The Wholeness Series Vol 9: Social Responsibility - The Selfish and the Selfless

What if the clearest sign of growth isn’t how well you optimize your morning routine, but how you show up for someone else? We take social responsibility out of the abstract and into everyday life, pushing past the comfort of posts and into the grit of presence, service, and ethical action. No grandstanding—just practical ways to widen your circle of care and make your influence count.

We lay out why real transformation is incomplete until it serves others, drawing from the Golden Rule and time-tested traditions about repairing the world. You’ll hear how self-care and service can coexist—heal so you can help—while avoiding the trap of private growth that never leaves the journal. We talk through what happens when crises strike close to home, why “it won’t happen to me” is a myth, and how small, steady acts often outlast loud, performative gestures. From mentoring at work to checking on neighbors after hardship, from lending your voice to showing up with your hands, the path to wholeness runs through contribution.

We also face a hard truth: many are disillusioned by communities that preach maturity but avoid responsibility. The antidote isn’t cynicism; it’s alignment—belief matched with action that protects dignity and delivers care. If you’ve wondered where to start, we offer a simple exercise: pick one sphere—family, community, or workplace—and make one intentional act that isn’t part of your job. Write it down. Observe the outcome. Repeat. Brick by brick, your influence compounds and your world gets stronger.

Subscribe for more grounded guidance on purpose, growth, and service. If this conversation moved you, share it with a friend, leave a review, and tell us the one act you’re committing to this week. Your influence matters—use it.

