How can we support WeHelp?

The best support you can give is to spread the WeHelp Mindset by getting out there and helping people. Below are some simple and fun ways to do so.

Send your stories and thoughts to: [email protected]

Start a WeHelp club

Get your friends, family, neighbors, colleauges, or fellow students together and figure out what you can do to help the people around you. We've already seen many lives completely changed by WeHelp clubs and every single story is an absolute joy to hear. A life dedicated to helping our friends and family is a life well spent and all of us are excited to be a part of your story. So don't forget to share with our community.

Let people help you

This may sound silly, but letting people help you is a phenomenal way to help other people. In fact this may be the key to the WeHelp Mindset. Helping other people feels good, strengthens our relationships, and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Giving this to another person is one of the most impactful things we can do, yet our ego often gets in the way of allowing others to help. Take a moment to think about how complex and important this is.

Hamlin, Wynn, and Bloom showed us that preverbal infants want to help and prefer people they see helping others. Helping is a prosocial behavior built in to us that we need to exercise even as an infant. As you raise your kids, make sure to let them feel like they are helping. Make efforts to include kids in our communities. The need to help is a fundamental need as it expands and deepens our social connections.

Smile

Smiles are absolutely contagious and one of the most impactful ways you can help other people. As you pass people make eye contact and smile - even a brief smiling interaction can completely change another person's mood and day. This works because we're social creatures - our brains are looking for signs of social connection and we automatically reciprocate by smiling back.

A friend of mine does research on group productivity and has an assistant join the group and just smile. The smiler, even if not helpful on the task, increases the productivity of the group by 2x. It works because smiles are contagious - suddenly everyone is reflecting positive energy back at each other which deepens the social connection and dedication to the task. Adding a downer to the team barely has a negative effect as the smile just swamps the team in positive energy.

Try this - take a walk twice a day around your neighborhood and be the smiler. As we are increasingly isolated by technology your smile may be the only one your neighbor sees that day. In a few months you'll have had a significant positive impact on your community even if you don't interact with your neighbors beyond a smile, nod, and wave.

Spend time with other people

Spending time with people is helping them. Research has shown that having 2 meals a day with your family significantly decreases the risk of mental disorders in children. This protective effect follows them throughout their life which tells us that they are developing social, and emotional skills that help build and maintain relationships. We all know how bad being lonely feels - so it is important we make time for each other.

Listen and ask questions