138. 500,000 Volunteers Show Us How We Are All "Rich," in Some Way with Nipun Mehta

Turns out, we can have many kinds of wealth besides money: creativity, time, community, compassion, friendships, attention, and patience, to name a few. We can each give those things to others liberally, and in the process, live extraordinarily happy lives. Today’s guest, Nipun Mehta, will help you see that in a world where “capital” like time, ideas, and kindness are priceless, what you have to contribute makes you very wealthy. 00:00 Preview 00:40 Intro & Welcome 03:34 The Power of Volunteering Nipun may have started reversing the hopelessness narrative long before it was popular. Nipun has always felt that there’s a spark in people that longs to be in service and longs to be compassionate. He has an implicit faith in himself and everyone else. In the late 90’s Nipun started a project called ‘DailyGood’ which started with an automatic email sent out every morning with good news. This has been done every day since 1996. It started with his yearning to empower the impulse to serve. The belief is that the world is held together with a lot of goodness and a lot of care. The biggest leaps in human history started with quiet givers and people who turned their backs on something that offended them at the core of their humanity. Ghandi for instance, started his movement based on him being thrown off a train in South Africa for being brown. He was able to do this without burning bridges or creating enemies. Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Mandela, The Dalai Lama all took the stance that they would not create an enemy while resisting an action. They would resist an action without creating an enemy. They could resist an action but love the person. The best ideas don’t need an enemy. 11:00 Reserving Our Clicks for Things That Matter Wealth currently has a narrow definition based on things like money, power and outward appearance. This has led us to want more and more, and it is this wanting more that typically creates separation & inequality. How do we start to play a much bigger game? We can start by accepting that different forms of wealth exist such as: Stories Attention Connection So much is done to circulate money and the ideas of fame and power as measures of wealth. We can also do the same with our time capital. Small actions might change the entire world and are just as meaningful as newsworthy or Nobel Prize worthy acts. Maybe it’s the small things that matter the most. In the words of Mother Teresa, “You can do no big things, only small things with great love”. Those who tend to the small acts tend to be happier and more connected, secure and grounded. Nipun’s very successful found out his first son was autistic.. He was initially worried, but soon recognized that this might be the biggest gift of his life as it showed him that everyone is good at something. He went on to hire several people on the autism spectrum, and the initiative was so successful that it became a Harvard Case Study. Last week’s episode, (Episode 137) with Temple Grandin, the most famous autistic person in the world spoke to the limitlessness and beauty of different minds. 46:12 Break 18:50 Hunger is Invisible Nipun’s Organization, ServiceSpace, started by building websites for non-profit organizations. It started when Nipun and his 3 friends went to a homeless shelter in 1999 and offered to build them a website in their earliest effort to practice generosity. They intuitively knew that they could exercise compassion & kindness and grow them as one would grow muscles. Giving is beneficial to both the giver and the receiver. They started spreading the word on how small acts of kindness can improve everyone’s lives. These acts garnered media coverage as website building was expensive at the time, and here were some young men who could be making money building websites for free. The reward comes from nature. The idea of the movement is to hold space to allow people to be able to give of themselves in return for nature’s reward...