knowabundance.com

Happy Monday!

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard Kiva.org mentioned in the past few months as the best example of a smart giving vehicle.

(Kiva facilitates on-line transfers of money between lenders and microfinance groups making loans to people living in poverty.)

While I like Kiva their primary function is lending, not giving. And there is a difference.

When I lend money there is the expectation that I will get it back (usually with interest.) The money is still “mine” and I am just letting someone else borrow it.

When I give money I let it go. I release control of the money as “mine.”

Giving money is radical in a world where money is seen as the most important thing in life. We all want more of it. Why would we give it away?

If you spend any time around young kids playing together you invariably hear or participate in this exchange:

“It’s mine! That’s mine.”

A scuffle, tug of war, hitting and/or crying ensues as one child tries to maintain control of the item that has been labeled “mine.“

The parent/adult steps in to mediate with the admonition, “Share. You need to share.”

Fundraising is our grown up way of sharing. In giving we remember that it is ok to let go of what we have labeled as “mine.”

Sure, lending is important too and as we’ve seen with successful microfinance programs, lending can be a powerful positive change tool for people disadvantaged by poverty and living without access to capital.

But let’s not confuse lending with giving and miss the opportunity to explore the land beyond “that’s mine.”

Substitute, “Mine” with “Ours.”

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

- from The Gift by Hafiz

( Happy Monday! Today’s post is from Sande Smith, our communications expert.)

There’s a phrase that used to resonate with me. Talk is cheap. Or to put it like my grandmom used to say, “you’re just talking to hear your head rattle.”

I didn’t have time for cheap, time-wasting, head-rattling talk, so I preferred not to talk a lot, and I certainly didn’t trust other people who rattled on with the first words that came to their lips.

Give me writing and reading. Writing required thought, review and reflection. If it was written down, the words and ideas could be read, scrutinized and the author held accountable. Yes, indeed, I trusted the written word.

But a couple years ago, I started changing my mind. A colleague asked me to be her mentor. When I questioned her choice, she stunned me with an eloquent explanation of the importance of conversations that were honest and that helped her to rethink her perceptions of what was happening in the workplace.

By asking me questions, she was getting “just-in-time” answers that helped her to reframe her own concept of what was possible. The answers to these questions weren’t written down somewhere . . . they were formed in the course of our curious, reiterative interaction with one another. Together, we were co-creating “just-in-time” knowledge and insights applicable to her particular time and circumstances.

Were all my curmudgeonly thoughts about cheap talk just misplaced? Not entirely. Thought, review and reflection have a big role to play in turning talk from cheap to rich. Soon after we began having these mentoring and mutual learning conversations, I listened to a workshop presented by James Lukaszewski, author of Why Should the Boss Listen to You? The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor.

I loved his idea that we consider becoming verbal visionaries. People who can provide valuable counsel, speak the truth with grace and candor, and tell relevant and memorable stories based upon history and the experience of other organizations. Such people can be an inspiration to others.

To prepare, he recommends writing down and speaking ALOUD your answers to a series of questions such as What do I believe? What are the truths of my life? Who am I? What are my personal limitations? What are my principles? What is my daily goal or reason for doing what I do? And what do I want my legacy to be?

Through the process of being a mentor and answering Lukaszewski’s questions, I’ve realized that I can make it a practice to view conversations – whether on the bus, in a café, or in the office – as opportunities for co-creating new ideas of what’s possible. Now that’s rich.

Substitute “Talk is cheap” with “How can I enrich this conversation?”

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”

- Audre Lorde

Happy Monday!

I went hiking with some friends on Saturday. Two of us were ahead of our small group on the trail and I said, “Let’s stop a minute and wait for the others.”

My companion replied earnestly, “Waiting is a waste of time!”

She’s five years old and already worried about wasting time. What does “wasting time,” mean to a five-year-old?

In this case, she was focused on getting where she wanted to be and that was all that mattered. She was on a mission. She had a vision of herself playing by the lake and she didn’t want to wait for anyone or anything on her way to her goal.

