The Property Voice Podcast - Musings: The gift that keeps on giving
If you are wondering how giving relates to property investing, then please tune in and have a listen…there may be more to this idea of giving than you might at first imagine. How universal laws can play a part in our success or how giving benefits both the giver and the receiver are shared. Plus we get to hear how Carl, a listener, has taken inspiration to pledge a significant sum towards a charity close to his heart. Finally, hear how a truly inspirational school in the Amazon rainforest has motivated me to do something I have never done before!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Resources mentioned
Property Investor Toolkit – here is the book link on amazon.co.uk & amazon.com in case you would like to get yourself a copy to accompany this series
Today’s must do’s
Insert
Subscribe to the show in iTunes…and while you are at it please help us to spread the word by telling all your friends too!
Send in your property stories, questions or moans to podcast@thepropertyvoice.net and we will try and feature YOU on the show too!
Rate and review the show on iTunes…this helps us to get noticed and that means more people can get to hear our property content and join in…thank you for those that I have…we see ya!
If you would like to, grab yourself a copy of the book: Property Investor Toolkit (link in Resources above)
Get talking!
Join in the discussion, either here in the comments section below, or anywhere else on the Blog
Start a conversation on Twitter with us @PropertyVoiceUK or on our Facebook page
Transcription of the show
Hello and welcome to another edition of The Property Voice Podcast, my name is Richard Brown and as always it is a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today.
This week I have was thinking a lot about giving back and this was further encouraged by a listener by the name of Carl Gilbert, who contacted me on the subject. Our exchange confirmed my interest in the topic for this week and so that’s the theme we will explore a little in Property Chatter.
OK, so let’s get right on with the show and Property Chatter.
Property Chatter
The gift that keeps on giving. Apparently this phrase was first used as a marketing catchphrase for the photograph dating back 90 years. You can understand why it was used as every time you look at a photograph, it reminds you of a particular memory, person or place.
I started to use the phrase when one year I bought my wife a Kindle for Christmas. I entered the info to get it going, so she could use it straight out of the box. Of course, I didn’t realise that every time she downloaded a book on it that the billing would come to my account…well I was a little technically challenged by this new-fangled device.
So, each time my wife ordered a new book, I got a nice email confirming my purchase! I then started to coin the phrase, ‘the gift that keeps on giving’. To be honest, I really didn’t mind, it was kind of satisfying to see how much use and enjoyment she was getting out of this new device, so it was all a bit of fun really. The only real downside was having a few romance novels showing up in my library whenever I was looking for my next good read!
But today, I want to apply the concept of the gift that keeps on giving to a wider definition of giving instead.
Personally, I believe that in order to live a full and satisfying life that giving needs to form a part of it. It could be in the sense of charitable financial giving, or it could be in other ways, such as giving time as a volunteer, your energy & sacrifice to raise money for a good cause, or even sharing your knowledge with other people to help them grow, develop or avoid mistakes.
To me then, giving is a great way for two or more people to benefit – both the giver and the receiver. The receiver is perhaps obvious, as maybe they get something that they need. The giver however also gets something, not that they necessarily do it for that reason but it does certainly form part of our human make up – the giver also gets a sense of satisfaction and a lift in their self-esteem as a result of giving to support others.
Then, there is a universal law that says, what we give out, we tend to get back. Perhaps not literally, so the soup to the homeless guy on the street corner may not come back to us as soup, but certainly the universe will always look to pay us back somehow, some way. The gift of soup to a hungry homeless guy could come back to us as an answer to something we are ‘hungry’ for, for example.
Now, if we think about that principle for a moment…that what we give out, we tend to get back…it can be a very powerful driving force to us. What if we gave out a sense of lack, or harsh thoughts and words, or stinginess say? If you share this belief that the universe has laws, then it might alter how we think and act a little mightn’t it?
OK, so if this laws of the universe part is getting a little bit too ‘spiritual’ for some of you, let’s just stick to giving is a good thing instead and then we can consider how we might do this in such a way that it becomes a motivation to us.
This is where Carl comes in. Carl dropped me a note after he listened to my episode about motivation. He already donates to charity and indeed wants to donate more and to one particular charity that is close to his heart. He had an idea to make himself more accountable to do this and so wanted to write a big post-dated cheque 5-10 years down the line. He would then give the cheque to the charity with a promise that it would be ready to clear by the date written on it, to make himself both motivated and accountable to raise the funds.
Wow – what a great idea and how motivating might that be? After all, the charity would be holding the cheque ready to bank it later and so would be depending on him to deliver the funds to enable it to clear.
Carl and I exchanged a couple of notes on the subject and we agreed that having annual pledges to the charity might be better than writing a post-dated cheque several that many years down the line, although I have heard of people that have adopted a similar approach…famously Jim Carey if my memory serves me correctly, although that was for his movie pay cheque.
So, perhaps still write a cheque for 5-10 years’ time say, then pin it to the fridge as a constant reminder that you need to act to raise the funds due ready for when it can be banked. Whether you actually give the cheque in advance to the charity is up to you, but someone once told me that post-dated cheques could in fact be presented early, so watch out for that one! I doubt that a charity would do that deliberately but you would definitely prefer it to clear first time I imagine J
Another variation is to have annual pledges instead, perhaps also following the post-dated cheque principle.
So, this little exchange with Carl did cement some of my own thoughts on the idea of making giving a part of our values and life plan and hence today’s theme. And I shall attempt to draw a parallel to our property investing as the episode evolves.
