It requires effort

An interesting week began with me writing 16 cheques for £65 each on Monday at a conference in London Zoo for a group of Go MAD Thinkers who each came up with ideas to make a sustainable difference. I look forward to hearing more about their progress. Interestingly, I made the offer to 50 people that day and only 16 said yes. Which is okay - because "Paying It Forward requires effort and a strong reason why to both think and act in order to make a sustainable difference.

One person putting in effort is Daniel Spencer, a 13 year old, who has set up his first electrical import business (www.electrostarelectronics.co.uk) with £65. Once he has made some profit he has pledged to Pay £65 Forward to help someone else. Come on, if Daniel can do it so can you - let's Go MAD with £65.

Let me know your thoughts

Several people have mentioned in the past few days that they enjoy reading this blog and the comments left by others. My challenge to you is to go beyond reading and actually engage with me in making a difference. If you are reading this, please add a comment (by clicking on the comments word below this posting). I genuinely am interested to know your thoughts about the £65,000 Giveaway. Your comments just might be the catalyst for others to make a difference.

I was busy last week running my monthly Go MAD Thinking Skills programme for a great group of people who, in the space of a 10 minutes possibilities exercise, produced several innovative ways of ensuring sustainability within £65 projects - mainly involving the pay it forward idea. So let's see how many of them take personal responsiblity to make it happen.

Let me know your thoughts

Change someone's life

Thank you for the many ideas submitted and the people who contacted me with "Pay It Forward" ideas. This seems to have captured the imagination so keep sending them to me - I am keen to support as many of these as possible. Also I am keen to capture some on film as I was contacted by a professional photographer who, for £65, will pay it forward by taking photo's of people making a difference with £65 for an exhibition that will raise funds for charity.

A client visited us this week and brought his two young children with him. Never missing the opportunity to develop the minds of young people, I engaged them in a possibility thinking exercise with the promise of £65 to support the idea that they would implement to help others.
They left me with lists of ideas of people they could help, plus a couple of drawings. Underneath a picture of a person helping someone less fortunate was written my question, "What could people do with £65?" and the words, "Answer: change someone's life."

What difference could you make? Who's life could you change? It might not take £65 - if it does, let me know and I will see if I can help.

Pay it forward

Had a great response this week to the various challenges I posed and was busy over Easter writing £65 cheques to various people who have done some great possibility thinking about how to use the money to help others. I have also had to decline some interesting requests - including someone who had seen me on TV and wanted £65 so she could take me on a date!

A number of people have drawn my attention to the film "Pay It Forward" and the act of doing good deeds and then encouraging the recipient to pay it forward (rather than pay it back) by doing further good deeds to help others. So a few of my £65 gifts have been on this basis.

The Go MAD Thinking team have also been busy developing people's possibility thinking skills with the reward of £65 for implementing the best ideas that include paying it forward. See Graham & Richard's comments after my last posting if you would like a few ideas about how to make £65 stretch further.

So how could you use £65 to inspire others to "pay it forward"?

Finding people who want to help others

It is one month since the Poker Face Final and I have just returned home from the ITV Central News East Midlands TV Studio where I launched a £65 Go MAD Challenge to identify 100 business people who want to help others make a difference.

If you are genuine about using £65 of my money to help others, I invite you to at least match my £65 with £65 of your own and involve the people in your business to generate possible ways to make the greatest difference in helping others. I will also provide an additional £130 worth of personal development materials to help you, or a team, with your thinking.

Only a couple of guidance rules:
1) The money must be directly used to help others ( if you ask for yourself, you will not receive help) and not donated to a third party (eg a charity). This is not a fundraising exercise - it is about involving others and using our thinking skills to make a real difference in the lives of others.
2) If you can involve others and make it a sustainable project, that would be even better (see June from Australia's comment on my last posting for a bit of inspiration).

If you or your colleagues are interested, then tell me a bit about what you propose to do and who you will involve. Come on let's Go MAD and create a positive ripple effect.

Win £1000 - Let's generate more Go MAD possibilities!

I had a few, very educational, days in Berlin last week, during which I challenged my friend Clive to make a difference in the next six months with 100 Euros (£65). In fact, I have been issuing friendly challenges to quite a few people to either make a difference by matching my giveaway (for £65 - not the £65,000) or thinking creatively about the possibilities of optimising £65 for the benefit of others.

An observation, from the many conversations I have had recently about the £65k Giveaway, is that many people are not doing what I term "Possibility Thinking" ie generating a great quantity of ideas before evaluating and deciding on the best option. So I have been considering a possible competition (maybe with a prize of £1000) for people prepared to do some possibility thinking and match my £65 to raise a greater amount that will enable more differences to be made. What do you think?

Here is the basic question to get you thinking: If given £65, what could I possibly do (& who could I possibly involve) to help make the greatest difference for others? Write down this question and generate a minimum of 20 answers before deciding your priorities. Then let me know your best ones. (If you have never used this solution focused thinking technique before, give it a go. I once used it to raise £250,000 in 3 months - but that's another story.) Let's get thinking.

Involving Others to Go MAD with £65

As Derek, my Barber, was cutting my hair today, we discussed the village in which we live and who might possibly benefit the most from receiving £65. He came up with the idea of involving the kids in the local school. Now I am sure that they will be able to do some great possibility thinking.

Thanks for the comments posted in response to my recent blog entries. The idea from "Jane the cynic" to send £65 to each of the main political leaders is very appealing. It might also be interesting to contrast the difference the kids make with £65 to the differences a politician makes!

Hang on, this could build into a great idea for a fun challenge of who can make the biggest difference with £65. Post your comments for who else we could involve and I will sort out the details next week.