Give Your Time as a Gift

Hello and welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am the host, Thomas Anglero, and my mission for this podcast is to share with you those private thoughts and reflections that I have being one of the top keynote speakers around the world on technology, motivation, and innovation. I hope you truly enjoy all the lessons I share, all the dots I connect that sometimes are just really difficult to get out but it's all for you. I truly hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero. And do you realize that you have a gift that you could give anyone at any time that will change them for the rest of their lives, that they will appreciate immediately that they will cherish forever. Do you know what that gift is? That gift is your time. The time you spend with that person, the time you spend listening to them, listening to what they're saying, not just thinking about what you're going to say. The time you spend in their world, with their issues, responding to them, feeling the compassion, having empathy for their sorrows, nodding your head. That time is the most precious thing. Do you know, with all the stuff happening in the world, all the stuff going on in your life— let's, let's leave the world on the side. There's something always going on, but But in your life, there's also something always going on. And in everyone else's life, there's something always going on. So when you prioritize your time, your time, and you give it to someone else, that is a huge gift. It's the greatest gift. Flip it around. When someone says, hey, I want to spend time with you. I want to hang out with you. I want to have a talk with you. I want to go for a walk with you. What they're saying is, I want to give you my time. I'm going to focus on you. I'm going to pay attention to you. I'm going to listen to you. It is time that is the biggest gift that we could give. You know, there's so many men out there, and I Pick on men because I am one as well. We compensate for the lack of being a good husband by giving expensive gifts if we could afford it. We compensate by being crappy fathers by giving expensive gifts if we could afford it. But what do— or what does, sorry, our partners want from us? What do our kids want from us most? It's our time. My little guy, who's not little anymore, he's huge, taller than I am, he demanded time from me. I would be working on my PC at home and he would— I remember the very first time he did it. I was, you know, struggling with my startup If you have ever been in a startup, running a startup, you're always struggling. And I was in the middle of that hell, jamming away on my PC, wondering why sales aren't taking off, how can I communicate to the world, all these challenges, right? The money's not flowing, everything. And I am not in a good place mentally. And here comes this little guy with a thumb in his mouth, walks over to me and just stares at me. And I could— I don't even know if I knew he was there. And the next thing I know is that he took my right arm, threw it away off the keyboard, and I looked down. I'm like, what the hell is it? What is this kid doing? He then crawls up on my lap, sits on my lap, looks at the keyboard. Then he grabs my right arm, puts it back on the keyboard. So now my right hand and left hand on the keyboard And he just sits there and smiles at me and turns back and looks at the screen as if he's going to pay attention to whatever I'm writing. He must have been about 5 years old or something. What did he say? He and his thumb never left his mouth. What he said was he wanted to give me his time, and he wanted time from me. Everybody wants your time. Some people want your time in a negative way. They just want to consume your time. So you have to protect your time. But other people just want to be near you. They just want to spend time with you. And that's also something that we all crave the most. We want people to spend— to want to spend time with us. We want people to love us. We want people to think about us. We want people to spend time with us, spend time thinking about us, spend time walking with us. It's time. You know, there's that saying where you could have all the money in the world and you could buy everything in the world, but you can't buy time. Time. That's it. That's the biggest, most significant gift and the most precious asset that you have to give and and to protect. Think of that. A lot of, a lot of you out there right now are thinking yourself, you know, you may not have money. It's okay. This is not about getting rich, but giving your time to someone is the richest thing you could do. You get it? You don't have to save up money to buy something. You don't have to dress really nice. You just got to give your time. And when you give your time, what I mean by giving your time, if you're going to be with someone, be with them. Don't think about someone else, don't be on your mobile phone, don't plan for the next event. I remember we spent a Fourth of July with a friend. We met her on this platform in New York City, on the subway platform, and we were down on the Fourth of July having a wonderful time. I was with my girlfriend then. We ran away from the time that we had to meet her on this platform, which was crowded and everything. And she met us on the platform and she stood there for 10 minutes and says, I gotta go. I have to spend time with someone else. This person did not value time and nor did they value our time. Pulled us away from a wonderful day we had to meet on this platform for 10 minutes and then they disappeared. Time, man, it's all about time. That is your precious gift. That is what you're gonna give people. If you don't have any money. If you have money, great, give a gift and time, but be there. Listen, care, because there's different quality of time. Some husbands are with their wives, but they're not with their wife. That's bad quality time. What my little guy did when I was sitting there on the PC and he sat there And he did that to me. He just wanted to be near me. That's extremely high quality time. Not really good time for me. I mean, it's not like, you know, we weren't playing together, but he rocked my world. So you know what I did? I turned him around and he smiled at me, and I said, you have card blanche. And he just looked at me, he goes, what did you, you know, what do you look talking about, Papa? I go, real simple, if you ever want time with me, you can come to me and take my time whenever you want. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, it doesn't matter. Only if I'm on a phone call, be polite and let me finish the phone call. Unless there's a fire in the house, then interrupt. But other than that You have carte blanche. You could demand my time anytime you want. And do you know, to this day, this boy still does that? Even if it's 1:30 in the morning, he'll wake me up. I swear to you. Oh my God, having a bodybuilder jump into your bed at 1:30 in the morning. I should probably keep that private. It is hysterical and it is beautiful because he wants time and I'm more than willing to give it at 1:30 in the morning. It's time, the gift that always gives and keeps on giving. Time. Give that to someone you love. Give that to someone who you want them to love you. Give that to someone who's struggling. There's a lot of people you know who's struggling. Give them your time. Start off with a couple of minutes. Start off with a couple hours. I don't know. You figure it out. Give them your time. That's the gift. Got it? If we all gave each other high-quality time, we, all of us, things wouldn't be that bad. Things would be a hell of a lot better. We would communicate a hell of a lot more. Time is the precious gift that you have that costs you nothing, but you get everything back from it. Beautiful, huh? Go forth and spread beauty and light and give Time to those who you love and protect your time. But don't protect it to the point of where you're restricting, you're keeping people away from you. Don't do that. Let people in. What are you gonna do? We're gonna bite you? Spend time with people you never spent time before. Spend time with people who look different to you they never did before. Spend your time, protect your time, but if you— but you can't be a hog about it. You got to give to get. Let them in. See what happens. Learn a new way. Sometimes you think people are going to consume your time. They say one word and they realize they just gave you a gift that will change your future, which means will change all the time that you have left in your life. It's extremely powerful. I love you. Until the next time, this is Thomas Anglero. Take care. Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.