WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.000 Thank you. 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Today I want to talk about 3 stages of generosity 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 that I have learned along the way. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.000 The first is the obvious one which is "to give." 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.000 Repeated research shows that we are predisposed to altruism. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.000 This is not a new thing. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:18.000 And we probably don't need research, 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.000 we've all had our moments. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.000 True story, in Mexico, on Christmas Day, 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:27.000 a father and a son are sitting by the tree. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:30.000 And there's a kid from the slums walking past them. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.000 Father turns to his son and says, "Son, give him one of your toys." 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.000 The son is reluctant, naturally, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.000 but when he sees his father is pretty serious, 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.000 he picks up one of his toys, 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.000 and he picks up the least favourite toy. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 And he's about to go up there 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.000 and his dad says, "Son, give him your favorite toy." 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 And the son goes up and initially, of course, he is reluctant, 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.000 but he actually goes out and does it. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.000 When he comes back, the father thinks he needs to appreciate 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 and acknowledge what his son has done. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 It was a big sacrifice. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:05.000 But much to his surprise, this kid comes back with joy. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:07.000 He looks at his dad, looks up and he says, 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:13.000 "Dad, that was amazing. Can I do it again?" 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 And we've all had these moments. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Some of us are late bloomers. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:22.000 I was in my early twenties when a few of us got together and said, 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:25.000 "We just want to give with no strings attached. What can we do?" 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:27.000 In Silicon Valley, we went to the homeless shelter 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.000 and we ended up building up a website. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.000 It felt great, we told our friends, we came back, 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.000 and it became the organizing principle 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.000 for this organization called CharityFocus. 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.000 Along the way we re-learned one very interesting insight, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:45.000 and that was this: compassion is contagious. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.000 When you start organizations, you say, 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.000 "I want to grow this tree," and you focus on it, 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.000 but with compassion it doesn't work that way. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:54.000 You actually have to nurture the whole eco-system. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:56.000 So on one side, we were doing technology work, 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.000 but on the weekends, 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.000 we would go out and share meals with the homeless 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 and learn about their perspective on life. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:06.000 On Wednesdays we'd get together in people's living rooms and meditate, 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:08.000 see what that is all about. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:11.000 We would go out and do acts of kindness, this is the smile card. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.000 It tells you to got out and do something small for someone else. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.000 And you do it anonymously, so the person who received it says, 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:20.000 "Who do I thank?" 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.000 Well, you can't pay back, but you can pay it forward. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.000 It serves as a reminder to do that. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:26.000 It's very beautiful. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 So we've realized that compassion is very contagious. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.000 Along the way -- 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:36.000 The second stage of generosity was "to receive." 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.000 This is Arthur, he loves to give hugs. 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000 Anyone who's given a hug, which is all of us, 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:45.000 knows that you can't give a hug without receiving one. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 And that's obvious, but where we get caught up 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.000 is that so many times when we give, we expect to receive in the same way. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.000 And that expectation blinds us to new forms of value. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.000 Now, in CharityFocus, we have three organizing principles. 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 One of them was that we don't fundraise. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:04.000 We did this partially just to stay humble 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.000 and to be real, we start with what we have. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.000 If we have a lot, great, if we don't have a lot, great, 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.000 we can still serve. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 That was our organizing principle and we never thought we'd have abundance, 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:19.000 but lo and behold, we actually started discovering abundance. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.000 We say what was happening? 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.000 The first kind of abundance we discovered 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.000 was social capital, that's Simpson's-ville." 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Lots and lots of people, right? 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.000 And partially this is because of the Internet. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.000 It made organizing very easy. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 The transaction cost went down 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.000 and you saw all kinds of movements without a center. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.000 Now, social capital, we have a lots of it. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:40.000 At each of our events, 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.000 there were hundreds of people that we'd interact with offline, 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 there were tens of thousands of people online, mixing together, 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 creating lots of ripples. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 This was great. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:53.000 Then we went to the second stage, which was Synergistic Capital. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.000 The Internet allows you to do loose ties, 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:58.000 but what about the deep ties, when you really know somebody, 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 you can look them in the eyes and share something deep and profound. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.000 When you can start to create those deep ties, it increases the trust, 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.000 and when trust is increased, productivity goes up 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:08.000 and all this good stuff happens, 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:11.000 but most interestingly, synergy starts to happen. 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Synergy is where one plus one is no longer two. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:18.000 It's much more than two, it's a whole different realm of value. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.000 We started discovering that. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 And the last thing was the "Subtle Capital." 