She especially didn’t want to waste time on a dusty, hot trail when she could be by the lake we were hoping was just around the next bend.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Really, who likes to wait at any age? Yet our lives are full of waiting. How do we teach ourselves (so often like five-year-olds in our thinking and behavior) to appreciate waiting?

We start by noticing what is happening while we are waiting.

In this case: sunlight and shadows, tree leaves moving in the wind, dragonflies swooping by, birds playing hide and seek in the bushes, a lizard sunning, a panoramic view of the lake, being together on a summer day.

Or for another example take major donor fundraising. Sure we love those first time donors who make a surprise major gift but those are rare. Most large gifts are a result of respectful donor cultivation and relationship building. This process inherently includes waiting. The donor chooses the pace and decides when the time is right to make a gift.

We ask. We wait for an answer. What is happening while we wait? We provide information and opportunities for meaningful engagement. We build trust in the vision, mission and financial stability of our organizations. We get to know the passions and interests of the people who care about the work we are doing.

The space of waiting is dynamically alive – don’t miss seeing and appreciating this by becoming overly focused on your end goal.

p.s. Another reason to love waiting: Have you ever sent an email or said or done something that, if you had waited a bit to allow yourself a little distance from your initial emotions and thoughts, you might not have said or done? Waiting offers time for reflection and perspective. Take it.

Substitute, “Waiting is wasting time” with “Waiting is free time.”

There are things
We live among ‘and to see them
Is to know ourselves’.

- George Oppen from Of Being Numerous

Happy Monday!

What office drama are you facing this week? What’s your role in it? Is this the role you always play?

Try something different this week: suspend judgment.

Of course this sounds easier than it is since our minds are trained judging machines. Whether with people, prices, products or behavior – we automatically assign a meaning to everything and categorize things as “good” or “bad.”

Judging is a hard habit to change – especially when we think we are right.

A tool for shifting this habit is to never believe that your story (or any story) is the whole truth.

Like the blind men and the elephant, our experience is simply our interpretation of what we are seeing, touching, feeling, observing – one limited view among many limited views.

A few months ago my friend posted this video of the “hollow mask” optical illusion on her Facebook page. The video shows how our minds make things up. We see something that is not there and even knowing that it is an optical illusion doesn’t override the conditioning.

Be aware of this habit and know that as real and all encompassing as your story seems – it’s an optical illusion.

For practice, take something that has happened around the office recently. Notice how all the talking we do and our analysis of cause and effect – of who, what, where, why and how – gradually coalesces multi-faceted reality into a single “this is what happened” storyline.

And then we become fixed on this version of the story as reality.

Let go of your story this week. Suspend judgment.

Substitute, “This is what happened” with “This is one view of what happened.”

The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: of amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.

- Rumi

Happy Monday!

I don’t have much to say today beyond the Quote of the Week.

These words from Scott Sanders book, Hunting for Hope have followed me for many years. Cropping up every time I start to feel overwhelmed by my to-do list.

A reminder that my stress is a by-product of an ambitious mind that believes more can (and needs to) be done than my physical body and time capacity allows for and can handle.

I heard someone say recently, “When you say no to something you are saying yes to something else.”

This obvious statement was and is beautifully profound to me. Mostly because I don’t like saying no, especially when what I am saying no to is something I really want to do or for a person or a cause I care about and want to support. Yet with every no, I am saying yes to my workable territory.

What about you? What are you saying no and yes to? What is your workable territory?

Substitute, “I need to do everything” with, “I say yes to my workable territory.”

“If your goal is to find a center, a focus, a gathering place within your life, then you would do well to practice fidelity. By slowing down, abiding in relationships, staying in place, remaining faithful to a calling, we create the conditions for paying attention, for discovering depths, for finding a purpose and a pattern in our days. We cannot give ourselves to every person or place, cannot answer every need if we wish to act responsibility. Stake out your own workable territory.”

Scott Russell Sanders (from Hunting for Hope)