High Performance: Giving back

November 23, 2015 - By Phil Harwood

The Thanksgiving Day holiday gives us an opportunity each year to pause, reflect, and give thanks for the many blessings we have in our lives. It’s also a great time to take action. It’s one thing to say that we’re thankful or to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving. It’s quite another to do something about it.

Most of us live with abundance. As such, we have something to give. The question really is whether or not we want to give, not whether or not we have the resources to give. When it comes to giving, I like to use the old saying, “time, talent and treasure.”

Giving of our time is often the most difficult thing to do. Our schedules are loaded up with all sorts of things that are near and dear to us. We have plenty of time for these things but we usually don’t have any “extra” time to give when the act of giving doesn’t fit our agendas or provide us with some benefit. For most of us, it’s easier to write a check than to commit our time. For this reason, I would encourage each of us to give back some of our time, our most precious resource.

Giving of our talent is much easier to do but requires intention. When we excel at something, we enjoy giving it away. We love the reaction, the praise and the compliments. It feels good to do something valuable when we enjoy it just as much.

Giving of our treasure involves our worldly resources. For some of us, this type of giving is difficult, as we hold onto our stuff with a tight fist. For others, it’s very easy to give financially for the sake of those less fortunate. Interestingly enough, there’s no correlation between the amount of abundance and the percentage of giving. It’s a heart issue, not a financial issue.

How about you? During this season of thanksgiving, will you take action to commit your time, talent or treasure?

Now go forth.