Always think how you can help someone
When someone says they’re looking for something, remember it, and help them find it. Introduce people to each other.
Also listen carefully for what they might not realize they need.
Ask them what’s the hardest part about their job. People love to complain. And each complaint gives you an idea about how you could help.
When you come across something that might be useful, go through the list of everyone you know, and think if it’s particularly useful to that person. If so, contact them personally to tell them about it. Not a mass blast, but a real just-to-you recommendation. That’s much more meaningful because it shows you were thinking of them in particular.
There’s always a favor you can do. Give give give, and sometimes you will receive.
It's very ironic that to see this while I read your old posts for the first time.
I had three potential customers turn down my web design services last month. In each case, I happened to find something a few days later to help them that cost me no time or money, and I shared with them, without pressuring them to make a sale.
All three are now happy customers of mine. Pay it forward, get paid back.
For Justin at #1 and others: Yes, me too.
I would add that there's nothing wrong with having good-for-you motivations for being altruistic. Jesus of Nazareth always gave practical reasons for doing good, such as a higher place in heaven.
My guess is Jesus knew that once people get into helping others, they realize it is good for it's own sake.
As Lord Baden-Powell noted, it is better to give than to receive.
Speaking of Baden-Powell, mentioned above, who in his day was the only living man to have started a world-wide movement, I was just reading his original Scouting For Boys.
After explaining the code of chivalry, he says that Boy Scouts would do well to do like those knights, who had to help someone every day. The Scouts could start in he morning with a knot in their handkerchief or neckerchief, and secretly unknot it when they have done their good turn, what in the U.S. was called a good deed.
How important is it, as a lifestyle choice, to think of others? Put it this way, from what I have often read in the monthly AA magazine: Alcoholics say their disease is life or death, and often when a person is desperately tempted to reach for "that first drink," then his or her sponsor will say to fold chairs and clean ashtrays after a meeting. And this tiny bit of thinking of others somehow, miraculously, banishes the craving for drink.
So it seems to me we shouldn't be embarrassed to follow Derek's advice, since others do too.