Postcards From My Life

Dear Reader,

Today’s Follow Friday is Luke Stokes. Luke is a PHP programmer, an entrepreneur, and lead programmer on FoxyCart; none of those are the reason he’s my Follow Friday today. I chose Luke because he lives a principal I aspire to; Luke is a servant.

I try to help anyone I can. If you know me and have a project you need help with – in any way – I’m always happy to help. However, being a narcissist, I sometimes forget to help if it’s not convenient; Luke suffers no such malady. Despite the fact that he’s just set out on his own and working hard to make FoxyCart the best e-commerce platform on the web, he always has time to stop and help me, even when I don’t ask.

Here’s an example. I gave Luke a copy of my latest book. He read it, he raved about it on twitter, and he rated it on Amazon. Then he went above and beyond and actually sold two copies for me. He told two friends “You have to read this book, go buy it.” Luke gets nothing financial out of doing any of this. Other than my thanks, he gets nothing out of helping…and yet he still does.

Those of us who live life on the web know that aside from the time it takes to create them, bits are free. It is tempting to think that writing an email or blog post really doesn’t cost Luke anything so it’s easy to “help” like that; I strongly disagree. Luke does what I strive to do whenever I can, he shares his influence, and shares it freely.

Luke is quite a bit younger than me – OK, most of you are quite a bit younger than me – but I learn from him every time we meet. I am honored to call him a friend and I gladly tell you about him because I want you to meet someone I think will be one of the great entrepreneurs of the coming generation.

Thanks Luke for your friendship. One day I hope to be able to repay you for all you give me. :)

Until Next time,
I <3 |<
=C=

Tags: foxycart, friendship, influence, luke stokes, servant, sharing

This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2011 at 9:19 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.