A Crisis With An Opportunity
How we should react when economy slows down.
When the financial market is unstable worldwide, the first reaction of most people is to hold on to what they have and also cut costs. They also presume that practically everyone is doing the same thing, as that is the impression that newspapers create.
Everyone ISN`T acting that way of course. In fact, some people and some businesses thrive no matter where the economy is going. And when you look for why that is, you find that the answer often lies in a simple place where most people have never even looked. Let's explore together.
Whenever there is a downward trend, whatever it is, the best way to overcome it is by rising higher than it. If we drift with the wind and go where it takes us, we might find ourselves in dire straits, waiting for the wind's mercy for deliverance.
The reality is that when we learn how to be in control and in our power, we can stay above everything that is happening no matter what happens around us. Let's take a look at how.
'Go-getters' or 'Go-contributors'
Let's say we want more - more profits, a pay raise, more holidays, more freedom, and more opportunities.
When we yearn for a thing, our response is to try to get it. By that yardstick everybody is a 'Go-getter'. And a 'go-getter' is understood as a dynamic, enterprising person with leadership qualities. Such an attitude is a prime requirement for succeeding in life as we understand it. Nevertheless, there is an innate conundrum. When these approaches are put into practice, there are certain unanticipated, though unavoidable upshots.
The gist of the matter is that after 'getting' and 'possessing' it we tend to 'get rid of' it. We might actually jettison it or might become apathetic to the whole idea.
Then our interest swings to something else. This continuous swaying of interest is the biggest issue; the widening interests becoming a never-ending circle of desires so that we are never satisfied with what we have. It becomes a sort of junk food dependency!
But what if we turned our 'getting' into giving?
Most of you are aware that the act of providing gives a sense of fulfillment. This ensues from gratefulness and not from panic or avarice. A person can go on providing more and receive more and know full satisfaction in the voyage of life.
Our generous and giving attitude creates generous and giving customers and team members while our price consciousness and 'getting attitude' attracts precisely those types of customers and team members. And they're the very ones we don't want!
Inspiring capitalism
Most enterprises are conscious of this now. Companies have now started providing for others in myriad ways. A complete change has come over as companies understand how the idea of giving is crucial to their business. In an article in TIME Magazine in July 2008, it was Bill Gates who coined the word 'Creative Capitalism.'
He explained that helping others might be the fine deciding point that could persuade people to prefer one product to another.
What he's actually saying is that when a company links its business to giving in some way, that company and its products become more attractive to customers. It takes us way, way above what's been called 'the sea of sameness'.
Creative Capitalism is the idea of taking things a step higher than the destination at which one would have originally chosen to make the compromise. When we can leverage our visions and initiatives in a way that helps and promotes the needs of the global society, we are conserving things, efforts and abilities in trying to win pro tem. Then we begin fashioning genuine success for us as well as for supporting our global financial system.
The appeal of effective giving
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the phrase that's often used to describe giving back at a corporate level. It's becoming almost a required part of corporate business practice. Yet when it's done out of a sense of obligation or with the intent to just make ourselves look good, people eventually get what it is. It still is a temporary strategy.
Individuals and enterprises that 'contribute', appeal to everyone. Their fervour and conviction about what they do are acknowledged by the people with whom they build up relationships. This acknowledgement is in addition to the official public relations campaign of the establishment.
What would be the result if part of the amount that is meant for marketing is diverted towards charity?
From the act of giving rises something that transcends us. The act of contributing results in revelation. And this revelation ensues only when it reverberates across those whom we want to arouse. And we are aroused when we become part of the happening totally. We cannot be satisfied with the narratives that are passed on to us. Those tales have to be lived in. in the end it is human nature to yearn for the satisfaction of making our own donation - to our kith and kin and organizations and society.
Transaction-based giving makes it happen automatically
A far better atmosphere for donating has become possible because of an idea (or we can call it a 'phenomenon') by the name Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the abode of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving overhauls everything. Let us put to use our resourcefulness and decide why.
For example, imagine if every time you had a cup of coffee at your favourite cafe, a child in Africa automatically got access to pure, clean water for one day?
Equally exemplary would be the situation where whenever someone subscribes to a magazine, a tree would instantly get planted in a barren patch in another continent? Or, if every time one eats a hamburger another would instantly get at least a handful of rice?
