The Capacity to Give More – Episode 667

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. Today’s episode is about the best way to help others. And we’re pulling this from a Princeton study. I haven’t shared this study with Kim, because we’re going to get her take on it. So Kim, are you ready for this? I’m always ready. I was one of those born ready people, and sometimes that gets me in a lot of trouble. Me too. That’s good. But never at a restaurant, right? It’s just like, oh, let’s do this. Do you ever meet the people that take forever, that aren’t ready? Okay, so here we go. The best way to help others. They ran a study, and it was on Princeton, it was a campus, and what they said was, and they did it actually for like theology students.

[00:53] So they’re trying to pick the best of the best. They’re going through and they’re saying, all right, how many of you are hopeful and kind and doing things for others? And of course, everyone’s like me. And so they ran this study to find out who would. They put an object in the path, which was in one of the hallways. It was a person that looked like they were injured, and they wanted to see who would be the good Samaritans. Now, everyone said, yes, there was three categories of people that they broke it down to. And they said, is it what they say, or is it what they do? Here’s the three categories, and I’m going to have you guess, Kim. Is the people that were 10 minutes early, the people that were on time, or the people

[01:39] that were 10 minutes late? Who do you think are the actual most kind people? Ten minutes early. That’s right. Ten minutes early. The quote that I got from that was this, it is significantly harder to be kind when you don’t have capacity. Interesting. So let’s talk about this from the prosperity perspective. How does that apply to the community and to life? Well the sentence, harder to be kind when you don’t have capacity, it’s so interesting that they chose that word, because immediately, based on your storyline, you think it’s just about time. But capacity just opens it up so broadly. So I’ll share a quick story. Our children’s nanny, who’s now about 80 years old, and just a delightful lady,

[02:36] I just got to see her over the weekend. I hadn’t seen her in like, I don’t know, 20 years. We’d seen her at a couple of weddings and graduations and such. She said to me that prior to working for us, she worked for our family full time for about six or seven years, she had been praying for other people in her current job to find work they love, because she kept having all these people come and say, you know, I don’t like what I’m doing, I want to look for something else. She was not looking for anything else, but when I called and offered her a full time nanny job, she couldn’t have been more excited. She totally wanted to work with kids again, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the point is, she had been praying for others, right?

[03:21] That’s a sense of capacity. When we’re food is handled, when we’re under a roof, when we have enough money, when we have enough time, that’s capacity. But I think it all starts in our thought. If we’re selfish, and we have to be somewhat selfish to live and survive, and certainly we cannot take care of others if we’re not feeling well ourselves. Another quick story, I wasn’t feeling very well last night and we had people over the alpaca sharers that I had to deal with this morning, and it was everything I could do just to be a decent hostess for an hour and a half. And thankfully I was able to do that, but I’m sure if somebody knew me, they’re like, wow, she’s off. They didn’t know me. So it didn’t matter.

[04:09] But right, if we don’t have the capacity, then we can’t take care of others. But it starts in our thought. So as long as we’ve got some water, right, we’re not starving. We know where we’re going to sleep tonight. We can help others, but it starts in our thought. And if we don’t have just a thought of, I would like to be helpful to others. It’s not even going to cross our minds, right? We’re going to walk right past that person that’s apparently injured in the hall and not even have the mental capacity to deal with it or the servant attitude to deal with it, much less time capacity, dollar capacity, et cetera. Absolutely. It’s like art. It’s almost like, you know, when you see horses in towns where they do

[04:55] carriage rides and they’re wearing those blinders, you don’t have the ability to see the peripheral. Right. And so you’re stuck. So let’s take this back to, to finance and a hundred percent. It’s, it starts with your thought. How is it that we as listeners and community people can up our capacity so that we can be more gracious, more giving, more kind and all of that? Well, I love this question because at a higher income level, it appears easier, right? You can write that thousand dollar check or 10,000 or whatever your number is to whatever cause that you care about. And often there’s tax deductions that go along with that. And that’s pretty easy. The more important thing I think is to talk about what people in the more

[05:51] normal walks of everyday life that might not feel like they have a lot of extra can do. So I’ll give you two stories. One, I have a client that’s just normal middle America, and he loves to follow the biblical request to help the widows and the orphans. And so he does this in literally one and $5 items and things and dollars. So when he’s out and about, if he feels like he is in the presence of somebody like that, you can’t always know, right? But you pick up on things, then he will buy an extra hamburger and let that person have it or whatever the thing is, it’s one or a $5 deal, right? Another example, and back up, he doesn’t care about the tax deduction. Like that’s not important to him. He’s doing what he feels is best for him.

[06:46] There’s a, another situation that I’m aware of where a particular lady knows that and has a little extra resources, but not a lot, it’s a little bit every month and her dedication is to Christian causes. She knows there’s lots of causes that could be good, but she just narrows it down to Christian causes. And for her feels like she can get better results in that area. So I believe that it is so important to share and to share first, even at early, early levels, as part of our prosperity parents community, we teach the children to split their money and the percentages can vary. It could be five, 10, 20, 30%, whatever into a share, spend and save realm. And so, you know, a lot of people will do 10% share, 20% to save,

[07:47] and then 70% to spend. I know of a very particular family that does have some extra dollars that said to their children, if you can flip that and share and save the 70% and spend only the 30%, you will have an amazingly free life. So it’s just perspectives that are so interesting. And it all starts in our thought, you know, just real quickly, when we rebranded to our current name, which is prosperity thinkers. So same team, same people been around close to 30 years. We just decided it was time for freshness and we love the word prosperity. So of course that was going to be in it. My marketing people were encouraging me to use the Kim Butler name in the brand. I didn’t want to do that. And prosperity thinkers came to my thought.

