The joy of generosity

The last few days I’ve been thinking quite a bit of generosity and in particular how being generous can be extremely powerful and beneficial. But there’s a kind of catch-22 involved. You see, if you are generous to others in order to gain some benefit for yourself down the road a ways, that selfish intention has a way of blunting the value of the generosity in the first place.

My good friend Rowell Gormon wonderfully illustrates how things are supposed to work on his blog recently. And as I noted in my comment to his post, it was his own act of generosity toward me that was the catalyst for our friendship several years ago. So many other people have been generous and helpful to me through the 27 years that I’ve been a professional voiceover that I feel obligated to be generous to others. Well, that’s not entirely right. Not obligated as in a burden. Obligated as in how can I not respond with generosity to others?

Of course, talking about how generous I am here on this blog smacks a bit too much of self-elevation. Kind of like that line that I always laugh at when I think about it. “But enough about me, what do you think of me?”

No, the point of this post isn’t to point at myself as some sort of paragon of virtue and generosity. It’s to encourage you to think about ways you can pass along what you know to those who are coming along after or with you. Much of the time, those opportunities will sneak up on you so you have to make up your mind in advance that you’ll grab them when they come your way.

Grab and then immediately release. Which is the point, isn’t it? It’s not the fastest way to build your voiceover business, but it may be the most satisfying.