Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Infectious Generosity with Chris Anderson

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

It’s the ultimate idea worth spreading: Generosity of spirit. Sharon is joined by Chris Anderson, whom you may know as the “head of TED.” As the leader and curator of TED, Chris shares why he chose this moment in time to write his book, Infectious Generosity, referring to the sea of anger that we’re living in, and the role the Internet can play – for better or for worse. Chris suggests that we all ask ourselves this question: Am I a net giver, or a net taker? What does it mean to live with the virtue of generosity? And how does mindset impact our ability to live a more generous life? Special thanks to our guest, Chris Anderson, for joining us today.  Host/ Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder  Production Coordinator: Andrea Champoux   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Buy from dysoncanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage. Accessories sold separately. Hey, friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you joining me today. My guest is Chris Anderson, who you may know as the head of TED, as in TED Talks. And he has a new book out that I absolutely loved called Infectious Generosity. And it directly speaks to something I have been discussing for years, which is that generosity changes the giver and generosity is how we will improve the world. And it's so much more than just giving money. So I really want to have you stay tuned and listen to this episode. And I'd love to hear what you think. Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am very excited to be welcoming Chris Anderson today. Thanks so much

for joining me. It's great to be here, Sharon. I read with interest your new book, Infectious Generosity. And I wonder if you can start by just telling the listeners a little bit more about why you decided to even write a book on this topic. What about this moment in time led you to believe, I need to write this book and I need to write it now? I'm really worried about this moment in time. Seems to me the world's in quite a mean place and getting meaner. And I don't like that. It actually is in danger of making it impossible for us to solve any of the problems that we're arrayed against.

Because the way that humans typically solve problems is by cooperating with each other and trusting each other and figuring out a plan together and we've become so divided and so angry with each other that it's getting harder than ever to actually do that to do anything other than just just get mad and i guess i have concluded one that the internet played a meaningful role in this, social media. I'm incredibly disappointed that is so. I'm a tech optimist and had always seen the internet as something that would bring the world together. The last 10 years, it's probably done the opposite of that. And on the other hand, it is possible, I've seen it can happen,

that stories of human goodness, a generous mindset generally can spread across the internet just as powerfully as the uglier side of us. And it's felt to me incredibly important that we fight like crazy to figure out how to win this battle, how to turn the tide on sort of online sea of mistrust and anger. And so that's why I wrote the book. You say in the book that the internet can turbocharge generosity and that generosity can transform the internet. I know I have seen firsthand

how the internet can turbocharge generosity, but you give a lot of specific examples in your book. And I know that people in this community would love to hear other examples, aside from just like crowdfunding money for some great cause, which is a wonderful use of the internet. But there's more. That's right. That's not even the main thing that I'm talking about in the book. I mean, there are so many ways to be generous that aren't financial. Just ordinary human kindness, gifts of attention, hospitality, of creativity, of sharing knowledge, of so many things. This thing you're doing right now, Sharon, arguably is a form of generosity or you've devoted so much time to bringing knowledge and hope and wisdom to people. One of the best stories that really speaks very directly to infectious generosity happened early on in the pandemic when an Australian woman, Catherine Barrett,

was locked up, you know, feeling frightened, getting depressed at all the stories of fights in the supermarkets over the last rolls of toilet paper. And then she went down to a common area in her building and noticed that a neighbor had put a box of tissues there with a note that just said, hey, please take one if you need one. So she wasn't the only person close to tears. She was really moved by the gift. It was a box of tissues, not the world's most expensive gift. She took a picture of it and put it on Facebook and created this group that she called Kindness Pandemic.

Does anyone else have stories like this? Went to bed. Next day, 2,000 people had joined her group. And soon after that, the group crashed because so many people were joining. They ended up with 500,000 people joining. And the stories told there were thrilling, beautiful, heartlifting, inspiring. For example, people grouped together to go to supermarkets and film a different type of story happening where, you know, that someone would buy a box of chocolates or other food, give them to the checkout person and just

say to them, thank you so much for looking after us and for being brave. And those stories spread faster than the other stories of the ugliness that had been happening. That group is still going to this day and you can't go on there without just feeling inspired. And you get without just feeling inspired. And you get this just strong sense, actually, even though this is often invisible to us, humans all the time are being kind to each other in just the simplest of ways.

