Are you holding your gifts for ransom?

 

In his book, Never Split the Difference, hostage negotiator turned business and sales guru Chris Voss says “the most dangerous negotiation is the one you don’t know you are in.”In this post, I am going to attempt to show you how there is a hostage situation at play in your life and that you are both the hostage and the hostage taker. 

In my previous post I discussed the need to set you intentions and also express a desire to make your gifts manifested in the world, regardless of payment or prerequisites other than in response and support of worthy intentions set by and lived out by others. Not only does this way of thinking about your gifts, talents, and resources creating the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous, and creative world, it also has direct spiritual implications. In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown had this to say about the benefits of exercising out gifts and the consequences of withholding them: 

• We all have gifts and talents. When we cultivate those gifts and share them with the world, we create a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.
• Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear, and even grief. 
• Most of us who are searching for spiritual connected spend too much time looking up at the sky and wondering why God lives so afar away. God lives within us, not above us. Sharing our gifts and talents with the world is the most powerful source of connection with God. (142-143)

So we all have gifts, it hurts when we don’t share them, and exercising them if a source of connection with God. The question then become, why are so many of us holding your gifts hostage by saying, I’ll share my gifts if

• If I get money for my time
• If I get “well compensated” for this product
• If this person is my friend
• If I reasonably believe this person will do something tangibly beneficial to me later
• If this person has already done something tangibly beneficial to me

Imagine you could play a beautiful song but never did because no one would pay you? Imagine if you could heal everyone’s mental health a live in a world of peace and tranquility yet you refused because you didn’t get something tangible in return? Is the better world that you get to live in that includes health and beauty not payment enough? 

We all know the feeling of watching professional athletes go on strike for not getting paid enough to play a game. Many people stopped watching Major League Baseball after the strike in 1994 saying that greed “ruined the game” (1994-1995 Major League Baseball Strike). Contrasting this to the sentiment in the early days of baseball, where players took part time jobs in town so they could play for free and you can see how baseball and all major sports today have been held for ransom. Unfortunately, the main reason people watch professional sports, the spirit of play and freedom, can’t be held for ransom. It is shot the moment the hostage takers take over.

Bringing these examples closer to home, this is the hostage scenario we play out almost every day of our existence, on smaller less grand stages. We hold our gifts for ransom, believing the lie that abusing our gifts by treating them like hostages and disrespecting them by trying to monetize them. We are human traffickers of our own souls. No wonder people feel burned out and describe their jobs as “soul sucking”. Nobody is having fun during a bank hold-up. This is the negotiation that very few people know they are in and it’s a dangerous one indeed.

The primary reason for this danger is because money, the primary means of settling ransoms, intentionally blinds both parties to the characters and intentions of the other. The nature of money is such that people don’t need to “know” their business partners. The promise of money, whether it is something honest like gold or a dishonest and manipulative currency like the dollar, is the same no matter who spends it. It’s a common saying among business professionals “Don’t take it personal. It’s just business.” It’s this anonymity that has atrophied our ability to know ourselves and know our neighbor. All we know if what we’ve got that someone else wants and what someone else has that we want. In that environment, we are completely helpless to do what is necessary to build a better world.

In order to live in a better, bigger, and more beautiful world, we must be willing to “let our gifts go”. We must set these prisoners free and cease the hostage negotiation. 

Here are 3 Steps to Rebuild this Muscle of Gift Manifesting

1. Gifts: Recognize the gifts in our possession that we might be able and want to make manifest in the world. We call them gifts because they were given to us by our being and kept for us by our life, which was given to us by God, Being, your Higher Power, the Universe, etc.
2. Intentions: State our intentions for living so that we might have know what we and others are supporting and have understanding of what tangible gifts are needed to manifest our intentions. Your intentions and commitment to pursuing them, not money or anything else, are the currency that justifies God, others, and yourself supporting you with creativity and motivation.
3. Needs/Desires: Make requests for support. What do you need in order to fulfill your intentions? What would make you feel more motivated, less tired, and more supported? Stating this openly let’s others match their gifts with your intentions. 

Below is an example of my Gift/Intention/Desire Audit I made today. You can join this Facebook group and create your own as well: https://www.facebook.com/groups/695028425859257/permalink/695048435857256/

I want to also highlight that I know this isn’t easy. If you are committed to adapting a moneyless way of existing, it might be uncomfortable for a long time. People feel like they need money and most of us feel somewhat helpless to exist without money. This is in part why I wrote the letter To Those Who Love Their Life as a way to crystallize the importance of the fight so that it might motivate you to endure. There is no winning this dollar game we are all playing. Maybe the hope of winning the rebellion gives people who love their lives the courage to reject the guaranteed loss of giving in.

Side Note: There might be a time when you are unable to trade at all without a license, currency, or mark. Now Is the time to practice this way of living. You want to train your muscles before you need them. You don’t want to wait until it starts raining to build your ark.

Click here to watch Joe Rogan discuss a cashless society

And click below to listen to a speech from Jordan Peterson about motivation and setting good intentions for your life.