Money Series: The giving machine

This is the sixth article in a series on money I’m writing. If you haven’t read the previous articles, start here. The purpose of this series is to maximise your enjoyment of your life’s journey.

In the previous article we explored identity and how to build the habits of a truly wealthy person. Now, let’s discuss how to master the mysterious art of giving.

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Nobody really tries to become wealthy so they can give it away. Giving it away, however, is exactly what the happiest people tend to do. It is perhaps the most joyful part of having money. And you don’t even need money to start. 

Giving is truly a dark art and massively misunderstood. I used to think that the reason you gave to others was so that you might get something back in return. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Paradoxically, giving will supercharge your journey to ‘enough’. It’s jet fuel. 🛫 Ask anyone who’s tried it—unconditional giving is crystal meth for becoming truly wealthy. Hold onto your teeth and read on if you dare.

Skip ahead to the 100 ways to master the dark art of giving.

How giving works—the giving machine

Let’s define this slippery sucker.

Giving is the act of transferring something of value to someone else, without expecting anything in return.

If giving was a machine, this is what I imagine The Giving Machine would look like. Click to enlarge.

Let’s talk through each part of The Giving Machine.

Prerequisite

The one prerequisite to unconditional giving is that your own needs are taken care of. This allows you to give from a position of strength. Yet another benefit to the work we did in previous articles, where we defined how much is enough and automated our finances, is that simply knowing you’re on your way to ‘enough’ is an incredible position of strength from which to start giving. You can and absolutely should start giving looong before you get to ‘enough’, taking comfort in the fact you’ve created the conditions to make getting to ‘enough’ practically inevitable.

Build the habit of giving before you’re wealthy. This way, as your wealth increases, so will the impact of your giving. The longer you put it off, the harder it is to get started.

Inputs

Opportunity
When you are open to giving, you will see opportunities everywhere. By noticing these opportunities, you can decide to act on some.

Intention
The biggest mistake people make with giving is giving with strings attached. 🎻 Expecting something in return completely undermines the act of giving and can create ill will. It’s like eating the icing and ignoring the rest of the cake: it seemed like a good idea at the time, but then you wonder why you feel sick later on. 

I have seen this play out over and over. People who want to give freely, but then decide to add some strings at the last minute. E.g. I’m happy to lend you this money, but only if you pay me back. Or, I’m happy to do this thing for you, but only if you do this for me.

As an experiment, try giving to someone without expecting anything in return, then try giving to someone else with the expectation of getting something back. You will be shocked at how different the two experiences feel. The first type of giving is unconditional, the second is conditional. Conditional giving isn’t giving. If you expect something in return, it’s not giving, it’s trading. To minimise the enjoyment of your life’s journey, practice conditional giving. Going through life feeling like everyone owes you is how you build resentment and bitterness.

Your intention is the most important part of giving. Start practising letting go of expecting anything in return. 👐

Value
Everything of value we can give falls under one of these categories:

• 🕰️ Time
• 💸 Money
• 🎁 Things
• 🎪 Experiences
• 🧠 Knowledge
• 🚪 Opportunities
• ❤️ Emotional support

We can combine categories to create hybrids. For example, if you mentor someone, you would be combining Time and Knowledge. A helpful exercise is to ask yourself ‘in which of these categories am I doing a good job of giving unconditionally?’ Then ask, ‘In which categories could I experiment with giving more?’

I’m trying to become more varied with my giving, because it makes things more fun for the giver and the receiver. Up until a couple of years ago, I only used to give things, experiences and emotional support. I didn’t know the other categories existed! These days I try and split my giving across the categories more evenly.

Process

Offer
The process of giving starts when you make an offer of value to the receiver. This can be verbal, written or through another person. People are so used to giving with strings attached, that at this point you will often need to reassure the other person that you don’t expect anything in return. Many people will only accept an offer of giving once these fears have been quietened. 

Result
There are two possible results from your offer to give—the receiver will either accept your offer or reject it. The outcome doesn’t really matter. Truly. One of the things I was most surprised to learn about giving is that if the person you’re giving to rejects your offer, you and the other person still get all the benefits of unconditional giving. It still counts as an act of giving. 

