Spiritual Busy Signal

A particular audiobook from Audible.com, called "Never Eat Alone" has been a large inspiration reccently. It's a business book that describes how to network so that you never eat alone. Business books might not seem to fit with spiritual topics. Some might consider it practically an oxymoron - business and spirit - but some of Keith Ferazzi's book was explicitly spiritual.

There was plenty of material that was great for building a career in business, but the best benefits from listening was the recognition of how important it is to find mentors and mentees. In my highschool, the home room was called our mentor group. Yet it is only as I get older that the importance of mentors becomes crystal clear.

A real aha from "Never Eat Alone" was that human relationships are not like bank accounts that get deminished from withdrawals. When we ask someone for help, we actually make the relationship stronger. Saving a favor, keeping score, are certain ways to kill our network. Learn to ask for help. It's one of the greatest benefits received from attending Jim and Michele McCarthy's software development bootcamp. So many people struggle unnecessarily when help is just a question away. But as the book shows, it doesn't harm our relationships, it builds them. We just need to be willing to help too.