Transcription
You ever wonder how you can fix people? I’m going to tell you how, the answer is you can’t. But, the reality is we all try don’t we. We all try to fix people, you might try to fix your spouse, if they would just stop doing this one thing, everything would be great. You might have a co-worker that you think, “if they would just stop saying this one phrase everything would be great.” Maybe it’s your mother-in-law if she would just stop doing this one thing, or many things, everything would be great.

Everybody’s got somebody that they wish they could fix and we always realize we can’t do it. And sometimes this inhibits us from helping people because we think, “I can’t fix their situation.” You see a guy on the side of the road asking for change and we think, “I can’t change his life so I don’t know if I should do anything.” But let me give you a different way to think about it. What if instead of trying to fix people you just tried to add a little bit of value to their life. Here’s what I mean about that.

Fixing people says, “I am going to change you”, it’s based upon what you think they need. Adding value is finding what it is that their biggest need is and helping meet a need, even for a short period of time. Fixing people is about a long period of time, adding value, short period of time. Fixing people is all about how they respond. Adding value is just about you responding. In fact, that person on the side of the road, what if you gave them a dollar, what if you gave them some time, what if you gave them some dignity by stopping and listening to their story or buying them a cup of coffee. And maybe that’s a person at work, maybe that’s a person in your household, maybe that’s a person on your street. What is you shifted your focus from how can I fix you to how can I just add value to your life.

I like the way author and speaker and lawyer and just amazing guy Bob Goff says it, he says “see a need, meet a need”. It’s that simple. I know I’m trying to do that in my life because I’m a fixer. I like to fix everybody and everything and I just fail constantly, maybe you can relate. But what if we all decided together we’re just going to add value. Think about all the value that we would add to this world.