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Thank you.

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Today I want to talk about
3 stages of generosity

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that I have learned along the way.

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The first is the obvious one
which is "to give."

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Repeated research shows
that we are predisposed to altruism.

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This is not a new thing.

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And we probably don't need research,

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we've all had our moments.

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True story,
in Mexico, on Christmas Day,

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a father and a son
are sitting by the tree.

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And there's a kid from the slums
walking past them.

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Father turns to his son and says,
"Son, give him one of your toys."

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The son is reluctant, naturally,

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but when he sees
his father is pretty serious,

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he picks up one of his toys,

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and he picks up the least favourite toy.

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And he's about to go up there

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and his dad says,
"Son, give him your favorite toy."

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And the son goes up and initially,
of course, he is reluctant,

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but he actually goes out and does it.

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When he comes back, the father thinks
he needs to appreciate

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and acknowledge what his son has done.

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It was a big sacrifice.

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But much to his surprise,
this kid comes back with joy.

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He looks at his dad,
looks up and he says,

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"Dad, that was amazing.
Can I do it again?"

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And we've all had these moments.

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Some of us are late bloomers.

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I was in my early twenties when a few of us
got together and said,

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"We just want to give
with no strings attached. What can we do?"

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In Silicon Valley,
we went to the homeless shelter

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and we ended up building up a website.

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It felt great, we told our friends,
we came back,

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and it became the organizing principle

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for this organization called CharityFocus.

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Along the way we re-learned
one very interesting insight,

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and that was this:
compassion is contagious.

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When you start organizations, you say,

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"I want to grow this tree,"
and you focus on it,

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but with compassion
it doesn't work that way.

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You actually have to nurture
the whole eco-system.

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So on one side, we were doing
technology work,

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but on the weekends,

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we would go out and share meals
with the homeless

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and learn about
their perspective on life.

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On Wednesdays we'd get together
in people's living rooms and meditate,

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see what that is all about.

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We would go out and do acts of kindness,
this is the smile card.

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It tells you to got out
and do something small for someone else.

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And you do it anonymously,
so the person who received it says,

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"Who do I thank?"

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Well, you can't pay back,
but you can pay it forward.

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It serves as a reminder to do that.

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It's very beautiful.

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So we've realized
that compassion is very contagious.

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Along the way --

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The second stage of generosity
was "to receive."

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This is Arthur,
he loves to give hugs.

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Anyone who's given a hug,
which is all of us,

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knows that you can't give a hug
without receiving one.

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And that's obvious,
but where we get caught up

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is that so many times when we give,
we expect to receive in the same way.

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And that expectation blinds us
to new forms of value.

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Now, in CharityFocus,
we have three organizing principles.

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One of them was that we don't fundraise.

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We did this partially just to stay humble

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and to be real,
we start with what we have.

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If we have a lot, great,
if we don't have a lot, great,

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we can still serve.

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That was our organizing principle
and we never thought we'd have abundance,

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but lo and behold, we actually started
discovering abundance.

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We say what was happening?

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The first kind of abundance we discovered

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was social capital,
that's Simpson's-ville."

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Lots and lots of people, right?

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And partially this is
because of the Internet.

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It made organizing very easy.

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The transaction cost went down

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and you saw all kinds of movements
without a center.

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Now, social capital,
we have a lots of it.

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At each of our events,

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there were hundreds of people
that we'd interact with offline,

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there were tens of thousands
of people online, mixing together,

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creating lots of ripples.

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This was great.

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Then we went to the second stage,
which was Synergistic Capital.

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The Internet allows you to do loose ties,

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but what about the deep ties,
when you really know somebody,

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you can look them in the eyes
and share something deep and profound.

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When you can start to create
those deep ties, it increases the trust,

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and when trust is increased,
productivity goes up

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and all this good stuff happens,

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but most interestingly,
synergy starts to happen.

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Synergy is where one plus one
is no longer two.

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It's much more than two,
it's a whole different realm of value.

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We started discovering that.

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And the last thing
was the "Subtle Capital."

