Generosity is not availability.
The belief that burned me to the ground.
For most of my life, I’ve believed that generosity meant availability.
If someone asked for help, I said yes.
If someone wanted to talk, I made time.
If someone wanted advice, I gave it.
If someone needed a connection, I made the introduction.
If someone reached out, I responded.
I thought this made me generous.
What I didn’t realize was that I was slowly training myself to believe that access to me was the price of being a good person.
And that belief will drain the life out of you.
Because no matter how much time, energy, wisdom, support, encouragement, introductions, advice or attention you give away, there will always be another person waiting for their turn.
Especially if you build something meaningful.
Especially if people trust you.
Especially if your work helps them.
The requests never stop.
Recently, two different women reached out asking for the same thing.
Both wanted to learn from my experience publishing a book.
Both wanted access to lessons I had learned the hard way.
And in both cases, I gave the same answer.
I told them that I’ve shared those lessons inside the Hype Women community—specifically in the Book Squad—a group I created exactly for this purpose.
Wisdom I had spent years living, months processing, and recently took the time to distill them into conversations and resources that already existed.
In other words:
The answer was available.
The first woman responded:
“Say less.”
She joined the community.
She entered the Book Squad.
The started participating in the conversation.
The second woman responded differently.
She explained that she wanted a conversation with me and some personalized guidance.
Then she added:
“The same thing I give to women every day who ask me.”
When I read her response, something unexpected happened.
I didn’t feel guilty.
I didn’t feel defensive.
I didn’t feel compelled to explain myself.
Instead, I recognized her.
Because I used to be her.
For years, I gave the same answer.
Not because I had healthy boundaries.
Because I thought that was what made me a good person.
I wore my availability like a badge of honor.
I was proud of how accessible I was.
Proud of how much I gave.
Proud of how many people I helped.
Until one day I realized I had built an entire life around proving my generosity and almost no systems for protecting my energy.
It wasn’t sustainable.
It burned me to the ground.
You can:
write the book
build the community
share the lessons
create the space
host the discussions
without agreeing to individually reteach the same lesson to every person who asks.
Because generosity and availability are not the same thing.
You can be extraordinarily generous and not endlessly available.
So when I read:
“The same thing I give to women every day who ask me.”
I didn’t hear a villain.
I heard an older version of myself.
One I have a tremendous amount of compassion for.
And one I will never be again.
xoxo,
Erin