Barbara Bonner started as an art historian and then went on to spend much of her professional career in nonprofit management, fundraising and philanthropy. Most relevant to this show, Barbara is the author of two books; Inspiring Generosity and Inspiring Courage. In this episode, she talks about both, using beautiful poetry, powerful quotes, and illustrative real-life stories. If you’ve ever wanted to cultivate these two qualities in your life, then this episode is for you. If there’s one thing Barbara does through her work, it’s inspiring action towards both of these qualities in the lives of everyday people.
In This Interview, Barbara Bonner and I Discuss…
- The Wolf Parable
- Her books, Inspiring Generosity and Inspiring Courage
- The power of putting ourselves in the way of inspiration
- How we’re different at the end of a book than at the beginning
- Reframing how we look at generosity
- How generosity flows from a sense of abundance
- How a sense of abundance flows from being generous
- That generosity and courage are action verbs
- The fact that you should feel a pinch when you act generously
- That saying the loving-kindness meditation can be generous
- What it means to lead a courageous life
- How no one who was courageous seems to claim courage
- The spontaneity of courage
- How authenticity seems to coincide with courage
- That you see a pattern of courage throughout people’s lives
- Post-traumatic growth
- How a strong childhood isn’t necessary in order to lead a full life
- The role of listening in generosity and courage
- How important listening is in all of life
- The correlation between generosity and courage
- Practicing generosity and courage and growing the ability to act on these qualities over time
- How to live a life of meaning you have to step forward
- “Do something every day that doesn’t compute” – Wendell Berry
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