Tag: generosity

The Web

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I enjoy organisational charts.

They help me understand how things are structured strategically. Who reports to who, how people are connected and who is responsible for what is fascinating to me.

Sometimes the chart is made up of job titles. Sometimes the name of the person is next to the job title. Very rarely there will be a few words included to give a brief explanation of what that person does.

What happens when we view organisations like this is that if something is happening with a member of the team, how seriously we take that depends on where they sit in the chart and how many staff they manage.

So, if one staff member is struggling with workload, lockdowns, or any number of things, if they have many people reporting to them then this is a serious issue, but if they are a job title at the bottom of the chart then it’s not as big of a deal.

Here’s the problem…

No organisation functions like this. Well, no healthy organisation.

Employees don’t live and work in a vacuum. They communicate and engage with staff from other departments to do their job well. The standard organisational chart does not help create a full picture of the people and their influence.

An organisation works more like a web. Everything and everyone is connected. If one person is struggling emotionally then it will pull and shift the entire organisation, no matter the size. The opposite is also true, if one person is killing it across all areas of their life then that will pull and shift the entire organisation. But we can’t rely on the ‘rockstars’ to make an organisation great. John Mark Comer would say that “a system is only as healthy as its least emotionally healthy person”.

How we manage and support any staff member influences the entire culture, from CEO to volunteer. Being generous in supporting emotional health and wellbeing for an individual will have a disproportionate positive impact on the whole web.

Fade

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I am amazed by the sheer amount of people that are alive in this moment. Over 7.9 billion people is impossible to imagine. It is extraordinary, and overwhelming and humbling.

Out of that 7.9 billion, how many people will know me? Dunbar’s number suggests that we don’t really have the capacity to have more than 150 meaningful relationships.

Out of that 150, how many will really do life with me? Jim Rohn said that you are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.

So, not many.

How many will remember me?

Of the people who lived 100 years ago, (about 2 billion of them), I have heard of, maybe, a handful. A dozen at most, and probably the same names that you may know. The rest of them, well they might have influenced how I live but I don’t know their names or their story.

So, logic would suggest that in 100 years no one will remember me, and no one will remember you. (Sorry).

I will fade.

That’s okay.

However, what I do will have a lasting effect. Every act will create an impact.

Specifically, generous acts multiply. They grow over time as they encourage others to be generous and create ripple effects to people that you will never know in places that you will never travel to. Generosity will not fade. It will last forever.

Leave a legacy. Be generous.

It’s Never Too Late

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You may have heard the question, when is the best time to plant a tree?

The answer is ‘20 years ago’.

The second best time to plant a tree? Right now.

There is a cost to spending time doing something.

Time spent at school could have been time spent at work.

Time spent at work could have been time spent with the family.

Time spent playing sport could have been time spent studying.

Time spent learning an instrument could have been time spent playing sport.

Time spent playing a video game could have been time spent doing anything else.

In the moment it doesn’t really matter. But over time these decisions add up, and lost time is gone forever. It’s a tree never planted. You get no shade. You get no air. You get no beauty from a tree that doesn’t exist.

It is never too late, though. You can always start now. You can always do something for the first time today, to become the type of person that you want to become – and little by little, over time, it can build up to be a new skill, a new passion, a new job. A new tree.

Generosity is just like that. I have failed many times to be generous when given the opportunity. I have written people off. Not given when the chance arose and not cared when someone was in need. But that doesn’t mean I have to live like that always. I can begin again today by being generous with my time, my care and my forgiveness.

In 20 years’ time, the small decisions I make today will grow into something that will bring beauty to all who see it.

Veil of Ignorance

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I’m not the only one who thinks that the world is structured unfairly. The rich seem to find it easier to keep making money, and those who are living in poverty are the most vulnerable to life shocks which push them further into poverty.

How would you re-design things if you could? Who would have the wealth? Who would have the power? How would you shape society so that it served all who were a part of it?

John Rawls came up with the concept of the Veil of Ignorance. It’s a way to test ideas for fairness, whether it’s a new tax law to re-creating society as we know it. All you have to do is to imagine that you have no idea what position you would end up in on the other side of that decision. You could have your taxes cut, stay the same, or even increased. You could end up with all the power or none of the power. With that in mind, would you still be comfortable making the decision?

It’s a theoretical experiment of course, but the exercise is important to help create the kind of communities that all members want to be part of.

