October 27, 2014

by Jim Rohn

Parents, leaders, employers, teachers and volunteers, have you discovered one of the great positive mysteries of life? Here it is: All life seems to wish to reward its benefactor. If you become the benefactor, you will receive these incredible rewards. If you are the benefactor to the garden, the flowers seem to bloom and say, “Look at me. Look how bright and beautiful I am because you took care of me. I wish to reward you by being beautiful, lovely and spectacular.”

Your own children, if you become their benefactor, want to reward you with their progress. I taught my daughters how to swim. And my daughters would say, as they were about to dive, “Daddy, daddy watch, watch, look, look, watch,” as if to say, “Look what you have created here, you’ve spent the time with me, and now look at me. This is the payoff. Watch me dive.” I was their benefactor.

I have found that all life wishes to respond to the benefactor—the ones who give their time, give their effort, give their patience, give their ideas, the benefit of their experience. Whatever has benefited from that wishes to respond. Remember that whatever you move toward tends to move toward you. Just as when you move toward education and education starts to seek you out, or when you move toward progress and progress seems to want to now embrace you, you will find that, just as predictably, as you move toward helping those in your care, they will wish to repay you with their own success and accomplishments.