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:26.000 I am not sure how else to describe it, 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.000 but when you give, there's some inner transformation. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:33.000 That inner transformation creates a stillness in your mind 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:36.000 and that stillness is an unbelievable asset. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.000 When you have a posse of people committed to cultivating that stillness, 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:42.000 it really builds new kinds of value 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.000 that is unexpected and awesome and amazing. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.000 That was discovering an abundance. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 Now, the third stage, which is dance. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.000 No, I'm not gonna dance. Or maybe I will. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:56.000 (Laughter) 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:00.000 When you give and receive, there's a tendency to keep track. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 Even though we might not do it overtly, subconsciously we're thinking, 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.000 "OK, how much did I give, how much did I receive." 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.000 We do this mathematics. But when you let go of that, 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.000 you start to dance, it becomes very dynamic. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:15.000 You see a bunch of dancers over there, 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.000 there're giving each other a shoulder rub. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 But what you notice is that no one is doing a quid pro quo transaction. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:26.000 Everyone is doing a massage for somebody in front of them, 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.000 and yet everyone is taken care of. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.000 When you start dancing to the spirit of not keeping track -- 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:32.000 That guy could say, 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:36.000 "Oh, the person behind me is giving me 15 joules of pressure on my back, 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.000 so I'm going to give only 12 joules." 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:40.000 If you do that, it doesn't work. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.000 But when you let that go, all of a sudden you can have the circle 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000 which works in a very different way. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.000 So, it works for shoulder rubs, but what about something practical? 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:52.000 So, we decided to try a little experiment. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.000 We called it "Karma Kitchen." 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:57.000 On Sundays, we take over a restaurant. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.000 You walk into this restaurant, it's like a regular restaurant, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:05.000 but it's run by volunteers and at the end of your meal 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.000 your check reads zero. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.000 It's zero because someone before you paid for your meal. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.000 And you get to pay forward for somebody after you. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.000 And people are always confused. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.000 "Does that mean it's a free meal?" No, it's not a free meal. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.000 When you go to a soup kitchen, who is paying? 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:24.000 Someone else outside who's got some other reason for making that happen. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Here, it's literally the person in front of you, 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.000 the person who was here the week before 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 that pays for this week. This week's is for the next week. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000 And when you count on people like that to be generous, 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.000 how long will that chain last? 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 It has been going for three years. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 And then it started in D.C. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000 From the surplus there, it started in Chicago. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.000 But what's most amazing about this 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:51.000 is that it creates a different context for a very different kind of value. 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.000 So for example, there was a UC Berkeley PhD in computer science guy 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 that came over and said, "I want to volunteer." 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:01.000 So one Sunday, he is volunteering. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 He is serving a table, and the guest at the table says, 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.000 "Oh so, how does this work? You trust me to pay what I want?" 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:11.000 He says, "Yeah, it's this chain, and you're part of this chain." 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Really we are all part of this chain, 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.000 from our ancestor onwards. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:23.000 So he says, "OK," he takes out his wallet, gives him a hundred, and says, 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.000 "OK, well, I trust you to bring me back whatever change you want." 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:28.000 (Laughter) 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.000 And this guy goes in the back and he's scratching his head. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.000 "This wasn't part of the volunteer orientation!" 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:34.000 (Laughter) 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.000 What are you going to do? 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000 So, he is thinking about it. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:42.000 And then, he decides to tap into that space in himself about what this is. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:44.000 This was not taught, but he taps into that space, 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.000 he goes up to the guy, gives him back his hundred, 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.000 takes out a twenty from his wallet, adds to it, 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:52.000 and this guy is completely blown away. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:53.000 (Laughter) 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.000 Because he's blown away, 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.000 this guy is blown away and you know how this stuff ripples out. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.000 Everybody is energized. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.000 And you can look at that transaction and say, 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.000 "There was a cost of food, there was twenty bucks." 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:08.000 But the value generated there -- 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.000 I can guaranteed you that that guy went home 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:14.000 and he has been telling that story to everybody he encounters. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:18.000 Because this is like, "Which restaurant? Where does this happen? 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.000 Which place on Earth? Give me the address." 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.000 So it's the kind of thing where there's a new dimension of value. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:28.000 And if we don't have context where people can practice this, 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:29.000 we lose this entirely. 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:32.000 So, really I just want to conclude by saying, 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.000 you Give, Receive and Dance. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.000 When you give, you find that compassion is contagious 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.000 and you start to create a community. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 When you receive, and really learn to receive, 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.000 you start to discover abundance. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:48.000 And when you dance, not only do you create micro-gift economies, 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.000 but we start to seed a gift culture. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:51.000 Thank you. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.000 (Applause)