How to be a “good person” (a controversial take)

One of my clients had a job in the entertainment industry he loved and was very good at — but felt a lot of guilt.

If he was really a “good person,” he told me, he’d be working with the homeless.

This is a very common anxiety I head from my 1:1 coaching clients. We want something, but we feel that we can’t be a “good person” and have that thing. So today, I wanted to share 3 concepts I often tell my clients, when they’re having these anxieties:

1. Question your brain’s “evidence” about how to be a good person. Could the opposite be true?

That same client who worked in entertainment told me about a small side project he’d worked on — just for fun, outside of his regular work hours.  

Lots of people told him how much they enjoyed this project — including the mom of a child with Autism, who wrote him an email to say that her son spent hours every day on it; that it brought him relief and pleasure, especially when he was overstimulated.  

Huh, I said to him.

Why is your brain saying that the only way to be a good person is to leave your career and work with the homeless? Why isn’t the way you brightened up that boy’s life equally useful and important?

Is it possible that there are many more people who you’ve helped, who never contacted you?

And then I gave him a real nudge: how could the job that you’re doing be *better* for the world as a whole than leaving your career to work with the homeless?

…

My goal is never to force my clients to believe anything. It’s simply to invite them to loosen their brain’s fixation, and to allow their brains to hold multiple possibilities. I could come up with many scenarios about how he creates more value for the world on his current path — if his brain can’t access those possibilities, it’s too narrowly constrained.  

2. The best actions for the world are the ones that energize you and are good for the world.

In my opinion, there are an infinite number of actions that would be good for the world. The key question is: how do you choose between them?

When you choose actions that drain you, you have far less energy to do future good-for-the-world actions.

When you choose actions that energize you — you have more energy for future good-for-the-world actions.

So: How do you choose? I think the answer here is obvious.

3. People’s “goodness” cannot be ranked.

Can you rank everyone you know based on how good they are? How do you do that?

Based on the number of hours they volunteer?
How often they smile?
How often they write thank-you notes?
How nice they are to a cashier at Trader Joe’s?
How nice they are to you?

Okay, sure, but some people are obviously bad, right? Or at least, on the “bad” end of things.

To that I would say: I’m not so sure. What may seem easy to someone — being kind, or even, being polite or respectful or law-abiding — may genuinely be impossible to another person. This may be due to profound differences in neurological structure — or even profound differences in how someone is raised, the trauma they have experienced, and more.

And if we can’t rank people by goodness…then you cannot be a less “good” person.

[That one might make your head explode a bit. You can always just chew on it in the background for a while.]

…

I am very aware that some of this may feel controversial in your brain.

“There is a hierarchy of good person actions!” your brain might think.
Or: “It’s selfish to want to do only good person things that also energize you!”
Or perhaps, even: “You’re not a good person for believing these things, Katie!” 

To be honest, I’m okay with that.

You know why? A core belief of mine is: When I believe these three points, I have more energy, more enthusiasm, more ideas…and I do more good for the world.

And I freaking love that belief. I feel that it profoundly serves me and the world.

You are welcome to believe whatever you’d like.

But I’d recommend stealing my thoughts.  

…

As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. And that client in the entertainment industry? After quite a bit of work together (we go so much deeper in 1:1 coaching than in a short essay like this), he came to believe that it was possible to follow his passion and be a good person.

The relief of this gave him the energy to explore what he truly wanted to do. He ended up launching a venture on his own with his beloved wife — a long-held dream that he’d always been nervous to pursue — so he could make work he was so good at, in a way that was even more profoundly aligned with his values and interests.

p.p.s Interested in being one of my 1:1 clients? I’d love to get inside your brain + move the furniture around. Learn more here. And here’s what some past clients said about working with me.