Episode 154: Being in the Moment - Building More Meaningful Relationships

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall", your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

It's great to have you back on this edition of "Around with

Randall". Just recently I spent a great deal of my weekend doing something that probably will surprise some, but certainly wasn't a lot of fun, was filling in the cracks on the asphalt on our driveway. I've been putting it off for a long time and finally got to the point where I knew it needed to be done before winter got here because we were going to start losing chunks of asphalt with snow and snow removal. And on Sunday of that weekend we had plans as a family to go to a family outing into kind of the celebration of Halloween and my wife, who is incredibly smarter than I am and more attune with the world than I ever will be, knew that the timing of this event where it would be about two, two-and-a-half hours did not fit into my schedule the way I had thought about it with work, which I tend to do a lot on the weekend, in terms of cleanup with the driveway, with some other things I needed to get done over the weekend. And she came to me and she said we are still planning on going and I said yes, and she could tell there was a little disdain and she looked at me and she says, don't miss these

opportunities. Our kids will get big someday.

Today's podcast is about the value of living in the moment, and thanks to my wife I took those two hours. It was actually just shorter two-and-a-half, and I forgot about the driveway, and I forgot about work, and I forgot about some other things that were just kind of in the back of my mind to have fun with the kids at this gathering. And it was a realization that probably this can be related to what we do every day in philanthropy. Whether it's in healthcare, or higher ed, or social service, or arts, being in the moment has value. So I want to take this apart in a couple of ways.

Let's start with the big picture. Really, what is this idea of being in the moment? What are we talking about? It's not just getting through stuff. I hear that. Sometimes like, well, I got all these things done on my task list. Well those are great. We need to get through things on a task list. We'll talk about that here in a moment. But were you living in the moment? And that's a different series of questions. It's not just getting stuff done. It means in some ways that when you're doing something, what you're doing is not just the front of the mind it's the entire mind. The Japanese actually have a term for this. Just for this concept we talk about being in the moment, they got one word that's five letters: Ukiyo - u, k, I, y, o. What does it mean to them, their one word to talk about being in the moment? Not focused in the moment they define Aio as detached from other bothers of life.

I grew up in my earliest memories with the love of Winnie the Pooh. To this day if you come to my office there's a Winnie the Pooh bear out in my outer office as a reminder of many things including how fortunate I am with my parents, the way I was raised, how happy I am, and the values of life but also of all the small lessons that are taught through Winnie the Pooh. And one of my favorite cartoon sketches is where Winnie the Pooh is walking through the snow with Piglet and all you see are their backs and Pooh asks what day is it and piglet squeaks in his high voice that I always imagined was there, it's today, and Pooh responds, my favorite day. We spend so much time trying to get through things - task lists, responsibilities, all of these things that are putting pressure on us for accomplishment. And yet we are challenged by living in the moment, and nobody is guilty of it more than I am.

It's important to realize that society doesn't help us in this regard. The idea of instant gratification that we have embraced, whether it's because technology allows us to have things more quickly, we don't we're not as patient probably as we used to be in terms of just society and norms, we're always multitasking. There's a commercial, if you have a seen it, I can't even tell you what who the product or service is but it's a a guy who knows all about podcasts, ironically as we talk about this here, and there's a podcast for that and one of the things he's sitting in a meeting with his earbud in, room full of people on a conference table, and the boss or whoever's presenting says are you listening to a podcast, the guy says yeah on multitasking. I just find it funny. But I find it also kind of sad because that's me. We, we're constantly pressured with all of these things occurring at once, and thus we don't live in the moment and I think it's also important to recognize that in the end you have control over this. I have control over it if you choose to exercise it.

Why is this important? Well there's actually studies that show us and tell us that where we're in the moment. There are positive outcomes, things like increased motivation to accomplish goals and that you have become a better listener, deeper relationships come from it, you actually become more collaborative because you're more engaging with others, you actually see a growth in self-esteem because you feel like you've accomplished more, you develop good habits, you become less anxious, you have more fun. I want you to concentrate though by being in the moment with me here on "Around with Randall", on that better relationship piece. We're going to pull that out and put it in the parking lot for about three or four minutes because that's what's going to lead to the tactical outcomes of this process. We know that relationships, our health, the way we view ourselves are better when we're in the moment. I would also add I didn't see this in any of the quick research I do and kind of read some stuff kind of figure out what I want to say in the podcast, I don't have a lot of notes. I just kind of, what I think, but the one thing I didn't see was this concept of regret.

