all sorts of other things throughout the day like advice, hugs, great conversations, new friendships and so forth but it's easy to use physical things as examples.

​In the evening, my team and I went for a quick dinner and we were working on some things for Business Mastery. After dinner, one of the team members grabbed the bill for everybody. I noticed that this was his way of giving. We were planning an event and I was working on the flyer, another member was making phone calls, others were brainstorming and doing posts on social media and he was sitting back for the most part. He would give his comments and advice when required but, being an entrepreneur at his core, he was sitting back and letting us Artists and Managers do our work (something we learned at the program).

At the end when he came back and said the bill was paid, other members started giving him money to cover their costs. Some of them were giving more than they needed to. They were stealing the feeling of giving away from him. Of course they did not do this on purpose. It was an unconscious reaction. It's a natural thing to do. We all do it. I have done it as well. We think we're helping but in reality we're just making ourselves feel better.

Learning how to receive is just as important as learning how to give.