A good measure of whether you’re doing enough giving is if you can think of a couple of times in the past month where your offer to give was rejected. 📅 Accepting these rejections gracefully is very important. Notching up a few rejections each month is an excellent indication of someone who has a positive relationship with giving.

Outputs

For the Giver and Receiver…
While it might seem strange to talk about what you can personally get out of giving unconditionally, I believe we should be honest about the benefits, because they’re real and they’re spectacular. There’s a reason so many people make unconditional giving a way of life. A pirate’s bounty of treasures awaits both giver and receiver.

The latter also has an opportunity to pay it forward. Put simply, when someone gives to you, instead of figuring out how to pay them back, someone who has a healthy relationship with giving will find a way to pay it forward by giving unconditionally to someone else. It’s a case of you scratching my back, so now I’ll find someone else’s back that needs scratching. Thus, the cycle of giving continues. [1]

The mysterious void of giving
Along with surprise, gratitude, a story to tell, warm fuzzy feelings, infectious generosity and an opportunity for the receiver to pay it forward, I have noticed that the giver gets something even greater. 

Although not measurable in any way, giving seems to create a void that the universe (or whatever you believe in) will eventually figure out a way to fill. You will notice that when you make it your intention to start giving unconditionally, suddenly the world around you seems to double down on giving to you. I like to think of it as the world rebalancing itself. Keep in mind that the mysterious void of giving only opens up if you genuinely expect nothing in return: from others or from the world itself.

Examples

Let’s walk through two examples of what this looks like in everyday life.

A. When your offer to give is accepted ✅
You are in line at the supermarket. You notice the person in front doesn’t have enough money to pay for their groceries (opportunity). You think to yourself that it would be a nice thing to pay for their groceries, even though you’ll probably never see this person again (intention). You do some mental calculations to check you have enough in your bank account to cover the cost (value: money). You speak up and tell the person you’d be happy to pay and they don’t need to pay you back (offer). 

They politely decline, but when you insist they needn’t pay you back, they accept (result A).

You pay for their groceries, pleasantries are exchanged and you both go your separate ways feeling amazed at what just happened (the mysterious void of giving opens).

About a week later, that person you gave to is in line again at the supermarket, when they notice the person in front doesn’t have enough money to pay for their groceries. They remember how someone paid for their groceries last week and decide to offer to pay for this person’s (paying it forward).

One year later, you are paying for groceries at the supermarket, but your card is playing up—the eftpos machine simply won’t read your card. Someone behind you notices the trouble you’re having and offers to pay on your behalf. You accept, amazed at their generosity (the mysterious void of giving closes).

B. When your offer to give is rejected ❌
This story proceeds the same as above, up until the ‘offer’ section.

They politely decline your offer to pay for their groceries, even after you insist they don’t need to pay you back (result B). You gracefully accept their no and say, “That’s okay.” They pay for what they can afford and leave the rest of their groceries behind. As they leave the checkout, they turn and thank you again. “No worries!” you say, cheerfully. (the mysterious void of giving opens).

About a week later, that person you offered to give to is in line again at the supermarket, when they notice the person in front doesn’t have enough money to pay for their groceries. They remember how someone offered to pay for their groceries last week and decide to offer to pay for this person’s (paying it forward).

One year later, you are paying for groceries at the supermarket, but your card is playing up—the eftpos machine simply won’t read your card. Someone behind you notices the trouble you’re having and offers to pay on your behalf. You accept, amazed at their generosity (the mysterious void of giving closes).

*

As you can see, the giving cycle is not dependent on whether your offer to give is accepted or rejected. This is the power of giving unconditionally. 

The rejected example above happened to me just a couple of weeks’ ago. While it would have been fun to pay for the person’s groceries, I still felt like I was buzzing afterwards. And it seemed like the other person was pretty happy too. Well, as happy as one can be when you forget to bring enough money to the supermarket.

The bystander effect

If asking to pay for strangers’ groceries makes your hair stand up, you’re not alone. The bystander effect, which says that we are less likely to help someone in the presence of others, is a real thing. I’ve walked past countless opportunities to help others. And I didn’t like the way it made me feel afterwards. You don’t need to be a bold social butterfly to make the most of your opportunities to give. However, you can make giving in public easier for yourself in two ways. This is what’s helped me:

Firstly, being kind to myself as I practised. Pushing through the discomfort of the first couple of times and allowing myself to make my offers to give, however imperfectly I make them, gave me a huge amount of confidence to continue. It will never be harder than the first time you try.