If you were to create a place where you would be happy in any role that you were given; any gender, any race, any social status, any level of education, any physical ability, what kind of place would you create?

Thinking of your life now, if you were born a different gender or race, or differently abled, or in a different country or social class, would you still be comfortable with the social inequalities of our world? I know I wouldn’t be.

I don’t think a utopia is possible, but I do think there are simple things we can do to begin to shift those social inequalities towards fairness. It starts with generosity.

How you treat those that have less power than you will shape the world we live in.

Spend Elon’s Money

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One of my favourite TV show memories was Supermarket Sweep. I was pretty young when watching it, but what I remember is that contestants got a short period of time to run around a supermarket with a trolley, grabbing as much stuff as they could and the winner was the person who had the highest value in their trolley.

I remember getting stressed out just watching it, but the idea of spending someone else’s money to get free stuff seemed like the coolest thing in my mind.

I came across a similar concept recently. Call it the most extreme supermarket sweep ever. A website where you have 30 seconds to spend as much as possible on selected items, in an attempt to use up all the allocated money. The twist is that the total figure is the net worth of Elon Musk. $166 Billion of it. Check it out here – https://www.leasingoptions.co.uk/spend-elons-money/index.html

It stresses me out as I run out of time trying to buy all the stuff with all the money. One time I spent over $17 Billion which is quite impressive in 30 seconds, but that was mostly because I bought 345 Falcon 9 Launches at $50 million a piece, which still left Elon with over $145 Billion. I think if I had longer than half a minute I could make more of a dent in the phenomenal net worth that he has, but I doubt I could spend it all in my lifetime.

What could you possibly do with that much money? What is the point of that much wealth?

We know that happiness does not increase after you earn a certain level of income, in Australia that’s about $175,000pa (we are one of the most expensive countries in the world for happiness). Without earning another cent, Elon could be happy for 948,571 years.

Don’t get me started on Jeff Bezos.

Those Billionaires will have some questions to answer about what they have done with what they have been given.

Then I turn around.

And I look at everyone in the world who earns less than I do.

All 97% of them.

Looking at me, thinking that about what I could possibly do with all that money. What is the point of so much wealth? And that I will have some questions to answer about what I have done with what I have been given.

How to Be Generous Without Being Taken Advantage Of

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Being generous is considered to be a ‘good’ thing…generally. But what if you want to achieve greatness, or do difficult things, or have hard conversations? There must be a time to put generosity aside to live in the real world, right?

How do you avoid getting pushed around and becoming a doormat for people because you are generous?

To start with, generosity is borne from a love of people. Here’s part of what that looks like:

Generosity Creates Boundaries

There is a time when simply giving something to someone, be that money, time, freedom, will cause that person harm. It can enable them to continue down a destructive path, or to hurt themselves or others. It is a special act of generosity to create boundaries which protect others and yourself from harm. Just because someone asks you for something it doesn’t mean you have to say yes.

Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. Be intentional about what you say yes to.

Generosity Has Challenging Conversations

Being generous to people means calling them out and inviting them into growth opportunities. It drives someone to embrace the discomfort of a challenging conversation because, by doing that, it has the ability to help someone else grow.

“I love you too much to not see you grow in your humanity” Derwin Gray, former NFL Player, Pastor at Transformation Church.

Generosity Trains

Generosity creates opportunities for people to grow, develop and improve their lives. It encourages people to change, giving them options.

It is not generous to keep people trapped in a cycle of need, dependence and ignorance.

Generosity doesn’t make you a doormat. Generosity empowers you to empower others on their own journey.

That COVID ‘Cr@p’

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Not everyone will agree with you.

I understand that. I experience that from time to time. Recently I have had a handful of conversations about the legitimacy of the pandemic, the vaccines, the governments response and the government itself. Normally I take it in my stride, recognise that nothing I am going to say to that person will change their mind and nothing they will say to me will get me closer to agreeing with them. So I hear them out, say thanks for sharing and finish the conversation.

A few weeks back I was talking with someone about donating money and their response was, if they donated, “I don’t want it to go to that Covid crap. I want it to help people not kill them.”

This comment stung and it made me so angry.

That covid crap which has killed millions worldwide.

Which has crippled economies and health care systems.

Which devastated India this year.

Which is currently ravaging through Indonesia.

Which has kept millions of families apart.

That covid crap?

