Giving Generously

Today’s thought was inspired by a comment Darren Hardy makes at the end of his book “The Compound Effect”.

“Whatever I want in life, I found the best way to get it is to focus my energy on giving it to others. The ‘ripple effect’ of giving generously of your time and energy is that you become the biggest beneficiary of your personal philanthropy.”

It’s not that you “give to get”, but you give knowing that you get a lot in return, in unexpected ways, when you do. And that serves to provide you with more influence, resources, capacity, and experience that will help you in giving generously again and again.

One of the most abundant and generous people I know is my mentor David Meltzer, and he considers himself to be a conduit that value flows through. He has a spiritual approach to the goodness in his life, and feels as though the universe trusts him to facilitate the flow that needs to touch others. It’s an energy I do my best to embody myself.

And the beautiful part is, we have so much to give, no matter who you are. Standardly we default to thinking that the most valuable things to give are your money and time, but there are so many more nuanced things that we have to offer:

We can give our attention to help someone feel seen, heard, appreciated, and valued.

We can give people our networks and connections, helping them forge collaborations that are valuable to them.

We can give love, energy, enthusiasm, and hope to help inspire others who are feeling down, and infuse belief in those who are short of it.

We can give patience and presence for those who are too caught up in their lives to see the big picture.

For a lot of the things that we have to offer, there’s no cost to sharing it. We just need to be willing to show up with that spirit, and to embody the courage required to be a positive influence in the world. That’s what our self-improvement work helps us to do, and that’s what helps us contribute more to the flow that circles back around and returns to us.

Seek to be more helpful. Seek to be more useful. And seek to give more generously, because it’s the currency that helps us all have more than enough.