Transcript excerpt of a recorded conversation (Dec 2010) between two collaborators about their Charitable/Global Bridge Foundation. They discuss the joy and privilege of philanthropic work, teamwork, collaboration, complementary skills, inspiration, and mutual support as central to their foundation’s activities and personal fulfillment.
Over the years, our friendship has brought us together for a lot of different projects. We've worked with schizophrenics, we've worked with adolescents, we've done a variety of different things, different spiritual journeys. And recently, in the last 10 years, we also have formed a foundation, the Charitable Foundation. It seems to be a natural next step to allow this foundation to be a vehicle to do different things. How is Global Bridge foundation, this foundation part of your work, part of how you see integrating what you've learned in life and expressing it?
It's a happy question. It's really a happy question. It's like it's the greatest privilege in life to actually be able to be free economically and emotionally and to be able to have a chance to ask, how can I possibly make a contribution? It is the greatest joy that I've ever experienced in my life to be able to have that free energy available, have some health left, have some age left, I hope, and to be able to use whatever intelligence or creativity with you, with close friends, and to be able to meet like minded people. I mean, what an incredible fulfillment to be able to find that common motivation. A lot of people experience this as something that you should do. And for me it's the ultimate gift of life that you get to be able to move forward in the world and be available and join other like minded people.
What quality do you bring to it? Given who you are, what quality do you bring to philanthropy and to giving and to charity?
I think the biggest quality is the desire to create a team and to be part of a team. And really the, the sense of being a member of a larger team is the quality itself. So much of my life I felt like I've been a leader. This group seems leaderless because everyone's a leader. And when you meet somebody that is going to Afghanistan and risking their lives and you get to contribute some practical intelligence, or you meet somebody else that's out in the field in a life threatening situation as well, in Guatemala and they're going there and you get to contribute a little bit of money and some practical expertise. You feel humbled. There are so many people that I get to be with that are more developed than me in certain key areas. And the quality that I feel that I bring is kind of a comprehensive thinking, like, okay, we've got three parts, but these two parts are missing over here. Where do we find these other two parts? I feel kind of like a coach, like I don't have any phenomenal skills except for the fact that I really can kind of visualize the team members that are missing and have a great curiosity in finding them in the world and fill in the missing pieces.
I'll give you one more of your skills that you bring. It's the ability to inspire and communicate that inspiration in a way that activates these people that are so focused on their mission that it's hard for them to see outside of it, to find those other missing pieces. And you're able to activate them and you're able to see those pieces and not just see them, but activate them to make it happen.
Well, I appreciate the trust in that. And the way I would say it is that I'm dedicated to that and I'm successful maybe about 40% of the time. And that the desire to see the missing pieces and to communicate them with. With caring and even when there is perhaps, let's say, a certain degree of self centeredness that might be there, that's blocking the teamwork that attempt to communicate is quite strong. I can be a bit of a force at times, but like the rest of life, I'm pretty humbled by the limitations and I'm incredibly encouraged and blessed by the moments of electric connection and teamwork that gets formed. Speaking of teamwork, there's no question in my heart or my mind that I'm absolute. Okay.
You mean there's very little question.
Thank you. I stand corrected. But you're proving my point.
Absolutely.
Our teamwork of being able to do the practical real estate, being able to do the outreach into the world and kind of compassionate work with a foundation, being able to do the spiritual journeys together and have both the spiritual circus and the benefits of that, and being able to do our psychological work together, no question that that has been as deep a blessing, as deep a gift of anything absolutely in my life. And I will speak absolutely in that front. And you so fill in the places where I'm lacking and so generously, you know, my skill levels where they're limited. You're so able to seamlessly come forward and just volunteer it. And I only wish that I could convey any percentage of what our experience is and what my experience is to other people. Because the sense of teamwork really is central in our relationship.
To me, the one word you haven't used, which I expected you to use before this and now is collaboration. And I think that's the automatic between us. And I agree with you. And it is a synergy, it's a reciprocity that's automatic. It's a love. And I'm grateful for the decades and for the years and for what's hopefully, if we stay healthy, what's to come.
Is absolutely impossible to express. The amount of moments that I felt protected by you and loved by you and trusted by you and supported by you and how irreplaceable that is. It's impossible to convey and dignify how broad that is. It.