We may have different opinions on this. Not everyone has had the same experience of it. But Opportunity International Australia has lost staff members in the field, family members of staff, and clients to this pandemic. Calling it covid crap is pretty rich as you sit in your ivory tower of Australia.

Somehow I managed to keep calm, thank them for their time and respond out of generosity. But some days this is harder than others.

Why should we care about Indonesia?

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Most borders are arbitrary. They seem to do nothing. I have driven over them, walked through them and stood on them and you really can’t tell the difference between one State or another, or even one country or another. They are a man-made creation, making up a distinction between people from one place versus people from another, as if coming from somewhere hundreds of kilometres away increases or decreases the value of a person. If you have ever travelled into space and looked back at Planet Earth (I’m looking at you Billionaires), you won’t see any borders marked out on the land.

Islands are a little different though. They have a distinct start and finish, and we can tell easily what belongs to that Island and what doesn’t, but even then, to which country an island belongs is haphazard.

You may not know but Australia is made up of 8,222 islands.

Indonesia is also a country of thousands of islands, more than 17,500 of them.

The reason that Indonesian islands are not part of Australian is historical and chance. If one part of history had gone differently then Indonesia and Australia could have been the same country. But, that’s not how things are and there are strong borders in place. It does not mean the citizens of Indonesia have less value is citizens of Australia. We should care about Indonesia and Indonesians and here is why:

  1. They are our close neighbours. Indonesia is closer to Perth than Sydney is.
  2. They are an economic powerhouse and that will be good for the Australian economy.
  3. It’s the right thing to do. We are all people. Where you are born shouldn’t dictate how or if you live.

The people of Indonesia are going through the most challenging time with COVID-19 right now and it will only get worse. We must find a way to help them. We must do something to help our neighbours.

You can help by donating now at www.opportunity.org.au

I got that wrong

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I feel bad now. At the time I was annoyed and I spoke quite harshly to him. But he wasn’t doing what I thought he was doing and he was actually being a bit of a hero.

I can understand my response. It was two in the morning and he had woken me up with his barking. Strike 1.

I could immediately tell that he wasn’t where he should have been. Strike 2.

Plus he didn’t seem to be keen to go back to bed. Strike 3.

I had to physically pick him up and put him back in his pen, making sure he couldn’t get out again.

That was all well and good until a little while later exactly the same thing happened. What is the deal with this dog?

I was not happy and I told him that. In the morning things were a bit icy between us still.

I found out later that our neighbours had four people try to break into their home in the early hours of the morning. Now I think I know what the dog was up to.

I’m not annoyed at him anymore. I’m proud of him.

I’m annoyed at myself for not checking out my surroundings when I was putting him back to bed.

I’m annoyed that I didn’t give the dog the benefit of the doubt. I read the situation very wrong and it has completely changed my perspective of the event. Sorry Jake.

It was a solid reminder to check my perspective of all events that happen, in case there is another explanation for what I am seeing.

Idiot Generosity

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There’s the story of a guy who started giving money to a religious organisation that promised him his life would be ‘blessed with wealth and riches’ if he just kept giving. So he did. Until he ran out of money. No wealth and riches came his way. Just hunger and poverty.

What do we do when our desire to help puts us in harm’s way?

What happens if acting generously is causing others harm?

How do we live a generous life without slipping into unhealthy generous acts, saying yes to everything and damaging our lives in the process? Simply put, when is it okay to not be generous?

In the Buddhist practice, there is the concept of Idiot Generosity. Here some examples of Idiot Generosity

  • When people do things with the sole purpose of creating pleasure for themselves by helping others
  • Giving someone something they want because you can’t bear to see them suffer (another name for this is enabling)
  • Showing compassion to someone whilst they are causing significant hurt to others (think perpetrators of sexual abuse being overlooked)
  • Giving of items or services which create more heartache (think donated clothes for developing countries that are not suitable, ruin the local market economy and become landfill)
  • An inability to say no (saying yes to everything removing your ability to live up to the commitments you have already made)

The opposite of this is Wise Generosity which takes into account the context of the situation, other people and long term effects, in order to give wisely. It puts up generous boundaries which helps keep you safe but also empowers others, providing a platform for them to help themselves. This takes longer to figure out and is innately more thoughtful, but worth the extra effort.

Don’t practice Idiot Generosity. Don’t be generous in a way which causes damage to you and those around you.

Practice Wise Generosity. Be generous on purpose. It will be harder to do but it will cause less damage.