Podcast Transcript | Ep. 53

The Art of Giving and Taking

The Art of Giving and Taking | Ep. 53

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?

[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek.

[00:00:44] Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Back with another episode of order within episode number 53. Today, we're going to be discussing. The art of giving and taking. A lot [00:01:00] of the episodes leading up to this point. Have discussed. A lot of the tools and strategies. That we can deploy in our lives to help rebuild ourselves.

[00:01:11] Rebuild our competence, strengthen ourselves esteem, understand the growth mindset, nurturing ourselves from within journaling, meditation, all those things. There's a lot of stuff that we've talked about on the show that are relative to improving ourselves, developing our skills and becoming better versions of who we are.

[00:01:29] So we can. Fulfill the visions that we have and live a fulfilling life. The next I'm going to be doing over the next course of the episodes here. I got a string of them. I'm going to be focusing on. The darker side of personal development, things that we need to look out for darker elements of our society problems that we are facing as a society, manipulations, things of that nature.

[00:01:54] And going into a lot of those concepts that we need to look out for. So that a way first [00:02:00] and foremost, to me, I want to give you as much skills and strategies and tools that I can to help you. Establish love and compassion within yourself to connect with your authentic being. So you have those tools, but moving forward, I really want to emphasize looking at the world so we can navigate.

[00:02:19] The world that we live in because it's crazy and chaotic. That's a huge reason why I started the show in the first place.

[00:02:26] So today we're going to be looking at the art of giving and taking, and I'm going to highlight. Some observations that I've been seeing. I'm in the sales and marketing world have been for the majority of my career. So I spend a lot of time networking and engaging with people on social media platforms in real life.

[00:02:45] Doing a lot of the networking connecting that comes with the role of this nature. And also it suits my personality and the way that I live and the things that I do. But. I've noticed hugely. And I'm sure that many of you are noticing this as [00:03:00] well. How much that dynamic has been changing. And so the idea here is to look at balancing self-interest and compassion in a very self-centered world.

[00:03:11] Because it's gotten way out of balance from my perspective. And I'm going to talk about a few of those things, but one of the biggest things that I've noticed is I do outreach as a part of my role as a part of building relationships. And I also get outreached a ton. So people are hitting me up. Trying to sell services or products or whatever, and it's just gotten so bad. And how one sided it's been. I can't believe the lack of care that people have for establishing relationships now. And for me it's because we've become a very self-centered narcissistic.

[00:03:44] Self-absorbed world. We no longer care about our communities, our neighborhoods. The local spaces that we live within and caring for one another. We're really just disregarding. So much of life. So I really want to, I want to dive deep into this topic and [00:04:00] unpack what's been happening for us and where we are as a species.

[00:04:06] I think there's a huge room for improvement, obviously on what we're doing. And this is a big threat to us as a species. If we don't correct. If we don't course correct. So in today's top in today's show, we're going to look at the imbalance in our society. We're going to look at the psychology of giving and taking. We're going to go over the benefits of giving.

[00:04:22] We're going to look at balancing self-interest and compassion. We're going to share some practical tips for increasing giving in daily life. And then we're going to wrap the episode. So moving into the imbalance in our society first and foremost, consumerism and materialism has gotten really explosive. Now it's incredible because manufacturing and production has improved.

[00:04:45] Globally. So we can produce and manufacture goods at a level and rate that we have never been able to do because of technology and processes improving. But because of that, we take a lot of that for granted. And [00:05:00] we have now become obsessed with materialism and consumption and status and social status and all of those things.

[00:05:07] And because of that, it's contributing to a culture of taking people are prioritizing their own, wants, and desires over the needs and wellbeing of others. Now there's a healthy level of doing this. I've talked a lot about this on my show. We have to care for ourselves and nurture ourselves, having a healthy sense of self.

[00:05:24] Our relationship with ourselves that's loving and compassionate is crucial to living a meaningful and fulfilling life. But we can't do that at the expense of others. If our wellbeing is disregarding the wellbeing of others and taking and destroying others, then it's not a very good process or balance.

[00:05:43] In terms of the giving and taking that we have to operate. We live in a very. Interconnected world. So there is interdependencies. We depend on one, another nature. And the cycle of life is very interdependent. We all depend on one another. [00:06:00] To fulfill our obligations to build the world that we live with them and we need one another to fulfill and build the world that we live within.

