Tag: Mindset

Unsolvable

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

Meet George*.

May or may not be George. Looks like a George. How do you know it’s not George?

George was a university student running late for a statistics class. Not wanting to interrupt when he arrived, he copied down the two problems that were put up on the board as homework.

It took him a bit longer to work through the problems as they were a little harder than usual, but he completed them, apologising to his professor for the delay in getting his homework completed.

But the two problems were not homework. They were famously unsolved statistical problems. George Dantzig had revolutionised the statistical world, solving the unsolvable. There is no doubt that he was incredibly intelligent, but it wasn’t just his intelligence that solved it but also how he approached the problems as something that could be solved. His search for an answer was not clouded by thoughts that people had already tried and failed.

How we think about problems and challenges in our lives directly impacts our ability to work them out.

Just because something doesn’t appear to have a solution, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. It just means it hasn’t been found it yet.

What is currently unsolvable to you? What if it could be? What would that look like?

4 Ways to be Generous this Christmas

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

Whilst every day is filled with opportunities to be generous, Christmas is a time designed for people to participate in generous acts.

Here are 4 things that you can do to be part of it…

  1. Have a generous mindset.

It may sound simple, and it is, but it’s not easy. To approach people with a generous mindset is the start of all generous acts. Especially at this time of year people around us might say or do things that we think are quite stupid and we can write them off as unintelligent or unthoughtful. A generous mindset seeks to think of the best possible reason why someone would behave in a way that we don’t agree with. Maybe they are stressed, maybe they are rushed, or feeling unwell. There could be any number of reasons that we can’t see. We don’t have to agree with them or support their actions, but we can still see them as a person who worthy of grace.

2. Look Left and Right

I don’t know about you but I don’t see my neighbours that much. Our street is tiny, but I have little to no relationship with anyone who lives in our proximity. Christmas is a great time to change that, and an easy thing to do is to drop in on your neighbours with a small gift for them. There are many people who don’t have a great deal of family or friends around them at this time of year and it can be lonely. Drop in, say ‘Hi’ and be generous with your time.

3. Give a Gift on Behalf of Someone

We all have so much stuff, and the hardest question to answer at this time of year is “What do you want for Christmas?”

Instead of buying people more things, you can purchase a gift from a Charity Gift Catalogue for a family in a developing country, like a chicken or a duck, which helps them work their way out of poverty. You then receive a card which you can pass on to a family member or a friend, and tell them that their gift is helping end poverty. That is going to feel great, and it won’t clog up your house with more stuff. It doesn’t cost much at all.

4. Donate a Percentage

It doesn’t have to be much, but work out how much you have spent/will spend on Christmas presents this year and choose a percentage of that to give away to your favourite charity.

These are simple, yet effective, and they shift our focus beyond ourselves and the amount of presents under out tree, to how we can change people’s world through generous acts.

Merry Christmas!

Not Just for Kids – A Simple ‘How-to’ Guide

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

We love the idea of teaching kids about being generous – because who wants to be the parent of ‘that selfish child’?

No one, that’s who.

But kids learn by osmosis. Just by being in the same proximity as their parents they pick up our patterns of behaviour and attitudes. If you don’t believe me, try swearing once around your small child. I guarantee that will become their new favourite word (or so I’m told, of course I wouldn’t know). Quite simply, if we are not generous then they won’t be.

So, quick, be generous!

But generosity is a muscle – it requires consistent practice. Try giving some money away to a person if you haven’t done it in a while. It’s painful, almost like working out for the first time in a few years.

Here is how we can find a way back to being the generous person we hope our kids turn into when they get older. It just takes some retraining of the ‘generosity muscle’, by doing the following:

  1. Start

This is the hardest part. Making a start. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. Take $5, set it aside and think about someone you love/like/tolerate/loathe and buy them a coffee. Just try it out, they may love it and be thankful, or they may tell you that they hate coffee and throw it in your face – it doesn’t matter either way. This is your training, not theirs.

2. Keep going

Now that you’ve made a start, find other ways to use $5 a week to make someone else’s day better. Coffee, snacks, a card or a small gift. $5 won’t buy much but the amount is not important, it is the intent behind it that matters.

3. Grow

Now that you are in the habit of being generous with $5 a week, take on the challenge of growing it. That can either be through multiple $5 acts of generosity or pooling more money together and making a larger impact on someone. A dinner perhaps, a donation to a charity, buying fuel for someone’s car or groceries for another family. Watch how people respond, but most importantly notice how you feel about yourself.

4. See Progress

Momentum builds and it changes the way you turn up in life. As you progress in your generosity journey, you will create different relationships with those around you because you are approaching them with a generosity mindset. You are becoming a different person now – a better version of you.

5. Bring a Friend

No one likes to travel alone…well some people do, but it’s still nice to have someone around sometimes. Find someone around you and take them on the journey of building their generosity muscle – it will change your life and theirs.

5 simple steps to work your generosity muscle and create a positive change in you, your kids and the world.

Have I missed something? I would love to hear from you!

You Can Never Be Too Poor…

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Times are tough. This is always going to be true for someone, somewhere in the world. Even if the global markets were growing at record rates, things would be hard for some sections of the community. If my one term of Economics at University taught me anything, it’s that growth in one area usually means that other areas of the economy may be struggling. It’s a delicate balance but when things are tough we can hope that another part of the market will expand.

When times are financially tight, we adjust our budgets and often the money that we have allocated for giving is repurposed. If the Federal Government is any example, then you can hardly blame people for doing this (Australia now gives less in Foreign Aid than in any time through the 60 years that Australia has been supplying aid). Let us also not forget that, ranked according to Gross Domestic Product per capita, Australia is the 15th wealthiest nation in the world. Not bad for 24 million people floating on an isolated island in the Southern Hemisphere. Even if we weren’t in the top 20 wealthy nations, we can always find room to give.

Don’t get me wrong, there is wisdom in handling our money well but being generous is a core part of being financially wise. There is a World Giving Index which measures the generosity of each country based on an average score of the amount of people who have helped a stranger, donated money and volunteered some time in the last month. For the third year running, the most generous country in the world is Myanmar. I know, I was surprised too. Sure, the US, Australia and New Zealand make out the rest of the top 4 but Sri Lanka is number 5. Also, the most generous country when it comes to helping a stranger is Iraq. Think about that for a while. If you could nominate of a country that might possibly have an excuse for not trusting a stranger enough to help them out, surely Iraq would be at the top of that list. But no, 81% of Iraqis had helped a stranger in the last 30 days. You don’t need to have all the money in the world to be generous.

Giving is a part of life. Generosity is a life philosophy. What I have learnt from those living in some of the poorest parts of the world is that you can never be too poor to be generous. The amount of money you earn does not shape how generous you are, your mindset does.

You can start being generous now.