Generosity First
Get obsessed with giving.
Start my proven process to help you unlock the benefit that giving will bring.
In 2010, I had a revelation:
A successful bottom line does very little to improve your quality of life.
After advising entrepreneurs, CEOs, and other high-impact leaders for years, I recognized no matter what goal they achieved, it never seemed to be enough to deliver what they really craved – happiness, joy and contentment.
I had an existential crisis where I began to wonder… “Am I making a positive difference?”
Ever the overachiever, I started looking for the elusive “key” to helping professionals get more joy from all their hard work.
I read books, watched videos, listened to podcasts, and even attended workshops. I came across a bunch of great concepts and began to incorporate them into my coaching practice.
This helped, but something was missing.
Then, I stumbled across a book that changed my viewpoint completely – Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Dr. Stephen Post.
Dr. Post helped me understand the proven psychological and physiological benefits of making a simple change in your life – living generously.
Once, I’d uncovered this secret, I became obsessed with helping myself and others realize the positive effects of helping those in need.
I’ve spent the last 10 years working with both non-profit and business leaders to understand how we can make living generously fundamental to the way we live.
This effort has led me to 3 important conclusions:
- Understanding the importance of living generously (from the standpoint of the giver and the recipient) is easy. Overcoming the psychological programming that keeps us from giving regularly is extremely difficult.
- Our approach to charitable giving in the US is flawed. This leads to chronic donor fatigue and keeps generous individuals from finding the joy in living generously.
- The rise in two seemingly unrelated factors (disposable income and stress/anxiety) work together to make this the best time in our country’s history to focus on living generously.
I’ve taken these lessons learned and developed services to help companies inspire a change in behavior that benefits everyone involved.
The Purpose:
Inspire Charitable Leadership
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We (the professional community) have the resources (time and money) to solve the biggest challenges our communities are facing (poverty, homelessness, disparity in opportunity, etc).
What we need is focus.
In addition to helping your employees increase productivity and decrease stress, the Generosity First program has an additional, bold objective: inspire your team members to become charitable leaders within their communities.
A charitable leader is a talented, driven, busy professional who makes the decision to shift a portion of their valuable and scarce resources (time and money) towards a charitable cause. This commitment is often characterized by an active board role and/or helping to raise money for the organization.
This is very different from a passive volunteer position and writing a nominal check every year during the fundraising campaign.
The charitable leader:
- is in the game to make a meaningful difference
- recognizes that the satisfaction/joy/contentment they get from being involved far surpasses the commitment they’ve made
- inspires their peers, family, and friends to find their own cause and give generously
- changes their community at the ground level
Join me in inspiring transformational leadership that engages and equips each person to change their mindset, their life, and their legacy.
Generosity First:
How living generously delivers lasting happiness, joy, and contentment.
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We are all searching for something.
On the surface, we’ve convinced ourselves that our quest has only one possible destination – success.
We know our objective has been reached when our hard work is rewarded with recognition, wealth, and acquisitions.
Remember how you felt when you got the promotion, bought the lake house, or were recognized as the top performer?
Unfortunately, no matter how much success we achieve, it never seems to be enough to sustain what we’re ultimately craving… the feeling of joy, contentment and peace.
If achieving success isn’t the best strategy for finding lasting peace in our lives, can anything fill this void?
The answer is yes, and the solution is remarkably simple – give generously.
In this 60-90 minute talk, I will draw from more than 10,000 hours advising professionals and help us answer these important questions:
- Why does success and achievement fail to deliver long term happiness?
- How does giving change your perspective and provide lasting peace?
- Why is giving such a difficult habit to develop?
- What are the proven strategies for making generosity a part of your daily life?
Generosity First:
The Workshop Series
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In this group coaching program, I will deliver a series of workshops that are designed to meet your organization’s unique makeup. These sessions will give your team the specific tools to help make living generously part of your corporate DNA.
This program is delivered in your choice of 2, 4, or 6 sessions and includes the following:
- Current State Assessment – I will conduct an anonymous survey with your staff and a handful of one on one interviews with your leadership team to ensure the sessions are crafted to meet your unique needs.
- Content – These sessions will provide you with all the information and materials necessary to get your own program off the ground. These topics will be covered:
a. The Psychology that Drives Our Behavior
b. The Proven Benefits of Living Generously
c. How to Select the Right Charitable Organization for You
d. Making the Biggest Impact to Your Cause
e. Inspiring Your Family and Community to Give
- Momentum – I will work with the leadership team to develop a unique rollout strategy to ensure that this program changes behavior at all levels in the organization for the long term.
Generosity First:
Individual Coaching
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In this one-on-one coaching program, I will give you the specific tools to help make living generously part of your DNA.
This program is delivered in face-to-face (digital or in my office) and typically includes quarterly meetings.
- Current State Assessment – I will work with you to fully understand your unique background.
- Coaching – I will walk you through this process to help you transform the way you think about giving and make it a core part of your life.
a. The Psychology that Drives Our Behavior
b. The Proven Benefits of Living Generously
c. How to Select the Right Charitable Organization for You
d. Making the Biggest Impact to Your Cause
e. Inspiring your Family and Community to Give
- Momentum – I will work with you on an ongoing basis until this program changes your behavior.
I am obsessed with helping the best charitable organizations make a massive impact in the lives of those whom they serve. This impact is typically built upon a successful development strategy.
As a result, as my schedule allows, I will offer the following talk to a non-profit board of directors for no fee.
Generosity First:
The Power of Commitment
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If you’re a non-profit leader, sit on a charitable board or find yourself trying to sell raffle tickets for a travel baseball team, you know one thing for certain – raising money today is hard work.
The world of charitable fundraising has gone through two significant changes in the last 20 years. First, the number of charitable non-profit organizations has ballooned by more than 50% to over 1.1 million. Second, social media has made it virtually effortless to market any fundraising event.
As a result, donors feel bombarded by requests for their kids, neighbors, college, peers at work and anyone else who they’ve hooked up with on Facebook.
Breaking through all the noise is more difficult than ever.
But it can be done – you just need to unlock the power of commitment.
In this fast-paced talk, I’ll address the following questions:
- What’s wrong with our charitable fundraising in the U.S?
- How can we break through the noise and building meaningful connections?
- What are the keys for teaching our donor base to make giving (time and $$) a habit?
In the fall of 2008, a close friend of mine suggested that I volunteer for the local Make a Wish® chapter.
The experience forever changed my life.
My job was to “grant” a wish to a 5-year-old boy with sickle cell disease who was being cared for by a single mother that worked 3 jobs just to pay the bills.
I met the family, granted the wish, and completed my assignment.
As soon as I arrived home, my then 5-year-old son, Ian, came running out of the house and greeted me with a big smile.
Minutes after playing with Ian, I recognized that his future was full of limitless opportunities. The young boy I had just left was in a very different situation and would likely have to overcome many hardships my son would take for granted.
The only difference between the two was where they were born.
The disparity and unfairness hit me like a ton of bricks. It became clear to me that I could no longer bury my head in the sand when the inequities were so clear.
I had to make a difference.
Since then, I’ve enthusiastically supported organizations that have a clear mission – even the playing field so that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life.
I’ve watched these organizations make a meaningful difference in the community and feel blessed to be a part of their journey.
