I want to talk to you about service.
What comes to your mind when you hear that word?
I’m talking about the kind of service that you would render to someone.
Service brings all kinds of thoughts to our mind. Sometimes people
haven’t had the best experience with service and some people haven’t
had any experience serving.
Everything that we do has some kind of impact on other people’s lives,
whether you’re working at your job, or in a community.
Let me ask you another question. Have you ever been a recipient of
someone doing service for you or to you?
Serving someone if one of the greatest things you could ever do in your
life and I can say that because I have experienced it, I have talked to many,
many people who give service and have received service. I have found
that serving other people is not something most people think about on a
daily basis.
Now, I’m not talking about the kind of service that you sacrifice your health,
family or anything like that. That’s why the word service scares people
because that’s what they think will happen; if you serve in any capacity
you’re going to have to sacrifice those things. But…I’m talking about
the kind of service that would help, uplift, make a difference in someone’s
life. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant or extreme that’s not what
I’m talking about.
There’s not enough talk about being of service. I know it’s because people
are so consumed with their own life that it’s hard to think about being of
service to others and that’s a natural feeling, that’s how things are now
and everyone is really busy.
Everywhere you go, you see people rushing around, rushing to and from
work, rushing to take their kids to school and then to their extra-curricular
activities and sports practices. Rushing home to make dinner. It’s really
hard sometimes to be of service when you’re doing all these things for
your family.
I get that because I’ve been there too. My kids were young at one point
and I was driving them all over the place. But there needs to be more
talk of service and there needs to be more “doing” of service as well,
you can’t just talk about it, you actually have to do it and experience it.
There’s something that you really get when you serve somebody and
it’s not even something that somebody can explain to you how that
feeling is when you give service.
I want to give you one small example of service from my Grandmother,
this is what I witnessed growing up that she did. She was the greatest
example of someone giving unconditional service and unconditional
love, and kindness and caring.
When I was little, my Grandmother used to take one of her cousin to
work and he worked at the University Of Hawaii, and I live here in Hawaii.
She lived only about 10 to 15 minutes away from the University and he
worked there in the maintenance department and he wasn’t able to drive.
He lived with his siblings and parents, which was only a few minutes away
from my Grandmother, so she would go every night – because he worked
in the evenings and pick him up, take him to the University so that he could
go to work and then she would go and pick him up from work and take him
home.
I was blessed and lucky enough that I used to go with her a lot when she
used to pick him up and drop him off to work, I was a really little girl – I don’t
even remember how old I was when I used to go with her. I know I was
in early elementary and maybe even younger, so you’re talking a long time
ago(that’s beside the point!). I always remember sitting beside her in the
car and it was always fun to be with my Grandmother anyway and I still
think about that till this day.
I don’t remember how many years she did that. She is no longer here
and she passed away about 11 years ago. She was my greatest example
of just doing things that would help somebody, something so small and in
her eyes it was no big deal, but I’ve witnessed what a great impact it had
on her cousin and his family because his family members didn’t drive either.
I’m just in awe of someone giving up that much time, now I don’t know how
many days of the week she did that or any of that, I didn’t keep track and
I know that she did that for many, many years.
But I still think to myself about how amazing that was, where she never
complained, she just did it because she knew he couldn’t drive and I knew
there were times when he caught the bus as well. There were many, many
times and years that she picked him up.
The kind of service that I’m talking about can be something like that if you
do have the time and you do have the resources to go and do that. But
service doesn’t have to be that big, it doesn’t have to be where you pick
somebody up all the time and take them somewhere, it could be taking a
meal to the if you know they’re sick or not feeling good or if somebody
just had a baby you could go and take a meal and just be of service – it’s
amazing, the feeling that you’ll get.
Because I’ve had this great example all my life from my Grandmother, I’ve
done those things myself just naturally without even thinking about it, and
I’m so grateful that I had that example because I don’t think I would be doing
or have done any of the things I’ve done to give of myself and to give service
to people that need it. Sometime we think that we don’t have time and it’s
such a hassle, but if you actually make your first attempt if you’ve never,
ever given service to anyone, I would definitely encourage you to try it at least
one time.
If you know somebody that needs a meal, if they’re having a rough time
going through some kind of really stressful event that happened in their
life or a death in the family – go and take them a meal, just drop it off and
let them know that you’re thinking about them.
It’s just so amazing and like I said earlier, I was a recipient of people doing
service for me as well, like when I’ve had my children I had many wonderful
friends bring meals for me and my family when I got out of the hospital and
just little things like that and another friend who offered to take my other
children to school because I had just gotten home from the hospital after
having another baby.
It really makes you feel like everything is going to be O.K. because sometimes
you go through life and you just wonder… are you doing to make it? You
have times where you feel like… I just feel like doing this anymore! Or you’re
frustrated and you have no idea how you’re going to get over that frustration.
Life is hard sometime, sometimes it can be harder than others and so you’ll
never know what kind of difference you’ll make in somebody’s life.
I’ve actually had people tell me so many times – “thank you so much what
you did it really made my day, I just was having a hard day.” I’ve done so
many things over the years and people have thanked me before and I didn’t
really keep track of those thank you’s because it just makes me feel good,
so it’s not something that I needed to write down.
