Barbara Bonner on Inspiring Generosity and Courage

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Barbara Bonner. Barbara started her professional life as an art historian and since has devoted her career to nonprofit management, fundraising,

and philanthropy. Barbara served as vice president of the Bennington College and of the Cripple Whose Center for Yoga and Health. Since two thousand nine, she has had her own consulting company that helps nonprofit organizations transform their board leadership and philanthropic support. Barbara is the author of two books, Inspiring

Courage and Inspiring Generosity. Hey everybody, this is Chris, and before we get started on this week's episode, I wanted to tell you that a huge avenue for financial support has been through reoccurring monthly donations given by you, our dear listeners, and those of you who have pledged support, even at the two dollar month level, have made such a huge difference for us, and we're just so grateful.

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welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I love your show. Thank you. You've written two books, one called Inspiring Courage and the other called Inspiring Generosity, which are books that I would say they're a collection of stories, quotes, and poems, one of them about courage and the other about generosity. So we're gonna talk a little bit about

both of those characteristics. But let's start like we normally do, with the parable where there's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,

which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. The granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It's just a wonderful parable that I've loved over the years. I've heard it ascribed to so many sources, from Cherokee to Buddhist uh, And

it's always really resonated deeply with me. I think we have a choice in every moment and every day, which way are we going to go? Uh? For me, I would say certainly. As as related to our talk later about these two books, inspiration has been the feature of my life that really speaks to feeding the good wolf. What is it that inspires us in our lives, whether it's in what we choose to read, what friends we choose to spend time with their music to listen to.

I find even when I walk my dog in the morning and evening, can we just take the time to really be inspired by what's around us? And so, as I approached writing two books, I thought, what is the most inspiring way to do this? What can I really give to readers that will that will make their lives turn in a way that can be with them all the time. I think that's so great. That is a

big part of why the show exists. I think was simply to be a I think reminder is a less powerful word than inspiration, but to remember or to be inspired by the qualities that we want to have. And so I think remembering is the first piece, like I want to be courageous, I want to be generous. And then the second piece that you've talked about is the more that you can have that, at least for me, said in beautiful ways, the more powerful it is. And there's lots and lots of beautiful ways to say both

those things in these books. Yes, And I think it also, like these two qualities, it's almost a muscle that we can exercise. I read a wonderful quote from Earl Straight at the turn of the year, uh when I was sort of thinking about resolutions, and she was quoting her mother who said, put yourself in the way of beauty. It's just wonderful. It's something we actually can do, and I would just change it to put yourself in the

way of inspiration. What can we do that brings inspiration into our lives every day, not in such a high salutin way, but in often a little everyday choices they add up and suddenly life is different. Yeah, I agree with that a lot. I've been thinking lately a lot about the role that art and beauty plays in you know, what we typically think of as self help or personal

development or whatever. And that's not an area that's talked about a whole lot in those in those spaces, and and it's such a big part for me of how I keep myself moving in the right direction is you know, particularly music is the biggest one for me, but but fiction, literature, you know, it's all it's just such a powerful way to get outside of myself and to transcend sort of

my normal, mundane thoughts of myself. Yes, I listened to your interview with the wonderful wil Shwama, whom I admire and like so much, is talking about just that in reading that the the impact of a book. We're different at the end of a book than we are at the beginning. What is that It's not just the words on the page. It is the power of inspiration for great books and and for me what music I listened to when I'm working at home, which is most of

the time. I suddenly I wasn't paying attention to that until a couple of years ago. Now I listened to classical music. Well, the work changes absolutely. So I think there is a poem by Hafeez that you like to read that might be a place for us to start getting into the books. I start each book actually with a poem by half These, the Persian poet of many centuries ago. So I'll start with the generosity one. Even after all this time, the sun never say as to