[00:06:08] But when we only prioritize the needs of ourselves and we're looking at this consumerist and materialistic drive, it creates massive problems. And what ends up happening is people become very dissatisfied and feeling empty. They look to material possessions to offer them fulfillment or happiness and not recognizing that the.

[00:06:28] Material goods that we acquire. In the initial hits that we may be get, w that we may get from them. Those upticks. The adjustment down always comes back. So no matter what, so if we start earning a substantially higher amount of money, Eventually we get used to that new level and we are BA our baseline.

[00:06:48] Of being comes back into play. So it becomes a cycle of consumption that can never be fulfilled if that's the way we're trying to fulfill ourselves. It doesn't provide lasting and happiness from that [00:07:00] perspective. So we can't fulfill ourselves through consumerism and materialism, and that's what a lot of people are doing.

[00:07:07] The next piece of this is going to be social media and self promotion. And this is where I'm engaging a lot of this and experiencing a lot of this too, because technology and social media has given us this. Idea that we are. It's like it's We're now we feel less connection or it's like, there's less boundaries on what we're going to do for other people. We also, it's created a dehumanization level where there's this disconnect between who we're talking to and who we're serving or trying to help.

[00:07:34] And I think a lot of that is becoming from social media and self promotion on social media. And what that is the role of social media is fostering a taking mentality. As individuals are focusing on promoting themselves, seeking attention and communicating. Accumulating followers and likes as opposed to being genuine and connecting and serving one another. The connection in our community is.

[00:07:59] Is [00:08:00] decaying because of social media and the desire to promote ourselves and build up a following and be an influencer and do all these things. Now, look, I create content daily. Or published content daily. I've got the podcast. I desire to be. A thought-leader, but I can't do that. If I'm not walking the walk for me, it's all about leading by example. There are a lot of people that are promoting themselves in ways that are not aligned with who they actually are. And that's the danger of it is you can present yourself in a way that is not true to who you are and the way you actually operate and treat people on a daily basis.

[00:08:34] So it can. Provide the illusion that people are something that they're not. And what this does is it creates shallow connections and hinders our development of genuine relationships, built on mutual giving and support. And it's also ignoring the community, the grounded-ness that we've lost sight of because of.

[00:08:54] A lot of the internet and social media and all the things that have happened. I mean, and you can really expand in that, [00:09:00] looking at. COVID and what's happened since then as well. Another aspect of this is going to be aggressive marketing and sales tactics. This to me is a huge thing with the outreach. It's a big problem without showing any regard to the people that you're outreaching to build a relationship, to understand their needs.

[00:09:19] I can't tell you how many people reach out to me based on what they see on my social profile and assume that I'm going to need their service. That's bogus. Even if I do need your service, I'm not going to listen to you. If the first thing you do is start promoting whatever it is that you're trying to sell me, because I don't trust you.

[00:09:36] If you are not going to take the time to understand where I am. What I'm involved in, what my goals are, how can you possibly offer a solution to me? I think the reason I'm also so offended by this in many ways is because I'm a professional sales person as well. And I don't treat people like this either. I take the time to understand them, to understand their goals, to listen to their concerns and see if [00:10:00] there's even a fit.

[00:10:01] For what I could potentially offer my aim when I make networking calls and have connections is to understand and learn about that person. Eventually we may get to solutions if it makes sense, but the only way you do that is you have honest, open, genuine conversations. That's not at all what we're experiencing with the aggressive marketing and sales tactics in our world. Another example, that's much broader.

[00:10:26] Pharmaceutical companies and their ability to market here in the U S that is a big problem because pharmaceuticals are meant to be health related. Why are they promoting them? Like they're products that you can go online and purchase or tell your doctor about, they're not consumables, they're a health-related product.

[00:10:44] This is again, tied back to these aggressive marketing and sales tactics that only care about profits and not people. And this is where the prioritization of taking comes into play. So companies and individuals. Are focused on [00:11:00] making the sale and getting revenue in versus considering the needs and desires they are.

[00:11:05] Of the person they're talking to or marketing to. This approach has eroded our trust and empathy, leading to transactional relationships and a lack of genuine connection. And now you're seeing. A dangerous slippery slope as we continue to dehumanize one another as well. This is just another aspect of dehumanization.