And if that was more upfront in our minds, we would just think very differently about each other and about the world that we're in. You know, I know somebody listening to this is going to be like, well, that's all fine and good, but that doesn't fix any of our systemic societal issues, right? Like it's all, it's all fine and good if we buy each other a box of chocolates or give each other some tissues. But that is not addressing the very, very real issues of income inequality, educational disparities, you know, like very, very significant issues that people are facing. How would you speak to somebody who is a skeptic that these little individual acts matter? Skepticism is totally understandable.

There is actually no simple, easy pathway to solving these big systemic questions. I would say two things. One is that any solution depends on a larger percentage of humans generally adopting a generous mindset, a mindset that allows the possibility that we could work together to solve something, because these efforts are going to take a lot of people. But secondly, I'd say that we are in an era where generosity can have much bigger effects than it's had before. So we'll come and talk about the money side in a minute, but just someone sharing a story of a good idea about a problem. The fact that someone can, in their home, think, you know what?

Homelessness. Why haven't we tried this? What if we did this? And then a few other people notice that and say, that's good. And someone else picks it up. Stories and ideas can spread and build like never before. So that's one thing, just the contributing of an idea and the spreading of it is a good thing. And then beyond that, I'd say money in this age, you know, it's so important that we think about how to make our financial giving leveraged. So many problems can only be solved by government, but government as it stands is not solving them. So what could make a difference? Well, sometimes making a difference can be showing government a better way. There's a group that I really like called Code for America, for example, which we helped raise money for at one point, where they try to bring the modern user, easy to use user interfaces to government processes. For example, in California,

there were billions of dollars put aside for a food aid program. But to apply for it, you couldn't do it on a smartphone. You would have to go to a desktop computer. And if many people who actually needed the food didn't have one, so you'd have to travel to a public library, sit through 49 pages of complicated questions with no ability to save your work. No wonder that a huge percentage of this program was never claimed. Code for America figured out how you could do the same application process on four pages on a smartphone in five minutes instead of an hour. So a little bit of philanthropy there can unlock huge amounts of government funding. And I think this is the

conversations we need to be having with each other is what is the smart way to solve this problem, or at least to take a step towards solving this problem? There's never going to be an easy answer that just you wave a wand and it's done. It usually takes a lot of work by different people contributing in different ways, but it can start with an idea and it can start with more of us just adopting, you know, a mindset that says just maybe we can work with each other on this. You know, we have, I think, devolved in some ways as a society, especially in the United States. We've come to believe that if we associate, work with, talk to our friends online, follow somebody who has bad ideas, or somebody who's past is online, follow somebody who has bad ideas or somebody who has passed as

problematic or somebody who is currently not aligning with the quote unquote, right political viewpoints that we are guilty by association. And by even speaking to them or being friends with them or saying, Hey, we work together on this legislation, or we try to solve this problem together, that their problematic ideas are rubbing off on us and are a reflection of our viewpoints and values. And that if I'm friends with Bob and Bob's terrible, I'm terrible too. What would be your response to that? I think it's very destructive, actually. My mother used to tell me repeatedly when I was angry with someone, you can never judge someone until you know their story. Do you really know their story? You can't judge them until you do. And by the way, when you do know their story, you probably won't want to judge them. One of the biggest acts of generosity, the most important acts of generosity

in the current moment, is to find the courage to be a bridge builder, to listen to people who, at first glance, are the enemy or the other side, to listen to them with respect and to see if there's anything we can learn from each other. I tell the story in the book of Daryl Davis, an African-American musician who was puzzled why some people hated him because of the color of his skin, reached out to the local leader of the Ku Klux Klan for a meeting. They had a very tense first meeting.

They somehow continued building this very strange friendship is what it became. Daryl attended KKK rallies. And eventually he persuaded his friend to leave the KKK and several dozens others followed. several dozens others followed. And his story was picked up and shared worldwide because of his courage. So to me, this is a powerful example of infectious generosity that a lot of people got to see that bridging is possible. I mean, if he could listen to a member of the KKK, there's no one who you or I could listen to where we should be ashamed. Now, it's true that there are, you know, very ugly views out there, nasty people and so forth. But we are also all human beings. And we probably, if we made an effort, we would discover common ground. We all care about our families. We all care about the future. We all have hopes and dreams. We all love. We all feel anger. We all feel shame. We

