Resourceful vs. Rich
The phone rings and it’s my older brother calling from a pay phone. I knew he had recently headed to Hawaii. I figured he was calling to say Aloha! But I could instantly tell he was upset. Not mad, more like scared.
He’d arrived in Hawaii with no plan, no real destination, and zero connections. He expected it to be like Florida: people would speak English, the weather would be nice, and he could catch a bus to get around. Instead, he felt confused, unwelcome, and stranded. So, of course, he called me—because even though I was 5,000 miles away and had never been to Hawaii in my life, he believed I could help him. I did, and I’ll tell you how in a minute.
But I want to share another similar story that happened last week. I was visiting a friend (I’ll call Tamara) just to hang out for a few days while her husband was away on a business trip.
I’m there when he calls Tamara from the airport. He can’t get through TSA because he does not have his driver’s license. He can’t believe it’s not in his wallet, but it’s not. She and I abandon our coffee and start looking everywhere in the house. I’m digging under couch cushions, and she’s checking all his pants and shirt pockets in the laundry room. We tear through everything like hounds on a scent. It has to be here somewhere! She asks him where he last had it, where it could be, and now we’re all getting frustrated. Then he calls back and says never mind.
News to me, but he was told that if he paid $45, they’d do a quick background check and let him complete his plane travel there and back. This is great. He won’t miss his work trip and we can stop scrambling. But the scramble resumes three hours later when he calls from the rental car desk. Doesn’t matter that he has a reservation and other IDs. No license, no car. He calls Tamara, very upset with the car people but more with himself. Defeated, he’s giving up and getting on the next flight he can to get back home. Tamara says, “No. Don’t give up. We’ll think of something.”
She knows this isn't just an important work trip; it's also a one-day personal vacation he’s been looking forward to since he booked with a fishing guide to fit in some overdue R&R. She and I brainstorm and come up with so many ideas that would almost work.
The resolution turns out to come from a text she sends to her father’s good friend (she’d talked to him a couple of times since seeing him at her dad’s funeral). He was happy to loan one of his company pick-up trucks to her husband, who was only a 25-minute Uber ride from him.
That’s when Tamara turned to me and said, “Being resourceful beats being rich!”
I laughed, recognizing the truth in that—her husband’s cash and AMEX Platinum card couldn’t save the day, but her resourcefulness did. Maybe he could have figured out a solution himself if he’d had a resourceful mindset. Maybe one reason she and I are so close is that we have that in common—being resourceful as well as optimistic. Maybe that’s why my brother thought to call me when he felt hopelessly lost.
That story ends well—the short version is that I remembered that a year prior, I had briefly met a woman at a conference in Chicago who lived in Hawaii. I recalled that she was a professional organizer and figured she could help my brother determine his next steps and devise a workable plan. I called her. I connected my brother with her. She helped him out in a big go-the-extra-mile way. Looking back, I think, what are the odds?
Well, what were the odds that Tamara knew someone in the city where her husband was stranded who had both the desire and means to help him out?
Resourcefulness always beats the odds.
A resourceful person is skilled at solving problems and achieving goals creatively, using the assets available to them. They look for resources they need with the expectation of finding them. Maybe they don’t find a solution, but their odds of success are much improved.
Here’s a question for you: How are you a resource?
What would someone come up against that you would be the asset, the solution they needed?
What if you could identify yourself as “the go-to resource for _________” and let the world know that?
Two points here: Keep developing yourself to be a more resourceful person; emphasize that you are a resource for others.
Try writing it out. Here’s mine:
“I am the go-to resource for aspiring authors who want to write a book that is rich in well-crafted true stories that engage the reader and make the author and their message unforgettable.”
Aloha!
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