[00:11:26] And what we're doing in our world, and we have to be careful about this. And then the last piece here is the impact that this has all had on our personal relationships. There's a huge imbalance of giving and taking which constrain our personal relationships as individuals prioritize their own needs. And once over those of their partners, friends, or family members. And as I said before, we have to care for ourselves. We have to nurture ourselves, but we also have to be mindful of others.

[00:11:55] We have to be mindful of the needs of others, and we have to consider them the best way to learn [00:12:00] about the needs of others is to learn about ourselves genuinely, take the time to know and learn about what we need. And. To understand what we need, if we don't do that. Then we put ourselves in a compromised position.

[00:12:14] And it leads to inbounds and relationships. What we want to aim towards is reciprocating that giving an offering of service and mutual support so that we can foster healthy balance relationships. It really needs to be a balance of giving and taking, and helping and genuinely seeking to serve those that we're connecting with.

[00:12:37] And so now, so it's bringing a great imbalance to our relationships as well. And that the imbalance in our society is a reflection of our individual and personal relationships that we're experiencing in society. In this modern society. All right. So now we're going to look at the psychology of giving and taking. So first and foremost, self-interest and altruism. [00:13:00]

[00:13:00] These are, they can be motivators, right? The difference between self-interest. So you're looking to benefit yourself versus seeking to help others understanding that there's a balance between looking out for ourselves. And also looking out for our fellow humans for me, the biggest test is, does this help me?

[00:13:19] Yes or no. Is this something that I'm doing that can help me? So it's interesting. It's a self-interest okay. Yes or no. And then the question is, does this also help others? Yes or no? Does it hurt others? Yes or no. If those two things are not aligned with our interest in what it does for others, if one party is only benefiting.

[00:13:40] It's probably not a good scenario. So we have to be mindful of that. That's the balance that comes into play between self-interest and altruism. And so what we need to do is we want to look at. Behaviors for both altruistic ways and self-interested reasons such as [00:14:00] feeling good about ourselves and enhancing our reputation. That's one way, right? If you're looking at the self-interested reasons.

[00:14:07] Truthfully, I love being in service because it feels good to me. That's a selfish reason. I've always been like this. Even when I was young, helping others, helping uplift others, serving them and powering them. Providing them insights, providing them support and ways that make sense to me. And that are reasonable to me is something that I've always greatly enjoyed. So I have self-interest in that because it feels good, but it's also helping others. So when we keep that balance of self-interest and altruism.

[00:14:36] We can help us move forward as a, at a societal level to grow and prosper together when we're considering both ourselves and the benefits of others.

[00:14:47] Now. Now looking at reciprocity and social dynamics.

[00:14:53] Reciprocity and giving and taking it's. We can, by doing that by reciprocating, [00:15:00] our giving and taking aspect, we can hope we can create more hope in the world. We can create more value in the world. We can create more benefit to others. By doing this right when we look at considering ourselves and considering the impact on others.

[00:15:14] It creates a greater dynamic that reciprocates growth and both aspects. So creating a two way dynamic is the power here. And the way this can be influenced sometimes is social dynamics in terms of norms and expectations that can greatly influence the giving and taking behaviors. And how these dynamics can vary from culture and community. So even just looking at the United States, there's tons of different pockets of communities and cultures, the south, the west coast.

[00:15:45] The north, the east coast, like it's all these little pockets of communities and cultures. So understanding the dynamics of our own cultures and communities that we're a part of are critical as well. And when we look at what has become of the United States of [00:16:00] late, that's why the concern around. The focus on self-interest self-promotion has gotten so much out of hand because it's all about the self gain.

[00:16:11] With no regard to the cost that it's costing others or our society. And that's something that we must do. If we are to continue to progress and evolve as a society.

[00:16:22] Another aspect is looking at the importance of empathy and giving intaking empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, which plays a crucial role in balancing that giving and taking aspect. I've talked about this before. In past episodes. But developing empathy for others, learning to understand someone else's position, putting ourself in their shoes, thinking about their experiences, really putting in effort to understand the perspective of others.

[00:16:52] I will help us understand and balance that dynamic of giving and taking this also leads us to an incredible [00:17:00] opportunities for personal growth to develop more self awareness and emotional intelligence when we work to improve our empathy. And we can do that by considering the other, thinking about their situation, thinking about what would it be like if I were in that person's shoes.