all bleed. And when you can switch the conversation to what do you actually care about? And is there anything that we could actually build together? The problem with the current moment is that we're descending into this zero-sum tug of war. Any gain from one side comes at the direct expense of the other. This is not how human history ever moves forward. It moves forward when people discover that cooperation can be more important than competition. And that's happened time and again in history. So somehow we have to figure out a way to a space where we can share dreams with each other. We're not going

to agree on everything. That's okay. But maybe there are things that we can dream of that would be better for everyone. And we could think about how to build those things. It's the guilt by association rhetoric that we're falling into, I do think is damaging. And I think we have to try and find the mindset that can get past that. You say that generosity can transform the internet. And a lot of us, including me, I love many aspects of the internet. I have seen it be used as a tool for good. In my mind, the internet is a tool. And the tool can be used for both positive and for negative things, just like any tool in existence.

But a lot of us right now are like, well, the internet is a hot mess. It's ruining the mental health of all of our teenagers. It's endangering democracy. Like there's all kinds of problems with the internet. In what ways could generosity transform the internet? Because I would love to hear it. So I'm using generosity in the sense of all the ways that people can be generous. Basically, anyone who is willing to share something good online is being generous.

And what's remarkable about the current moment, which has never happened before in history, is that a gift of creativity, say, or of recipes or of knowledge of any kind or a how-to video, these things can spread to an indefinite number of people for free, for zero distribution costs. So the ability of us to give what we're able to give to a huge number of others, that's just never been there before. And that is what makes the internet great. And today you can go online. And if you're in that mode of looking past the angry making stuff, you can learn anything that you could possibly want to learn on YouTube for free. This is kind of incredible. I can find voices that are fighting for common

ground. If we pay more attention to those voices, if those are the people we follow, those are the people we repost and respond to, it will change how the internet is. And by the way, not just for us, also for the artificial intelligence, which is learning who we are by looking at the internet. I mean, that's not always a pretty picture, I fear. You know, we're teaching our future robot overlords that humans are these sort of angry making people. I think there's a sense of urgency about this. We have to really have to fix this. A lot of people are terrified of AI, as you just mentioned, the robot overlords, who will soon enough become sentient and who knows

what they're going to do. In what way does, you know, for somebody who's not very familiar with AI, how does being generous online impact the future of AI? So the way that AI or generative AIs, which is currently the most powerful new form of AI that we're seeing. The way that they work is that they look at a pattern of data, so say huge amounts of written language or huge amounts of visual images. They look at them and at vast scale, patterns are discovered so that if someone then asks for a particular piece of knowledge, it will use the patterns that it knows to create something. And the shock and the amazement is how much is implicit in, for example, human language.

When vast amounts of human language, it turns out, include within it an implied understanding of so many parts of the world that we live in at a really rich and deep level. So AIs can really surprise us with what they come up with and what they know. But as I say, what we're also teaching is human attitudes. And the more that AIs are looking at, well, when someone says this, a human replies in this way, it's learning from that. And I don't want humans to be defined by our angrier, darker selves, what I sometimes call our lizard brains, where often when we're online responding, we're in

instinctive mode. We're not really our thoughtful, reflective, better selves. And I really would love AIs to learn more about humans from our reflective selves. That would give me a lot more confidence that as they gain in power, they're going to use that power wisely. In the book, you say that generosity is the idea that we should make efforts on behalf of others and not just ourselves. And I know that there are going to be people listening to this saying like, listen, I am barely keeping my nose above the waterline. I have to care about myself right now. I am not in the position to be generous to other people.

What would you say to that person who feels like, listen, I just don't have it in me to make decisions based on other people instead of myself. Offer them a hug. Like, I don't want to point a finger at anyone, honestly. Everyone's got their own situation and lead lives that are far tougher than mine, to be sure. But two things. One is that generosity doesn't just mean like writing a check to someone else. There are many ways to be generous. And many of those ways carry with them their own reward. This is the whole beauty of generosity, that acts of kindness energize you. They give you a sense of purpose, of meaning, of happiness even, of, wow, I like this version of myself.