Or let's say you're being coached in your business. How interesting would it be to know that a child was educated for one month as a direct result (and by the way, all it cost the coaching company to do that was 60 cents per day).
Or maybe even the speaker you hire for your conference makes sure that kids who can't speak (because of facial deformities) now can by automatically giving back to a worthy cause connected to those kids. All of a sudden, you feel good too because you've done some good!
Imagine the perfect scenario where transaction-based giving can be applied in one's own special manner to correspond with the available products and services to include every member of the group and customers. It is possible.
The actual winning economy
Business ventures, on a global basis, have already internalized the efficacy of this transaction-based giving. A case in point is TESCO, one of the foremost supermarket chains of UK. The company's programme ensures that a Kenyan child gets a school uniform when someone buys a pair of school trousers from them.
The Mineral Water Company known as Volvic is one that has followed swiftly in this transaction-based giving program. They connect their water selling to well digging in Africa and call it Buy1 GIVE 10, because when one litre of water is sold, the money that comes from it helps in making a 10 litres flow in the well that is being dug.
Middle level and comparatively small enterprises are now in the forefront in widening this global giving phenomenon through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with an effective strategy which has turned this transaction-based giving into a movement that anyone who wants can participate in.
Buy1GIVE1 is the abode of the most powerful transaction-based giving in the world because it ties up any enterprise of any size to any worthy cause in the world. It is creating an international community of entrepreneurial givers and for SME`s, Buy1GIVE1 correlates enterprises, their buyers AND causes in an unsurpassable way. The system has been so perfected that it is automated.
Any person can become a citizen of this phenomenon of global giving merely by getting a Buy1GIVE1 `VISA` directly off the Buy1GIVE1 site at www.b1g1.com. Those who have their own enterprise can become a B1G1 Business through applying online and selecting the charity and the primary service or product for launching the giving. Buy1GIVE1 forwards the entire contribution amount to their international Worthy Cause Partners (more than 528 projects are available for members to choose from) thereby making their contributions highly productive.
Have you considered?
* One half of the world's population -which is about three billion people-does not have a daily income of even two dollars.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.
* UNICEF has reported that more than 30,000 children die every day due to abject poverty, which makes it 20 child a minute and 210,000 a week.
* A mere 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water; and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
* One billion people lack access to basic health care.
* 63,000 square miles of rainforests are destroyed each year.
Statistic From Global Issues
Buy1GIVE1 Businesses-check out these examples
* Buy1BUILD1 (www.sunsplashhomes.com, www.arkgroup.com.au)
* Instruction to Instruction (www.kipmcgrath.com.au)
* Medical treatment helping in medical aid (www.primanora.com)
* Telephone card helping in communication (www.ultimatecomms.com)
* Mind Expansion to curing (www.meditate.com.au)
* Weight loss to kids' meals (www.bodychain.com)
* Luminous blinds to luminous classrooms (www.blindscouture.com.au)
* Socks for protecting feet from frostbite (www.socksforhappypeople.com)
* Coaching to educate social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)
* And for an overall look, simply go to www.b1g1.com.
Discovering what we are looking for-Nature has got the answer
So let's begin again from where we had set off-financial instability and succeeding in having what we need. The requirements are in reality quite clear-cut. It is just a triumvirate starting with the letter C - correlation, cooperation and community.
When we can collaborate instead of isolate and when we can create an effective way to add to each other instead of taking away from each other, we discover there is so much abundance and resource already available in our world. And when we connect, not just with each other but with our true selves, we discover something really interesting-that we're all ONE. Then we understand how easy it is to create a global community from something as simple as giving.
The secret was always alive in nature
In earth's natural workshop, beautiful butterflies fertilize flowers and help to produce gardens that continue generation after generation. It was there even before recorded history.
When a crisis hits the world, we can see an opportunity to get back to the simplicity. It is now actually time to be grateful for what we have in order for us all to keep thriving.
And when a person chooses to donate now itself, in spite of the financial crisis, he will feel more contended. And with this contentment he will find a hope that is rekindled anew, which will ring a bell on how the ebb and flow of things can change. Today's charity might be that which will reverse the flow.