the earth you owe me. Look what happens with a love like that? It lights the whole sky. I thought it was a wonderful sort of exclamation point with which to start the book. Yeah, so let's talk about generosity. I think we all kind of know what it is. But if you are going to maybe take us beyond our normal thought of generosity deeper into the idea, you know, what would you consider as ways to think about generosity? And then secondly, what would you think are ways that

we can cultivate it. I don't think we actually all look at it the same way. And one of my real desires in writing the book was to reframe how we do consider generosity. I think so often when we use the term, people think of it as giving or exchanging material goods or money, and I think it's not that. I think that's often quite a very good thing to do. But there can be any motivations for that. It can be so that we look good to other people. It can be because our heart is genuinely open and we

want to make a difference in the world. And I think that as people look at generosity in a in a broader way, they feel perhaps that it's more accessible to them. I think also when we talk about generosity, we tend to, at least in the media, focus on the philanthropic billionaires and not the people leading I hate the word, but everyday lives putting one foot in front of the other, and yet generosity is still their north

star and that's how they live their lives. So I chose to write the fourteen stories in the book about people who were not famous and doing just that, and

that interested me greatly. Yeah, I think one of the things about generosity for me that I have recognized is that it's kind of a chicken and egg, right, that that generosity engenders feelings of having enough and being grateful, and then being grateful and thinking I have enough in gender, you know, generosity, that thing goes both directions for me, and so you know, sometimes I'll give money to homeless people on the street and occasionally someone would be like,

you know, that's just pointless, right that, And and yes, from a spending of charitable dollars, there are surely better ways to do it. But there's something about in the moment, responding to what's in front of me that for me helps me remember how fortunate I am. So there's some degree of selfish motivation in there, but but so much of it is driven by that open heart. Well, you touch a very important point, and that is that I don't think we can actually be generous unless we feel gratitude.

To feel gratitude for our own lives, to feel a sense of abundance ourselves really allows generosity to kind of flow from that um without it with a sense of sort of stinginess or that we just don't have enough, we have to find for everything. Uh, it's impossible to open your heart and really be generous. And I love the example you gave people off and say that, oh why are you giving to someone at the subway or

on the well. There's a great quote from Barbara Aaron Reich in the book that says, it really doesn't matter if the person you give it to is going to buy baby formula or a bottle of ripple. Uh. You've opened your heart and you've done what moved you forward, and from then on it's up to the faiths. One of the things that we talked about on the show A lot and means a lot to me is the idea that sometimes we have to act our way into

right thinking. And that's why for me, generosity can be almost an action sometimes that I can make myself do that then brings along the gratitude. So sometimes I'm grateful and I can be generous, but I found that I can use it as a tool to bring me along. So it's an action that I take. I may not be feeling particularly generous or grateful at the moment, but if I somehow get my self into a space where

I act that way, then then the feelings follow. When I was recovering alcoholic addict and and a A somebody used to say all the time, gratitude is an action word, you know, from their perspective. It wasn't just about a feeling you have that if you're grateful, you are doing all these other things for other people. And I just think it goes both directions. That's very true, and I always say that I think both generosity and courage our activities.

You really cannot just sit back and think generously. It requires action as discourage, and it doesn't have to be grand action. We can try at it, you know, and do the best we can. I tell people who complain that they don't they think it's really beyond them, so they will just move into a space of greater generosity. Try it on for size. You'll be surprised what happens. May I read a quote from the Generosity book that

speaks to this. Yeah, it's one of my favorites, and it's by a great Buddhist teacher, gallic Rempichet my head the pleasure of meeting and speaking, And here it goes, when you're practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away that pinches your stinging is protesting. If you give away your old, worn out coat that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing, it's not generosity. There's

no pinch. You're doing nothing to overcome your stinginess. You're just cleaning out your closet and calling it something else. Giving away your coat might keep someone warm, but it does not address the problem to free ourselves from self cherishing and self grasping. Yeah it's yeah, yeah, it's. It certainly sets the bar at at a different level to be generous. It just makes me think of I track lots of things in my life just because it's it's a way that I have learned to sort of make