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I am not sure how else to describe it,

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but when you give,
there's some inner transformation.

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That inner transformation creates
a stillness in your mind

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and that stillness is
an unbelievable asset.

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When you have a posse of people
committed to cultivating that stillness,

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it really builds new kinds of value

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that is unexpected
and awesome and amazing.

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That was discovering an abundance.

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Now, the third stage, which is dance.

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No, I'm not gonna dance.
Or maybe I will.

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(Laughter)

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When you give and receive,
there's a tendency to keep track.

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Even though we might not do it overtly,
subconsciously we're thinking,

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"OK, how much did I give,
how much did I receive."

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We do this mathematics.
But when you let go of that,

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you start to dance,
it becomes very dynamic.

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You see a bunch of dancers over there,

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there're giving each other
a shoulder rub.

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But what you notice is that
no one is doing a quid pro quo transaction.

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Everyone is doing a massage
for somebody in front of them,

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and yet everyone is taken care of.

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When you start dancing to the spirit
of not keeping track --

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That guy could say,

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"Oh, the person behind me is giving me
15 joules of pressure on my back,

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so I'm going to give only 12 joules."

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If you do that, it doesn't work.

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But when you let that go, all of a sudden
you can have the circle

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which works in a very different way.

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So, it works for shoulder rubs,
but what about something practical?

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So, we decided to try a little experiment.

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We called it "Karma Kitchen."

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On Sundays, we take over a restaurant.

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You walk into this restaurant,
it's like a regular restaurant,

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but it's run by volunteers
and at the end of your meal

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your check reads zero.

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It's zero because someone before you
paid for your meal.

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And you get to pay forward
for somebody after you.

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And people are always confused.

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"Does that mean it's a free meal?"
No, it's not a free meal.

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When you go to a soup kitchen,
who is paying?

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Someone else outside who's got
some other reason for making that happen.

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Here, it's literally
the person in front of you,

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the person who was here
the week before

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that pays for this week.
This week's is for the next week.

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And when you count on people like that
to be generous,

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how long will that chain last?

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It has been going for three years.

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And then it started in D.C.

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From the surplus there,
it started in Chicago.

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But what's most amazing about this

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is that it creates a different context
for a very different kind of value.

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So for example, there was a UC Berkeley PhD
in computer science guy

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that came over and said,
"I want to volunteer."

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So one Sunday, he is volunteering.

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He is serving a table,
and the guest at the table says,

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"Oh so, how does this work?
You trust me to pay what I want?"

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He says, "Yeah, it's this chain,
and you're part of this chain."

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Really we are all part of this chain,

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from our ancestor onwards.

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So he says, "OK," he takes out his wallet,
gives him a hundred, and says,

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"OK, well, I trust you to bring me back
whatever change you want."

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(Laughter)

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And this guy goes in the back
and he's scratching his head.

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"This wasn't part
of the volunteer orientation!"

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(Laughter)

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What are you going to do?

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So, he is thinking about it.

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And then, he decides to tap into
that space in himself about what this is.

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This was not taught,
but he taps into that space,

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he goes up to the guy,
gives him back his hundred,

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takes out a twenty from his wallet,
adds to it,

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and this guy is completely blown away.

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(Laughter)

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Because he's blown away,

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this guy is blown away
and you know how this stuff ripples out.

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Everybody is energized.

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And you can look at that transaction
and say,

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"There was a cost of food,
there was twenty bucks."

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But the value generated there --

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I can guaranteed you
that that guy went home

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and he has been telling that story
to everybody he encounters.

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Because this is like, "Which restaurant?
Where does this happen?

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Which place on Earth?
Give me the address."

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So it's the kind of thing
where there's a new dimension of value.

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And if we don't have context
where people can practice this,

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we lose this entirely.

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So, really I just want to conclude
by saying,

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you Give, Receive and Dance.

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When you give, you find
that compassion is contagious

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and you start to create a community.

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When you receive,
and really learn to receive,

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you start to discover abundance.

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And when you dance, not only
do you create micro-gift economies,

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but we start to seed a gift culture.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)