I woke up this morning and made a decision before my feet hit the floor: today, I was going to give more than I got. I didn’t know what that meant yet. I just knew I wanted to move through the day looking for chances to give instead of chances to get. I had no idea how fast the universe would take me up on it.
I headed out for my walk in Ocean Beach, cutting down Newport. My mind was on a new venture I’ve been building – something oriented toward veterans’ health and wellness. I was deep in that thought when, out of nowhere, a guy I’d never seen before walked up to me. His name was Dana. I don’t know what made me do it, but I looked at him and asked, “Are you a vet?”
He said, “My grandfather was a vet. My dad was a vet. And I’m a vet.”
I told him the timing was almost unbelievable – I was about to get on a call about helping veterans, right then, on that block. I asked him what he’d want me to represent on his behalf. He didn’t hesitate: “Just keep the boat afloat.” Then he said something I haven’t stopped thinking about – that he never wants to see a day in his life when our freedom is threatened. I told him God bless him, and right there on the sidewalk, I put him on the phone with my partner, the person I was about to have the call with. Dana said almost the same thing to him.
When I got on that call minutes later, “keep the boat afloat” had already become the theme of the whole conversation – before we’d even started.
I gave Dana ten dollars for a coffee. Ten bucks. The price of a sandwich I’d forget about by lunch. He didn’t want to take it. When I asked if there was anything else I could do, he said, “Just treat us with respect.” That was his entire ask. Not money. Not a favor. Respect.
Here’s the part that stopped me in my tracks – and it’s the part I keep turning over: I woke up planning to give, and the first thing that happened was someone gave to me. He handed me a reminder I didn’t know I needed, before I’d given him a single thing. I walked up carrying ten dollars. I walked away carrying something no ten dollars could buy. That’s the paradox nobody tells you about giving. You think you’re the one parting with something. You’re the one getting paid. I gave Dana a cup of coffee. Dana gave me back a line I’ll use for the rest of my life – “keep the boat afloat” – and a reason to mean it.
So I asked myself: what else can I do right now, today? There was someone I barely know who’d come up to me two days earlier and told me he’d been up all night deciding whether to ask me for help. This morning, on my day of giving, I went looking for him – walking the streets of OB trying to find his house so I could give him the one small thing he’d asked for. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. It elated me anyway.
Then a third thing happened. Someone I work with is connected to the music industry through Akon, and my wife and I asked – which I almost never do – if we could get four tickets to something. They came through immediately, put up directly by Akon himself. Giving those away this morning lifted my soul in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Three separate moments. Three separate people. Same message, over and over: the boat only stays afloat if we keep bailing water for each other.
Here’s what I actually want you to take from this – not the story, the shift. Most of us walk around with a scarcity mindset about giving. We think we have to have extra before we can give any of it away – extra time, extra money, extra energy. That’s backwards. Dana didn’t wait until he had extra respect to demand it. The guy in OB didn’t wait until he had leverage to ask. I didn’t wait until I felt ready – I just started looking, and the day organized itself around that intention. Giving isn’t something you do with your surplus. It’s something you do with your attention.
And here’s the punchline, the part that still doesn’t add up on paper: I got more out of today through giving than I’ve gotten from work, or from any deal, or any win, in longer than I can remember. Not close. And I didn’t spend much. Ten dollars, a car ride, four tickets I didn’t pay for. The math doesn’t work. You put ten dollars in, and you get back a theme, a reminder, a lifted soul, and a story you’re still telling by sundown. That’s the paradox of giving – the more you hand out, the more you walk away holding. The cost wasn’t the point. The looking was the point.
So here’s my ask of you, today, right now, before you close this: stop scanning your day for what you can get out of it. Scan it instead for one person near you who’s in need – a coworker, a stranger, a vet on the corner, someone in your own house – and if they ask you for something, anything, give it. Don’t negotiate with yourself about whether you have enough to spare. You already know if it’s small. Do it anyway. Ten dollars and a little respect might be the cheapest high return you’ll ever book. That’s the whole practice. That’s the entire mindset shift, and it takes about ten seconds to decide.
Set the intention before your feet hit the floor tomorrow. Then watch what the day hands you – and notice how much more comes back than you ever put in.
