Why most people just need someone to believe in them

Right now I am on a speaking tour through Europe with a small group, four of us, doing public speaking. We are taking a philosophy we believe in and helping other people embrace it, helping them do better in life. That is really what this is.

And I will tell you where the real honor is in this work. It is not the stage and it is not the applause. It is helping people help themselves. I was saying this the other night: there is one thing I never get tired of, one thing that keeps charging my batteries, and I want to tell you what it is.

People are starving to grow

Everywhere I go, the sheer volume of people who want to better themselves amazes me. They are not just hungry for it. They are starving for it. Starving to find something to connect up to, something that gives them an impulse, a drive, so they can be more, do more, and have more.

I am flabbergasted by it every single time, in the best possible way. It is everywhere. People everywhere want to grow in life, and they are just looking for some help. That is the whole situation, and it is not a complicated one.

Hey, I believe in you

Here is what surprises people: how little it can take. Sometimes it is as simple as leaning over and saying, hey man, I believe in you. Something that simple. You give a person some reason to believe in themselves, some spark, and things start to move.

What trips the trigger is different for everyone. I honestly do not know in advance what it will be, and I have stopped trying to predict it. But when it happens, you can see it. Something comes out of the person. I call it life. It pops up like a little flower coming out of the ground and saying hello, and it is really, really beautiful.

To see somebody go through that change and come out the other side with that little smile on their face, that smirk, is the most beautiful thing in the world. It is life, and you watch it blossom right there in front of you.

The man who could not say it

I was talking with a man the other day. Very conservative guy, a real sweetheart. I asked him, what do you want? What is your purpose? And he was basically embarrassed to tell me.

It took me five or six tries. Tell me what it is you do. Tell me what you want. And he kept saying, ah, you are not going to like it. That is self-invalidation, and most people are carrying a heavy load of it.

Finally I got him talking. And I am telling you, once he started, he got on a roll. The life that blossomed out of this man, the enthusiasm. This very conservative guy became so lit up, so involved in the whole business of living, of being seen and being heard. Incredible. Just incredible.

That enthusiastic person is you

Here is the lesson I gave him, and it is the same one I am giving you. That is what you need to tap into, because that is you. All that other stuff, the conservatism, the hedging, the embarrassment about saying out loud what you want, maybe that is not you at all. You are that enthusiastic person underneath, and the job is to let that person out and keep them out.

This is what makes the world a better place. It is individuals who do great things. And getting to help water that flower a little bit, so it blooms and blossoms a little more, is such an honor and such a privilege.

Nothing is greater than helping others help themselves. So if there is somebody near you who cannot quite say what they want, lean over and tell them you believe in them. It costs you nothing, and you might watch a life pop up right in front of you.