Help Others That Lead You to Success

By Bikash Paul

Without a doubt, the fastest way to achieve success is to first help others succeed. Yet there seems to be a belief in the business world that the only way to get ahead is to only watch out for "number one." That is simply not the case. The fact is that our greatest successes in life often come through helping others to succeed, and without question, when you focus on helping others succeed, your eventual payoff will always be far greater than your investment.

 

It lets the other person know how important they are to you. It lets them know that you truly care about their life. The more a person knows that you genuinely care about them, the more they will in turn move heaven and earth to help you with the things you want.

 

Here are some few ways that everyone can help others to succeed, and in turn find greater success themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bikash Paul
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215131428

Bikash Paul

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and the only thing you have to offer. Bikash Paul from India is a content writer and digital marketer, also working with My Recharge Ayurveda for several years. I helped people solve their problems. My education qualification is MBA in marketing and an HR minor. Writing books is another profession.

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Introduction

Responsive people are successful

Compassion is the highest form of human existence.

F. M. Dostoevsky

One day, my wife Ellie and I were returning from Boston by train. Suddenly, a loud bang pierced the silence of the car. Even without seeing the bullets crashing through the window above Ellie's head, one could guess that they were shooting from a pistol. Most likely, from the roofs, which were on the same level with the railroad tracks. Ellie and I quickly lay down on the floor, the train braked with a sharp sound, and we were trapped like fish in an aquarium.

Confused and frightened, we saw a woman with a child in her arms. She slowly rose from the floor and stood directly in front of the window. Someone shouted to her: Lie down!, But she did not move, as if she did not hear. She was definitely in a state of shock.

And then Ellie did something that I will never forget. She calmly approached this woman, looked into her eyes and said: Everything will be fine. Then she put her arms around her and the baby and slowly helped them to the floor. Ellie's act was one of the most courageous and compassionate I have ever seen.

Of course, most of us will never have to risk our lives to be responsive. However, in boardrooms, classrooms or living rooms, this feeling can also save and change many lives. Moreover, it can radically change your own life.

So what is compassion or responsiveness? This is a comprehensive understanding of the problems and difficulties of others and the desire to solve them. It can come on spontaneously, like Ellie on the train, or it can develop over time. But the most important thing to know about compassion is that it implies a willingness to act. This is what separates compassion from empathy. If empathy is understanding the experiences of another person, then understanding alone is not enough for compassion. At the very essence of this feeling lies action - help.

Being sympathetic does not mean striving to become a saint or to turn yourself into a rug on which everyone will wipe their feet. Responsiveness and compassion are not signs of weakness at all. In fact, everything is exactly the opposite. It takes a lot of strength to remain caring and reasonable when it is easier to turn away and give in to anger. And in order to act, courage is needed much more than for inaction.

After such a definition, it may seem that emotionally and physically compassion is much more tiring than empathy, but that is not the point. Tanya Singer, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Cognitive Processes and the Human Brain, found that compassion and empathy are two phenomena, each of which is associated with the activity of different parts of the brain. When we experience compassion, the same neural circuits that are responsible for love are turned on, and when we feel empathy, the neural connections responsible for pain are activated. The active work of these latter leads to a feeling of burnout. This is why empathy by itself does not lead to stability. But when we experience compassion, which is based on love, we feel cared for and safe, which prepares our brain for new achievements and success. Studies of the DRD4 gene responsible for the production of dopamine show that the level of school performance is directly dependent on the atmosphere of responsiveness created in the classroom.

Responsiveness has traditionally been considered a human virtue, and only recently have we begun to associate it with success. I personally began to notice this connection when I served in counterintelligence. Then I noticed that the most successful were those agents who helped others. This allowed them to expand the circle of colleagues who would help in response and cover in a difficult situation. By supporting their comrades, these agents gained the trust of their team, which allowed them to make the right tactical decisions. Over time, compassion has become an integral part of my career and personal life, and its beneficial effects have been confirmed by scientific research: this feeling is the basis of success.

