Equity in Gifts and Help Relationships: What the Universal Law Says

There are moments when helping someone leads to disappointment and conflicts on the part of the person being helped.
Entrepreneurial evolution may seem very easy from the outside. In reality, it is an extremely long and, as intuitive as it may be, should be a well-documented journey.
In my many professional and personal relationships, I have experienced many situations, some very unpleasant, others very fruitful.
The selection, the way we choose partners, collaborators is the first step for a business to grow progressively. Often, we make mistakes.
In the business world, choosing partners and collaborators wisely is an essential step for the success of entrepreneurs. This careful selection contributes to personal and professional development.” — Stephen R. Covey
I encountered a situation in a mastermind group that caught my attention.
One of my colleagues was very upset with his brother. His brother, who had gone through a difficult period, had been brought home by him, taken care of, helped to start his own business, and taught him everything he needed to know to run a business. The business became functional and started to make a profit.
During all this time, my colleague did not ask for anything.
The irony comes after a year of effort to get his brother on his feet, a quarrel followed in which the helped brother, who had been brought into his home with no money, found shelter, understanding, and the means to live, and who had been given a business, concluded that he was not helped enough and felt unjust.
Where does this behavior come from? What is happening?
Often, those who start a coaching or consulting practice go through equivalent events.
All of these are life lessons. Every gift you make can be an opportunity or the knife that kills a relationship. Just as the same substance can be medicine or poison depending on the dose and administration!
There is a universal law that says every exchange of objects and services means making a trade; everyone must have an interest.
When you give a gift without receiving one in return, all you do is incur debt to the person in front of you.
A gift given must bring a gift in return to maintain the rules of equity.
Let me rephrase: a gift given disinterestedly actually means an offer of an alliance. If the person giving the gift accepts another gift from the first, an alliance is formed.
What happens when you don’t receive the gratitude gift from the other person?
You prove that your purpose is not to form an alliance as between equal partners but to challenge, to crush with your superiority by offering something that the recipient cannot return.
Often, out of generosity, we give without asking for anything in return. And relationships get badly unbalanced.
“Experiences in entrepreneurship are not just a way to build prosperous businesses but also a school of life, where the lessons learned influence personal development.” — Warren Buffett
There are two types of relationships — symbiotic and parasitic. If you go with the idea of symbiosis, there must always be equity in the relationship; each must give something, no matter how great the imbalance between the two.
If the experienced one or the one with resources makes the mistake of giving without asking for anything in return, the long-term imbalance leads to a rupture. It even leads to an outcome that was inconceivable at the beginning — the one who gave is disappointed and with wasted energy, the one who received without giving is frustrated but remains handicapped by forces, not understanding the value of the gift, and at the same time, unable to function without it.
I have learned that when someone asks for my help, I will definitely ask for something in return, at the level of the power to give of the one in front of me.
“Equitable business relationships, based on fair exchanges, not only lead to success in entrepreneurship but also to the constant evolution of the individual.” — Brian Tracy
When someone offers me help, I will offer something in return so as not to disappoint the mentor that the gift is not well received and understood.
The exchange of gifts must be equitable!