sure I'm taking care of myself. And one of the things I, you know, keep track of each day as whether I did something that I think is an act of kindness. And I'm often in a debate with myself about like was that really kindness or was that just basic decency? Like, you know, did I really extend there or did I just do like what I should do. And it's interesting to think of it in that way, in the way he phrases it about feeling that little bit of pinch, And I think in your dilemma of

is it kindness, it doesn't really matter. It's where it comes from. Does it have a sense of pouring forth from inside to acting from an open heart. You can just tell, you can just tell. Yep. That makes me think of we're talking about generosity and you said it's

not just giving of money or even of time. The Buddhist idea of loving kindness, of a loving kindness meditation where you you know, wish everyone well, Like I could just do it on a plane or a subway or sitting and just kind of go around and you know, may you be happy, may you be healthy. And again another thing that I can do action wise that engenders a great feeling of generosity in me as I do it. It's a very powerful meta aitation. Loving gun is meditation,

I think. And you're quite right. It happens, uh once, once we get sort of used to it and it practiced it a bit. It comes up in all kinds of moments in our life. I was just on four planes and everything was delayed and snowstorms and a departure lounge is a perfect place to work on loving kindness. Do you think I could get you to read a poem from the Inspiring Courage Book? Oh? I could be talked into that, Eric, Can I pick? Oh? You may sure? So I'd like to have you read page thirty eight

Sweet Darkness by David White. A because it's a gorgeous poem, and B because I got to see him read it recently at an event and it just kind of blew me away. So I love David White. I was in a workshop with him last year and I found he was the very personification of inspiration. So I'd love to read this poem Sweet Darkness by David White. When your eyes are tired, the world is tired. Also, when your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark, where the night has

eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing, the world was made to be free, and give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your a loneness to learn anything or anyone that does not

bring you alive is too small for you. So he's really talking also about the power of inspiration, what brings you alive. That's such a beautiful poem. Isn't it wonderful? Yeah, we've explored generosity. Let's explore courage a little bit more. Talk to me about your definition of courage or your perspective. Well, I'll start with in the book, I wrote about fourteen people who lead or lead exceptionally courageous lives. I'm interested beyond just the quality of courage into what it means

to lead a courageous life. And in all of them, first of all, none of them agree that they are courageous. That seems to come as a definition with being courageous. Everyone says I didn't do anything special. I only did what is put in my path. Anybody would have done it. I think that happens because a courageous act calls out in us a sense of our truly authentic self. It doesn't feel like we're doing anything that's a huge reach.

We're just stepping forward into who we really are. We sense a a need, something that has to be done, and we step into it without thinking. It's really spontaneous. Nobody overthinks courage, and the stories time and again have that resonance. And then, as I say, it's not really about the moment when someone goes into a burning building to save a child. It's what happens to that person afterwards. They're living in a new place, in a new orientation,

the world is different. Courage becomes then something that is part of them and something uh that sort of a lens through which they see their whole lives. Uh. It changes life and it changes the people around us. You also mentioned that a lot of what enables these people to be courage is the is the life they lived before the courageous act, or the way they viewed the world or you know that there was there was more

than just the act of courage to who these people were. Yes, I think as I get them to look back on their lives, which is very hard because as I say, they don't fess up to being courageous. There is a sense of of authenticity in their lives, of being able to speak truth to power, of uh, taking on an adversary, of standing up for the bully in the playground when they were a child. It's practiced throughout their lives in seemingly small ways. And then something, an event happens in

which perhaps the grand gesture is called forth. But they can look back and say, oh, that happened, Yeah, that happened. That was certainly true of Tim da Christopher, who is a great environmental activist who went to prison for two years for his environmental activism. He says he's not courageous at all, but in fact he was always just speaking his truth and then he got to really speak it very loudly and pay for it and pay for it. Yeah.