By success, I mean the achievement of a goal, so being successful means something different for everyone. Whether you want to get a promotion, achieve financial success, write a dissertation, or teach your child to read, compassion will help you get what you want quickly and efficiently. The achievements themselves will be stable, bring you more satisfaction and joy. In other words, compassion is a win-win. It will help you succeed, meet your goals, and create opportunities for others to develop. Success will spread in your environment like a chain. People who achieve it by helping others are what I call responsive leaders . And if you are one of them, then you will never be lonely at the top.

My professional experience, from military service to the present day, convinces me that compassion and responsiveness are one of the most underestimated, but at the same time, the most common qualities of successful people in various fields. It is strange, because usually, speaking of success, we note firmness of spirit, courage, strength and intelligence, but not compassion. That was one of the reasons that prompted me to write the book. I want to help people understand the connection between compassion and success, and why compassion should be a top priority when it comes to moving towards a goal and overcoming adversity. All this is true both for individuals and for entire groups.

Over the last few years, part of my job has been to spread the message of responsiveness locally, nationally, and globally. With the help of compassion, I tried to find a way to successfully solve problems in various areas of life, from education to politics. At every opportunity, at any events and discussions, I tried to talk about responsiveness and compassion. Of course, it helped me a lot that I am the founder and director of the Center for Compassion, Creativity, and Innovation ( CCCI - Center for Compassion, Creativity, and Innovation ) at Western Connecticut State University.

Funded by the Dalai Lama, the center aims to spread knowledge about the paramount role of compassion, creativity and innovation in professional and personal life, not only within the walls of the university, but also at the regional and global levels. In partnership with local schools, the center works to address the problems of the homeless, in collaboration with the Compassion Charter International, created by best-selling author Karen Armstrong, helps to spread a culture of responsiveness around the world, and also helps educational institutions around the world to create an atmosphere of responsiveness. I have organized and led roundtables and helped implement the principles of compassion in the corporate policies of various organizations: from the police to schools and hospitals. With the help of Compassion Charter International, I have helped mayors build a Responsive City system that places compassion at the heart of social policy and solving the problems of citizens. And now we know for sure that it is the basis of successful business, successful government, schools and public organizations.

With this book, I hope to inspire you to take responsive leadership and teach you how to fill your life with compassion. Now more than ever, our society needs it. Since its inception in 2003, the number of cases of bullying in schools has increased by 21%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Every seven minutes, one child is bullied and 160,000 children skip school for fear of being bullied. One in ten students drop out for the same reason. It is obvious that compassion is simply needed in schools.

The same applies to business. In some companies, amiable or polite are just words that are not needed by employees inspired by the ideas of radical honesty and direct confrontation. Criticism is encouraged in such groups. However, the price of this frankness (or, as I would call it, bad manners) is high. According to the latest poll, 70% of Americans believe that rudeness in the United States has reached a critical point. But even more disturbingly, 81% of respondents believe that disrespectful attitude contributes to the growth of violence. Rudeness causes stress, and stress, in turn, leads to health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, depression, and other mental and physical disorders. No wonder Americans' health care costs are steadily rising. Stress at work costs American businesses an estimated $300 billion annually. Additional costs are associated with staff turnover, which is also caused by disrespectful attitude in the workplace. More than a third of Americans surveyed said they had experienced rudeness at work, and 26% admitted that they had to quit because of it.

By spreading the message of compassion, I hope to change the established view of success. For too long we have lived by the principle of it's either you or you. It has been heard too often that the world lives according to the laws of the wolf, and compassion is too expensive: after all, showing responsiveness, you have to sacrifice something for the sake of others. It drains resources, be it time, money or space. If you lose, then someone wins. To help your neighbor, you need to give up something yourself. How often have I heard the statement that our world offers a tough choice: either you are good or you are successful! However, modern science convinces us otherwise: being a responsive leader is easier, more profitable, and more reliable.

Our kids are still being taught that you can't be successful and help others at the same time, you have to choose. According to a 2014 Harvard Graduate School of Education survey, nearly 80% of middle and high school students prioritize success and happiness over caring for others. The authors of the study especially highlight the so-called gap between rhetoric and reality, that is, the discrepancy between what parents and teachers say and their actions. It is precisely this that underlies this distribution of schoolchildren's values. As a result, our children are sucked into the black hole of selfishness, and society becomes more hostile and less productive.

