Category Archives: Humanities

This app reduces financial stress for those with uneven income

Improve Yourself with Books to Read in 2015

If you did a search right now on the top ten books to read for 2015, you would probably find tons of lists already out there. The challenge with this is that there are so many genre of books now that the lists are endless. Twenty years ago things were not as complicated because most “Must Read” book lists came from large chain book stores and newspapers. Now we have so many different sources on what to read, including this blog right here, that it is hard to narrow down just what all is good to read.

Goodreads is a good place to start if you don’t already have an account. If you love reading you need to open yourself an account and use it. I use that website just about everyday when I update everything I am reading. They have tons of lists to follow, groups to join, book reading challenges, and more. I enjoy reading the reviews to get a better idea of what it is about I’m to read so I know I will get something out of it.

In the meantime the books selected all come from authors who have already written some amazing books. A few of the books I look forward to reading this year are Clay Water Brick, The XYZ Factor, and Work Rules.

Try to always take at least an hour a day to read, 30 minutes when you wake up, and 30 minutes before you go to bed or 4 15 minute breaks throughout your day. If you are a real go-getter in life than you can have 8 15 minute breaks throughout your day. However you decide to read, make sure to take some time also to include the classics, self-help books, and adventure books, either in physical form or audiobooks. Always check your public library first to see if they have a copy available.

In the list I have included those from the list but also some classic business books everyone should read.

Top Business Books to Read for 2015
1. Clay Water Brick – Jessica Jackley
People wonder how anyone can make a successful business happen without having money to support everything. This book here shows you how some of the most innovative individuals created something great with the least amount of resources. This is a good one to start with to get out of the mindset that you need X – Y- Z before you can get started. If you think that is true, read the Kids who are exceptional article.

2. How to Fly a Horse – Kevin Ashton
You would think training a horse to fly would be easy but then again you probably have no idea where to start. The author takes the reader on a journey through history to show how some of the best creations came from challenge situations. Creating something from the ground up is never easy so with the world we live in today where costs for starting a business has dropped to near zero, why is it still hard? This book was on the list of Amazon’s best books of 2014

3. Getting To Yes with Yourself – William Ury
This is the same guy who brought you Getting to Yes, which is ranked as the number one best seller in Business Negotiating category on Amazon. The author explains that all the challenges that happen in life all take place in your head. When you think a deal is going wrong because you emphasized the wrong word, chances are you are probably wrong, or maybe you shook his hand longer than you should have, making you seem desperate. These are all mental games you play with yourself so when you begin to realize not to take life so seriously you can then see how easy it is to make yourself agree with what you are saying. A great movie to watch to help you understand why you should not take life so seriously is called “Being There.” Considered one of the best philosophy movies ever made about Life.

4. Bold – Peter Diamandis, Steven Kotler
This book explains the power of exponential entrepreneurship. When you bring people of life mind together to work on a task you double, triple, or even quadruple the power that goes into solving a problem. This is the idea behind XPRIZE, a program that uses crowdsourcing to it’s ultimate power by asking people all over the world to solve their problems posted on their website, Singularity University, in return for a large cash prize. This book explores all they have learned about this impressive program about how ideas are solved through the help of exponential power.

5. Yes, And – Kelly Leonard, Tom Yorton
The power of Improv acting has helped changed so many people’s personal and business skills for the better because it changes how a person thinks in any given situation. Improv is a form of acting that encourages no sensor thinking and to accept everything thrown at you and learn to think in the moment. Many companies hire theater companies to come in and provide Improv training with their sales staff because of how important it is to learn. If you want to learn more about this skill and join a program, read my previous article on the art of storytelling.

6. The XYZ Factor – Nancy Lublin, Alyssa Ruberman
This is a book about learning to empower people to see the benefit of their actions when they put them to good use for others. This can be very challenging for companies when they work with younger generations that are only interested in instant gratification and isolated circumstances, most of which they have grown up in. The DoSomething.org program is meant to get kids out of this habit of waiting, which many grew up in homes where they had to wait to be told what to do and when, and start getting out there and making a difference on your own. For any kid who grew up in a restrictive household, the transition to learn how to think for themselves is very difficult, which is not fair to companies that have to deal with that, and so teaching younger individuals how change is possible through their actions is a good skill to learn.

7. Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader – Herminia Ibarra
This book takes on a different approach for leaders. There are many management books that say to find your style of management and leadership in order to guide your department or people. This book here says to listen to what the people are looking for and take guidance from how they need to be managed. When you don’t over think a problem and dwell on it you can then work from the insight your team gives you.

