Getting opportunities during crisis

What we should do when things go bad.

When the financial market is unstable worldwide, the first reaction of most people is to hold on to what they have and also cut costs. They also presume that practically everyone is doing the same thing, as that is the impression that newspapers create.

However, each and every person ISN’T doing so. There are sections of the society which prosper, come what may. Those, who feel surprised about this odd equation, can find the clue for it in a most obvious place where they might have missed it. It might be worthwhile to analyse it 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 reality is that when we learn how to be in control and in our power, we can stay above everything that is happening no matter what happens around us. Let’s take a look at how.

‘Go-getters’ or ‘Go-givers’

Let’s say we want more – more profits, a pay raise, more holidays, more freedom, and more opportunities.

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.

Then our interest swings to something else. This continuous swaying of interest is the biggest issue; the widening interests becoming a never-ending circle of desires so that we are never satisfied with what we have. It becomes a sort of junk food dependency!

But what if we turned our ‘getting’ into giving?

You might be conscious that the act of contributing produces a unique pleasure. This arises from gratification and not from alarm or self-indulgence. One can go on contributing and get so much in return like a most rewarding expedition.

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

Many businesses see this now. They are now starting to give more and more in various ways. There’s a veritable ‘sea-change’ going on as more people ‘get’ the role that giving can play in their business. Bill Gates is a class example. In a July 2008 lead article in TIME Magazine he referred to it as ‘Creative Capitalism’.

He opined that the idea of providing for others could become a crucial factor in encouraging people to buy one product rather than 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 about rising above what we reluctantly settle for to reach what we truly aspire to. When we can capitalise on our ideas and imagination in a way that benefits and nurtures the wider community and network; we stop wasting our resources, efforts and talents in trying to temporarily win. We start creating the real win for ourselves and for the sustainability of our global economy.

The attraction of effective giving

The initiative of bigger enterprises to contribute back to the society is known as Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. It is fast becoming mandatory for large corporations to do so. Still, when it is done for image building or as a mere compulsion, public may eventually realise the truth. Nevertheless, it is a face-saving mechanism.

Individuals and enterprises that ‘contribute’, appeal to everyone. Their fervour and conviction about what they do are acknowledged by the people with whom they build up relationships. This acknowledgement is in addition to the official public relations campaign of the establishment.

What is likely to be the upshot if some of the capital meant for marketing is apportioned for contributions?

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 makes it inevitable

The facility for contributing became so much simpler because of a programme (or one can say a ‘development’) called Buy1GIVE1 (Buy One Give One). Buy1GIVE1 is the heart of transaction-based giving. Transaction-based giving revolutionises things. Let us use our creativity and analyse how.

For example, imagine if every time you had a cup of coffee at your favourite caf, 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).

Where a motivational speaker at a conference is connected with a charity, part of his income might go to helping kids who have speech problems due to facial defects. It will be a matter of great satisfaction for the participants at the conference to know that their very participation is helping a deserving cause.

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 real win-win economy

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.

Volvic is a Mineral Water Company that launched its scheme of transaction-based giving program last year. They help the cause of making wells in Africa. They call the scheme Buy1 GIVE 10 as it helps in generating a flow of 10 litres of water in the well, by every single litre of water they sell.

Lesser to middle level businesses have now begun to spearhead the movement of increasing the idea of global giving through Creative Capitalism. Buy1GIVE1 (www.b1g1.com), a Singapore-based Social Enterprise came up with a procedure that has turned this transaction-based giving into something each and every human being can be part of.

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 your 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?

* One half of the world’s population -which is about three billion people-does not have a daily income of even two dollars.

* Even in the 21st century, which is the age of the internet, there are about a billion people who have never put a pen to a paper.

* UNICEF has reported that more than 30,000 children die every day due to abject poverty, which makes it 20 child a minute and 210,000 a week.

* 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.

* Rainforests of about 63,000 sq. miles get destroyed every year.

Figures From Global Issues

Buy1GIVE1 Businesses- take a look at 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)

* Meditation to restoration (www.meditate.com.au)

* Weight loss to kids’ meals (www.bodychain.com)

* Aesthetic blinds to lights to schools (www.blindscouture.com.au)

* Socks for feet to socks for social effect (www.socksforhappypeople.com)

* Coaching to educate social entrepreneurs (www.b1g1forcoaches.com)

* And for an overall look, simply go to www.b1g1.com.

Discovering what we are looking for-Nature has got the answer

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 every one 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, jot 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.

The secret was always alive 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.

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