It's time to change everything. In this book, I will not only talk about the need to put care for others at least on the same level as success, but I will also show how the individual success of each individual creates a successful society.

I hope compassion will be your guiding star, and the ideas that will be discussed will help you stay on the path of life. No matter who you are or what you do, compassion and responsiveness are always available to you. And this is the best possible option.

PART 1 :The kindest survives

ONE

compassion and success. What common?

The love and compassion that we show for our neighbor benefit us as well.

Rumi 

You must be ruthless, Kukk. If you want to defeat the enemy, learn to be ruthless. I remember these words like now. I was told by their drill instructor when I was a prospective US Army counterintelligence agent. Everything is very clear in this sentence. And everything is fundamentally wrong. We are told - not only in the army, but also from TV screens, in movies and books - that only by being ruthless can we surpass our rivals. And this is the greatest mistake. As one person far superior to me in the world of intelligence said, ruthlessness creates more problems than it solves. You may know this person from the James Bond films under the fictitious nickname M. In fact, he was one of the chiefs of the British Secret Intelligence Service. He was called C and his real name was Sir Richard Dearlove.

When I asked whether it was better for an agent to be sympathetic or ruthless, Sir Richard answered without hesitation: Responsive. And then he added: "You must be able to work with people, get to know them, understand what they need. Compassion just helps in this. It is much more difficult for the ruthless and heartless to obtain the necessary information.

He cited as an example what was in all the papers at the height of the American war on terrorism - the CIA's special interrogation program, which many called torture. Sir Richard explained: "Special interrogation techniques are not worth the resources. They only encourage your enemies to recruit new soldiers, and your prisoners to say what you want to hear, not what you really need. When such interrogations were used on members of the Irish Republican Army, they were of no use, and the conflict only grew. When it comes to achieving success, even in the world of espionage, compassion is more productive than ruthlessness.

The kindest survives

How often do we hear that in order to succeed, you need to follow the principle Survival of the fittest! Luck, as we are told, must be wrested from someone, otherwise it will be done for us. Richard Dawkins boldly stated in his book The Selfish Gene that humans are just machines programmed to be selfish. It is this idea that underlies the principle of survival of the fittest. According to it, if you are responsive, then by helping others succeed, you are wasting your resources, time and energy, sacrificing your own success. The conclusion is that the path of compassion is the path of losers. According to the theory of survival of the fittest, a person must make his way in life, relying only on his own strength, and the one who has risen to the top deserves all the rewards that he receives. If you slip or fall, you don't deserve anything at all. There are only two roles: winner and loser, and each for himself. Successful human evolution is built mainly on the principle of the survival of the fittest, according to which it is the struggle between representatives of a species that leads to the rise of this species above the rest.

However, biologists - from Charles Darwin to Edward Wilson   - are sure that cooperation in human evolution has played a much more important role than competition, and that it is much more necessary for the success of the group than the competitive spirit. It turns out that it is compassion that underlies not only the survival of a person as a species, but also its further prosperity.

Charles Darwin not only was not the author of the expression Survival of the fittest (introduced, by the way, by Herbert Spencer ), but also disputed it in every possible way. In his book The Descent of Man, Darwin admitted: I may have relied too much on natural selection and the survival of the fittest. And in The Origin of Species he said: It is unlikely that natural selection and the principle of the survival of the fittest contribute to an increase in the number of people gifted with such virtues [as courage and sympathy]. Darwin was very clear about the failure of the theory of survival of the fittest and the credibility of the sympathy hypothesis when he wrote: Societies where the majority of members are sympathetic will be more prosperous and leave more offspring. What Darwin called empathy, today, according to Paul Ekman, can be described as empathy, altruism and compassion.

