What’s in Your Hands?
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the number of opportunities to make an impact in the world, in your work, and in your community? It’s common to wish we could make a bigger difference, but it’s just as common to feel limited by our resources, lack of knowledge, and fears. Cue what I like to call creative generosity.
This tension between opportunities and limits can be frustrating. Though I’ve started to wonder…how often do we overestimate our limits and underestimate our capacity? Maybe you and I possess undiscovered potential and ability, and the opportunities around us are just waiting for it. Perhaps what we have to offer just isn’t yet realized.
Around a year ago, a video narrated by my friend Erisa Mutabazi from Rwanda pushed my thinking about my capabilities. Regardless of your world view, the point of the video is clear: Maybe we’d step into more opportunities to impact the world around us if we simply leveraged our unrealized capacity.
What’s In Your Hands?
Here’s an example. Nine months ago, our office realized that we had unused space. We took photos of the open space and posted an offer on LinkedIn for people to co-locate and share many of the resources of our office. Not long after that, a local non-profit responded that they were looking for an office and space for their programing. Fast forward to today, they’re in our office, adding to our culture, and thriving.
The space was in our hands all along. It just took a quick post on LinkedIn and some patience to see if anyone would respond.
Similarly, last week we allowed a client to gift (at no cost to them) one of our leadership programs to a leader from a non-profit that he supports. The client had the resources “in his hands” to pay for himself to participate in the program. And we had the resources available for this non-profit leader to participate along with him, multiplying his investment and impact. It just took a couple of phone conversations to realize the opportunity and make it happen.
Profiles of Creative Generosity
Throughout 2020, I’ll be occasionally profiling people and companies that are creatively generous. I say “creative” to describe people with high levels of generosity, or simply unique methods of generosity, leveraging what’s in their hands.
These are people like my friend Paul, who is the controller for a large corporation. Along with his wife and teenage kids, he recently began fostering two young children whose mother had lost custody due to homelessness and abuse. They’ve creatively found extra space in their house for these two foster children, and his own children are learning about compassion as they help with the care.
Or I think about my friends Jeremy and Krista, who donate half their company profits to a mission in Haiti, while also sending employees each year to learn and support the mission work. It’s a creative use of profits and a way to improve their company culture and employee engagement, not to mention the impact they have in Haiti.
What Other Examples? Is it You?
Please contact me and let me know about other examples you see of creative generosity. I’d love to know about and appropriately recognize them.
Could it be you?
You have unused potential and capacity!
Now, you might protest saying, “I’m busy enough already!” or “I’m already doing a lot!”
Consider that you might be overestimating your limits and underestimating your capacity. Leveraging what’s in your hands doesn’t necessarily require more time or money. It doesn’t require more experience or access to more important people. It just requires a willingness to inventory what you have, your passions, skills, capacity, and knowledge. Then, it takes patience to see who responds and the courage to let your untapped potential be used.
What do you think? What’s in your hands?
Please send me a note!
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