People respond to them. People respond to people who are generous. We're in an era where reputation is one of the most important currencies there are. Someone who is known for trying to do their bit to act in some way on behalf of other people that builds reputation for sure and it's like people may want to work with you in a way that you didn't expect your kids may feel differently about you there's all kinds of things that can come to the rescue but what i'd say is it doesn't we're not talking about spending every hour of every day it's like even finding a moment in each day to see someone else and to listen to them and to hear what's going on with them i mean most people it's actually the wealthy who are often worst at this people with less resources are

often absolutely wonderful at those sort of ordinary human kinds of generosity that weave communities together and are just so, so important. Just that sense of knowing who else is in the community, knowing what their needs are, being there for each other if need be. That's where it all starts. So what I'm hearing you say is that this is a mindset shift. This is not a like, well, when you become rich, you'll be able to be generous. When you become rich, you'll be able to be generous. This is an opportunity to look for ways to be generous in even small capacities. It can be as simple as leaving tissues in an entryway, as you mentioned. It can be as simple as sharing your talent and knowledge online.

In whatever way that is, I hear, today I'm going to show you how to make homemade marshmallows. Whatever it is that you know how to do that you can share with somebody else, you're saying that that all counts towards this greater good, this collective, generous question that everyone could ask themselves at some point in their life is, am I a net giver or a net taker? And that covers all sorts of things. It's attitude, it's money, it's time, it's in the relationships we have, are we offering as much as we're taking? relationships we have? Are we offering as much as we're taking? Are we doing work that in some ways is useful to the community or to the general public? And if not, can we organize with a few others and try and persuade our employer to do a bit better? There's all kinds of ways in which if you apply this mindset of, am I a net giver or a net taker, you can actually end up thinking, well, no one's perfect. No one's perfect. And because we're afraid almost of that question,

we may not even want to go there, but you don't have to be perfect. If most humans are net givers instead of net takers, we're all going to be just fine. And so that's the sort of simplifying way to think of it really. And it's absolutely not about being a saint or writing vast checks or whatever. It's about remembering the things that make us human because part of the trouble with the world just getting so busy and frenetic is that we've forgotten some of the things that actually matter so much to how we feel about ourselves. some of the things that actually matter so much to how we feel about ourselves. You talk in the book too about imperfect generosity. And I found it really interesting, like you have these surveys where you pull people where you're like, if Francis gives $5,000 to a charity and it pays for vital surgery that restores the sight of a child, is that generous or not generous? And 97% of people

said, yeah, that's generous. And now when you add in an additional piece of context, Francis is a billionaire. Well, suddenly the perceived level of generosity has plummeted. Now only 69% of people think that person is generous. So you give a bunch of scenarios like this with poll results. And I wonder if you can speak more to this concept of imperfect generosity. What does that even mean? So the way that we talk to each other about generosity, the way that we teach it, certainly the traditional way that we've taught it, has always been that generosity is supposed to be this thing that comes from a completely pure heart. You know, you do it because you want to be generous, and that is it. You don't have any ulterior motive. And what that means is

that in the current complex world that we're in, it's possible for anyone to look at an act of, quote, generosity that they see and find a reason to criticize it. You know, how did that person make their money? Are they actually just doing this because they want people to think that they're good? Do they think that others will respond to them and they'll get, you know, maybe they're giving away stuff online, but are they just doing it for the clicks? There's all these reasons why we can choose to be cynical about something. What I argue in the book is that this is really, really counterproductive. What I argue is that actually generosity has always been imperfect. Even if your motive to be generous is just to solve your conscience, that is still, there's something in it for you there. You're making yourself feel better. Give and you shall receive. That's a benefit. Give and your reward shall be

in heaven. Benefit. It's always been that way. It's still hard to give in the short term. The benefits are often longer term. But we should celebrate generosity in all its forms if there is at least some level of generous intent. And I actually think what's amazing about the moment that we're in right now is that there are more additional reasons than ever to be generous. I think it's fantastic that generosity can spread across the Internet, that many more people can see it. Maybe many more will respond. People will come out of the woodwork to try and work with you or something like that. Your reputation will improve. You will feel happy about yourself. All these things are good and actually should be celebrated. And so, life through a perfection filter, if that's your filter, you will see nothing good and you'll do

nothing good. And I think it's just terribly sad. I think we absolutely want to embrace life as it is, which is messy. And we want to embrace imperfect generosity. That's great. This way, we are bringing the ability to persuade far more people to be generous. I love too, that you talk about how generosity makes you happier. And this goes hand in hand with something that I have always said, which is that generosity changes the giver. That yes, it benefits the recipient, of course, and to varying degrees, but generosity changes the giver. And you give examples in the book about how Gallup did this survey of 230,000 people in 136 countries. And they found that people who were generous in the previous month were significantly happier than the rest. And

the size of the impact on their happiness was the same as if their annual income doubled. as if their annual income doubled. That is a crazy finding. That's just really incredible. It is. It is because it's really hard to double your income, but relatively easy to decide to be generous. I say that.