Then Darwin went even further in his arguments and linked the success of human evolution (and even the evolution of lower animals) with the evolution of compassion. In the fourth chapter of The Descent of Man, he emphasizes that the human race evolved from small tribes into a great civilization, worrying about the well-being of others, and this concern extended not only to strangers, but also to all rational beings. The scientist directly states in his works that successful evolution is associated with an ever-expanding circle of concern or with the principle of the survival of the kindest, and not with the narrowing of selfish interests and the concept of the survival of the strongest.

Darwin called compassion an instinct almost always present in man, manifested in the observation of the suffering of one's neighbor. In other words, he believed that responsiveness is a quality inherent in all people. Thus, branding Darwin's ideas as based solely on the principle of survival of the fittest is not just wrong. It means to miss the very essence of the successful evolution of humanity, which is based on compassion and empathy.

Since the time of Darwin, researchers in various fields of science have shared his point of view. Biologist and theorist Edward Wilson, famous for his studies of ants and bees, which shed light on human nature, proved that we evolved from a tribal system to a global society largely through compassion and cooperation, not cruelty and rivalry. Wilson calls our selfish activity in interpersonal relationships the curse of the Paleolithic that prevents success in all things human interaction. Yes, during the Paleolithic era, selfishness could be considered an advantage, but after Homo sapiens began to live more independently and apart, according to Wilson, this trait became fundamentally useless for our tightly intertwined world and society. In his book Masters of the Earth Wilson says that evolution follows the path of group selection, according to which groups that work together and are altruistic towards their members, regardless of the degree of kinship have an advantage over those who are not so responsive and not inclined to joint activities.

The principle that compassion leads to success, known in science as group selection, is known in sports or business as teamwork. Darwin spoke of the importance of group selection in the evolutionary process in his book The Descent of Man, and David Sloane Wilson and Edward Wilson (no relation) subsequently strengthened his argument by stating that the ability of humans to act as team players in organized groups has made it possible our species to dominate and surpass other intelligent beings in the course of evolution. In addition, the Wilsons argue that although exploitation and deception exist among people at the lowest level, this in itself is evidence of our conviction in a great idea and understanding that we cannot succeed by sacrificing others.

Both Wilsons do not say that selfishness, ruthlessness and cruelty are not important for evolution or for life. They only insist that it is altruism, generosity and cooperation that are needed for greater success. Extending this logic to sports, communities, and governments, the words of Darwin and the Wilsons confirm the fact that groups whose existence is built primarily on the principle of the survival of the fittest lose rather than succeed. In contrast, in groups that live by the principle of survival of the kindest, sympathetic people are more likely to succeed. Why is this happening? Yes, because members of selfish groups care only about themselves and consider the failures of their relatives as strengthening their own positions: minus one competitor. Over time, the number of such groups is noticeably reduced in comparison with those where the principle One for all and all for one operates. As Edward Wilson writes in The Meaning of Man's Existence, within a group, selfish individuals win over altruists, but at the same time, altruistic groups win over groups built on self-centered existence.

Egoists, bullies, and even bullies may indeed win a couple of rounds or halves of the game of life, but they rarely win the entire match. At a distance, the winners are just sympathetic people. Biologists from the University of Michigan, Harvard and many other scientific institutions have come to similar conclusions based on the results of various scientific projects. The key to long-term success (whether in sports, local government or private business) is to surround yourself with helpful, caring people.

One of the world's leading sociologists, James Wilson, in his book The Moral Sense , cites many examples - from maternal love to the Russian social system - as evidence that a person is essentially a moral being and that morality is the central concept of mankind. He proves that humanity as a whole is characterized by general principles of morality, which are manifested in the nature of each, but differ depending on the rules and laws of a particular society .. Wilson explored human attitudes and feelings (such as compassion and honesty) in the context of many cultures to show that they provide an evolutionary advantage, as opposed to predatory ruthlessness ... or unwillingness to share. In other words, Wilson argues that from the very beginning of evolution, people who are psychologically inclined towards compassion have been more successful than selfish people.

Anthropologist Karen Strier, in her work, which echoes similar studies by Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, says: "The social behavior of primates, including humans, is most pronounced in flexibility, tolerance, cooperation and attachment. It is these feelings that prevail in most primates. They are at least as