"Receiving isn’t easy. If it were, more of us would do it with grace and gratitude. Is there a way to change that? Can we learn to receive so we can be nourished and empowered? These are crucial questions, not just because the holiday season is a time when giving and receiving are part of our daily experience. The ability to receive is, in fact, essential to physical health, psychological balance and spiritual engagement."
[Ode magazine, The Art of Receiving]
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“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
[Winston Churchill]
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"At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, "Yes, but I have something he will never have ... enough."
[John Bogle, Enough]
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Many of the signals we discuss and use in social networks are about giving -- gift points, review someone, share a link, "like" this page. You get the idea. How much do we think about what we receive?
Yet, since a very early age, receiving has the largest impact on our lives -- the decisions we make, our creations, and the very fabric of what we call living are influenced by how we receive what is on offer.
Whether that be a smile, nature's beauty, a kind word, or an object of desire, the way life bounces off us shapes who we become and what we focus on. We are, in fact, made of butter.
[image of butter angels from FINI window in Modena, Italy - reposted from archives]
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Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and company events on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.