Mission
Take something that you own and give it away to someone else. The value or quantity of the objects don’t matter . . . rather, try to find something that you’d be willing to part with that would make a difference in someone else’s life. Don’t think of this as charity; think of it as a tailored gift to a friend.
Just a few highlights below – you can see all results in the Discord.
Results
Right after I read the mission I had to hop on a conference call with 2 clients of mine who were thinking about starting a restaurant and wanted my advice. I get paid thousands of dollars to help private equity investment groups raise funds, do legal contracts, scout real estate for, and be an board advisor for their businesses, and this was going to be a paid-call like any other day.
As I was on the call, I was looking at your e-mail again while I was listening to my clients (maybe I should’ve paid better attention), and made an instant, unconscious decision. I told them them that they don’t have to worry about paying me at all for this project. I gave them all my advice, performed all my services for them, and didn’t expect anything in return. They were floored, and kept re-confirming what they though they heard. I had to laugh every time, and it felt great to “give it away.”
Thanks for assigning this project, Nate. This reminds me of how blessed I am to be where I am, and how good it feels to help folks who are in need. The rewards aren’t tangible, but they pay much more for the soul. I can imagine that this is going to give me an influx of referrals and good press, but in the absence of those incidentals, I feel empowered to change people and the world.
I realized early on in my film career that I had a lot to learn. I purchased a lot of equipment, cameras, computers, software and found out that I truly liked to produce, edit and occasionally direct. Why do I say this? Well a good friend of mine came over with a college student from Canada who happened to be into film. I am sure he was in awe of the amount of gear I had compiled over the last few years, but I listened to him and he mentioned really enjoying writing scripts. I happened to have a script writing software that I never used and at the end of our visit I handed him the software and I said “Then put this to good use, and follow your dreams”. I heard that he has been talking about that for weeks and I only hope that he sees that there are people out there that genuinely want to see others succeed. I look forward to one day working with him!
I work with families with autism, and they are often overworked, and don’t get enough time for themselves or their marriages. It’s hard for them to just get a babysitter, because the person needs to know something about autism to be successful with their kiddo. I am normally fairly protective of my evenings and weekends (for sports! and other my other projects and grad school and whatever–everyone is busy, right?). So anyway, this past week I babysat for two families at night so they could go out, for free. It worked out wonderfully. Not only did it make a deeper bond between me and their kids, but it also said, louder than anything else could have, that I really support their whole family.
Thanks for the mission!