[00:17:14] What would it be like if I were going through this, what would I hope would happen? If I were in that situation. Using empathy is an incredible way to understand those around us and the world around us and build bridges. To people and places and cultures that we may not be from, and this will help us to deepen our understanding of that.

[00:17:35] And then that slides into the role of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, because when we become aware of ourselves and our emotional state, This can help us recognize. Our own behaviors, our own emotions, and also that of others. So this creates a more balanced and authentic interaction with others. When we take the effort and make the effort to become self-aware and [00:18:00] increase our own emotional intelligence.

[00:18:01] Within ourselves, this work translates to others. And so when we take the time to work on ourselves, That benefits and enhances our ability to connect and build stronger relationships. And then finally the impact of childhood experiences and upbringing. Definitely influences. How our behaviors will.

[00:18:26] Take place in our life. It also will influence our capacity for empathy. And self-awareness depending on the childhood that we grew up in, we may have a lot of work and healing that needs to happen for us to develop a healthy level of empathy. And self-awareness. If we are carrying around a lot of wounds and pain from our childhood.

[00:18:46] Empathy and awareness can be very difficult because becoming aware and empathetic means we're experiencing those deep feelings. Of pain and trauma. It takes a lot of courage. And [00:19:00] consistency to work through our traumas and pain. That's why having a support circle, a coach, a therapist, resources, all of these things can help us as we navigate the tumultuous world of ourselves.

[00:19:12] But doing this and being mindful of our childhood experiences can help us shine a light into where we currently are and looking at our own behaviors and also understanding our habits. The way we function, the way we connect with others and identifying maybe weak points and our ability to connect with others and be aware of the world around us.

[00:19:35] All right. So the last, the next section we're going to look at here is going to be the benefits. Of giving.

[00:19:43] So there's a lot of benefits of giving. One of those is going to be improved mental health and wellbeing. A lot of the show, a lot of the episodes in the past have talked about a lot of different tools and strategies to help improve our mental health and wellbeing. The. The upside of [00:20:00] giving is again this is what I'm saying, selfishly. I love it because it just feels good.

[00:20:04] Which can lead to increased happiness fulfillment, a greater sense of purpose. It can help reduce our stress. To connect with other people. So by giving it actually helps us to in indirect ways. That's why I was saying selfishly, I love it because it does feel good and it embraces and helps increase our own happiness.

[00:20:27] And confidence by giving and serving other people.

[00:20:32] So there's also been research done around the benefits of giving. As the example, this is why, what I was just talking about. The feel-good hormones, like oxytocin and serotonin are released when we give, so our brain and research, modern research. Supports the feelings that we have. So the beautiful thing about the world that we're living in now is intuitively and throughout history and cultures, wisdom has shown us this, that giving is good. [00:21:00]

[00:21:00] The golden rule, taking care of others, treating our neighbors with respect, all of those things. Those have been intuited wisdom. Now modern research is showing us that this is actually. Supported by our brain and the activities that happen when we do these things. In our lives. So it's not just woo. There's tangible science behind.

[00:21:22] The benefits of this. It creates stronger relationships and social connections. So giving can strengthen relationships and social connections by fostering trust, reciprocity, and a sense of belonging, which is always a good thing. And by giving and helping individuals, we create deeper and more meaningful connections with others contributing to a support network that can provide emotional and practical assistance during difficult times.

[00:21:50] Providing help during people that maybe, as an example a natural disaster comes and people in the community go to help those who are impacted by that. Doing all these things [00:22:00] strengthening our relationships. Allows us to build stronger communities around us by looking to contribute and help others who may be struggling or are less fortunate than we are, and actually getting out and taking action.

[00:22:13] Not just getting mad about stuff on social media. Really doing stuff right. Making the effort in our communities to make an impact. And improve the quality of life around us in our communities.

[00:22:26] Another aspect of this, as it increased, this can increase our self-esteem and sense of self-worth. By helping others, we may feel more capable, more valuable and appreciated. When they contribute. When, so when we help other people, it can help us feel good too, as well. Seeing them succeed, seeing them grow, seeing them take what we've offered and leveraging it and using it and benefiting it can really help build up our own self-esteem and sense of worth as well.

[00:22:57] This, I've talked a lot about this too in past [00:23:00] episodes, especially around self-esteem. I did a whole five-part series. On self-esteem and worth all of these things are skills that can be developed and built. So this also helps us feel better about who we are and the worth and our place in the world, and can help us feel more purposeful.