8. Better Than Before – Gretchen Rubin
Changing habits can be hard but when you learn how to find the little tricks to turn small little actions into bit time change that is when results start to show. The author here talks about improving your life with changing your habits and routines. Humans are creatures of habit so it is important to understand how to make new habits work. Chip Heath also wrote a great book on the subject as well called Switch – How to change things when change is hard.

9. Work Rules! – Laszlo Bock
Imagine being the HR manager for one of the best companies to work for in the world? How much pressure would you have to know that you have to hire people that are extremely intelligent but also creative at the same time? That is a lot of pressure, in that, you have to design and create interviews to weed out the fakes and still find the ones that are hard to see the first time. Then after that you have to learn how to create an environment that encourages people to grow and increase productivity, all of which can be challenge, but brought together in this richly packed book of data examples.

10. Surprise – Tania Luna, Leeann Renninger
This element of surprise is important for many reasons but none more so than in the business world. Surprises happen all the time so being able to anticipate that surprise can keep you on your toes but also understand that change is constant. When you learn to accept things as they come, training from Improv acting, you won’t feel threaten by what is happening every time something new comes up.

11. No One Understands You and What to Do About It – Heidi Grant Halvorson
Why do people know who we are? Isn’t that what makes people want to work with other people, because they think different and act different? People who really studied psychology in college, and when I say really studied, I mean they went way beyond the required readings and read more than your typical grad student, you would know that how a person walks, the words they use to speak, the actions they take says everything about a person already. Not everyone studied psychology in college or graduate school so books like this are important to read because it helps people connect with others when they understand them. Engineers have the worst record when it comes to social and people skills so a book like this might help them to learn that when talking about a project of their their’s it is important to include personal identifying properties of themselves with how they created it instead of just the dimensions and costs and benefits of the projects. If you want to read another book on the subject and learn more about a person by the words they speak, “The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us,” is a great book to read.

12. The Eureka Factor – John Kounios, Mark Beeman
Do you remember the time you came up with that amazing idea that someone has already come out with? Why did you beat them to it? And why can’t you have more moments like that? This book explains how those moments come about and how to have more of them. They spark imagination, ideas, and bring about change so if they are so important why are they so few of them? Learn more about how the brain works with this book about how great insights are achieved.

13. The Road Character – David Brooks
Ever wondered why Robert Moses lead the life he did, or why the Men Who Built America, had such deep rich self-fulfilling lives? The challenge with creating a rich fulfilling life is not just the doing part but the upbringing part; people of character are built upon a solid foundation of morals, beliefs, and values, which guide them in everything they do. When you have no guidance in which to follow, then why would it surprise you to learn that your life has no purpose? The men who built america found their purpose because they had the keen sense to see what others couldn’t and put it into action. This book takes a look at ten lives and examines them for all these traits to learn how to create a life worth living.

14. Triggers – Marshall Goldsmith
Behavior Consultant Mr Goldsmith looks at how to change behavior for the good and how to make them into certain habits. He takes a look at how behavior works and why we behave differently when we are in groups and when we are by ourselves. This book helps explore all that in order to find the right behaviors that will lead to a successful life.

15. The Misfit Economy – Alexa Clay, Kyra Maya Phillips
Did you know that Pirates in the Indian ocean make millions stealing huge oil tankers and cargo ships in the area? Or that hackers cause millions, if not billions in loses every year to companies, but encourage the growth for many more industries? The growing behavior of misfits is creating whole new industries to come about because the reality is when someone acts bad, you need another to fix it. This book examines the history of people that did things unconventionally and how it turned out for them and what you can learn from doing that. The reality is, business has no rules, so once you learn that rule, all bets are off for anything you do.

16. Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter – Cass Sunstein
This important book contains the very reason you don’t want to surround yourself with people of like-mind. But if you have too, this book will teach you what you need to be aware of to keep from falling into the trap of staying with status-quo. Cass showed that when people of like-mind get together their values strengthen because each member reinforces what they already know or believe in. This is very dangerous because this is how progress is slowed down because if everyone thinks the same way and they all agree with one another then there is nothing to change or improve.

Cass also shows that similar minded groups make less dramatic changes than groups that are composed of different mindsets. He talks about this in the new elected Congress that is very one-sided and how dangerous this will be for policy making and America. You can watch his interview on The Daily Show to learn more about what happens when people who are conservative get together with similar minded individuals, and vice versa. This is a very important concept to learn so you don’t fall into the same mental trap. This is why the phrase, “Keep Your Friends Close, but your Enemies Closer,” is important to learn because your enemies will keep you on your toes and learning all the time. This book is ranked number 1 in Business & Organizational Learning.