Another inspiring there's lots of inspiring stories. Is there's no way I'll get this said right. But Edith and Lowett, Yes, lutu loot loot Velman's is that correct? Is correct? You tell us a little bit about them. Well, I'm happy to because they're both very close friends and it was such a joy to be able to shine a spotlight on them, although they're both very modest and they fought me a bit. Uh. Edith is now ninety two, UH

and she's Dutch. She was in Holland as World War two broke out and her family was taken away to concentration camps. She was hidden by a Protestant family. Uh. And as it happened, uh, the family housed a Nazi soldier in the adjoining room. So she lived in that hiding place for a year and a half. She quite coincidentally went into hiding the day that and Frank went into hiding, so she would say that that experience did

not really require courage. But she's lived her life since then with great courage, with great determination, wanting to make the most of life, wanting to be optimistic and hopeful and uh and became a psychologist and helped others. Her

husband Loot. The day that the Nazis moved into Amsterdam, he got hold of a small lifeboat that could take four people, and he pulled together forty four close friends and neighbors Jews who were going to be clearly carried away, and they all got in the boat and headed out into the North Sea, not knowing that they would live. They were picked up by a British boat the day after. Tremendous courage, and then two years later Lute was part of the Death March of the River Kuai in Thailand

for two years as a prisoner of the Japanese. So you would think that someone like that would become dissolutioned or bitter or hard. Instead, he was one of the most humorist, gracious, optimistic people I've ever met. Became quite ironically the chairman of Hill and Nolton, the great PR firm, and really invented the field of public relations. It's interesting. It's always been interesting to me what terrible experiences like the ones that they both went through can do to you.

And in both of them it um just increased their courage to live wonderful, meaningful lives. Yeah, I'm very much fascinated by what causes some people to come out of very difficult experiences better, stronger, um using them grist for the mill, and what causes other people to um not be able to do that. We hear about post traumatic stress, but they also something we don't talk much about as post traumatic growth, which happens in people. I mean, that's

another phenomenon that's just not discussed. But but trauma can be or a very difficult situation can be a catalyst to tremendous growth. It can. And we hear so often that or I have in researching both books that uh, you know, a good and happy and secure childhood is the basis for being able to live into both qualities. I don't think it's true at all. I think it it can be quite the opposite. Um, I don't know

what it is but it's not that. There's a quote in the Courage Book that I really like because I think it it spins this a little bit on its head, and it says, courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill, Well, we don't. We don't do enough listening, that's for sure, particularly in this world of ours right now. I think in both generosity and courage, listening is a very key quality. How can

we know what's called for possibly unless we listen. And yet so much of our contemporary culture is about talking, being forceful, getting the last word in. I find, particularly in my own business life, which is working with institutions largely raising money, that people think that that's an area in which you just have to be smarter than the last guys say the last word, be aggressive. My experience has been the best listener wins the day. Yeah. I think that is the case in in a lot of

different fields. Certainly in the sales work I've done in previous parts of my life that's definitely been sort of the secret weapon. And in leadership, I mean, when we look at at all forms of leadership. I'm thinking now of government. Uh, we did have quite a wonderful president in our last president who was capable of listening and being compassionate and really hearing. I hope that happens again. Yes, I think you know we're talking about where did these

qualities come from? Page five, the Buddhist teacher Pema Cho Dren says, deep down in the human spirit, there is a reservoir of courage. It's always available, always waiting to be discovered. I think that's true. It also speaks to people who can't explain why they're courageous, that there is something simply untapped that lives there that at a certain moment is called forth Um. That's always been fascinating to me. And when I read hers her quote, I think that's true.