When the financial market is unstable worldwide, the first reaction of most people is to hold on to what they have and also cut costs. They also presume that practically everyone is doing the same thing, as that is the impression that newspapers create.
Everyone ISN`T acting that way of course. In fact, some people and some businesses thrive no matter where the economy is going. And when you look for why that is, you find that the answer often lies in a simple place where most people have never even looked. Let's explore together.
Whenever there is a downward trend, whatever it is, the best way to overcome it is by rising higher than it. If we drift with the wind and go where it takes us, we might find ourselves in dire straits, waiting for the wind's mercy for deliverance.
The reality is that when we learn how to be in control and in our power, we can stay above everything that is happening no matter what happens around us. Let's take a look at how.
'Go-getters' or 'Go-contributors'
Let's say we want more - more profits, a pay raise, more holidays, more freedom, and more opportunities.
When we yearn for a thing, our response is to try to get it. By that yardstick everybody is a 'Go-getter'. And a 'go-getter' is understood as a dynamic, enterprising person with leadership qualities. Such an attitude is a prime requirement for succeeding in life as we understand it. Nevertheless, there is an innate conundrum. When these approaches are put into practice, there are certain unanticipated, though unavoidable upshots.
The gist of the matter is that after 'getting' and 'possessing' it we tend to 'get rid of' it. We might actually jettison it or might become apathetic to the whole idea.
Then our interest swings to something else. This continuous swaying of interest is the biggest issue; the widening interests becoming a never-ending circle of desires so that we are never satisfied with what we have. It becomes a sort of junk food dependency!
But what if we turned our 'getting' into giving?
Most of you are aware that the act of providing gives a sense of fulfillment. This ensues from gratefulness and not from panic or avarice. A person can go on providing more and receive more and know full satisfaction in the voyage of life.
Our generous and giving attitude creates generous and giving customers and team members while our price consciousness and 'getting attitude' attracts precisely those types of customers and team members. And they're the very ones we don't want!
Inspiring capitalism
Most enterprises are conscious of this now. Companies have now started providing for others in myriad ways. A complete change has come over as companies understand how the idea of giving is crucial to their business. In an article in TIME Magazine in July 2008, it was Bill Gates who coined the word 'Creative Capitalism.'
He explained that helping others might be the fine deciding point that could persuade people to prefer one product to another.
What he's actually saying is that when a company links its business to giving in some way, that company and its products become more attractive to customers. It takes us way, way above what's been called 'the sea of sameness'.
Creative Capitalism is the idea of taking things a step higher than the destination at which one would have originally chosen to make the compromise. When we can leverage our visions and initiatives in a way that helps and promotes the needs of the global society, we are conserving things, efforts and abilities in trying to win pro tem. Then we begin fashioning genuine success for us as well as for supporting our global financial system.
The appeal of effective giving
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the phrase that's often used to describe giving back at a corporate level. It's becoming almost a required part of corporate business practice. Yet when it's done out of a sense of obligation or with the intent to just make ourselves look good, people eventually get what it is. It still is a temporary strategy.
Individuals and enterprises that 'contribute', appeal to everyone. Their fervour and conviction about what they do are acknowledged by the people with whom they build up relationships. This acknowledgement is in addition to the official public relations campaign of the establishment.
What would be the result if part of the amount that is meant for marketing is diverted towards charity?
From the act of giving rises something that transcends us. The act of contributing results in revelation. And this revelation ensues only when it reverberates across those whom we want to arouse. And we are aroused when we become part of the happening totally. We cannot be satisfied with the narratives that are passed on to us. Those tales have to be lived in. in the end it is human nature to yearn for the satisfaction of making our own donation - to our kith and kin and organizations and society.
Transaction-based giving makes it happen automatically
A far better atmosphere for donating has become possible because of an idea (or we can call it a 'phenomenon') by the name Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the abode of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving overhauls everything. Let us put to use our resourcefulness and decide why.
For example, imagine if every time you had a cup of coffee at your favourite cafe, a child in Africa automatically got access to pure, clean water for one day?
Equally exemplary would be the situation where whenever someone subscribes to a magazine, a tree would instantly get planted in a barren patch in another continent? Or, if every time one eats a hamburger another would instantly get at least a handful of rice?