Here are some Additional Books to read

Zero to One – Peter Thiel (Number 1 in Economic Policy and Development)
The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
The lean Startup – Eric Ries
Business Adventures – John Brooks (Number 1 in Commerce)
Influence – Robert Cialdini (Number 1 in Marketing and Consumer Behavior)
22 Immutable Laws of Branding – Al Ries

To find more business books to read, check out my previous article and Book Page
This book changed this billionaire’s understanding about Business
Business Books

News Article

15 New Books to Read in 2015

Kids that are Exceptional

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It seems we only hear about kids doing amazing things in the news, and often times we wonder why the kids we do know are not as motivated as the kids doing amazing things. We wonder, why don’t those kids want to go out and go something great for their community? A lot of times the kid is not allowed the opportunity to explore what all is out there. A child always has to wait for the parent to say when they can go somewhere, when they can do something, and so the child becomes conditioned to always wait on the parent for things. It is not until the child starts to learn about events taking place around them that they start to beg their parents to take them places. This usually comes in the form of a school announcement about a festival or a commercial they saw.

In the following stories about these exceptional kids I will break down just how these kids came to be exceptional and why your parenting style has a huge impact on your child’s future. The research in the four major parenting styles has been around for a very long time with proven end results for each style. A parent who listens to their child and understands what they are trying to say will raise a child who understands that what they say is important versus a parent who always expects their child to do as their told and not talk back, regardless if they have something to say or not. These kinds of children grow up believing that what they have to say does not matter because they were always told to be quiet and do as their told. Which child to you think will grow up to be successful in life?

Your Parenting Style Determines Your Child’s Future*
This concept has been around as long as the research on behaviorism and conditioning have been around. (Side note: Please do not think that I am working off of only those two areas of development, I am using those two as a starting point since they were the first major areas of research in human behavior, which would later go on to be applied to child rearing practices) A parent who is active and very social will be a good role model for their child to learn that if you want to make more friends you need to go out and join programs. You can not make excuses, so by getting up early every saturday morning and attending events your child begins to pick up clues from how you start a conversation with a stranger.

If you want your child to wash their hands every time they get home they need to see you do the same. If you want your child to learn proper manners they need to see you do it all the time. Getting mad at them for not doing it doesn’t fix anything, it just creates tension. Children monitor everything a parent does so if you see habits your child has picked up and not sure where they got it from then you need to self-monitor to find out if you were teaching it to them without even knowing it.

The story of one of the kids below, Jacob, started when his mom was looking for an opportunity to show their kids how to help others. This meant that his parents made the valid effort of going out and finding a program that will show their kids how others are helping people in need. Your child first needs to see that there is a problem from how other people respond. Watching people working together to prepare meals for hungry and sick people is a great motivator for the child to see that there is a major problem and that it is real. Children are told all the time that there are starving kids in Africa and that they should always eat everything on their plate but they don’t understand or care because it doesn’t affect them personally. They don’t physically see the relationship.

Jacob, because of social cues in his environment, felt the need to help others so started his own program that would help raise money to feed people. He knew he was a great athlete and he knew how other people raised money by joining marathons and sport competitions, so he became a triathlete and raised money that way. Would any of that have happened, if his parent’s didn’t show him food banks? The answer is no. He would have stayed a regular kid and just gone about his business like so many other kids who always complain about being bored.

Want to get your kids involved in other people’s lives? Here are a few starting places
– Teach your kids basic sign language and have them join programs for deaf kids, this will not only encourage them to get better with their sign language but also improve their social skills in a different way.
– Help your child improve their reading by having them read to the blind, either at homeless shelters or hospitals. (Hospitals are always looking for volunteers for all kinds of programs.) Another way is to have your child read to a younger kid who is just learning as well, if you can not find anyone, many libraries have reading dogs that are trained to listen to someone read.
– As a family go and work at a soup kitchen for the homeless
– Teach your child to build (vegetable) gardens and compost piles for other people in need
– Teach your child about other kids who are in jail and have them write letters to them during the holidays and year round.
– Teach your child about how food works in the world and ask them to save a portion of their allowance to help pay for past due lunch accounts at school so other kids can eat, like Cayden did.

How active you are as a parent in the community will translate to how active your child becomes in the community.

