DailyJim: The joy in lifting people up to lead

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Thursday, March 13th, 2025, and today I want to talk about the joy in lifting people up to lead, or the joy in lifting up leaders.

So I was thinking about Leading Hearts Fund, and I think a lot of times I focus on me as the leader wanting to receive money from other people, and focusing on the receiving, receiving like, yes. And then the part goes to me, of course, who wouldn't want to receive money with no strings attached? And if I tell that story to others, I think others go, who do you think you are? You're so entitled. You just want to receive money. You think you're better than us, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like everyone wants to receive money. You just have to work hard. I've heard these arguments over and over again, not from everyone, obviously, but some people. And maybe it's the way I frame it. And if I'm framing it on the person who's receiving, it's different than framing it on the person who's giving and one of the things that excites me about leading hearts fund just the concept in general is not necessarily me receiving yes i'm excited by that but i'm sometimes more excited about how can i give to other people to lift them up to be leaders one of the people on the website is my friend pavel pavel is just opening the peer-to-peer mental health part of his organization in a refugee camp in Uganda. And I get so excited about thinking how I can help lift Pavel up. Yes, there are non-financial, non-monetary ways of doing that, making connections, telling people about Pavel, that he exists, and, you know, telling stories about him in my life, all these things that can help, but financially we can lift people up as well. And it excites me, to be honest, the idea that I could give money to Pavel and say, Pavel, I believe in you. I believe in you as a leader, take some money or take a lot of money and lead us with this money.

Or my friend Roman, or my friend Jake, or my friend Lorenzo. Yes, I've named a lot of men, but these are the first ones that come to mind. It's not that I'm only going to give to men. But this idea of how can I find people that I believe in as leaders? Maybe they don't see themselves as a leader, and I can lift them up financially and other ways.

And this idea of giving the power to them to watch them perform with the power is something that I think a lot of people can resonate with. I mean, it's the essence of being a teacher. It's the essence of being a parent. It's the essence of being a mentor. It's the essence of being a manager in some ways. How can we see people that have a lot of potential and we give them the resources to lift them up and to let them shine and to even outshine us in some ways. But just to see that they have the potential to grow, they have the potential to lead and sometimes they just need more resources to get there.

And even if they're already there, what more could they do if they had even more resources? So I remember a time I was a trainer in this project in Europe and it was called It's Up To Me, Train The Trainers. I don't know if it's up to me, four, maybe three or four, maybe five. I think it was five. And there was one woman, she was very much struggling on the project. They were in a team project that they had to come together and they had to create a workshop by the end of the week. And so they were working together to come up with a project. And while there were four people on the team, one person wanted to go in another direction, one direction, another person wanted to go in the opposite direction, third person totally tuned out. And she was the fourth person and she was trying to mediate the conflict. And she got so frustrated. It was like the last day before they had to perform. I remember she came up to me and I think I gave her a hug and I said, I believe you're stronger than you think you are.

And then something happened overnight, and wah, they fixed it. I don't know how. Something happened. She stepped up into the lead, and they resolved the conflict, and they actually ran one of the best workshops out of all the groups that ran workshops.

Now, that's an example of lifting somebody up with words, lifting somebody up with emotional support. But there are other times we can lift people up with financial support. There's a guy, they call him a Scotty, like soldier, or like security guard here for the building.

And one day he asked, I think I've told this story before, but one day he asked me for 100 Kenyon shillings, which was like the equivalent of, it's like 75 cents in the US. But how we started was, hey man, I need to ask you for a favor. I'm like, well, as long as it's not a financial favor. And he says, well, it is. He says, you know, I did this, I washed this car and the guy hasn't paid me yet. So can you lend me a hundred shillings? I'll pay it back. I said, wait, a hundred shillings? He said, yeah, a hundred shillings. He said, just a hundred shillings. He said, yeah. So I gave the guy 500 shillings, which is like four, four and a half dollars. And I came back down and he was like, oh my God, I was just thanking God that you gave me the money and you helped me. It's like so much. I appreciate it so much. It's a blessing that you came into my life. And I was like, huh? This man washed the car and people didn't pay him. And he felt so grateful to be lifted up like that. But more than anything, for me to be able to give that money and see the joy in his face and see the relaxation. It felt so good.

Now, imagine how that impact could trickle down in his life. Instead of going home to his wife and kid, pissed off, sad, ashamed, maybe that he doesn't have the money, he goes home and he has some money and he's happy and he's grateful. That energy of being happy and grateful can transfer to the kids as well. So in me giving I felt proud I felt strong just like when I told that woman that I believe she's stronger than she thinks she is I felt strong in saying that I felt confident it felt so good to say that and to see the impact of it and so that's kind of the essence it's one of the main essences of Leading Hearts Fund it's this idea that it can feel really good to give to other people especially to lift them up as leaders, especially just to give them money and say, I trust you, take the money. It can feel really uncomfortable to give somebody money and say, well, I need this money back in a week because it can really damage relationships.

It can put so much stress on relationships when we expect the person to return the money. Secondly, when we give money to somebody and we have demands on how they should use it, it can also put demands, strains on relationships because it says, I don't trust you with the money. I trust myself more than I trust you.

But when we give money with no strings attached and we don't expect it to get returned, we say, here, take the money because we're not just giving money, we're giving trust. And if we want to invest in leaders, and if we want new leaders in society that are taking us in a more trusting and loving direction, then we have to give them our resources, give them resources with trust and love. And one of the resources we can give is money. And like I said, it can feel damn good, actually. I think the way of it framed is like of course everyone would love to receive money with no strings attached of course but do people realize how good it can feel to give money with no strings attached it can feel so good it can feel so good think just think about when you've given a tip to somebody at a restaurant okay this applies especially to my American friends if you give a tip say for example the the you go and you have a beer and you give a dollar tip giving a dollar it's kind of customary or whatnot maybe it doesn't feel that good to give the dollar, but if you give a ten dollar tip on a one beer or if you give if you have a meal that's fifty dollars and you give a fifty dollar tip it can feel pretty damn good giving that money to somebody else, it can feel really good it's not about the receiving it's about the giving too. So when we give money no strings attached with appreciation and especially if we're trying to lift them up and trying to help them grow it can feel so good now imagine we do this to the people that we really want to grow the most and we think if they grow the impact they could have on this world can be huge so now we're not only giving it to the individual to watch and see them grow like me giving to Pavel because I'm excited to see Pavel relax and not have to stress about money every three weeks or four weeks or so so he can pay rent.

What if it's not just about giving it to Pavel, but it's like say, okay, I can give this money to Pavel because I want to watch him shine because I can see how many other people he might make shine. I can see how Pavel's sparkle might trickle down into other people. And this gets to the idea of trickle down emotions I've talked about before. If we could lift these people up, or we could even find the people who maybe are at the top and lift them up and give them unabashedly, give them resources, especially financial power, and watch how that trickles down. Not the financial power necessarily, but the feeling of having received financial power with trust and with love, and how that feeling may transfer down, how that pride, how that gratitude, how that love, how that excitement, how the vivacity for life might start trickling down to other people in society. That's what gets me excited. Yes, I'd like to be one of those people, but I want to be one of those people so I can give to other people, so I can lift other people up. Man, I'm excited to lift people up. So that's kind of the end reflection for the week. Again, I think I've gone over 10 minutes. Oh well. But I will talk to you all on Monday and I'll be reaching out probably to many of you individually and posting more about Leading Hearts Fund because it's got me really excited these days, sometimes more on some days than others. But today I'm feeling really excited and really proud that this idea came to me and hopeful that other people feel excited and empowered by it as well. Take care.