[00:23:18] Personal growth and development of empathy. I've already talked a little bit about this, but by giving it can help us. Develop our own empathy and compassion for others. As well as a grading, greater understanding of different perspectives and experiences by taking the effort to learn about others and other cultures and other situations, it expands our worldview, which gives us an opportunity to grow and how that can help us expand our own.

[00:23:44] Value and benefit in society. And this leads to increase self-awareness emotional intelligence and overall inner strength. Which comes back to a lot of what we talk about on this show is building. That's the whole concept of order within is creating order within [00:24:00] ourselves. And allowing us to operate in the world.

[00:24:03] And a strong, effective and compassionate way.

[00:24:07] The ripple effect of kindness and generosity is real too right. Paying it forward. It's a very powerful piece. And so when we. Offer kindness and generosity to others. It can inspire others to give and contribute to a more caring and supportive society. We can lead by example and show others that this is what can be done when we take action and show the way by doing.

[00:24:35] So it leads to an overall more kind and generous society. When we do that. And the ripple effect can happen in many ways. When we do this, it's it spreads kindness through communities. It spreads kindness through our, through content. And it can influence the philanthropy efforts at a larger scale. It can help us increase that and show shine a light into the impact [00:25:00] that we can have in the world. And those create more.

[00:25:03] Giving opportunities more non-profits things of that nature to really make an impact. And the world that we're part of.

[00:25:11] All right. So I've got a couple more sections here. You all were looking at balancing self-interest and compassion. Now. It's very important. Too. When we're looking at this, like you can't give endlessly. So that's another thing too. Some people give too much and it's because they haven't learned to self, to care for themselves and to set boundaries.

[00:25:32] If. This is why self-awareness is so key. Some people don't give it all and they're only interested in themselves. That's, you've, that's a different path that you have to work on. If that's where you find yourself, it's all starts from self awareness. But if you find yourself giving a lot to others and burning yourself out and finding resentment in what you're doing, then you it's important to, to learn how to S.

[00:25:54] To care for ourselves and set boundaries. And. Because we have to [00:26:00] prioritize our own wellbeing in order to effectively give to others. My whole idea of this is. If we are a cup. The goal is to be overfilling overflowing with life and energy and love so that we can give to others freely. But if we are not caring for ourselves, if we are half empty, if there's all these leaks in our cup and everything.

[00:26:20] Spreading out and spewing out. We're not going to be able to effectively give and serve others in a meaningful way, because we're not our best. So self care and boundaries allows us to protect our energy and to serve in a meaningful way that helps both us and the world around us. We just have to be mindful of that.

[00:26:38] By practicing self care. Taking care of our personal needs, learning to say no. And seeking support from others when necessary. I've talked a lot about self care on this show. And the importance of it. It's something that we can learn to do. And it's a practice that we take and make each day. Another aspect is going to be the role of empathy in [00:27:00] balancing self-interest and compassion.

[00:27:02] And I talked a little bit about it earlier, but by developing. Empathy, we can help individual. We can help ourselves and individuals find a balance between self-interest and compassion. As we become more attuned to the needs and feelings of others. While also acknowledging the needs of ourselves. So empathy can learn, be learned with us within our own lives. And then we can apply that in other people's lives as well. And we can use that to learn about others.

[00:27:29] And again, I've talked about empathy a lot. It's a very powerful skill. And especially in balancing the giving and taking in our society.

[00:27:39] Recognizing when to give and take. Is very important. And so there's various situations that we need to recognize, like when to give and take. And so we want to be considering like work as an example. Thinking about our team. Our coworkers, our clients. When we're asking them for certain [00:28:00] things, when we need something from them, are we considering their time? Are we thinking about what they're working on? Are we thinking about their priorities?

[00:28:07] Considering other people. Can help us create more of a balance. When we're asking things from them, or we're looking at. There their capacity for giving our own capacity for giving it's ultimately giving us the ability to help assess the potential consequences of our actions and their actions as well. So these are things to think about.

[00:28:28] Is it's. It can be tough sometimes to prioritize when to give and take. But I think leading with empathy, thinking about parties that were involved. And most of all, How thinking about ethics. And being mindful of other people when we're working together, when we're in society together and considering others and their needs.