Be the Person You Want Your Child to Be
This may sound like common sense but you will be surprised how many times I have seen horrible situations get worse. I have seen parents complain to their child about not getting good grades in school but the parent is never there to help, or can’t help because they don’t understand the homework. If you want to show how important school is then make them understand how important it is to study by setting time aside every time they get home from school and on the weekends.

Want your child to read more?
Then make sure to set aside quiet time in the house just for that at the same time every night

Want your child to make more friends?
Join organizations where other children will be there (remember they need to see you do it first before they do). Make sure your child has X number of sleep overs a month and in the summer. Many parent’s don’t realize how important sleepovers really are to developing proper social skills. Boys will bond over movies and video games, especially movies that are action packed and video games like Halo.

Want to teach your child about responsibility?
Get them to start babysitting at an early age for other kids after school or weekends (let the other parent know you, as the parent, will be there in the beginning so your child can understand what to do, plus making money is a great motivator for the child to learn)

Want your child to be active in sports?
Join a gym or sport events as a family and then slowly transition them to team sports in their age group. Go on hiking or camping trips as a family on the weekends.

When Your Dad is a Surfing Pro
Most people think that any child under 5 years old is too young to be doing anything big or dangerous in their life probably doesn’t know what it means to experience life to its fullest. “Baby Steve” Roberson has been surfing since he was 2 years old and now he can surf on waves five times his size with no fear at all. His older twin brothers, Justin and Eric, who are both 8, also enjoy surfing and can hang-ten with the best of them. So does it really matter that their dad is surfing champion Kaleo Roberson? It has everything to do with it infact.

They say that if you want to be the best at something you have to work on it every day until people start giving you awards or paying you for it. That is when you know you have made it. Kaleo, in an interview said, that he got his boys in the water as soon as he could and got them on a board right after that. He would hold the boys on his surf board while he surfed to show them what it felt like. You have to have amazing balance to do that. But then again there are dogs who love surfing too and make a difference in people’s lives so it shouldn’t be that hard to learn, right?

Surfing is hard in the beginning just like everything else when you first start out but when you have the right support, and this goes for anything, anyone can become great at something. Steve’s dad taught him what he knew so his son had all the support he needed, if he fell right off, his dad picked him up and put him right back on the board. He made sure that fear never got the best of his sons, plus it also helps to have a home near a beach that is known for having great surfing conditions. All these factors matter when it comes to success, but is not a requirement as history has shown over and over again individuals overcoming adversity to rise to the top. The other contributing factor is to not fault your child for when they get tired or don’t pick up on something right away. I have seen this plenty of times when a parent gets mad at a child for not listening the first time and they just give up. The important thing is to not let anger, in any form, interfere with learning.

Want your kid to become a surfing pro? Then make sure you take them everyday to the beach to practice. Want your kid to be the best at math but you suck at it? Get them a tutor who has the patience to show them how easy it can be? Want to teach your kids to learn how to appreciate film and TV shows? Take them to film festivals and talk with others about what they just watched with similar minded individuals. Want your kid to learn to appreciate the fine art of recycling? Show them how their actions help the planet.

In the video of the dog who loves to surf, it is important to understand how she was trained so you have an idea of how she became a superstar fundraiser for people with disabilities. Her trainer was there everyday all the time making sure that she learned what she needed to because the intention was to turn her into a service dog for someone with a disability. They worked all the time but when her trainer saw that she had an interest in birds it jeopardized her training and had to be stopped.

How many times have parents given up on their child because things got difficult? No one said parenting was easy and those that say that probably don’t spend the “quality” time they should be, and no this does not mean taking them to the movies and eating out, it means, making sure they sit down and study and do their homework on a regular basis, making sure that they understand what is expected of them without getting mad or frustrated. The movies and eating out is the easy part, the homework and chores is where the parenting style is put to the test.

Ricochet, the SURFive dog, found an interest in something else and her trainer encouraged that new found interest, when most other trainers would have given up on her, meaning the world would have lost a special service dog. Ricochet is now a service dog for crippled surfers and other handicapped individuals that want to surf. Her training taught her how to surf with people to protect them while surfing. How many countless hours did that take? The same countless hours it takes to make sure your son or daughter does well in school or on personal projects. Exceptional means hard work with encouragement right behind it.

