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[Dave Erasmus, entrepreneur]
If the question today was 'Is giving good?',
then it wouldn't take us long to find agreement on the matter.
But the question today is profoundly different.
It's: Is giving good for you?
And that is a question that divides opinion wherever I go.
You see, some people's giving experiences are that it's like a black hole,
that they get nothing back,
even if they expected it.
And other people fundamentally believe that giving is about the cause,
and they shouldn't get anything back.
But, what I want to suggest today
is that not only can giving be good for you,
but that understanding the power of giving
is fundamental to understanding who we are
and our role amongst others.
When I was ten, my teacher, Mrs. Taylor,
told us a story about two places that looked really similar.
They were banquet halls,
decorated and beautiful, like this venue here.
They were laid out for a feast,
for hundreds of people,
and, on each place,
the only weird thing about the places
was that the only piece of cutlery were huge wooden spoons.
In the first place,
the people were depressed, hungry and alone.
And in the second place, people were happy, laughing,
talking into the feast and enjoying life.
She went on to explain to us that, in the first place,
the only difference was that people thought the spoons
were there to feed themselves.
And trying to get these huge spoons back into their mouths
proved so tricky,
and they ended up becoming frustrated, depressed
and obviously hungry.
In the second place, somebody realized
that the spoons were not there to feed themselves,
but that they should feed people on the opposite side of the table to them.
As people saw this working,
they copied and shared, built bonds,
and ate the food together and enjoyed life.
I didn't listen to much of what Mrs. Taylor told me at school.
If you're listening, I'm sorry.
But this story stuck with me.
When I was fifteen, I went to a youth camp,
and on the first day,
they asked us to gather around in a big circle.
Then, they said, 'Everybody take a step in,
and then, take another step in'.
Now, you're standing hunched, shoulders close together,
feeling awkward as you do as a spotty teenager,
when other people are too near to you.
They then said, 'Turn sideways, and take another step in'.
We're now completely front and back next to people beside us.
And the next thing they said to do was completely counter-intuitive.
They said, 'On the count of three, we're all going to sit down'.
With no chairs around, that feels completely bonkers.
But they went, 'One, two, three, sit down'.
And if any of you have done this
in a cheesy work experience or team building exercise,
you'll know that the person in front of you sits on your lap,
and you sit on the lap of the person behind you.
Somehow, together, you create a structure that is so supporting,
something that you couldn't have achieved on your own.
I feel like I learned then something deep and profound
that I didn't know how to put into words,
about the interconnectedness of us as a society.
So, Rabbi Jon Sacks, in London,
tells this a lot better than I can.
He says, 'Imagine for a minute that you had all the power in the world.
And, in a moment of lunacy,
you decided to share that power with nine other people.
What would you have left?
One tenth of the power that you had in the beginning'.
He, then, says, 'Imagine that you had all of the love in the whole world,
and then you decided to share it with nine others.
What would you have left?'
Love works on a different economy to power.
When you share your love, it doesn't take away from you.
It only adds more.
And it adds to the people that you share it with.
Love is viral.
It magnifies when you share it.
It is made to be shared.
I've got two friends.
One of them is called Dani,
and the other one is called Isla.
We're quite good friends.
They're very close.
We spend a lot of time together.
Often when we're at dinner, I began to notice a theme note.
It's that Dani nearly always pays for the meals,
for Isla's food.
She's nearly always the designated driver.
Isla's always up and down.
One minute, she's happy. The next minute, she's upset.
Dani's always telling me stories about Isla crying on her shoulder.
I haven't known Isla as long as I've known Dani,
but sometimes I'm wondering why Dani wants to keep giving,
keep on giving to Isla,
when all it feels like is Isla is taking.
But there's something that you need to know about Isla.
It's that she's seven months old and Dani is her mother.
(Laughter)
And when you know that, it fundamentally changes the equation.
Whatever you were thinking about Isla, you've changed.
Not because anything material in the equation has changed,
but that something intangible has been added to the equation:
the bond between a mother and a daughter,
that we all understand, but can't necessarily articulate.
And this is the challenge of understanding
how a mother continues to give when she gets nothing back.
Really, what it is, is that,
when Isla smiles or looks at her in the eye,
she receives something more from Isla
than Dani could ever give her in material goods.
See, real giving is not just a transaction.
It is about love in action.
And when you look at the tangible things in this world,
you're only seeing a small part of the equation.
When you do a search on Google,
it doesn't take you long to find a whole raft of research
to prove the thesis that we're talking about today:
Is giving good for you?
The answer is, unanimously, 'yes'.
You could look at physiological research,
the impact that it has on our health.
You can see that actually people involved in an active giving lifestyle
can add years to their life,
reduce blood pressure,
and the risk of heart illnesses.
We could look at the sociological impacts.
We can see that people who give to people around them
build stronger bonds,
and this forms better communities and societies,
promotes well-being and peace within the living arrangements.
We can even look at the neurological level.
We can look to see the impact that it has on our brains,
when we actively participate in giving.
