Recently, I got an email from someone on my list saying the following:

“Hi, Idol Stefan,👋

Hope you're doing great and safe.

 

I just have one question. Why there's no one these days that give free training?🤔

 

…Especially to those like me going through hardships in life in these trying times and barely supporting our family's needs.

All of them just want to gain and earn money, especially from newbies like me. The sad thing is that I don't have enough budget to undergo special training.

 

Sorry for this message, just felt that I had to send these and hoping that something will change in freelancing world.

Thank you, and may God continue to bless you.”

—-

Ugh.

Here was my response:

“This sounds a lot like “hey I'm a victim and I feel sorry for myself so I'm hoping other people will feel sorry for me too.”

Just being honest.🤷‍♂️

 

I give away my courses to people all the time. Like I gave away RMBC and Freelancer Freedom to anyone at risk of losing their job due to a mandate.

 

And there are oceans of content on YouTube. Go watch Justin and I's videos on getting clients on YouTube. Watch Alex Cattoni's content on YouTube as well.

 

There's literally thousands of hours of content and training, you just need to search for it.

 

So this brings me back to my initial point: your email sounds like a pity party. You're gonna need to work on shifting your mindset and going from “victim” to proactive hero in your own story. Otherwise, you're always going to remain stuck and disappointed and feeling like you're not far enough along in your life.”

I hate emails like the one that person sent me.

“Hey Stefan I feel sorry for myself. I hope you feel sorry for me too. And then I hope you just give me something for free even though I was too indirect in my email and afraid to explicitly ask for it.”

F*** that.

When you reach out to people with this kind of mindset, you’re always gonna struggle. It’s a turn-off.❌

Why?

It goes back to helping vs. saving.

People want to help others. Most of us don’t want to save others.

An email like this comes from a guy who wants saving.

He wants me to say:

​​“Hey brother, I’ll give you all my courses for free. Let’s get on a call. Let me bring you some clients. Let me change your life. Let me do all of this. And meanwhile, you just hang out in the passenger-seat. Copy-Jesus, take the wheel!”

I don’t have the bandwidth for that.

​​Very few people do.

​​And the ones who do have the bandwidth also have a savior complex, are probably trying to avoid their own internal issues, and aren’t the ones you want saving you anyways.

​​They’re the Kathy-Bates-in-the-movie-Misery type folks, people who say they want to help save people, but who really want little broken-winged birds who they can nurse back to health…

And only to the point where the bird is a good companion in a cage….

​​If the bird tried to actually fly away, they’d find a way to snap their wing and start the process all over again…

All the while feeling self-important and like their lives have meaning (at the bird's expense).​​

So, you don’t want “saving” in general. It's dangerous and unhealthy for both the subject and the object in the relationship.

You don’t want people with a Savior Complex coming to your rescue.

What you want is help.

But with help, you ask in a more direct way. And it’s more proactive. You aren’t a passive little baby in your life.

Asking for help is saying:

“Hey, here is my problem. Here is what I’m doing to fix it. I feel like I’m missing something. Do you have a recommendation? How can I make adjustments or tweaks to get different or better results?”

Do you see how that language is so different?

In this case, you’re saying:

“I’m firmly behind the wheel in my own life. I’m just a little lost at the moment, so if you’ve got a map and can point me in the right direction, that would be super. And once you do, I got it from there.”

So be someone who seeks help…

Not someone who wanders blindly through your life, asking to be saved.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link