Where Exception Meets Everyday Life
There is no secret formula to success, so i will give it to you right now, just don’t be disappointed by what I have to say. Success comes with hard work and countless hours, months or even years. If you want to write a book then you have to sit down and write, no one else is going to do it for you. Need to lose weight? Then get your butt up and moving and out that door. Want to raise an exceptional kid, then you have to start making changes in your own life first. Your child needs to see you make the first move before you start asking them to make big changes in their life.

Cayden saw this first hand about what it means to not be able to eat a school lunch when he witnessed a child’s school lunch being taken away from him because he didn’t have any money in his account. This happens everyday to kids in school and it is not the kid’s fault either because school’s base that whole system off of how much their parents’ make, so it falls on the parent to make sure there is enough money in the kid’s account but that is beside the point. Schools’ should not take away a child’s lunch, instead they should just apply it to the account and let the child eat. Study after study (again with more studies being done and ignored) show that a balanced meal helps a child do better in school, so if the school itself is a direct factor in a child’s performance and they take away a child’s lunch then they are contributing to the very thing they want to prevent?

In order to prevent this from happening Cayden created a program that raised money to help pay past due accounts so kids could eat lunch. Cayden has seen first hand how important it is to help others because of the social stigma of not being able to afford lunch at school which can have a serious impact on a child’s psyche. It also encourages kids to label that kid as poor or a social outcast. By getting more people involved Cayden is learning what it takes to make change happen and that it all starts with one person each and every time.

So…you want your child to do something great in life? Here are my suggestions, if I haven’t provided enough already.

– Don’t restrict them in what they are interested in doing. Do they like action movies? Sit down and watch them together and talk (afterwards, NOT during the movie) about what they liked, didn’t like, even if they are 8 years or 11 years old or 4 years old. Star Wars is a movie for little boys and that is who the audience is geared towards, just look at this little boy’s reaction when he found out at the end who Luke’s father was.
– Attend more events in your city. It’s important to get your kids out of the house as much as possible to show them all the things happening. When they see others doing stuff it encourages them to open up more. Is your kid shy? Joining a circus arts institute program can help them with that or even an improv class for kids, while at the same time learning a new skill and getting exercise.
– Want your child to play more? Make it a point to visit different playgrounds. There are places now where there are playgrounds for adults too, because hey, everyone is young at heart. If your child is handicapped many cities now have playgrounds for handicapped kids, be sure to look one up since it is now part of the American’s with Disabilities Act as a right to access for play areas. If I had money I would build lots of these all over.
– If your child is struggling in their level of math pair them up with a student in a grade below them to teach younger kids, who are also struggling, how to do math. The mentor relationship will teach the older child how to improve their teaching style but will also refresh them on math tips they might have forgotten. They will begin to improve in their own math level after teaching it to younger students.

The kids I profiled here are just a few out of the many amazing kids out there doing amazing things. There are lots of other kids who are teens that I have talked about before in my previous post that you can learn about. There was a 14 year who created his own nuclear reactor, so when given the right support kids will surprise you.

If you want to get your child something great this year here are a few gift ideas

– Coupon Book made up of special moments for your child to use (i.e. a night together with mom, a night together with dad, special day with mom or day, a don’t get angry at me coupon, my favorite breakfast, trip to the ice cream store) which they can use anytime they want.

– A Season pass (or gift card, membership card) to the Zoo, city museum, Hackerspace, work out gym, gymnasium, etc. (In light of the night at the museum movies, the museum of natural history in New York City offer sleepovers with scavenger hunts and flash light adventures.)

– Flying Lessons which might get them interested in getting their pilot’s license

– $100 dollars with the intention that they find a cause worth donating to

If you need more ideas about how to get your child active and helping others read the book “How to be an Everyday Philanthropist” it will give you lots of great ideas.

So remember, if you want your child involved in something great you need to make the first move. Making them join a worthy cause when they know you are at home just sitting there watching TV won’t encourage them to get involved with the program it will just encourage them to watch the clock so they can get back home.

Kids in Profile

6 Year Old Surfing Prodigy

Jacob, the Triathlete

Jacob appears on GMA

Cayden, a Philanthropist

Cayden helps pay for school lunches

To Learn about more exceptional Kids check out Citizen Kid

* – I do need to point out that there are certain kids who are born just naturally gifted and end up in families where the parent’s could care less how well their child did in school. These kids have the resilience, talent, and natural gifts to understand everything they are taught, not to mention, the natural discipline to manage their life on their own. Many times these children are prodigies in their own right. I knew many kids growing up who came from bad homes but were straight A students, this shows they had the ability to push through all the negative but it also goes to show that behaviorism is not a solid base since children in these types of homes learn not to follow what their parents teach them. A trait that has saved a lot of these kids’. If you want to learn about kids overcoming adversity then you can learn how these kids work in the fields all day but also make sure they attend school as well and how this one school in New Jersey is helping them.