As many of you know or some of you know and maybe more learning and we all have these things to deal with, I lost dad this summer. And something my mom said, probably two, or three, four weeks ago, sitting in her kitchen, Mom and Dad's Kitchen, it's still dad's house as well, Mom looked at me and she says we have no regrets do we. And I had to look at her and say, Mom I don't know, but I don't think so but we all have to make that individual determination. I don't have any regrets. I was in the moment a lot with my dad. Maybe, more importantly, my dad was in the moment with me, and he was with my mom, and my sisters, and we are with each other. We're an old school family. We sit down every night and have dinner, no television, no iPhones, no Google phones, we talk to each other. That's why I was raised. That's all I know. As a parent that's a small example. It doesn't mean that my kids are better, I'm a better parent. Probably I'm neither of those things in comparison to most, but what I do know is that I don't have regret and I think being in the moment allows you to feel that way much of the time. When you're not in the moment and you let moments go by, I think there can be regret for many and that can be a challenge. So the question, if we know that being in the moment has all these positive things really allows us the opportunity to be more whole as to who we are and what we can accomplish, doesn't the question naturally lead to how do we do that.

Well there's some, what I'll call Phil, kind of body-oriented physiological things you can do like breathing and meditation, you know, actually one of which is limit social media. I am the dinosaur. I don't have Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, the Hulu, all those things I, you want me text, me call me. I'm a dinosaur. But what I'm finding is that those other things don't distract me and I don't need their existence to give me validity in what I'm doing, and I'm gonna hold off with my kids until there is a revolt that they they think they need them, and then I'll hold off a little bit longer after the revolt. There's also from a physiological perspective kind of this idea of knowing your body, the idea of what you eat, and do you drink enough water, and do you exercise and walk, are all things that can contribute to the tactical pieces of being in the moment. All of this gets us to maybe the things that we actually can do from a business perspective, philanthropy perspective, the nonprofit perspective. So all of those things, whether it's breathing meditation, staying away from social media, kind of connecting to your body leads us to this thought process of what we can do in the office professionally, and these are and you can do those other things but these are things that I think are maybe more controllable from a mental, emotional perspective.

The first is acceptance. Acceptance can be a powerful ability to really allow yourself more opportunity to be in those moments with people. First is the realization of blessings, the great fortunes of life, they can be as simple as the people who you love and who love you, they can be as complex as the situation, or status, or state of life in which you're in. They can be as maybe unannounced or unrealized as the fact that if you're living in a free country, that you were graced with the birth here, or that you've come to a country where maybe you have more of those freedoms acceptance is, can be a very powerful thing if you do it from the blessing perspective. But on the other side it can be just as impactful if you do it from what you realize you can't control. I talk about this a ton with my kids, certainly with a 10-year-old. The seven-year-old beginning to have more of these conversations, what is it in life that is important? It's what you can control and the knowledge that there's a lot you can't, and if you focus on what you can't control, what you can't change, you can't be in the moment because you're worried about things that are extraneous to your world. It draws you away from what's in front of you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have values, and ethics, and morals. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at the world and say I like this, I don't like this, this is right, this is wrong. But if you concentrate solely on the things that are out there and not what's in front of you that you can actually control, you actually will never be in the moment. You're worried about all the things that you don't have effect on, acceptance is powerful in terms of being in the moment, taking a break. I find myself more, the term I use with my son particularly because he incredibly smart but his brain's all over the place at times, he's a typical 10-year-old. We're all lucky their heads are attached, dial in.

I dial in better if I take a break. I take a walk. Can I go down the hall? Can I get some water? just give me five minutes to kind of regroup, then I can go on and be present for what I need to do. Rest before you do something challenging. Take a moment, maybe push it off to the next morning if that's allowable, to really be able to focus and be in the moment of what you need to do. Balance your time. Find a way that you can find a sense of peace, and that's not for 40 hours here, 40 hours here. I'm a workaholic. I find more peace if I get everything done so I can be more present at home, maybe a little less scale in terms of time but more of my focus, more of my ability to be in the moment because I got things taken care of when it comes to what I do every day, professionally.

