3738: When in Doubt Be Generous by Jeff Goins of Goins Writer on Abundance Mindset

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[00:00:56] This is Optimal Finance Daily. When in doubt, be generous by Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.com. And I'm Justin Malek. Welcome back to our Sunday bonus episode, where I share an article from another podcast in our network where we read to you, often from a different narrator and covering a very different topic, but this time from me, except over on my other show, Optimal Living Daily, where I read articles covering happiness,

[00:01:25] productivity, productivity, and more. But this article is a really great fit over here. And if you enjoy it, come on over and follow Optimal Living Daily. I'd love for you to be a listener over there too. But with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life. When in doubt, be generous by Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.com.

[00:01:50] Do you know what the biggest secret to a successful life is? Be generous. It's so simple and yet so easy to ignore. Here's why. We think that being generous is something we do once we get famous. And that's not how it works at all. A friend of mine just shared this, quote,

[00:02:09] I agree. The secret to getting more is to give more. The most successful people I know are not hoarders. Quite the opposite, in fact. And here's my belief on that.

[00:02:35] Successful people are not generous because they're successful. They're successful because they're generous. Certainly, you run across your occasional scrooges. But in my experience, those people are the exception, not the norm. That's just what I've seen in my whole life. So I'm not speaking for everyone, obviously. But that's enough experience to convince me of an important lesson. When in doubt, be generous. When you have an opportunity to get versus give, go ahead and give.

[00:03:03] 5. Generosity as a growth strategy I remember starting my blog back in 2010. It wasn't growing, people weren't reading, and I wasn't having fun. So I decided to shift something. Realizing I wasn't doing my best work, I decided to do the opposite. I was afraid that if I gave away my best writing on my blog, no one would want to pay me for my best work. But that kind of scarcity thinking wasn't really working. So I made one simple shift.

[00:03:32] I decided to start giving away my best work for free. Here's what happens when you do that. Two things, actually. Number one, people start to notice when you give your best work away for free. Why? Because it's generous. It makes people think, She gave me all this for free? Wow. Not only that, they trust you even more, believing that paying you would bring even greater value. Which brings me to point number two, You do better work.

[00:04:02] Look, you don't have a ceiling on what you're capable of. You can keep improving. When I started giving away A-plus content on my blog, I started writing better content. When the time came to write a book, I was a much better writer. As you give your work away, Your capacity to do better work increases. It has to. So that's a simple short lesson here today. Do your best work for free right now. Give it all away. But wait a second, Jeff.

[00:04:31] Don't you say to never work for free? That's right. In Real Artists Don't Starve, one of the rules is just that. Don't work for free. But here's the catch. You need to always work for something, and that something doesn't have to be money. When you share a photo on Instagram, you are practicing in public. You are putting your work on display for people to see. You aren't working for free. You're earning people's attention. The same principle applies when you write on your blog for free.

[00:05:00] You're working for email subscribers, or at least you should be. So yes, value your work, but always be generous with it. Give it away in the places where people will pay attention to you. That doesn't mean you have to give all your work away, or that you can't charge for what you do at the same time. It just means that when in doubt, it's almost always a good rule to be generous. Why? Because as my friend said, it sets you free from fear. It makes you a better person.

[00:05:30] So pay for that friend's lunch today when you both awkwardly look at the check. Spend some of that extra bit of time, in spite of feeling busy, with someone who is hurting. Give it all away. I've always loved this Annie Dillard quote. It's about writing, but really I think it applies to any of us who have a gift to share with this world. Quote, spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good

[00:05:59] for a later place in the book, or for another book. Give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is a signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.

[00:06:29] You open your safe and find ashes. End quote. And when you feel fear telling you this is not a good idea, remember that's what fear does. It tries to keep you quiet. Anything you hold onto eventually turns to dust. You just listened to the post titled When in Doubt, Be Generous by Jeff Goines of GoinsWriter.com Many leaders think they know where time goes,

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[00:07:57] head to scribe.how slash OFD and mention our show for a 30-day risk-free trial. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot H-O-W slash OFD. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.

[00:08:25] Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18+. Thank you to Jeff. This one was super applicable to me personally, as this podcast is free, unless you're getting the ad-free version, but that's only $2 a month. So at that rate, it's almost free. That comes out to like six or seven cents per episode. But even that started way after the actual launch of this show.

[00:08:55] In the beginning, in fact, the first nine months or so, I didn't have any sponsors at all, no income from this podcast, really. And I always tried my best with my narration, with the microphone, editing. You should ask my business partner, Lee. I spent a lot of time editing, I still do, and many people would just gloss over it, but it's because I want the podcast to sound a certain way. And if it doesn't, then I don't feel like I'm giving it my best. Sometimes I think maybe only 5 to 10% of people

[00:09:25] will notice the tiny changes I'm making when I edit the show, but to me, that takes the podcast from okay to good, or great. And after doing this podcast for a couple of months, the minimalists asked me to narrate all of their books to turn them into audiobooks. I had zero experience producing an audiobook, so I had to learn the ins and outs of that. And the rate I charged was laughable. It was very low. Not quite free, but for the amount of time spent recording three full books

[00:09:55] and doing the editing on it myself, it might as well have been free. But do I regret it? Nope. A magazine gave me an award for the work on their book Everything That Remains. This podcast got more visibility thanks to The Minimalists. This podcast won Best Health Podcast thanks to you, and it's all been because of what Jeff talked about in this post. And with all that said, it's definitely not easy. It's a lot of work with a lot of uncertainty if you're not making money, but worth it in the end. So thank you

[00:10:24] for being part of the journey with me and sticking around. You listening and the authors letting me narrate their work is what keeps all of this going. Really means a lot. Have a great rest of your day and start to your weekend if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you tomorrow where optimal life awaits.