It reinforces the serotonin and dopamine pathways,
that get activated when we do things like have sex,
eat chocolate or take drugs.
It's fundamentally good for you.
But why, then, are we finding
that there's an epidemic level decline of giving in our generation?
I don't believe it's due to a lack of proof,
a lack of research or a lack of thought on the matter.
It's my persuasion that it's simply due to a lack of leadership.
And that's why we've started to experiment with different ways of giving,
to see if we can activate different behaviours in people,
to get them engaged in causes that matter.
So, meet Herb.
Herb is a good friend of mine.
He runs TEDx in the North of England.
We decided to run an event last November,
called 'Stitch your friends up'.
Five people would get on stage
and, for the sake of a cause that they care about,
they would do something stupid, if we raised the right amount of money.
I managed to convince Herb that this was a good idea,
and he stupidly agreed.
We had some biz, we had some fun,
some live music,
and we enjoyed our time together.
Halfway through the night,
we raised the total we needed to get Herb to commit to his action.
And then, we dressed him up as a Japanese geisha.
(Laughter)
He's going to hate me for this, by the way.
(Laughter)
But we had a great time, we went home,
we raised lots of money,
but the real learning of this experiment for me
was in the morning, the day after.
See, I woke up, I grabbed my phone, and I looked
and I could see that Herb had posted a photo on Facebook
of him dressed as a female Japanese geisha.
And what happened was, as you can see, it went mental.
Ten times more interactivity on that piece of content
than I've ever seen on his wall.
Over 120 people wanting that tiny piece of the action.
And you can draw your own conclusions as to why this is,
but I think it's because he did something vulnerable,
something creative,
something a little bit stupid,
for something that mattered to him.
He didn't share how much was raised,
or the transactional value.
He simply connected something fun and engaging
with something that mattered.
He gave a little bit of himself
and it made a difference to people on his social networks.
Another experiment we're doing is a bit closer to my own heart.
In fact, it's really about my belly.
With all this hard work and sitting behind my computer,
I've been struggling to get out
and get the exercise that I need to stay fit and healthy.
Despite my friends and family having a go at me,
telling me to get my running shoes on,
it hasn't been enough of a motivation for me
to run out and get fit.
So, we decided to create an app called 'the burner'.
And in the burner, we're pulling all of the running data
from my running app, called RunKeeper,
and then, I created a challenge for myself.
I've committed that I'm going to try
to burn 10,000 calories, through exercise, by Christmas.
I then get to throw that challenge out to my friends,
and see if they want to support me in that,
or, knowing my friends more likely,
we give them the option to bet against me.
(Laughter)
So, they get to make a bet.
If I succeed in my challenge,
then their money will go to the cause that I currently support.
By the way, we use Givey,
the donation platform that we created to do this.
If I lose the challenge,
then I will have to give the equal and opposite amount of money
to each of the causes that all of my friends
who were betting against me,
are supporting on Givey.
I'm hoping that this social pressure
is going to be enough to get me up and out of the door
and get me running and burning those calories.
The reason we call it the burner, though,
is because you're either going to burn most calories,
or it's going to burn a hole in your cash.
But, either way, we're trying to use social dynamics
to make social good.
I arrived in Chisinau on Friday, at 1 A.M.
I thought I was going to go to bed.
But ten minutes later, I found myself on the terrace,
with a drink in my hand,
in the midst of a birthday party.
(Laughter)
I'd stumbled in some speeches and toasts for the man whose birthday it was.
His name is John.
He worked in a local hospice here in Chisinau,
called Hospice Angelus.
Some of you may know it.
And I thought I was about to hear stories
of people talking about drunken nights out and embarrassing moments,
but what I heard next inspired and encouraged me.
Everybody there on his birthday,
friends not from the hospice,
the favourite thing they could think to talk about
to celebrate this man's birthday
was to talk about how he had managed to creatively engage them to connect
with causes that he cared about and, now, they care about.
They talked about football fund raisers
and fancy dinners and galas.
They talked about rally days.
They talked about quiz nights.
In fact, the quiz night was so successful
that people he wanted to come and give to the hospice
had to be turned away at the door.
You see, I think he knows something about the fact
that it's not what people give,
but it's how you invite them to give,
that determines whether or not giving is good for them.
He's tapped into a different kind of social motivation.
He has helped them to connect with causes,
in this interconnected world, that mattered to them.
He invited them to give a little bit of themselves,
wrapped their giving in a bit of their love,
and he's invited them to do it
in the most creative, enjoyable way possible.
It is this kind of leadership that encourages me,
that we might be able to create a different kind of social giving norm.
So, the question is: Is giving good for you?
And I want to challenge you,
off the back of his story with his friends,
to go and find, or create if you can't find one,
a social giving experience of some kind.
Something that talks to your passions, your causes.
Connect with a cause that matters,
invite people to give a little bit of themselves,
wrap their giving in love, and then share that
in the most fun, exciting, possible way you can
with as many of your buddies,
and have a great time.
And then you can come back and tell me whether or not giving is good for you.
Thank you for your time.
(Applause)