How to Immediately Improve Your Life (Hint: It Starts With Improving the Lives of Others)

by Arianna Huffington

Last week a few HuffPost editors and I were treated to a visit by Bill Drayton and Mary Gordon. Bill Drayton is the founder of Ashoka and a longtime champion of social entrepreneurship, a term that he coined and that has now spread across the world. Mary Gordon is a former kindergarten teacher who founded Roots of Empathy, an organization dedicated to teaching emotional literacy and promoting empathy in children. She was also one of the first Ashoka fellows. Our visit started with talk of the newborn recently welcomed by one of our editors, Gregory Beyer, whereupon Mary presented him with a onesie with "Empathy Teacher" emblazoned on the front. But as Mary -- a great empathy teacher herself -- told us, it's a two-way street, and empathy is best nurtured by example. "Love grows brains," she told us. "We need to show children a picture of love as we raise them."

And giving not only nurtures empathy; it's an outgrowth of our innate capacity for empathy. It's also one of the key components of HuffPost's Third Metric initiative to redefine success beyond the first two metrics of money and power to include well-being, wisdom, and our ability to wonder and to give -- all of which are boosted when we give our time and effort to something other than ourselves.

Philosophers have known this for centuries. "No one can live happily who has regard for himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility," wrote the first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca in his Moral Letters to Lucilius. And in practically every religious tradition and practice, giving of oneself is a key step on the path to spiritual fulfillment. Or, as Einstein put it, "only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

Since Einstein, scientists have been trying to come up with the "theory of everything," which would explain our entire physical world by reconciling general relativity with quantum physics. In the study of our emotional world, there's no analogous theory of everything, but if there were, empathy and giving would be at the center of it. And modern science has overwhelmingly confirmed the wisdom of those early philosophers and religious traditions.
Empathy, compassion, and giving -- which is simply empathy and compassion in action -- are the building blocks of our being. With them we flourish; without them we perish.

In his book The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Jonathan Haidt writes that "caring for others is often more beneficial than receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and take; we need to belong."

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The distance between ordinary and extraordinary is shorter than you think!

By John C. Maxwell.

What do you think of when I say the word “ordinary?” These are the words that come to my mind: Common. Usual. Normal. Boring. Average. Something you see everyday.

What about “extraordinary?” I think of: Amazing. Incredible. Uncommon. Unusual. Special. Above average. New.

In the English language, only five little letters separate “ordinary” from “extraordinary:” extra. And while “extra” can be defined as “outside,” in English it also means “just a little bit more.”

The word we use is not as important as the idea: the distance between ordinary and extraordinary is shorter than you think. For too long, people have thought there was a huge gap between normal and special. They’ve assumed that “above average” was far above “average.” Unfortunately, once you believe that, it’s easy to conclude that since you’re “average,” you’ll never be anything else; that there’s no way to claw your way up to “above average.”

I’m here to tell you that you’ve made the gap too wide. In life, an extraordinary performance is often separated from an ordinary one by the slightest of margins. What if your ordinary life could become extraordinary with only the smallest of changes? Would it be worth trying?

Here are some “extras” that can help you close the gap between ordinary and extraordinary:

A little extra effort. There is a price to be paid for achievement. Sometimes it’s a large price. But sometimes just a little extra effort can yield significant results. What price are you willing to pay for success?

A little extra time. To give something time, we need something other than perseverance. We need patience with the process of growth. I believe that many of us overestimate events and underestimate the process. But we’ve got it all wrong. As I wrote in the Law of Process in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, leaders develop daily, not in a day.

A little extra help. I love this saying: “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had help getting there!” Why do I love it? Because I’m a turtle on a fencepost. I know that I didn’t get to where I am in life on my own. I’m just not that smart, gifted, or fast. The truth is that those who reached “extraordinary” had help getting there. And many types of success can only be achieved with help. If you refuse to ask for – or accept – it, you limit yourself and your work to a lower level of achievement.

Remember that ordinary and extraordinary are not far apart. If you accomplish just one of the above “extras,” your work will begin to be above average in that area.

If Ordinary People …
Gave a Little Extra Effort,
Spent a Little Extra Time,
Sought a Little Extra Help …
They Would Become Extraordinary!

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