Secondly, reminding myself that the discomfort of knowing I could have helped, but chose not to, is greater than the discomfort of helping and making one or two onlookers feel guilty that they didn’t act. This might be a classic case of the older you get the less you care about what other people think, hehe.

You don’t have to act all the time—just start noticing the opportunities, because they’re everywhere!

Now that we understand how giving works, let’s begin putting it into action.

How to start giving

It starts with giving to yourself. Many of us learn this the hard way when a partner or kids come into our life and we realise we don’t have the ability to give as we might have hoped. It’s never too late to start giving to yourself.

This is how we put ourselves in the ‘position of strength’ to give unconditionally to others. Giving is not a competition to be the most generous or to prove anything to anyone. It’s a daily practice. 

Use these ideas as a shopping list of things to try at least once in your life. 🛒 If you like them, incorporate them into your life and make them a habit.

Start practising with the starter pack below and then begin incorporating ideas from the expansion pack.

50 ways to master the dark art of giving to yourself

Starter pack:

1. When you’re hungry, do you give yourself a meal? Or do you put it off until you’re starving?
2. When you need to go to the toilet, do you go? Or do you wait until you’re about to burst?
3. When you’re tired, do you start your bedtime routine? Or do you push through to squeeze a little more out of the day?
4. When you’re 80% full, do you stop eating? Or do you keep going until you feel sick and look like a penguin?
5. When you make a mistake, do you laugh it off and encourage yourself for trying? Or do you berate yourself with cruel self-talk?
6. When you’re feeling sick, do you cancel plans and take it easy? Or do you keep all your original commitments and put others at risk of becoming sick?
7. When you’re feeling sad, do you allow yourself to feel sad? Or do you push it down and tell yourself to suck it up?
8. When you need help, do you ask for it? Or do you try and be the hero every time?
9. When you have somewhere you need to be, do you leave a little early? Or do you wait until the last minute and then rush to get there on time?
10. For more starter pack ideas, review the list of best habits to form to become a truly wealthy person from the previous article in this Money Series.

Expansion pack:

