What is True Giving?

What is True Giving?
Or, Do You Have An "Equation Mentality"?

I just got off the phone with my dear friend, Dr. Paul Hartunian, publicity genius, philanthropist and true lover of dogs.

I asked Paul about giving and how he saw it working in his own life and with his own personal cause. That's when he told me something truly eye-opening.

"Too many people make an equation out of giving," he said.

"They give some money and then wait for it to come back to them ten-fold. That, to me, is not true giving."

This was a shocking statement to me.

"What is true giving then?" I asked.

"I believe true giving is done anonymously," Paul explained. "If someone gives a million dollars to a foundation because they are going to have a building named after them, then that is trading, not giving.

Paul was bringing up a valid point.

I remember a time when someone e-mailed me, asking what they should do if they try to give money to their friends and it's refused. I remember thinking, Why do your friends have to know it's coming from you? Can't you give in secret?

Paul went on to tell me something even more fascinating.

"I think the secret to giving is in not caring if it comes back to you or not," he explained. "Once you don't care, you're in the flow."

Ah, yes!

That's the secret!

Give without expecting return --- give because your heart moves you to give --- give because it.s your joy to give --- and you're in the flow of life itself.

"All I can say is that maybe the Cosmos handles the rest," Paul told me. "I've been blessed in my life but I didn't give to be blessed. The cosmos just took care of me."

I love how Paul Hartunian explained all of this to me. He gave such a practical, level-headed view of giving.

"I have no problem with someone being recognized for giving," he added. "But if you give because you want recognition or you expect a ten-fold return, then you're not giving, you're calculating."

Paul walks his talk. Around Christmas of 2002 he sent me an email and asked if I had anything of a spiritual nature he could give to the readers of his e-newsletter. He said he always gave them publicity and money-making advice. Now he wanted to give them something spiritual.

I suggested he let his fans read the e-book version of my #1 best-seller, Spiritual Marketing. I told him anyone could read the version online at http://www.mrfire.com/spirit

Paul let his readers know. He was very generous to do so. After all, he didn't make a dime off my book and never would from this endorsement. He was simply giving.

Now the punch line here is that Paul had, at that time, about 76,000 readers. That meant his gift (and my gift, too) touched a lot of lives. Paul gave from his heart. I gave from my heart. How this will come back to us, no one knows---except maybe the Cosmos.

Are you giving?


"The law of prosperity, whose first action is giving, comes so close into the heart of being that we can scarcely expect to weigh and balance it by numbers and calculations...We must give without expectation of return."
-- Ernest C. Wilson, The Great Physician