[08:47] And frankly, I was amazed that the URL was available because you might as well not even bother naming your LLC until, you know, if the URL is available, unless it’s truly just a private LLC for some reason, but prosperity thinkers.com was available and not even at a odd price or anything. I, you know, normal, whatever, 30 bucks, but it has become such a guiding light for us because we know that all things monetarily start in our thought and all things about our health start in our thought and all things about our relationships start in our thought and turning your brain on and being an active thinker is what’s going to get you really good results. So thank you, father, mother, God for the tip on the name.

[09:38] I love it. That’s good. You’re describing really well, the family that switched to the 70% for save and for using it for others. And it’s a wonderful thing because they had an innate trust that it would go. Is there, and I’m trying to extract something out of here, which is this, is it that they had that trust, that faith in place and they had the principles in the mechanism or like, what’s the give and take of that? Cause I imagine we have listeners on here that are going, Hey, we need to have our family kind and giving first thinking that way. Well, it is interesting. I believe that statistics show that in most places of the United States, there’s definitely some exceptions. Around 70 to $80,000 a year of, I believe gross income, there’s a chance

[10:46] that’s net after taxes, but I’m pretty sure it’s gross income is a lifestyle that is of plenty. It’s not of excess, but it’s of plenty. And so if you think about a situation where somebody’s earning, you know, half a million dollars a year, let’s say they could actually do 70% to sharing and saving and 30% to living. So, you know, it’s because it’s a percentage, it’s a challenge to see where the actual dollars are. But us Americans have become crazy material. We spend money incessantly for so many people shopping is such a form of therapy that is horribly ineffective in most cases, cause it’s so short term and it’s I think really helpful to just look at your situation through that lens and you may not be able to do a 70 30 flip, but maybe you take

[11:47] your savings from 15% to 20% or maybe you take your sharing from 10% to 15% or whatever it is, you know, $1 to $2 and that’s a 50%. What is that? I can’t always do the math without my Todd Langford calculators, but I think that’s a hundred percent increase actually. So it’s a doubling of money that I know. So, you know, it’s also relative. And again, it just all starts in your thought and being purposeful. So to bring this clear back to your statement, I love the quest, like how do you help others? And it’s interesting because I think a lot of people absolutely positively want to help others. And yet there are so many ways that we help that are frankly, just not helpful. So I was just at my son and daughter-in-law’s house.

[12:42] I have a brand new baby and you know, it was super fun. We got to see all the cool things and the baby and all the things that go with the baby, right, of which are in just endless. And something came up and I was like, Oh my gosh, this would be so helpful for you to have. May I get it for you on Amazon? And she said, yes, that would be great. That does actually sound helpful. I would love to have that. And then something else came up and I said, would that be helpful? And she was like, no, we really don’t, you know, we’ve made a decision. We don’t want that or don’t need that. I don’t remember what the thing was, but I think that’s such a great example of when we want to help to ask the people that we’re wanting to

[13:21] help, it’s why my favorite question is how do you learn best? Like I want to help you. You’ve got some learning that you need to do. Do you want to read? Do you want to watch? Do you want to listen? Do you want to get your hands involved? And so, so often we want to give, we want to help people. We want to do something, but the thing, the method is not always the best. And we feel like, well, you know, it ruins the surprise or the fun or whatever, if I ask, I am not of that thought I am going to flat out ask because I believe that I will then help them get even better results. Because I too want to help even more people. I too want to help even more ways. Like if somebody’s on the phone with me, we’ve handled the finances and

[14:08] they are curious about, you know, fill in the blank, Hey, you know, where’d you get ski equipment for your kids? I actually have an answer for that. And I would love to help them with that. So I think naturally human beings are, but to go back to the study from Princeton, do we have the capacity? And that starts in being open-minded, being willing to listen, having your own self-situated and taken care of, right? I’m fed, I’m watered, I’m rested, whatever. So that I can give. You know what you’re mentioning as far as capacity and to wrap all this together is that you have lived a life of principles. You’ve figured out what is most important and that started in the mind with the thinking and it’s going to the actions.

[15:04] I think for our listeners, you nailed it where you’re saying, you know, in a conversation, you can take care of finances in a short amount of time. But the real questions, the things that people really want are how can I make my family’s, like the family environment better? How can I create this legacy that means something? And that’s what really matters. You have the prosperity parents community, we have books. There’s so many things. So for all of you listeners, there’s a community, there’s an entire ecosystem and it will take you if you have a little bit of money for the sharing, or if you have a lot of money. Both any closing words as we wrap up, Kim? Well, I am just so grateful. We’ve developed resources in so many categories for people.

[15:58] And so I just encourage our listeners to reach out and have your friends and family members reach out that special email. The hello at prosperity thinkers is for our podcast listeners and their friends and family. And we’ve gone through a very large reorganization of some of our systems. We updated our database and have done some things that increase our efficiency, and we are able and willing to take care of more people now and really want to help you help your family members. In fact, in July, we’re going to be doing a special webinar that will be open to the public. And it’s going to be called Bring Your Beneficiary. So that’s a space that we’re excited about helping more people with in more ways.

[16:46] Oh, so good. Kim, thank you for sharing your wisdom on the podcast. And for any of you listeners that are looking for something immediate. Hello at ProsperityThinkers.com. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit ProsperityThinkers.com