Getting Opportunities During Crisis
How we should react when economy slows down.
When the global financial market is in turmoil the first thing most people think of doing is holding onto things and cutting expenditure. And they automatically assume (because the newspapers tell them) that everyone is acting that way.
Everyone ISN'T responding in that manner. There are many people and many ventures that flourish, whether the economy is down or not. And if you are wondering why it is so, the solution is available there where it is often likely to be overlooked. It will be a good idea to search for the answer 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 truth is that when we know how to steer ourselves and be our own masters, we will able to stay afloat or swim against the current, come what may. Let us see how we can manage it.
'Go-getters' or 'Go-contributors'
Consider a situation where we want much more - fatter profit, a salary boost, lengthier holidays, better freedom, and better prospects.
When we have a desire for an object, our first tendency is to straightaway go and have it. That just makes us 'Go-getters'. And a 'go-getter' is surely a self-motivated person, an activist and a natural leader. Such a vision is a proven way to succeed in life as we have heard. Still, there is some sort of a snag. When this plan is brought into play, the results are somewhat surprising though in a way it is foreseeable as well.
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.
So then we immediately shift our focus to getting more. And here's the real problem; the more we do that, the more we create a cycle that actually makes us continuously feel as though we do not yet have enough. It's like a carbohydrate addiction!
Why don't we turn our 'getting' into contributing?
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!
Creative 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 said: "Doing good might be the tipping point that leads people to choose one product over 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
CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is the word used for delineating the process of business establishments giving back to the community. It is becoming an obligation on the part of enterprises to do so. But when they donate as a duty or just for creating a good impression, it would soon become easy to make out. However, it works as an interim ploy for survival.
Business ventures and people who 'donate' become popular. The zeal and sincerity that prods them to act is recognized by the people with whom they interact. This response is on top of what is spun by way of the company's public relation efforts.
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 causes it to happen on its own
The ability to give just got so much easier too, thanks to an initiative (some would say a 'movement') called Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the home of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving changes everything. Let's use some imagination to see 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 now if you could apply transaction-based giving in your own unique way to match your main products/services to engage your customers and team members to be part of the giving story. Here's how.
The economy where all benefits
Already, companies right around the world are 'getting' the power of this transaction-based giving. Just one example-the UK's leading supermarket chain, TESCO now gives a school uniform to a child in Kenya whenever a customer buys a pair of school trousers.
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.
Small to medium sized companies are now starting to take leadership in expanding this global giving movement through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with a mechanism that has turned this transaction-based giving into something every one of us can be involved in.
Buy1GIVE1 is the heart of a most powerfully persuasive transaction-based giving globally, correlating business ventures of all sizes to any noble cause anywhere. It is weaving a universal society of business givers and for SME's, Buy1GIVE1 links up businesses, their clients AND charity requirements in a most passionate and mutually satisfactory manner. The whole thing is completely automated.
You can become a citizen of this global giving movement by simply getting a Buy1GIVE1 'VISA' directly off the Buy1GIVE1 site at www.b1g1.com. And if you own a business you can become a B1G1 Business through a simple online application and select your cause for your main product or service to kick-start you're giving. Buy1GIVE1 forwards 100% of the contributions to their international Worthy Cause Partners (there are now over 528 projects you can select) making the giving even more effective.
Have you considered?
* Half the population of the globe -about three billion people-is forced to survive on less than two dollars a day.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.
* Poverty and malnutrition robs the lives of 20 children every minute, 30,000 every day, and 210,000 children every week, as per UNICEF records.
* 85% of the world's water resources are utilized by just 12% of its population. And of this, even 1% does not live in the Third World.
* Medical aid is not available for one billion people of the world population.
* 63,000 square miles of rainforests are destroyed each year.
Data 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 practice providing healthcare (www.primanora.com)
* Phone card to human interaction (www.ultimatecomms.com)
* Relaxation to healing (www.meditate.com.au)
* Losing weight to feeding children (www.bodychain.com)
* Aesthetic blinds to lights to schools (www.blindscouture.com.au)
* Socks for protecting feet from frostbite (www.socksforhappypeople.com)
* Coaching to train social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)
* And to get a complete picture, just go to www.b1g1.com.
Unearthing what we are looking for-Nature's eternal secret
So let's come back to where we started-economic turmoil and getting what we want. What we all really want is actually very simple. You can sum it up with 'C' words - connection, collaboration and community.
When we can pool resources and not segregate and when we can divine a proper way to augment what everyone has got and not cut down from what each has got, we understand that there is a veritable cornucopia of sources to be had in the world. And when we bond, not just with our physical persona, but with our intrinsic selves, we discern something completely fascinating -that we're all ONE. Then we comprehend how uncomplicated it is to form a universal community from something as ordinary as giving.
And the truth is there in all its glory in nature.
In nature, bees and butterflies pollinate flowers and create sustainable flower gardens for many generations to thrive on. It's been in front of us all along!
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.
by: Masami Sato.
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