Two Boys, under Ten, raised a million dollars with self-published book

People in Gift-Giving Spirit Pay Off Total Layway Balances

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Every year around the end of November you start to see people doing nice things for others. Yes, there was that sudden altruist push over the summer about strangers giving away free money, but shouldn’t this be a thing that happens all the time? The season of giving tends to remind people more that life is great when you make another person’s life better.

There are many people I know who will probably never end up in the news because their random acts of kindness go unnoticed. There is one lady I know who went to McDonald’s one morning with her husband for their usual breakfast and saw that the lady in front of her couldn’t pay for what she had order. She thought she had enough at first but when the price came out it was more than she expected so my friend offered to pay for her breakfast. A simple gesture like that goes far. Then you hear about generosity spreading when people offer to pay for the next customer’s order at Starbucks leading to stories like this one, and this one, and another, and another one in the news.

So why do people do it? Without having to bring in all the science and studies about why, lets keep it simple here. People do it because they know it’s the right thing to do and it’s better to help someone else (in need). If you need studies and research papers to explain to why it is important to give and help others than you are probably someone who also needs concrete evidence why you shouldn’t smoke either. When you see the look on someone’s face after a random act of kindness it does wonders for this world. It makes their day and it makes yours and chances are they will spread that joy.

The Importance of Getting a Good Night’s Sleep
Many people stay up late at night because they have things on their minds. It wakes them up because their brains are processing so much about the situation that it keeps them from being able to sleep. Sometimes the thoughts are good, and most of the time they are bad. In this case one lady said that she would sleep better now knowing that the layaway balances at a Toys “R” US were cleared. When you think about it, that lady saved many a worrisome Christmas and turned it into a happy tear joyed occasion. The many people who came to hear that their layaway had been paid off were in tears that someone would actually do this. Many of the customers were called at home to be told about the good news. One lady said that she thought they were canceling her layaway because she missed a payment of $50 dollars.

For people with money it is hard to imagine that $50 dollars can make or break someone’s Christmas but it can. What that lady did has allowed all those individuals to be able to use the money saved and buy more for the holiday season. Christmas is all about helping others and giving back, and for anyone that thinks it is only about the presents and getting as much for themselves as possible then you were not raised correctly. If you don’t celebrate Christmas that doesn’t mean you have to be mean about it, you can still help others.

Ways to Help Others During Christmas

1. Offer to wrap someone’s presents for them.

2. Help someone cook a meal

3. Offer to deliver meals for home-bound individuals

4. Volunteer your time at a soup kitchen and bring your kids!

5. Offer to read to the sick and elderly at Nursing Homes, Hospitals, and Child Care Centers

6. Offer to read to the blind, both adults and children

7. Offer to put up someone’s Christmas lights and help decorate their house

8. When at a restaurant, offer to pay for someone’s meal anonymously

9. When checking out at a store, pay for the person’s items in front of or behind you

10. Pay offer $50 or $100 dollars worth of layaway at any store

11. Make a pie or meal for your neighbor & drop it off on their front porch or wait till their home

12. Pay for someone’s local bus fair behind you

13. When at the movies, pay for the next person’s admission ticket

14. Offer to pay for someone’s gas or leave money behind with the cashier for any pump

15. Leave an encouraging tip for a good waiter/waitress

16. You can donate blood and plasma

17. Buy a Pizza and deliver it to someone’s house (if your scared, then a neighbor you know)

18. Bake Cookies for a co-worker

19. Buy gift cards and hand them out to strangers

20. Offer a service for someone in need (fix a leaky pipe, mow the lawn, make a garden, etc)

If anyone has done anything for you this Christmas season then you need to learn the important lesson of paying it forward. If you want to see the impact of what it means to pay it forward, then watch the movie. Go and do the same thing to someone else. It’s human nature to want to make others happy so don’t stop yourself from doing it.

You can read more about the reactions in the community after people found out their layaway was paid for in the articles below. If you want to see what other things people are doing for others this holiday season just search, “layaway angels and “layaway Santa.” If you are still not sure about that you can donate money in person then look into the non-profit organization, Pay Away the Layaway, that helps pay off layaway accounts for people in need.

News Articles

Woman Visits Toys ‘R’ Us, Pays Off Everybody’s Layaway Accounts

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