It's easier than doubling your income, put it that way. It's the reported evidence of so many wise people that this has been one of the key things that has given them meaning and happiness in life. So yeah, I wish it was more widely known. Honestly, it's a weird thing that in the moment of giving, what may be top of mind for you is not, oh, I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be happy. It's more fear. It's like, I really don't want to lose this thing that I'm thinking of giving away or uncertainty. Is this the best thing I should be doing? That's often there. And it's afterwards that the happiness comes, but I wish it was more widely known that this is one of the keys to a happier life, along with good relationships and meaningful work and nature and all those

things. Tell everybody about the mystery experiments. Right. So this was really fun and also really wild. So there was a couple in the tech community who made some money and wanted to give away $2 million. And they wanted to in a in a way that would advance social science at the same time so we got to work with them and connected them to the university of british columbia and we did this wild thing called the mystery experiment which was the biggest social psychology experiment of its kind basically we we recruited 200 people at random on the internet. They didn't know that money had anything to do with it. They were from seven countries, different income levels. And they got this note from us saying, congratulations, we would like to wire $10,000

into your PayPal account, no strings attached. As you can imagine, a few thought it was a scam, but they eventually took the money and it was pretty amazing what happened. I mean, the results show that on average, across all 200 in every country income level, more than two thirds of that money was spent generously. It was, I mean, it was just a beautiful thing to see. I had the chance to talk

to some of the people after to find out what on earth, what, like, why would they do this? And the story they told it was, it was actually surprisingly consistent. It was something like this. It was like, look, if I'd won this money in a lottery, I might not have done the same, but because I was the recipient of generosity, I felt seen and I wanted to let others feel seen the way that I'd felt seen. The science that came out of this, and it really confirmed other experiments done at a smaller level, is that we have this very deep instinct to respond to generosity. First of all, there's a deep instinct in us to be generous in the first place, at least to our in-groups. But we're wired to respond to generosity. So this is why infectious generosity can be such a big thing. Someone does something and others respond. And so you get these ripple effects that will spread. And in the connected age, they can spread right the way across the world. age that can spread right the way across the world. So you're saying that when people were the recipients of $10,000, just like for no reason, no strings attached, like why? Why are

you giving this to me? That they then turned around and spent two thirds of that money in some generous capacity. Like what? What kind of things did they do with it? Yes. I spoke to Lydia in Indonesia. She gave money to two of her co-workers who she knew and then to another one she didn't know as well, but who had been diagnosed with cancer. She bought expensive medical checks for members of her family. She wrote a big check to the World Wildlife Fund and to flood victims in Indonesia. I mean, I think in her case, it was almost like 90% was spent on other people in her life. And yeah, she told me, you know,

when I first got this, I just shrieked for joy. I shrieked for joy. But then I felt this overwhelming feeling that I should respond. And this was a common story in many others. It was honestly, it was very, very, very moving to hear. You talk about six ways to be generous that aren't about money. And we've talked about several of them already. We've talked about these ideas of sharing knowledge. We've talked about

building connections. We've talked about bridging divides. And I wonder if you can talk about one of the other ways that you say that people can be generous, which is extend hospitality. Does that just mean like letting people sleep on your couch? What does that mean? Well, that's generous right there. Hospitality is one of the most ancient and I think profound forms of generosity it's in every culture every culture that's been visited or researched hospitality is an important part of what humans

do we love to share food with each other and to drink and to use that as the basis for conversations that's how relationships are deepened. And everyone does it. I remember as a kid, I grew up in Afghanistan before it all went wrong. And we traveled and the poorest people would invite you into their homes and we'd drink tea with them. And it was to this day, I remember those experiences. And first of all, just any act of inviting people around and talking is an act of generosity that will build friendships and relationships and be in everyone's interest, including yours. I think those kinds of gatherings are slightly under threat from the frenetic culture and from all the distractions that we have. A lot of people, it's just simpler just

to stay at home and watch Netflix or whatever. And I think that's a shame because this is really important. So one way that you can combine hospitality and make it infectious, if you like, is to invite a group of friends around and have a single conversation dinner where you just take turns to share with each other. What is your dream for this community? How could we be better? How could we solve some of the things that are annoying? Is there anyone in our community who's doing amazing work, who deserves support? And just from that simple start, it's possible that you end up deciding as a group to get behind someone. And generosity, when it happens that way, to get behind someone. And generosity, when it happens that way, it's more powerful,

