The Karma of Kindness

What goes around comes around.

We're very familiar with the idea that meanies ultimately get what they deserve, and that Karma will come back to haunt them. In fact, we hold certain beliefs about Karma that help us make sense of a lot of things:

Believing in Karma curbs our behavior (or at least it should) and reminds us that what we serve up to others in return gets served up to us.

Believing in Karma give us comfort as we make our way in this world. Isn't it comforting to know that jerk may some day get their just due?

Believing in Karma relieves us of having to respond to a negative circumstance. We can just let it go and know that the Universe will respond in due time.

Believing in Karma is like learning the Golden Rule. It's just what we learn as kids, it's considered truth and we're not to question it, we're just to abide by it. Period, end of story.

Yes, this is all well and good. I leave a good portion of my life up to Karma. (I know for a 100% fact that a couple of very bad things have happened to me as a result of bad Karma juju I emitted to the world). Mostly, though, I believe in the Karma of kindness.

This week I had a somewhat unusual influx of women reaching out for help. I don't overtly promote my 1-on-1 coaching , In-Person Training and leadership coaching and I will always talk to someone who is stuck and see what might best help them, whether it ends up they need coaching or not.

So the folks this week, It wasn't entirely that they wanted to hire me, more like they wanted to see if they wanted to hire me to be their coach. In reality, they just needed someone to listen. One was having shades of a mid-life crisis, stuck in a job that effectively had paralyzed her from making change. One was recovering from a serious life collision and didn't know what step to take next. One was re-entering the workforce and needed some semblance of career advice.

I invested about 4 hours chatting with this women. And trust me, this week, I did not have 4 hours to spare. I'm speaking at an event next week, I have two virtual training proposals to write, and my partner and I are launching Empowership™ soon and I was up to my eyeballs in prep.

Yet when I hung up the phone after the last call, I felt a wave of love (I know, calling it love seems big). Really, I felt full and fulfilled and thankful and proud that I had the privilege of having all of these conversations. I felt like, out of all the people in the world who could have helped these women, for the brief amount of time I did, I was blessed to be the one. I felt kind.

I felt it was my duty to be kind.

Sure, I could have kept the calls to an exploratory 15 minutes, outlined my coaching programs and done a hard sell. Any business person would tell you I should have. But, I believe different.

I believe that helping another person just because is just right.

I believe my business will prosper when I give unconditionally at the right times.

I believe women helping other women is a no-brainer.

I believe creating ambassadors around my business pays off in the long run.

I believe in the Karma of Kindness.

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