The last one is being humble, and you might think well what wait what. Being humble, if all you ever do is talk about yourself then there's really no way for you to be in the moment with someone else because the only moment you're going to realize has to do with you. I love telling stories. I tell stories all the time. I tell stories about my family. I tell stories about my life, things I've experienced, things I screwed up, and there's a lot of those. I'm unbelievably uncomfortable when you talk about me as a person. I don't want that attention which is interesting for someone who likes to speak publicly, and you know, probably bloviates quote unquote too often. But what I know is that I take this from my mom and dad that I'll talk about things that help others that I've experienced in life. I just don't want to talk about me. I'm not sure that makes me a better or worse person, that's just who I am, but I know that if I'm not thinking about me all the time I can't be in someone else's shoes. I can be more present for them.

The last part of this is then what does this have to do with philanthropy? Well actually a great deal. We are seeing a changing world in the nonprofit sector that we have fewer donors. More dollars are coming from fewer individuals so the top 1% is making a big difference and we're seeing a diminishment of what I would think of, and it's overused but I think it has, if it's defined correctly still value less transformational gifts in relationships for more transactional ones. Transformational to me isn't a dollar figure, it's when somebody invests emotionally into that philanthropic opportunity. All of this is to say by being in the moment what we know is, based on all those facts is that there is a sense of geniuses that comes in the relationship-building process. The reason I think that most transformational gift opportunities come is because people are genuine as to who they are, and they build a genuine relationship that is less interested in what the organization needs and is more inclined to think about what the donor wants to accomplish. That could be very simplistic. Just want to know that I'm helping my physician, my professor, the church. I believe in some way, shape, or form it can be more profound as I'm needing to do this because this is a part of my overall experience at a emotional, spiritual level that I have with this organization and I need to do something to advance it.

When we're in the moment there's a sense of genius that comes from the the relationship. We're more likely to figure out what they're interested in rather than what we need to try to quote unquote sell. We hear what they're trying to get at from a psychological, emotional, spiritual, perspective and we can help guide them towards that opportunity. When we're in the moment we can maximize what they want more than what we need. Some of the best, as I kind of think off into space, the people that I've had the privilege of working with who wanted to make philanthropy a part of their life, and to be candid this is probably, in most of the cases, years ago because I've been Consulting for a decade, they wanted to change the world. And my job was to help figure out them, how to do it, those relationships were based on me being in the moment and making it about them. Those are the most gratifying moments in my professional career because they got to do something that made them not happy but joyous in making a difference for others. That has value. Being in the moment gets us to where we worry more about what others are trying to get done rather than what we think we need to get done. And if you want more transformational relationships, if you want to deepen your pipeline, if you want to deepen the major gift program, planned giving, annual giving, whatever, finding a way for you to be in the moment for others will do all of the, will get you all of those goals. It'll also make you a better person with less regret and better self-actualization. If we steal from Malala the Dali Lama said at best there are only two days in the year that nothing can be done, one is called yesterday the other's called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do, and mostly live.

Don't forget to check out the blogs at Halletphilanthropy.com - 90 second reads, two or three a week, different things I see. And if you'd like to reach out to me it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. We are in these kind of interesting times and I think nonprofit work is chaotic and what we have to do better is figure out how we can work together and in partnership to make a difference. My all-time favorite saying, I say it every single podcast, every time I get a chance, some people make things happen, some people watch things things happened, then there are those who wondered what happened. And in life, philanthropy is all about people wanting to make something happen for the people and the things in our world that are wondering what happened. I can't imagine doing anything else professionally every day that has more meaning than trying to figure out how to find those people and allow them, by being in the moment, to do those things that are meaningful to them to make our world a better place. And I hope you think that and feel that, even though there are small tactical challenges. What you're doing is a difference. Making operation and opportunity and being in the moment will help you do it better. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on another edition of "Around with Randall". Don't forget, make it a great day.