11. Watch an Oscar-nominated film you haven’t seen before. A great place to start is by reviewing nominees over the years for Best Original Screenplay.
12. Hire an e-scooter and go somewhere you love, taking a route you’ve never taken before.
13. Write a letter to your future self on FutureMe.
14. Buy yourself a top-notch pillow. You spend 7-8hrs a day on the thing, so make it easy to get a good night’s sleep.
15. Buy a ticket to see a live sporting event. It’s completely different to watching it on TV. For something even more memorable, buy a ticket to see a sport you’ve never seen live before.
16. Take a ferry somewhere you’ve never been to before by ferry.
17. Go to the fanciest supermarket you know (you know the one) and give yourself $100 to explore with one rule in mind: you can only buy things you’ve never bought before.
18. Walk up a hill and then get lunch afterwards.
19. Leave everything behind except your car keys and wallet and take a walk along a beach for at least thirty minutes.
20. Create your own home retreat. Block out 30min for yourself. Put on a candle, put on some relaxing music or some guided meditation (such as this one by my partner Sierra!). Sit with yourself, like you’re on a date with yourself. You can journal or give yourself a self-massage.
21. Increase your retirement fund contribution. Contributing 3%? Increase it to 4%. Your future self will thank you.
22. Batch-cook your meals for the upcoming week. Give yourself the gift of not having to worry about main means for the next few days.
23. Ask your local library to buy a book. Not only will you get to read it without having to purchase it, but everyone else with a library card will get to read it too!
24. Claim your donation tax credits from IRD (or the equivalent tax system in the country you live in). It’s good karma for donating to registered charities!
25. Typically drive to the airport? Forget about parking and treat yourself to an Uber.
26. Write a letter of encouragement to yourself about how fantastic you are. Write about what you are doing now and what you are working towards. Set a calendar reminder for 6 months from today and place the letter in a drawer. Open the letter in 6 months, a gift from your past self.
27. Turn your phone on airplane mode for an entire weekend and don’t turn it back on until Monday morning.
28. Increase the percentage of your take home pay that you invest by 1% per year. By the time you’re ready to retire, you won’t believe how much your investments will be worth.
29. Schedule an annual health check up with your GP. This is the only thing on this list that could save your life. While you’re at it, if it’s been a couple of years since you’ve been to the dentist, treat yourself to a check-up too. New Zealand has one of the best healthcare systems in the world and we owe it to ourselves to make the most of it.
30. Driving to work tomorrow? Leave a little earlier and take a different route to the one you normally take. A 2018 study found that doing this can increase your creativity. [2]
31. Read a bestselling book about a topic you’re really curious about, but have never read a book on before.
32. Take a few moments to enjoy a sunset. Eternal Sunset is a website that livestreams sunsets from around the world.
33. If you’re lucky enough to still have your parents with you, take out your phone, hit record and interview them separately for future reference. Five questions to ask: 1. How did you meet Mum/Dad? 2. What advice can you share with me about money, life and happiness? 3. What does being a dad/mum mean to you? 4. What are you most proud of? 5. How would you like to be remembered? [3] For a more formal way of capturing this, check out Storyworth. A friend of mine did this with his parents and his partner’s parents. They had to answer one question per week for a year and then the answers were turned into hardcover books. He told me that he learned so many things they didn’t know by doing this.
34. Create a boring list. This is a checklist of necessary things that need to be done around the house, such as cleaning the shower drain and washing bedsheets. The next time you’re bored, do something off this list. You will feel better immediately. [4]
35. Typically only eat out for dinner? Take yourself out for a fancy breakfast or lunch.
36. Set aside a portion of your paycheck every week to spend on fun things just for you. Easiest way to do this is to open a checking account on internet banking and nickname it ‘Fun’. Then set up an autopayment that triggers the day after you get paid, sending an amount of money (e.g. $20 is a good place to start) to this account. Some weeks you’ll use all of it, or you can let it build up for something grander.
37. Go through your wardrobe and set aside anything with holes in it. Put these clothes in the bin and don’t look back. Anything you haven’t worn in the last 12 months that is still in good working condition can be donated to a charity bin. 
38. Create a list of all the problems in your life. No filter, write them all down. When you’re done, prioritise the list by asking the question, ‘If I could only solve one of these, which one would it be?’ Ask that question repeatedly and you’ll end up with a prioritised list of all your problems. Now, take the top 1-2 problems on your list. Start solving these problems. Write down 1 action you can take in the next 30 minutes to start solving each one. All of the other problems from your original list go on a new list called Do Not Do. They will only distract you from solving the problems that will actually change your life.
39. Use an electric toothbrush? Dentists recommend that you change the head with the changing of the seasons e.g. the first day of autumn, the first day of winter. If you haven’t changed yours for more than 3 months, buy some new toothbrush heads and treat your teeth to a new toothbrush head.
40. Get yourself a pair of top quality noise cancelling headphones. One of the most life-enhancing purchases you will ever make, especially if you enjoy listening to music or work in an office that contains more than zero colleagues.
41. Sign up to free trials of products to see if you like them, then set a calendar reminder to remind you to cancel before the trial ends. It can be very difficult to understand the true value of a product until you’ve tried it, so give yourself permission to try. Doing this with things on the internet is really fun and can genuinely improve your life. Try free trials of Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Premium, Figma, Auphonic, Lightroom and Shopify. Some physical places, such as your local gym won’t offer free trials, but will offer significant discounts as you test out the venue. Try some of these! I’ve often been surprised at what I’ve been missing. Set a calendar reminder a few days before the end of the trial so you remember to cancel. 
42. If you typically buy your fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, one weekend, go to a farmers market and buy everything there. You’ll likely notice a significant difference in the quality and taste of whatever you cook up later that night.
43. Reading a book that’s not particularly grabbing you? Give yourself permission to quit the book immediately and move onto something that is a better use of your time. Time is finite.
44. Invest in a really good, decent-sized Umbrella that will actually keep you dry the next time you’re caught in the rain. The two best places to look are Blunt Umbrellas and golf shops. If your umbrella isn’t approaching golf-size, you’re going to get wet.
45. Backup your computer and phone to the cloud and on an external hard drive. Especially photos. Set a twice yearly calendar reminder to complete this external hard drive backup and never skip. Better to be safe than sorry.
46. Make a list of the 5 things you enjoyed doing the most when you were under the age of 10. Do one of those things.
47. If you subscribe to a number of email newsletters your inbox can get pretty crowded. Set a filter to route any email that contains the word “unsubscribe” to a separate email folder. This makes it easy to see what emails require my attention and which can wait. It also feels great to see an empty inbox most days. [5]
48. Eat food a caveman would recognise as food. E.g. nuts and berries. This tip comes from Parker Hewes whose uber-practical article 8 health behaviours inspired me to change the way I eat.
49. Go for a walk without a destination or time frame in mind. You’ll be amazed at the things you notice that you would normally miss.
50. Set a weekly calendar reminder to tidy up your digital world. You deserve a tidy digital life just as much as you deserve a tidy physical life.