But those things and those feelings and gratitude from other people never
leave you, it just makes you feel really good and it makes you actually want
to give more service as often as possible. This is something that I think we
need more of and I think it’s something that we need to do more often and
the reason that I say that is that we’re so caught up in our own lives, and it’s
really difficult to think about other people when we’re stressed out and some-
times we think that if we have an idea of doing something nice for somebody,
sometimes you’ll have a thought “oh, they don’t need it they’re fine”, “they’re
tough” or “they’re a really strong family” or “that person’s really strong they’ll
survive”.
We have thoughts in our head that we think that when we have that little
thought come into our mind about “oh, maybe I should ask them to see if
they need anything”.
Sometime the automatic response and thought that you would have is “oh,
they probably wouldn’t want anything from me anyway”, you might even
have thoughts of like “well, why would they even want anything from me?”
We always think that so many other people are better than we are and
they don’t need anything from us or they have more money than we do so
they can buy whatever they need, but that’s not always the case. Even
people that do have more money than you, still need service and love
and compassion from others because money doesn’t buy happiness –
money just gives you more options. Money gives you more opportunities
and things like that, but the true source of happiness really comes from
service and giving and sometimes I think we need to give more than we
take.
I’m talking from experience, I’ve had moments years and years ago where
I don’t think I was serving very much – I was trying to take as much as possible
from others, not in a bad way but because I had things going on or life was
stressful at the time. So now I feel like I want to make up for all of that taking
that I did, but sometimes we do need to take but we need to view it as receiving
verses taking because when you receive, it’s a very different emotion and thought
and a way of living versus just taking. Taking, is all about just what’s in it for you,
but receiving is allowing the other person to feel good as well as – me feeling good
for the gift that somebody else is giving me and in the gift of service.
So, think about that for awhile. I really hope that you have a desire to serve, and
like I said if you’ve never served or done anything like that – I really encourage you
to try it at least once.
I would really love for you to tell me what kind of service you’ve done and any of
you that are listening, I would love for you to share with me some of the things
that you’ve done as a service or some of the things that you’ve received when
someone has given service to you. It doesn’t have to be anything major, some-
times we think our stories are not significant, but you’ll be amazed at how significant
they really are.
I would love for you to connect with me at janin@fashionablefinance.com and
even if you have a comment too, I would love your comments and if you have
anything else that you would like me to talk about and create another episode,
I would love for you to share that with me.
Please share this podcast too with other people that you know who you think
would be able to benefit from the things that I’m sharing. All the things that
I share is always the things that I’ve learned and gone through in my life and
learned by experience and so please share this message with other people,
you’ll be amazed at how it could really help someone when you didn’t think
it could. So let them know where they can listen to this recording, they can
go to iTunes and they can search for Fashionable Finance or they can go to
my website at fashionablefinance.com and it’s right there on my website, you
can listen to it as well over there.
I would appreciate it if you would go to iTunes and give me an honest rating
and an honest review, I would really appreciate that and it lets me know what
you folks are liking and not liking and what you think is of value. I only want
to share value, I don’t want to share anything that’s not worth your time.
I want to sum it up by saying that service is one of the greatest things that
you could ever do in your life and I know that for sure because I’ve witnessed
it and I’ve done it myself and I’ve been the recipient of service as well. I know
the countless number of other people who have been the recipient as well
and they’ve shared with me the blessings and relief that it’s brought to them.
Get creative and think about what is one neat thing that you could do for some-
body and it doesn’t have to be a meal, it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant –
you can even pick up the phone if haven’t talked to somebody in a really long time,
let them know that you were thinking about them and how they’re doing and just
wanting to know if everything is O.K. It could be something as simple as writing a
card to let them know that you’re thinking about them if you don’t want to call.
There’s so many ways that you could give of service and even though writing a
card and calling somebody on the phone may not seem like a service but… it is!
Trust me, I’ve heard from many people who have felt like it was such a great service
to them.
Brainstorm on paper, remember I always say “write everything down, get everything
out of your head and on to paper” Just jot down a few ideas that you might have
on what kind of service that you could offer to someone. It will make you feel good
and it will help you sleep really good at night.
I thank you so much, I really appreciate you being here and listening to this episode
and listening to me, I want to send out some wonderful Hawaiian sunshine to all of
you listening out there and I appreciate any new listeners that we have. Again, I
would love for you to send me a message, you can even go to my website and
leave me a voicemail, you just click on the voicemail tab on the right-hand side
and let me know what you think!
I want to thank you.
a hui hou malama pono – until next time, take care
You can also find me at facebook.com/fashionablefinance.com and
www.twitter.com/janinjohnston
I hope you are enjoying listening to this podcast!
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or Stitcher Radio,
so that you’ll never miss an episode.
Connect with me: janin@fashionablefinance.com
Mahalo for listening.
Aloha, Janin Johnston
Music by: Dennis Pavao
Song: Ipo Lei Manu
Album: Wale No
Produced by: Pilialoha Production
If you would like to order a copy of this CD you
can send an email request to Pilialoha Productions
at: makai@maui.net
Permission was given to use the music from this
artist.