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Give your best stuff away


Image result for Your Best Stuff 
 
This is an interesting and sometimes polarizing topic.

One group of people believe that the more content (ideas, conversations, posts, videos, etc) that you put out into the world, the better your return is as you are connecting with more people and getting greater exposure.

Another group feels that by investing all of this energy into giving away "free stuff", takes away from what you could be doing to grow your business, give to your clients or to your employer. That giving your stuff away doesn't pay the bills, so what's really the point other than feeling good.

For me personally, I'm all about giving my best stuff away for free, and what follows are really my "whys".

First and foremost, I don't really prescribe to the idea that anyone really has "best stuff". That's finite and fixed and I truly don't believe this applies to people the way it can be associated to things.

If you are a miner, and you mine some ultra rare, extremely unlikely gem from the Earth that probably really does qualify as the best stuff you've ever mined, and giving that away will definitely be a loss to you (whether financial or intrinsic) for sure.

But is this really the same for ideas?
Is this really the same for perspectives and how you would solution something?

For me, that's a clear no.

Here's why I feel that more people need to "give away their best stuff" whenever the opportunity arises.

  1. Your best stuff ... is really just your best stuff right now, and even then it's not stuff. You real best stuff is you. Your uniqueness, your experience and your paradigms. These colour your ideas, and your ideas about a particular may be amazing, but they are solutions in time and context and should always be evolving.
  2. Attraction. The more authentic you are with what you are sharing, the more you are genuinely giving your thoughts on a situation or a problem, you are more likely to get someone to re-engage with you.
  3. You will learn more. Exposing our ideas to outside perspective and challenge only force us to continue to evaluate and grow our own thoughts, it keeps the creative tap turned on to keep generating more "best stuff"
  4. Ideas or solutions that fall into this "best stuff" category are usually more aligned with your personal brand (cliche), but they are far more likely to represent the truest you. The conversations and opportunities that come when you are you, are often the most rewarding we have.
  5. And yes, you probably will feel good

I have never been a person to shy away from sharing my perspective. I have always benefited from saying what I think and having my ideas challenged, and I love it.

As I currently find myself in a transitional phase in my career, allowing this free flow of ideas and creativity, of unfiltered problem solving has been very eye opening and rewarding.

I wonder how much more interesting the world would if everyone felt as comfortable giving away "their best stuff" on a regular basis?
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