50 ways to master the dark art of giving to others

We can give others time, money, things, experiences, knowledge, opportunities or emotional support.

One of the best ways to form the habit of giving to others is to create a system to make it easy. If giving money, things or experiences are categories you need to improve at, this system will be even more valuable to you. 

Here’s what I did:

• Open a new checking account on your internet banking. Nickname it ‘Give’.
• Decide on an amount you can give each week. It doesn’t matter how much it is, but it matters that you choose a number you can easily sustain. For me, this number tends to fluctuate between $20 and $50, depending on the season of my life. When I first started building this habit, I started with $20 per week.
• Set up an ⚙️ automatic payment ⚙️ to trigger the day after you get paid. If you’re self-employed, pick any day of the week. This will move the $20 from the account you get paid into to your Give account.
• Your challenge from here is that you must give away the $20 before the next $20 hits your account.
  • You can also apply this to giving non-physical things like time, knowledge, opportunities or emotional support. For example, decide on an amount of time to give away each week for a particular purpose. eg. 1hr mentoring marketing students. Your challenge then is that you must give it away before the next 1hr top up.

Hint: you can apply the same steps to make it easy to give to yourself.

Now onto 50 ways to give to others:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post!
2. Sell things you haven’t used in the last 6 months on Facebook Marketplace. Or even offer them for free. Someone else could really use that thing you never use.
3. Write a LinkedIn recommendation for former colleagues you enjoyed working with. It will completely surprise them and make their day.
4. Know someone who has been made redundant recently? Send them this helpful article and then take them out to lunch on your dollar. Just the act of empathetic listening is an incredible thing to give someone who is going through redundancy.
5. Listen empathetically. True listening, deep listening can make an incredible difference in the life of another person. Learn how to listen empathetically here and here. For something a bit more out there, check out this. 
6. Pay someone a compliment who works in customer service. Compliments are few and far between in this line of work, so you will likely make their day.
7. Take someone you care about to an award-winning restaurant. In New Zealand, the Cuisine Good Food Awards hatted restaurants are an excellent list to choose from. 
8. Teach something you know how to do better than most. You could write an article, record a YouTube video or volunteer to teach it somewhere.
9. Cook a meal for someone you love or take them out for a meal. Simply say you want to do this for them because you care about them and want to do something nice for the fun of it.
10. Support an up and coming artist. Artists include comedians, writers, musicians. It’s meaningful enough to just send a message saying you like and appreciate their work, but to take it to the next level, offer to make a donation towards their work. 
11. Know someone who loves watching YouTube? Gift them an annual subscription to YouTube Premium. It removes the ads and gives them access to YouTube Music (which is basically the same as Spotify).
12. When someone is going through something tough or if they look a little ‘off’, simply ask them ‘are you okay?’ Let the silence hang until they respond. Then listen.
13. Instead of catching up with someone over coffee, suggest going for a walk instead. You’ll both feel fantastic afterwards and you’ll have saved yourselves the price of two coffees.
14. Ask someone ‘What is your biggest problem at the moment?’ Listen carefully to their answer. Then afterwards, do 1 thing to help them solve it. This might look like messaging them a helpful article you found or introducing them to someone who may be able to help.
15. Introduce two people you like to one another. Be generous with your friendships.
16. Give your neighbours a small gift at Easter or Christmas. This could look like writing a short note saying ‘thanks for being great neighbours!’ and enclosing an easter egg.
17. Make a list of the most outrageous things you could give to your parents. What would blow them away? Set a goal to save up for one of those things and once you hit your target, message or call them out of the blue and make the offer. Allow them to accept or decline. As we’ve previously discussed, making the offer without expecting anything in return is the key. Though this is more challenging with the people we care most about!
18. Share a playlist of the songs that have been important to you in your life with someone important to you in your life.
19. Gift a book that had a big impact on your life to someone who might enjoy it too.
20. Share a competition with someone who is uniquely positioned to win. A few months ago I saw a callout in the newspaper for data scientists to apply to go on a journey to the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. I shared a photo of the article with them and they ended up winning! Cue the trip of a lifetime.
21. Instead of talking about yourself, ask lots of curious questions about the person in front of you. Be okay with the entire conversation being focused on them. A strange thing happens when you do this. At the end of the conversation, the other person will often say, “Whew! You’re a great conversationalist.”
22. When you meet up with someone, put your phone on airplane mode and leave it in your pocket. Giving someone your undivided attention is a rare gift today.
23. Learn about the effective altruism movement and start giving your time to the world’s biggest problems. 
