It’s great to improve your life. It’s that much better to get others to improve it for you.

How do you do it? Here’s one way. Share things you love. It’s enough to tell people about those things.

Here’s an example. At my mom’s house over the weekend, I asked my mom about the Vitamixer she has. She bought this super-powered blender from a late-night infomercial maybe twenty years ago. We all thought she was crazy.

It turns out this thing is amazing! It’s a blender like a Sherman Tank is a car. It destroys anything you put in it. You can put a whole egg in a smoothie, including the shell. It destroys the shell. You can drink it, probably getting some calcium.

On the plant front, you can put an orange it including the rind and only liquid emerges. I looked up the nutritional content of peels. Orange peels have more vitamin C than the inside of the fruit, more fiber, and more other stuff too. Who knew?

I far prefer eating the whole food, not throwing edible parts out, especially when they turn out more nutritious than the parts most people eat. And fresh fruits and vegetables taste and nourish better than processed ones.

Anyway, she said she hadn’t used it in a while and said I could use it to see if I’d enjoy it. I may sound like I’m advertising this product, but I love the food it makes. I’ve been throwing fruits and vegetables into it to see what comes out and I’ve loved everything. Well, after I realized I have to put fruit in for sweetness. And I held off on putting banana peels in.

Anyway, I’ve been telling people all week about how much I love the fruit and vegetable smoothies from this thing and how easy they are to make.

Then yesterday my friend was coming from an event that had leftover vegetable finger foods — celery, carrots, broccoli, etc. As far as I know they were going to throw them away. Instead my friend brought them to me.

A friend bringing vegetables may not seem big, but she was making my life better. If I hadn’t shared how much I enjoyed throwing vegetables into this blender, she wouldn’t have known to bring the vegetables. And she did it with a big smile, knowing how much I would enjoy them.

You can make this pattern happen. Share what you love and people will share those things with you. The sharing starts small, but adds up to a life full of things you love, brought to you by people you care about and who care about you.

My friend feels better for bringing the vegetables over than had she left them there. She helped bring joy to the world (she didn’t have the smoothie because she has a juicer that gets rid of the pulp and rinds, which I now tease her about because I think the Vitamixer is better). Who doesn’t feel good about creating joy? Plus she’ll share with me things she loves and we’ll switch roles.

I created the pattern before too, when I got my rowing machine — also known as the best solo workout I know (coincidentally also inspired by seeing it at my mom’s house). I told people how much I loved the workout and people started telling me about how they used to row crew in college, told me how to work out with it better, other exercises to complement it, how to improve my form, and so on.

Come to think of it, my mom knew to let me borrow the blender in the first place because I had been telling her how much I liked it, not expecting her to share it. As far as I know it was just gathering dust.

Think about it. How much more do you love sharing things with people when you know they’ll love them? You like connecting with people on things they love. The more they let you know what they are, the more you can share them. Who likes trying to get someone a gift when you have no idea what they like? Everyone who knows me knows they can’t go wrong getting me wine, beer, or scotch, for example (and probably not books), since I like them, consume them, usually with others, and recycle the waste.

So don’t hold back sharing what you love if you want more of those things.

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