Transcript

Wholeness Series Context

From Integrity To Responsibility

What Social Responsibility Really Means

Beyond Posts And Bubbles

The Golden Rule In Action

Vulnerability And Shared Impact

Service As Proof Of Growth

Faith, Tradition, And Repairing The World

Reflect And Identify Your Sphere

Disillusionment And Using Your Voice

Start Small And Build

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome back to the Inspiration Station and your Everyday Edge podcast. I'm your host, Mr. You. If you're watching and listening to us for the very first time, firstly, thanks for watching and listening. We appreciate that very much. We can't really do this show without you. So we thank you for doing that, for being a part of this mission that we're on. If you're watching and listening from you our YouTube channel, thanks again for doing that. Please subscribe, subscribe to the channel and keep us uh afloat with your comments and your subscriptions because we got a lot of work to do, and you guys help us do that by subscribing to the channel. If you're listening, particularly on Apple Podcasts, firstly, thank you again for taking the time to fit us into your busy schedules. We definitely appreciate that. Please hit the subscribe or follow button on Apple Podcasts. Let us know that you're out there. Hit us up with a five-star review. Let us know that you like what you're hearing from our show or shows. Uh, if you love all three, even better. So thanks again for your contributions to that, with your subscriptions, with your follows, with your comments, and with your reviews. So thanks again for watching and for listening. We are in the midst at the tail end of our Inspiration Station wholeness series. What that essentially is, this is our opportunity to give back to the community that have been reaching out to me with questions and concerns and issues surrounding wholeness. So I felt led and inspired to create a 10-part wholeness series to kind of answer some of the questions that I've been hearing. We're on episode 9 right now. So if you are jumping ahead a little bit, go back to episode 1 and catch up. Don't miss that. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you enjoy your podcast listening. So last time we talked a lot about uh integrity and private and how that has to be a non-negotiable for us in every area of our life. We want to have influence that is lasting, that is sustainable. So we're talking today about social responsibility. I love this one for the time and the climate that we're in right now because man oh man oh man, we're not dancing around this issue. We got people who are taking their social responsibility to places that we probably shouldn't be doing, real talk, but we all have a social responsibility. Some folks, and I'm gonna go ahead and put a big pin, a really sharp pin in that bubble that you're probably living in right now, if you think that your social responsibility or the crust of it is to put a social media post out or start a blog. We have so much more to offer than that socially, and we gotta get out of the introversion or whatever the thing is that keeps us from stepping out there and making the kind of impact that is required of us in this daytime and season. We gotta contribute beyond our own selves. See, we're real good at taking care of us in a lot of cases, but when it comes to taking care of our fellow man, our neighbor, who think we're falling a little bit short. So we're gonna get into that on this episode today of the Inspiration Station and our wholeness series. You guys probably raise your hand if you know about the golden rule, or drop it in the comment section. Treat others as you want to be treated. You probably heard that your entire life. Treat others as you want to be treated. I believe that anytime that we aspire to make changes in our world and we make despite aspire to make a real difference that people can detect and see, it's gonna really come with being selfless and serving above our own interests. I'm gonna say that part again because I want you to catch that. Any big picture changes that we can make when it comes to changing our world and making the world a better place, it really is gonna start with selflessness and serving above and over our own interests. We're being called, and I know this is gonna be hard for the introverts, so don't plug your ears, hear me out. This is gonna make sense. We're being called to social engagement. I know that you're thinking about Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, and I'm really not talking about that. There are ways that you can make and create or be a part of communities that will help you to engage on a more social level, but that's a different topic for a different day. If you want to discuss that offline, I'm happy to have that conversation with you. But we have a responsibility to be engaged, we don't have the luxury to be disengaged, to be disinterested, to be insensitive to what's happening around us. You don't have to agree with one side or the other. But what you do have to understand is that this impacts all of us, and eventually it could impact you. You gotta be ready for that eventuality. If you're living in a bubble, like I was talking about earlier, you're gonna think that probably this stuff that's happening in life can't touch you. That you're above it, that it's way beyond you. But the people who I've seen that have been in tragic situations from my hometown, even throughout the southeast region of the country, they all have one thing in common. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody thought it could happen to them, whether it was a fire, earthquake, tragedy, bullets flying through a window, striking down their children. Nobody thought it could happen to them. Nobody thought that they'd be a victim or a recipient of really, really bad news. Nobody thinks it would happen to them. We almost tell ourselves that we're exempt from these things happening to us because of our goodness. But scripture tells a different story and paints a different picture. So let's shape our focus outward more. When we're talking about social responsibility. This is my personal belief. I would venture to say that if you've ever been coached by me, whether you are a paying client or whether we had a different arrangement, if you've ever coached by me before, or if you even watched or listened to the inspiration station over the past few years or so, what you're gonna hear is very consistent. I believe that real growth doesn't happen, it's not complete, it's not full until we serve other people. True growth is not complete, it's not full until or unless it serves other people. Yeah, you gotta heal yourself when you're on that plane and they tell you first, put the mask on yourself first, the breathing apparatus, and then put it on your children. Healing yourself is important because you can't help anybody else if you're not healed yourself. You can't pour into their cups if yours is empty. You just can't do it. Making the kind of impact that serves others is the real is the real evidence for me of transformation. Do you agree with that today? That making a positive impact serving others is a true piece of evidence that a person is really transformed. Do you agree with that today? The golden rule that we were talking about earlier is a principle that calls us to contribute beyond ourselves, to look past what we can do for ourselves and look at what we can do for others. Matthew 25 and 40 are the words of Jesus Christ Himself. And he said, Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me. So if you forgot about them, Jesus said, You forgot about me. If you visited them in prison, Jesus saying, You visited me in prison. It's the same as if you visited me. If you fed them when they were hungry, it's the same as you feed me if I was hungry. He's putting himself in the shoes of humanity. And he's saying that we have been created, in my assessment, in my version, he's saying that he's that we were created for service. That social responsibility should be something that we decide if we're gonna do or not. It's part of who we are. It's in our DNA. There's even Jewish tradition that says that we repair the world through service. We repair the world through ethical responsibility. It's a Jewish tradition called Kikon Olem. It means we repair the world through justice, service, and ethical responsibility. There's a lot of philanthropy going on, social movements, names that you know that are demonstrating how they use their talents and their voice and their personal resources, and leverage that for real societal change. I got no problem with that. That's all good. John Wesley even said, I believe, at least it was attributed to him, do all the good you can by all the means that you can. Let's reflect on this for a moment. Where are you currently giving back, or could you begin to give back? Who is waiting for the contribution that only you can make? I'm loving that right now because that causes us to think more broadly. Most of the folks that we know are probably living in a bubble. They're only concerned about their own household, and they're so busy in doing that, they don't even have time to venture out and to give to anybody else. If you can, as an exercise, identify one sphere of influence. It could be your family, it could be your community, it could be your workplace, and commit to one intentional act of contribution. I don't mean just showing up for your job, showing up for your assignment or your duty. What's one area you can contribute that has nothing to do with your work? It's just fruit of who you are. Identify one area, one intentional act you can make to contribute to the world around you. I'd love for you to do that. Write that down if you are journaling. We just asked for that at the beginning of the holding series that the power of journaling, we kind of talked about it a little bit. Write that down. Write down the outcome of that, the effect it had on both you and the people that you were contributing to intentionally. Social responsibility is the natural next step after you have personally and spiritually grown. I'm gonna say that part again. Social responsibility is the natural next step after you have personally and spiritually grown. I know that there are a lot of people who are watching and listening to this podcast, and I've heard from you, this is how I know this. I'm not gonna expose you to that, I just want to make a point real quick. There are a lot of people who are disillusioned with the church. They're disillusioned with so-called faith-filled people. Because what they see are people who say that they've grown personally and they've grown spiritually, but they're irresponsible socially. They won't step up and use their voice to make the kind of meaningful societal change that honestly, if we all did that, the world would be in a much better place, at a much stronger position if we all took that approach. I guess at the end of the day, I want to say this to you whether you're introvert or extrovert, or you don't claim to be either one, your influence matters. We're still talking about social responsibility and contributing beyond just yourself and your own interest, but your influence matters. You don't have to change the world in one day. You don't have to try to invest in so many things just to make yourself make yourself feel whole or feel relevant. Your influence matters. Start with something small, be consistent in that small act that you started and begin to expand over time. That's how most big projects worth their weight in gold were built. It started with one brick, not ten at a time, one. And then another and another. Build on this. It might be hard because the social world makes us want to run away from it. We don't want to be in a position to get that crazy on us. So we duck and hide and just try to stay away from it as much as possible. But we have a responsibility, and we gotta step up and do what we are called and designed to do. True growth is not complete or full until we see it serving other people through service and justice and ethical responsibility. This is our this is our obligation. You got personal resources, you have talent, you have a voice. Leverage it for real change. It's our responsibility. So next episode will be our very last episode of the wholeness series. Inspiration Station is gonna keep on going, but as far as the wholeness series, that'll be our last episode. I'm excited for us getting there. I'm kind of sad it's going away, but it will be available for you guys to watch and listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our YouTube channel, or wherever you get your podcast from. We're gonna end the uh wholeness series with one more episode, episode number 10. We're gonna bring everything together. We're gonna talk about living purposefully, integrating self, relationships, and service into actions that we can employ every single day. We're gonna end this wholeness series with a bit of a bang. So thank you for hanging in there and watching and listening. We definitely appreciate your involvement in this process. Here we go. It's all about being whole, and that's what we're after today. So thank you again for watching and listening. Find us on our YouTube channel, youtube.com, acting call me misteryou, or on every listening platform there is, especially Apple Podcasts. Thanks for watching and listening. Share your thoughts in the comments, and we'll talk soon. Have a good one.