Personally speaking, I indeed do, have giving as a central part of my values and life plan. This is summed up by the headings I use for my annual goals: ‘Have, Be, Do & Give’. I have goals that fall into each of these headings and that includes obviously giving. Have is more material, be is about character and personal growth, do is about experiences and give is about other people.
How I give does include charitable giving definitely and I particularly like to support causes using the ‘HELP’ mnemonic, which stands for: housing, enterprise, learning & poverty. Each person will have their own personal preferences and so I am not suggesting mine to be superior, they are just personal to me, just as Carl had causes personal and meaningful to him.
The very idea of setting goals for giving is a clear motivator and then making ourselves accountable is likely to ensure we don’t make it merely a wish but a completed action instead. Imagine the things the charity can do as a result of our efforts? Powerful stuff…
I don’t intend to go public necessarily, aside from the odd giving goal or ambition. For example, I was recently invited to run 10k in November by some friends. The facts of the matter at that time were:
- a) I had never run a distance like this before in my life…I had run a 5k once but that was many years ago,
- b) I have been recovering from an Achilles injury and so I was not exactly in the greatest shape, especially for a cadio-intensive activity like a 10k run and
- c) as it turned out, the event was over-subscribed by the time we submitted our entry and so the chance to do this particular run had now passed and my friends were no longer as motivated.
After a bit of thought, I decided that I was going to run the 10k anyway…probably on my own, although I will invite my friends to join me, but probably not in an organised event, which itself can be very motivational…think London Marathon or Race for Life for example.
The chance for me to lose motivation here is quite high of course, so that’s why I am telling you now! I am making myself publicly accountable. The original date to do the run with my friends was 7th November 2015 and so, I am sticking to that date. I will run a 10k on that Saturday and I will raise money for a small school in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest as a result. There’s the public commitment and making myself accountable for such a deserving cause at the same time…I know that running is not really my favourite thing, so that declaration should help to maintain my focus here J
This school and Maria, the teacher, are amazing – it is literally on a small island in the middle of the rainforest, the kids are brought in from surrounding villages by boat, the teacher used to drive the boat before her son eventually took over!
There are now several classes per day, teaching a mixed age group but what really touched my heart was listening to some of the children answer the question…’what do you want to be when you grow up?’. Most said, doctor, teacher, vet, ranger & guide and the odd footballer too!
Then, by way of contrast, some western children on the same tour as us were asked the same question ‘don’t know’ was the most common response. I am not saying that as a child we should necessarily know what we want to be when we grow up, I remember saying fireman for example…it was more that they seemed to be so keen to learn and strive to make something of their lives, when they are living in such a challenging environment.
The school was not asking for any help, but they sure could do with some to buy books and other materials. So, I decided to dedicate my 10k run to raise money for them. I will give both in terms of training for the run but also financially to support them, even if they don’t know it yet. I hope I can then give them a nice Christmas present of things to help the school continue to educate and inspire the children.
There you go, that’s one of my pledges at least. If you are interested in supporting this, then I have set up a crowdfunding page on Just Giving, the details of which are available via the show notes for today’s episode or just drop me an email podcast@thepropertyvoice.net and I will share the link.
However, giving itself is also a gift that keeps on giving. If we remember the universal law that what we give out, we also get back, so as we give, be it good or bad, we keep getting back too…and that makes our ‘giving’ a virtuous cycle of give-receive-give-receive and so on.
How does this relate to us as property investors you may ask? Well, we are usually in a fairly privileged position, certainly we should be after some time doing it at least. So, we and our families will definitely in a better position than these kids in the Amazon for example. I believe it was Andrew Carnegie, then the richest man in the world who said: “Wealth is not to feed our egos, but to feed the hungry and to help people help themselves.” I have adopted this as a kind of mantra or wealth principle myself.
Then, there is the universal law to consider – what we give out, we get back. Do we want good things and abundance back or bad things and lack instead?
I think this has everything to do with us as property investors and whilst I am not specifically talking about property or investment principles, I am talking about a life philosophy, general principles and universal laws that will directly or indirectly play a part in how successful and importantly how enriching our property investment journey could be. That’s the link I am trying to draw here, if that makes any sense?
What should or could we do then?
Well, all we really need to do is decide what it is we want to give out…and also then to get back.
What is your gift that keeps on giving? Is it money to charity, time into the community, energy and sacrifice for good causes or knowledge and information for others? It could be a range of different things…but in addition to the recipient getting the fruit of your giving, we also sow back into our own lives the very thing that give, be it money, time, energy, knowledge and so on.
In true Top Gear style then…And on that bombshell, we shall leave it rather profoundly there for now…
That’s it for another week, series 2 is close to starting and so this summer interlude of soundbites musings may be drawing to a close soon. I hope you are enjoying them.
Don’t forget that the show notes will be over at the website www.thepropertyvoice.net and feel free to drop me a line any time for a chat to podcast@thepropertyvoice.net – I would love to hear from you, especially this week after this episode on giving, thanks in particular to Carl for helping to motivate me to share my musings in today’s show.
Finally, I haven’t plugged reviews for a while and I do plan to start sharing them again soon, but if you have got anything out of the show at all, it would really mean a lot to me if you could leave a review of the show in iTunes…it also helps to spread the word….there are plenty that have yet to hear about The Property Voice podcast you know J
Right now though, all that’s left for me to say is, thank you very much for listening and until next time on The Property Voice Podcast…ciao-ciao