24. If you have a will, ask yourself, “If I started giving away my money and possessions before I died, would it have a bigger impact on the people I care about?” Spoiler: the answer is always yes. Experiment with giving away smaller amounts and see how it makes you feel. Then go big. For inspiration, read Die With Zero by Bill Perkins.
25. See every split bill as an opportunity. Instead of splitting the bill, seize the opportunity to pay for the table, especially if out with your friends.
26. Pay for a stranger’s coffee. When you go to pay at a café or restaurant, tell the waiter that you’d like to pay for your table and another.
27. Message someone to let them know you were thinking of them. Say a couple of things you appreciate about them and what it means to have them in your life.
28. If you know someone who is about to go overseas, visit a currency exchange and take out $50 in the currency of the country they’re travelling to. Pop the cash in an envelope, with a note saying ‘hope you have a fantastic trip! I’ll miss you!’ It will completely catch them off guard and is a really fun gift to surprise people with.
29. Know someone who is moving to your city from another country or moving house? Give them a referral code to sign up to your power provider (if you are happy with your power provider). Most power providers offer generous discounts for both you and the new customer if a referral code is used.
30. Think about what you might be able to offer university students. For example, if you work in startups, you might be able to offer some tips on how to get into working in startups. Reach out to your closest university and offer to come in and talk to the students about your experiences. Professors are often looking for industry professionals to come and talk to students.
31. Ask your partner if they’d like a free massage from you. Hint: they will.
32. If the person or the people you live with are going out, tidy up the house by vacuuming and doing any dishes. They’ll be pleasantly surprised upon their return.
33. Prior to June 30^th, remind any fellow Kiwis you know to check that they’ve deposited $1043 into their KiwiSaver over the past 12 months so that they’re eligible to get the full $521 Government top up. [6]
34. See someone who is holding a map and looking a little lost? Ask them if they need help with directions and let them know that you’re a local. For bonus points, walk them to where they need to go.
35. If you see some rubbish at the beach, pick it up and pop it in the bin. It’s good for the next person that walks there and it’s good for the environment.
36. The next time you’re driving and someone is looking to merge into your lane, give them space to do so safely. Giving to other people when driving is a beautiful way to go from point a to point b. To create the conditions to make this easy, when you have somewhere to be, leave a little earlier than you need to.
37. The next time you see someone struggling to understand something you know, take a moment to teach it to them.
38. Instead of messaging someone to thank them, go old school and give them a call. It will be significantly more meaningful. The same approach can be applied when congratulating someone on a significant achievement.
39. Share with your colleagues the fact that they can get access to over 16,000 eLearning courses on LinkedIn Learning without having to pay for LinkedIn Premium. All they need is a library card. [7]
40. Been a while since you visited those that have gone before you? Visit the cemetery and place a flower or two on the graves of any relatives you feel compelled to. Not all those we give to need to be of this earth.
41. Write a message of thanks to a teacher that had a big impact on you. Most people are a Facebook search away. You can also try reaching out to the institution they taught you at.
42. Going to an event where there will be a panel discussion? Instead of going up to the panellists afterwards, strike up a conversation with the moderator. Let them know what a fantastic job they did. They are less likely to be mobbed by the audience, despite often being just as qualified as the other panellists. They will appreciate being seen.
43. Create a piece of art for someone. This could be a story, a drawing, a poem, a song, a dance or a video. You don’t need a reason, other than your willingness to give unconditionally.
44. Fix something that is broken. Everyone has something that is broken, so if you’re someone who knows their way around a spanner, this can be a tremendous gift of your time and skills to offer others.
45. Offer to give someone a lift after an event or catch up. You both get some more time together and you get to go on a little bit of an adventure. The ultimate version of this is offering to take someone to the airport.
46. Go with someone to a place they are scared to go. This could be a physical place, like the dentist, or it could be a place in their mind, like a traumatic memory they’ve never talked about before.
47. If you know someone who is being paid less than they deserve (especially if it’s reinforcing the gender pay gap), go into bat for them and help them to ask for more.
48. Celebrate someone’s lesser known anniversaries. Birthdays are a good start, but they’re low hanging fruit. See if you can find a more obscure date that is important to another person and then set a calendar reminder to message them on the day. Ideas: their pet’s birthday, their child’s birthday, their work anniversary, (if they are from overseas) the day they arrived in the country e.t.c.
49. If you’re looking for a job, try giving a business owner unconditional interest in their business. In other words, ask them out for a coffee and be interested in them and their business (genuinely), without expecting to be offered a job. You will be amazed at how often this approach leads to job offers. Being genuinely interested in another person is the easiest way to create the conditions for someone to become interested in you.
50. Take a friend out in nature to a place they haven’t been before. Bring yummy snacks.

