Minisode Monday #7 | Kindness and Giving

The Art of Charm

http://www.TheArtOfCharm.com

Education, Health & Fitness, Business

4.7 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2016

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the seventh episode of Minisode Monday! If You're so Smart, Why Aren't You Happy? author and recent guest Raj Raghunathan joins us to talk about the benefits of kindness and giving. Here's what's up today: The Cheat Sheet: Kindness and giving are good for us. Pessimists can point to numerous reasons that humans seem to be programmed for selfishness and greed, but research suggests we're equally (if not more so) hard-wired for generosity. A study with non-socialized toddlers found a correlation between sharing a personal resource (Goldfish crackers) and happiness -- the most generous toddlers were also the most happy. When we're kind to other people, other people tend to reciprocate that kindness. Even if our generosity is unconditional, the receiving party usually feels obligated in some way to return the favor out of an inherent sense of fairness. We all want to feel as if we're good at doing something -- even if that something is simply being an agent of positive change. When we see our actions as making a difference in the world, we feel more than competent -- we feel powerful. On the other side of it, being too nice -- overly kind and giving -- can get us marked as suckers; where do we draw the line? Raj references recent guest Adam Grant for some lessons in being an "otherish" giver. This week, we challenge you to find the balance between being a selfless giver and an otherish giver. Take the Art of Charm Challenge for weekly help in striking the right balance in this and the other areas of your life. Let us know about how you put today's Minisode Monday into practice! Leave a comment below, tweet with @TheArtofCharm in your response, or write to Jordan directly: jordan@theartofcharm.com (he reads everything)! Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/minisode-monday-7-kindness-and-giving/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Mini-Sode Monday.
0:01.6	Happy to be here with you kicking off the week with something quick and actionable that
0:05.5	you can implement right away that'll make you more magnetic and effective.
0:09.8	Today, Raj Ragunathan, we're talking about how kindness and giving is good for us.
0:14.7	Let's cut to it.
0:18.1	Raj, thanks for coming back. I appreciate, definitely appreciate, even more of your time here.
0:23.0	One of the concepts in the book that I thought was fascinating was that kindness and giving is
0:27.3	good for us. And for most of us, there's no surprise being nice to other people is good for us.
0:32.1	Giving, on the other hand, I wasn't sure how that would be good for us, but as you've shown
0:36.4	in your studies, spending money on other people makes us happy. Yay, science. That's not all, of course,
0:42.6	what giving means and what it is. But I'd love to hear how giving is actually healthy for us.
0:47.6	Kindness and giving is good for us and makes us more happy. And I want to know what the limitation
0:53.5	on that is because it seems like a lot of people are thinking, hey, my problem's not being nice.
0:57.7	My problem is I'm too nice. Where do I draw the line?
1:01.1	Yeah, no, those are good points. So first off, why does giving, why does being
1:06.5	compassionate make you a happier person? It turns out that there are at least three reasons for it.
1:12.3	One is that we seem to be hardwired for generosity. Most of us are aware that we are hardwired for
1:18.1	selfishness or greed. And that's something that's emphasized particularly in business schools,
1:23.3	I would say. But many of us are unaware that we are also maybe equally, if not even more, hardwired
1:29.0	for being kind and generous. So there were studies done with toddlers, right? I mean, these are two
1:33.7	year olds who have not been socialized yet. And they were given some goldfish crackers, which,
1:39.6	you know, if you have toddlers or if you remember back to your childhood, you know that, you know,
	...

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