[00:28:51] Goes a long way and it will help to navigate. The balance of when we should give and when we should take and [00:29:00] what's right. What's not, what's ethical. What's not these things take time. But it's a practice. It's a skill that we can absolutely learn.

[00:29:08] Mindful giving is another aspect that's really powerful. And that comes around, aligning our actions with our values and our priorities. And so by doing that, By aligning our values. And our actions. We can prioritize those things that matter to us and matter to others in a way that's genuine, effective and sustainable. So again, reflection on ourself of our values and what matters to us.

[00:29:37] Allows us to align our actions to those values and prioritize based on what matters to us. And that's again. Looking at your own values that you currently have setting goals, forgiving. And regularly evaluating the impact of our actions that we're having on us on the, on those around us. This is all driven by self-awareness. So thinking [00:30:00] about your own goals, your values, and then regularly reflecting on that will go a long way.

[00:30:05] And a society that's very self centered at this point. And then the last point on this section is the power of small everyday acts of giving. And do not underestimate the power of small gestures, everyday acts of giving small things, recognizing someone in traffic when you're making a turn signal, or if you cut someone off accidentally and you don't realize it until then, and you make eye contact with them and say, sorry, and give them a hand.

[00:30:33] If you let somebody cross the road, that's trying to cross in a busy section intersection. If you notice someone that's broken down on the side of the road and you stopped to ask them for help, there are a lot of small things. That we can do every day that don't require these massive grand gestures or sacrifices in order to contribute to our society in a positive way and help those around us. So thinking about things in small micro ways,

[00:30:57] Is what I would encourage you to do as opposed to these [00:31:00] big sweeping broad changes.

[00:31:02] Honestly, sometimes that can just be, so a few more examples would be offering kind words to others. Lending a helping hand. Being present and taking time to listen. Just listening to people actively and fully is such a great service because people are not used to it. So being present and clear with others and offering them your ear.

[00:31:24] Openly and fully is truly an active service and it can go a long way. I implore you to try it in your life.

[00:31:32] So this is going to move us into the last section here. Which has practical tips for increasing giving in daily life. The first and foremost. Volunteering and community involvement. It's a ton of benefits from getting out. And working in the community and projects, it gives us a chance to give back. It helps us to connect with others. It allows us to develop new skills.

[00:31:55] So it can increase our own personal development. Again, like the funny thing is guys is you can tie back [00:32:00] giving and serving. To our own personal development, our own growth by doing this that's what's beautiful about it is everyone wins. I want to encourage us to adopt more of a win-win mindset, what we're looking to be mindful and kind to others.

[00:32:15] And learning and growing together in a way that's. Appropriate and aligned with everyone's needs and everyone's priorities. That is possible. We can live in a win-win world.

[00:32:27] If you're looking at certain communities or projects, volunteering opportunities get involved in your community, the best way to help is locally. Find things locally. It's a problem with the internet. It's we think everything has to be this big thing. Helping locally can go a long way, no matter what it is. There's a lot of local organizations that we can get involved with, but I would encourage you to get connected to your community and start serving in volunteering locally.

[00:32:52] If you can. Based on some things that, that work with your values. And align with what you value and prioritize. [00:33:00] Another way is to offer support to friends and family. Just being more attentive and supportive of friends and family, whether that's lending in. An open ear offering practical assistance. If they're needing some help or providing some emotional support during difficult times, just being there for our friends and family can go a long way, just reaching out and checking in on people to see how they're doing.

[00:33:24] And seeing how they're feeling if they're dealing with certain things, just being mindful. Something that I do a lot is if one of my friends are. If there's important dates in someone's life. Birthdays or challenging points. Putting them in the calendar so that you can remember that you don't have to think about it and you can reach out to your friends or family on certain days.

[00:33:45] If they may be struggling. So if someone has a, an important death in their life that you know, that date. Maybe that's a good one to put on your calendar and reach out to that person each year, just to check with them, to see how they're doing on that day. Those little things can go a really long way to helping [00:34:00] support the people around us that we care about and love.

[00:34:02] So being proactive. By offering help and acknowledging that sometimes people may be hesitant to ask for help or assistance. Even when they need it is crucial. That doesn't mean we go and do things without asking, but it means that we take a proactive approach. We reach out to them and we offer assistance.

[00:34:20] Because we want to be there for them, even if they may not. People. Especially adults can be very prideful. So reaching out and offering help can go a long way.