How to scale your giving

How do you give away really big things? 🐘 Imagine spending 8 hours a day giving to a cause you deeply care about. Deciding where to work is one of the easiest ways to scale your giving. You can decide to work for an organisation whose mission you really care about. Whenever I’m looking for work, the first thing I do is go to the company’s LinkedIn page and read their mission statement, which is the little headline under the name. Looks like this:

That company’s mission resonated with me so much that I ended up working for them and loving every moment. If you don’t care for the mission, don’t pursue work with that company. You have so much more to give.

Another way to scale your giving is to slowly increase the amount you give weekly. If you start giving $20 per week, slowly build that up over time as your salary (hopefully) increases. Or you could increase it by $5 with each year that passes.

To save up for a big act of giving, simply increase the time you allow for the money to accumulate. My partner and I spent a year planning and then 6 months saving up to be able to give my Melbourne-based parents an all-expenses paid trip to meet my partner’s parents in Hanoi. It was a lot of money to save up relative to the amount we earn, so we just set a realistic timeline and got there sustainably. Remember, we always want to be giving from a position of strength.

You don’t need to wait until you receive an unexpected large sum of money to scale your giving. Just gradually increase your allocated weekly amount and the time you give yourself to save up for bigger things and you will be amazed at what you can do without much effort and without it feeling like a huge sacrifice.

Tailor your giving to the individual

A real concern that prevents many people from giving is the thought, “What if my giving does more harm than good?” Two common examples of this are wealthy people who worry about raising spoiled kids [8], and family members who worry about giving to loved ones who have problems with addiction.

What to do in these difficult situations?

The first thing is to know it’s okay to make mistakes. As with any other area of your life that you are trying to get better at, perfection is impossible. Sometimes your giving won’t have the positive impact you intended.

Secondly, if you tried giving something from one category, try another! There are 7 categories to choose from, so don’t let one setback shut down your giving heart. An example of this comes from my partner’s family. One of the family members has addiction problems and would sometimes ask neighbours for money. Unbeknown to the neighbours, they would inevitably spend some of this money on drugs and alcohol, risking their life. 

Rather than encouraging the generous neighbours to go against their nature and stop giving entirely, the family encouraged these neighbours to change the category of what they gave. Instead of money, they now give things (like food) when this person comes knocking. It had a positive impact and has given everyone more peace of mind.

Start by giving people the benefit of the doubt, however if you notice that your giving isn’t helping, and you still want to help, try giving something from a different category. By tailoring our giving to the individual, we stand the greatest chance of success.

