Giving practical help when asked should be the price of the ticket into the human family. If we all paid our due, we’d be on our way to creating a sustainable society fully capable of taking care of itself.

Tune out the news and media chatter on occasion and look around at the simple examples of people helping one another through trying times. Keep an eye out for signs of enterprise, for those people building from a foundation of principle and purpose. Goodness is here, everywhere—it’s just obscured by the noise of life sometimes.

The quickest route to feeling wonderful is to help someone else. The moment you shift the focus away from yourself and toward another person, you’re back in balance. No matter how difficult the circumstances in your own life might be, reaching out to a friend will nurture feelings of being valuable and needed—and that simply feels good.

In this coaching example, it’s easy to see how one person’s difficult experience can be a gift to another person. The process of transferring the knowledge gained from your experience can be quite easy; especially when the coach’s direct experience mirrors the coachee’s. When you find a coach who has been through what you may [...]