Or let's say you're being coached in your business. How interesting would it be to know that a child was educated for one month as a direct result (and by the way, all it cost the coaching company to do that was 60 cents per day).
Or maybe even the speaker you hire for your conference makes sure that kids who can't speak (because of facial deformities) now can by automatically giving back to a worthy cause connected to those kids. All of a sudden, you feel good too because you've done some good!
Imagine the perfect scenario where transaction-based giving can be applied in one's own special manner to correspond with the available products and services to include every member of the group and customers. It is possible.
The actual winning economy
Business ventures, on a global basis, have already internalized the efficacy of this transaction-based giving. A case in point is TESCO, one of the foremost supermarket chains of UK. The company's programme ensures that a Kenyan child gets a school uniform when someone buys a pair of school trousers from them.
The Mineral Water Company known as Volvic is one that has followed swiftly in this transaction-based giving program. They connect their water selling to well digging in Africa and call it Buy1 GIVE 10, because when one litre of water is sold, the money that comes from it helps in making a 10 litres flow in the well that is being dug.
Middle level and comparatively small enterprises are now in the forefront in widening this global giving phenomenon through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with an effective strategy which has turned this transaction-based giving into a movement that anyone who wants can participate in.
Buy1GIVE1 is the abode of the most powerful transaction-based giving in the world because it ties up any enterprise of any size to any worthy cause in the world. It is creating an international community of entrepreneurial givers and for SME`s, Buy1GIVE1 correlates enterprises, their buyers AND causes in an unsurpassable way. The system has been so perfected that it is automated.
Any person can become a citizen of this phenomenon of global giving merely by getting a Buy1GIVE1 `VISA` directly off the Buy1GIVE1 site at www.b1g1.com. Those who have their own enterprise can become a B1G1 Business through applying online and selecting the charity and the primary service or product for launching the giving. Buy1GIVE1 forwards the entire contribution amount to their international Worthy Cause Partners (more than 528 projects are available for members to choose from) thereby making their contributions highly productive.
Have you considered?
* One half of the world's population -which is about three billion people-does not have a daily income of even two dollars.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.
* UNICEF has reported that more than 30,000 children die every day due to abject poverty, which makes it 20 child a minute and 210,000 a week.
* A mere 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water; and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
* One billion people lack access to basic health care.
* 63,000 square miles of rainforests are destroyed each year.
Statistic From Global Issues
Buy1GIVE1 Businesses-check out these examples
* Buy1BUILD1 (www.sunsplashhomes.com, www.arkgroup.com.au)
* Instruction to Instruction (www.kipmcgrath.com.au)
* Medical treatment helping in medical aid (www.primanora.com)
* Telephone card helping in communication (www.ultimatecomms.com)
* Mind Expansion to curing (www.meditate.com.au)
* Weight loss to kids' meals (www.bodychain.com)
* Luminous blinds to luminous classrooms (www.blindscouture.com.au)
* Socks for protecting feet from frostbite (www.socksforhappypeople.com)
* Coaching to educate social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)
* And for an overall look, simply go to www.b1g1.com.
Discovering what we are looking for-Nature has got the answer
So let's begin again from where we had set off-financial instability and succeeding in having what we need. The requirements are in reality quite clear-cut. It is just a triumvirate starting with the letter C - correlation, cooperation and community.
When we can collaborate instead of isolate and when we can create an effective way to add to each other instead of taking away from each other, we discover there is so much abundance and resource already available in our world. And when we connect, not just with each other but with our true selves, we discover something really interesting-that we're all ONE. Then we understand how easy it is to create a global community from something as simple as giving.
The secret was always alive in nature
In earth's natural workshop, beautiful butterflies fertilize flowers and help to produce gardens that continue generation after generation. It was there even before recorded history.
When a crisis hits the world, we can see an opportunity to get back to the simplicity. It is now actually time to be grateful for what we have in order for us all to keep thriving.
And when a person chooses to donate now itself, in spite of the financial crisis, he will feel more contended. And with this contentment he will find a hope that is rekindled anew, which will ring a bell on how the ebb and flow of things can change. Today's charity might be that which will reverse the flow.
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