There's a wonderful quote. While I'm unquotes, then we'll go where you want we We started the first book with a Huffy Is quote. Here's here's one that starts off this book. Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I'd like to see you living in better conditions. So true, like, if we could choose, why would we choose Yep, And there's a as you're talking. It strikes me that Pema Chodren quote made me think of this, that there's a

correlation between generosity and courage. I think. I think there is a you could say it's an openness of spirit, but it has it also has something to do with feeling like you have enough and you are enough, or you are strong enough. I think that there's a there's a strong correlation between the two two. To really act courageously, you are your your your orientation is turned outward, your interest,

you feel connected to, uh, the larger world. You're basically altruistic in wanting to You're not You're not doing a courageous act because it feels good to you. You're doing it because it is for someone else. It has a greater impact. That is an act of generosity. Um. And likewise, to be truly generous at times, you have to have a good deal of courage. People will try and talk you out of it. Um, people will put you down

for it. Uh. It's something that comes from your own deepest convictions, and sometimes you have to stand up to people who are going to try and talk you out of that. Yeah. I found that to be an interesting challenge in my own life. That I just look at, and I think it's a comment on culture in general,

but also a comment on me. Is it all? Occasionally, you know, in a in a in a work situation or any kind of situation, I'll think, like, I want to ask that person if they're doing okay, or I want to say something really nice to that person, or I want to and there's a fear there, there's a hesitation, and and so sometimes it does. You know, it does take courage just to even for me to do the little silly thing that is very generous but seems like,

for whatever reason, is not easy to do. I know exactly what you mean, and I think it speaks to um to both qualities being ones that can be practiced, you can practice in very small ways. I've generally found that reaching out to someone, uh, with a generous act or a courageous act is very rarely not Uh. It may not be acknowledged, but it's always appreciated. Uh. And why not? What's the alternative? You know? Yep? If we want to live lives of greater meaning than just step

forward into it. Also, I think it doesn't neither one has to be the grand act. Uh. I tell people just move in that direction. Just move in that direction. YEA, Well that's a that's a refrain on this show all the time. Tiny steps, steps, baby steps, you know, just do something. Start as small as you need to, but start.

I agree. In the Courage book, there's another quote. I don't have it in front of me, but it's a quote I've always loved, which is like, you know, a ship is safe in Harvard, but that's not what ships are for exactly exactly. We take such comfort in our security in life. Uh. And then there can be sort of a lightful moment when we realize that, oh, it's only once around the track and life is really two

lead a life of meaning, uh. And the lead a life of meaning means you have to put yourself at risk. You have to step forward. You have to make those gestures small or large, Uh, that resonate with you and with the people around you. So how about we wrap up with you reading another poem of your choosing from either book. It's a page and a half. If we have time for that. Do the Wendell Berry poem. It's the one of it. It's the one that people tend to sort of swoon over when I read it. In

in book talks. So if if that's good, I will. It speaks to many qualities beyond courage. But to me, I put it up front because it is kind of the the gong that sounds what I want to sound as we start. Manifesto The Mad Farmer, Liberation Front by Wendell Berry, Love the quick, profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay, want more of everything ready made. Be afraid to know your neighbors, and to die, and you will have a window in your head. Not even your future

will be a mystery anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something, they'll call you. When they want you to die for profit, they'll let you know. So, friends, every day, do something that won't compute. Love the Lord, love the world, work for nothing, Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance for what man is not encountered, he's not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium plants sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into mold. Call that profit prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of hummus that

will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carry on. Put your ear close and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful, though you've considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, Please women more than men. Ask yourself, will this as by a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a

woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields, Lie down in the shade, Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it, leave it as a sign to mark the false trail the way you didn't go. Be like the Fox who makes more tracks than next the Serai. So I'm in the wrong direction practice resurrection. Yeah, I love that. Every day do something

that doesn't compute. I do too. That's so good and so hard to do sometimes. Yeah, well it's nice to get permission for it, isn't it. Yes? Yes, well, Barbara, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I really enjoyed both books. As I mentioned earlier, they're They're beautiful books, lots of quotes, poems. They're more than just like a book you sit down and read. They're the kind of thing that you can pull off the shelf, look at get inspiration from. So thank you so much

for the books and coming on the show. My great pleasure. Thank you, Eric, take care, bye bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.