What Did You Give the Last Person Who Inspired You?

Jun 12
3 min read

I know someone who has fundamentally changed the way I think about what it means to show up for people.

Her name is Joelle Paul-Cook. And she doesn't talk about generosity as a value. She practices it in ways most people wouldn't think to — and at hours most people wouldn't answer.

She sponsors people she believes in. She takes over running companies when she sees something worth saving. She builds brands from the inside out — including Bad Mermaid, a mission-driven energy drink brand she is growing from conviction, not convenience. She travels. She invests. She is a completely devoted mother.

And she takes FaceTime calls at 4 in the morning from athletes most people only engage with when there's something to post about.

Not because she has nothing else to do. Not because it's convenient. Because she understands something most people never sit still long enough to absorb: the people who need you most — whether they are rebuilding from rock bottom or building something the world hasn't seen yet — don't work from the clock. And most people who claim to support them aren't actually standing next to them. They want the social media adrenaline hit. They want the pictures. They want to leverage whatever value the person still has — without judgment, they'll say, right up until there's nothing left to extract. Joelle is not those people. She picks up. Without an angle. Every time.

She also buys broken down houses. Not to flip for profit. To give formerly incarcerated people a place to rehabilitate them — and then live in them. A second chance built into the walls.

Think about that for a moment. She is literally constructing the conditions for someone else's comeback.

I've been in a lot of rooms lately. Important rooms. Rooms full of capital and ambition and people with extraordinary access to one another.

And I've noticed something — in myself too, if I'm being honest.

I am fortunate to know people who give. Really give. Of their time, their finances, their connections, their belief. Friends and colleagues who show up without being asked and without keeping score. This is not about them. This is a reminder — for all of us, myself included — about the moments we miss.

Most people in those rooms are very good at receiving inspiration. They're moved by a story. I've watched people sit in genuine awe listening to someone like Chris Gardner — a man who built everything from nothing, who slept in subway stations with his son and still found his way — speak about his Foundation, about putting students to work, about the $105 background check that stands between a young person and a job. One hundred and five dollars. Less than most people in that room spend on a business lunch. He asked the room to help raise ships — not just with donations, but with pathways. Jobs in commercial real estate, sports arenas, construction, businesses of every kind. Connections across New York City and across the country that could change the trajectory of a young person's life.

And then people approached him to pitch their business. To ask for help with their book. To get a picture.

They're activated by a speaker. They lean in, they nod, they approach afterward with their card and their ask and their perfectly practiced sentence about how much the person's work has meant to them.

I'm not judging it. I've done versions of it myself. It's human. Rooms of access make people reach.

But Joelle walks into those same rooms and immediately starts looking for what she can give.

She wins and prospers by investing in raising other ships — not by taking from the rooms she's in. That is her entire operating model. And it works. Not despite how she moves through the world, but because of it.

A rising tide raises all ships.

But someone has to decide to be the tide.

Most of us are waiting for the tide. Hoping for it. Measuring how high it lifts us. A few of us are generating it — quietly, consistently, at 4 in the morning when everyone else is asleep and someone on the other end of the phone is trying to find their footing again.