I don't get to watch the Oprah show very often but every now and then when I sit down for lunch and turn on the tube, there is her show. I really love some of the episodes, particularly when audience members are encouraged to act; to do something remarkable and do good for others.
Such is the case with Oprah's Pay It Forward Challenge. Read the stories here.
Essentially, participants are given $1000 and told to do good work with it. The idea is that someone helps someone and then instead of a "thank you" or a "pay it back" the person is encouraged to "pay it forward" to someone else in need.
So every person has to go out and do good for others with the money.
Brilliant!
This is something I would like to do on a big scale at some point in the future. If anyone knows someone with a lot of cash who would like to sponsor such a remarkable series of goodwill - good action - pay it forward acts, please help me meet them and let's get this happening!
Please read through the stories on Oprah's website to learn more about this remarkable concept (originally started by a ten year old many years ago and there's a wonderful film about it to called "Pay It Forward"!).
Coaching Exercises
1. If someone gave you $1000 today and told you to go do good work to benefit someone else, what would you first thought/reaction/response be?
2. Now think about it a bit more. What could you do?
3. Even more interesting, how could you turn the $1000 into more money so you could do more work? For example, one of the stories on Oprah is about a woman who turned $1000 into nearly $72,000 by getting community and organisation donations to top it up to help a family in great need. Her community only has 14,000 people in it and they worked together to make a huge difference, far beyond what $1000 could have done. What could you do to grow the funds to do your good work with?
4. As a result of these questions and your considered responses to them, what are you committing to?
As always, if you need any further personal support in response to any of these coaching exercises, please consider using the askacoach.com service.
All the best,
Noel
Noel Posus - Master Coach
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