How to receive gracefully

This is the yin to giving’s yang. ☯️

Receiving is the natural result of giving. When we breathe in oxygen, we must breathe out carbon dioxide. When the tide comes in, the tide must go out. Resist nature at your own peril! It‘s not better to give than to receive. It‘s insane to try to give and not receive. [9] 

If you are serious about giving, then you also need to get serious about receiving. 

Receiving gracefully can mean saying no when someone gives us something we genuinely don’t want. We receive the offer with gratitude, then clearly communicate to the other person ‘no thank you’. However, we should be actively looking for opportunities to say ‘thank you’ when someone offers to give. Receiving gracefully is truly the gift that keeps on giving!

The way to receive gracefully is incredibly simple.

1. Notice when people offer to give you something. Remember, this can come in the form of time, money, things, experiences, knowledge, opportunities or emotional support.
2. Look for opportunities to say ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’. If you don’t want what they have to give, thank them and clearly communicate ‘no thank you’.

It’s a practice, so just start practising!

Thank you for reading 😊

Extra resources

Pro tips & some more miscellaneous thoughts on giving

• The most fulfilling giving I’ve done has been giving to myself and my closest friends and family. Especially giving time. I will tend to prioritise this above everything else.
• A good way to start giving is by copying people you think are generous.
• If you’re feeling a bit down, I’ve found that one of the most effective ways to get myself out of the hole is do an act of giving. By shifting the focus away from how I feel to helping someone else, I immediately experience an uplift in spirit.
• When I have two options for what I could give someone, I do my best to always give the bigger amount. I’ve never once regretted this, but sometimes I’ve regretted giving the smaller amount.
• Throughout this Money Series, I’ve said that it’s pretty boring becoming wealthy. Giving unconditionally might just be the best way to make the journey exciting.
• Journeys are more fun with others. Giving is a way to bring other people along on your journey to ‘enough’. Giving helps you gain momentum.
• When you give, you send out some ripples into the world. The effect of those ripples is something you can never foresee.

Best books on giving

Give and Take by Adam Grant
Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann
Infectious Generosity by Chris Anderson

Other excellent resources on giving

50 ways to be ridiculously generous—and feel ridiculously good
30 days of kindness
Life Vest Inside for a fantastic demonstration on the power of paying it forward.
My partner Sierra and I discuss the power of giving on The Grounded Circle Podcast.
Start Giving podcast and Ten Tips For Personal Philanthropy, which gives you a glimpse into how high net worth individuals approach giving. Consider these a note to your future self.

Next steps

Once you have started making the most of everyday opportunities to give to yourself and to others, the next step is to make it easy to pay taxes. This will be the topic of the next article in this Money Series. I’ll link to it here once it’s published.

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Notes

[1] Adam Grant writes about how generosity is not a loan to repay or a debt to settle, but a gift to appreciate. 
[2] This 2018 study shows that something as simple as taking a different route to work or reading a book on a topic we haven’t read a book on before can increase creativity.
[3] Interviewing your parents in this way is inspired by The Barefoot Investor’s ultimate father’s day present.
[4] This one was inspired by Derek Sivers’ article ‘When You’re Extremely Unmotivated’.
[5] Thanks to Recomendo for this tip.
[6] How to get the KiwiSaver government contribution.
[7] How to access LinkedIn Learning with your library card if you live in Auckland. If you live elsewhere, Google ‘LinkedIn Learning library card’ to see if you can access this offer where you live.
[8] An interesting person to follow who is a young, wealthy dad determined not to raise spoiled kids is Sam Parr. He’s just recently started a podcast called MoneyWise, where he interviews other wealthy people about how they spend their money. The topic of how to not raise spoiled kids often comes up.
[9] This idea is expressed most elegantly in Chapter 12: The Law Of Receptivity in The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. The law of receptivity states that the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

Art by Sierra Truong

Thanks to Christine Chow, Cynthia Gao, Sierra Truong and Adam Walmsley for reading drafts of this.

Also to Dave Cameron, Claire Twyman and Pippa McCormack Wolf for reading a very early draft of this.

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Disclaimer: Like your all-knowing uncle telling you the latest stock tip, this should not be considered financial advice.