[00:34:30] Practicing random acts of kindness. This is a huge one. Again, small unexpected gestures of Goodwill can have a positive impact on both the giver and the recipient. Recipient. Doing that randomly is a great way to help the world around you. That could be.

[00:34:47] Paying for someone's coffee. If you're driving in a drive-through or someone's ahead of you, it could be paying for an order ahead of you in a drive-through. It could be leaving an encouraging note for a coworker. It could be offering a genuine [00:35:00] compliment to a stranger, just looking for opportunities to be kind and genuine to others for no reason, other than simply wanting to offer them something positive and uplifting for the day.

[00:35:10] Mindful giving an intentional acts of service are another way we can go about doing that. Again, this is it's important to understand your values and what you believe in and prioritize because that's how you can align your mind with giving an intentional acts of service. And you want to regularly reflect on your habits of giving and consider whether those actions are having the desired impact that you wish to have in your community and in your life.

[00:35:35] And then finally cultivating gratitude and recognizing opportunities to give. Gratitude is so underrated and so powerful. It can help us become more aware of the opportunities we have to give. And it can also help us to appreciate the contributions of others around us, based on that gratitude. Gratitude puts us in a place of positive energy.

[00:35:57] And being appreciative of the world around us as oppose of [00:36:00] looking at the absence or the negative. So cultivating a gratitude mindset can take us a really long way and doing it in small, meaningful ways. And to do that. I can start keeping a gratitude journal if you're already journaling, just adding in things that you're grateful for each day. As an example, I do a daily journaling practice, one in the morning, one in the evening, I set some priorities check in with how I'm feeling and at the end of the day,

[00:36:24] I do a section called wins where I'll often talk about some things that I accomplished and share some things that I'm grateful for. It doesn't have to be crazy. It can be the smallest thing. Sometimes it's just, I'm happy to be alive. On those tough days, I'm grateful for the fact that I get a chance to be on earth living during this time.

[00:36:39] So practicing gratitude and being intentional about it. Sharing it, and then also regularly expressing appreciation for others. Further kindness and support. We have a loving partner. We have a loving family or friends letting them know how much we appreciate their efforts. Their support, their love can go a long way because sometimes it's easy to take those people for granted around us. So reminding them of [00:37:00] how important they are to us, how much they matter and how much we love them for being in our lives and how much we appreciate them goes a really long way.

[00:37:06] Don't take those people for granted that you love in your life. It's very easy to do.

[00:37:12] All right, Joel. That's all I got for today's episode. So as we discussed. It's very important to balance that giving and taking in our society, especially in a society that's so focused on self-interest and profits above all that is changing. I really believe that's changing. We're taking the actions to change that it will change over time.

[00:37:32] But this is going to happen. If in each of our lives, bit by bit, day by day and the small little tiny details. And that's what it's about is the small, tiny details, a small, tiny giving. The small efforts. Of kindness. All those things will add up over time. And we can do that by deploying a lot of the strategies that we've talked about before on the show.

[00:37:55] And. Just try it out. Just test some things. They don't have to [00:38:00] be these crazy broad sweeping changes. Just do little tiny things to try one thing a day, just try one thing a day. Try random act of kindness for one at one time a day, or even once a week. Start small build on it. Reflect on it.

[00:38:15] And journal about it. Write about it. Talk about your experience, share it with your partner. These are the ways that we can help cultivate and build. That habit of giving. And caring. And balancing the art of giving and taking. This is a journey all and it's con continuous improvement. And growth.

[00:38:35] That to me is what life is all about. And it's awesome. So remember, Be kind. Be compassionate and lead with curiosity. We are one human family. We're all here on this wonderful planet. Trying to figure out and solve these problems that we have. So we're all hearing. All here in this together, we're all on the same platform. We're all on the same level. No matter what anyone tells you, we're all [00:39:00] equals. And the eyes of our creator.

[00:39:02] And that is how we can live. With that concept. Of one human family. So with that being said, y'all I appreciate your time. I hope you're enjoying the show. You can catch me on Twitter at Brandon Lee ward. You can catch me on LinkedIn at Brandon L. Ward. My website's Brandon Lee ward.com hit me up. I'm around y'all I'm excited. So hopefully you're having a great week.

[00:39:22] I hope you're enjoying the show. If you enjoy the show, I'd ask you that you share it and all that. Otherwise. Until next time y'all.

[00:39:30] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.