it endures more. And it's, I think, more satisfying as well, like it deepens friendships. So that's just one way that hospitality can be the start, can be beautiful in itself, but also the start of something more. I love that. I love that. It does not, it can be letting somebody sleep at your house, I love that. I love that. It does not, it can be letting somebody sleep at your house, but I love your illustration that sometimes your experience has been that even the poorest of people can be the most generous. That it's not about like, hey, I'm going to put you up on my, you know, 80 foot yacht for the weekend. It is about sharing what you do have. Exactly. It is about sharing what you do have. And sometimes that can lead to something even bigger, as you're mentioning, like having a great conversation with friends that can blossom into something more. I also love that you say another way to be generous that is not related to money is to create enchantment. What does that mean? This is, I guess, for anyone who's got any kind of creative gene in them. We're in an era where creative things can be shared to an indefinite number of people.

And the feeling of joy and uplift that you get from seeing something beautiful, I mean, it's not a small thing. It's a really big part of our lives lives and it's a huge gift to give. So, you know, there are artists who've gone all in on this and have made it their life's work to share with others. Other artists are struggling at the moment because it's really hard to make a living online. A musician, photographers, painters and so forth. It's a stressful moment because so much has been commoditized and AI seems to be making the thing worse so forth, it's a stressful moment because so much has been commoditized and AI seems to be making the thing worse. And so it's perhaps hard to hear any kind

of sense of, hey, you could be generous, you could give away something beautiful. And so I don't think it's actually a simple conversation, this book. What I do believe is, one, those of us on the receiving end, we have this outpouring of amazingness from every quarter. Find the stuff that is really meaningful to you. And if possible, acknowledge the artist, the creator. And there's lots of ways that you can either amplify their work or tip them or support their Patreon page or whatever it is. There are ways that we can view what's coming at us as these acts of generosity. And if we respond in kind, it creates its own little bit of magic. And to

the artists, I'd say that sometimes the right strategy is to take a risk and to actually give away the thing that's hardest for you to give away, because of this connected era that we're in, it may spread far more than you know. And all bets are off as to what happens next. I mean, I'm partly leaning here on the weird experience we had at TED, where it was when we gave away what we thought was the most important thing that we should hold on to, namely our content. It was that that made TED. We thought it might kill the conference to give it away, but it actually made the conference

because suddenly these talks went viral and lots more people heard about TED. So it's remarkable what can come back from acts of generosity in the connected age. I love that. What do you hope the reader who picks up Infectious Generosity, what do you hope that they are left with? What do you hope they tuck into their pocket and carry with them moving forward? Gosh, I would say first and foremost, just a sense of hope, you know, that the future doesn't have to be awful. It really doesn't. I mean, it feels that way right now.

It really doesn't. I mean, it feels that way right now. But because we are all connected, we influence everyone else. And we are actually co-authors of the future. And what I hope the book does is create this toolkit, really, to show people how they could play a part in writing the next chapter. That the whole thing about infectiousness is that you don't have to be big to be powerful. You can be a butterfly that triggers a hurricane and embrace that possibility. That would be the main thing is let's try something. It doesn't have to be grand or

whatever. Just try something. Because even if it's just going online and being kind to someone, there's ripple effects from it. You may not know it, but you are probably training the algorithm to think slightly differently about what it's doing. So we all need to be part of this and just doing a couple of small things. If that's all that happens, I'm more than happy. Chris, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your work. Thanks so much for being here today. I really loved ruminating on so many of these ideas that generosity is not just about how much money can I give, how much money can I donate or raise or whatever, that there are many ways that we can all choose a mindset and actions that match that mindset of generosity. And there are many, many ways that that impacts the world for good. And we should not be discouraged in doing good. And I just love that. Thanks so much.

Beautifully said, Sharon. Thank you. You can buy Chris's book, Infectious Generosity, wherever you get your books. And if you want to support independent bookstores, you can go to bookshop.org. I'll see you again soon. This episode is hosted and executive produced by me, Sharon McMahon. Our audio producer is

Jenny Snyder. Our production assistant is Andrea Shampoo. And if you liked this episode, we would love to have you share it to social media or to leave us a rating or review. All those things help podcasters out so much. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you again soon.