We have just over one week before we leave to go to the build project!

Of the scores of international trips I’ve had, I have to say I’m probably more excited about this one than other.

Thinking about this trip and what I’m about to contribute to has given me an entirely different perspective about my purpose as a human. I’ve contributed many times throughout my life at different levels. It first began through payroll deductions to a particular charity more years ago than I care to admit. Over time I wanted to find ways to contribute where there was an increased percentage of my financial contribution making it through the system to help those in need and I began looking for different charities to contribute to. In that search I eventually discovered Habitat for Humanity and was immediately attracted to the model of contribution they have.

As I’ve learned from one of my mentors, Tony Robbins, every human has six core needs. The need for certainty, the need for variety, the need to be significant, and the need for love and connection are the four primary needs that each of us has. Each of us has our own way of fulfilling these needs be it a positive way, or a destructive way, but each of us will find a way to meet these needs. Above those needs are two even greater and more powerful needs; the need to grow and the need to contribute.

One of the greatest emotions a person can experience is sense of accomplishment and pride that comes through achieving a goal. A sense of accomplishment serves one of the most important and higher human needs we have—the need to grow. For if we are not growing, we are dying. This need for growth is something that every person in the planet can resonate with, whether you look back at your greatest achievement in life, or one of your most basic accomplishments as a child. The joy, excitement, and sure pride that comes from growth can be overwhelming. Simply watch a small child when they realize they have made their first step, successfully ridden a bicycle for the first time, scored their first goal in a soccer game, or received an A on a test in a class they are challenged by. For an adult it may be getting their first job, earning a degree, buying their first car, or getting married to the person they were meant to be with for the rest of their life. These accomplishments give us a sense of belonging or importance, a sense of confidence that allows us to pursue bigger goals, and an incredible satisfaction. They deepen our fulfillment of our need for certainty and significance and are often met with adulation that deepens our fulfillment of our more basic need for love and connection or significance. This compounding effect of enriching our primary needs can make growth addictive for many and the emotions often provide us an energy that spurs us on to greater things and allows us to pursue our next greater human need, the need to contribute. Our sense of contribution gives us a standing in the world. It gives us a different kind of joy to know that we have helped someone else, or helped a cause. It connects us deeper with the people we serve and enriches our sense of self honor and self love. It provides us a sense of purpose that is greater than ourselves.
What excites me so much about Habitat for Humanity is the model it presents. Habitat reaches out to people who are in need as many organizations do. But more than that, Habitat connects those who are taking a stand in their own growth with those who want to contribute. The synergy of this model is explosive.

The recipients of Habitat homes must contribute significantly to their home. They must qualify under strict financial guidelines to ensure they are able to purchase the home and care for the home, and they must contribute significant time and labor to the building process of their own home and/or other Habitat homes. These are people who are pursuing the same dream that every human pursues at some point in their life; the dream of having a safe shelter for themselves and their loved ones. A place where they are protected from the elements, a place where they can be warm, a place they can prepare and share food, a place where they can sleep in dignity. Many of these people are willing and able to pursue this dream on their own but may be victims of circumstance that push this opportunity beyond reach. They are often people who have children to care for with serious ailments that have seriously damaged their economic viability, or they may be are citizens of an area that is economically depressed without sufficiently profitable jobs to afford the initial costs for basic housing. In spite of these challenges, these are people who continue to push themselves and strive for a home.

Habitat connects these people who are striving for their own growth with those who have found that path and are willing to help others do the same. In the process the recipients finally have more than hope, they have a realization of their dream. But more significantly these recipients are provided with a sense of dignity and growth that fuels them to reach higher in life as productive citizens of the world. In the process Habitat also provides a platform for those actively seeking a way to contribute to a cause greater than themselves, be it financially or through time and effort. At a human experience level, this synergy enriches and unites people at opposite ends of circumstance while fulfilling their highest human needs.

Beyond the amazing way this model touches people with respect to their most important human needs, the outcome of Habitat projects enrich the community involved in the build project. Habitat frequently reclaims land that has been ravaged as dumping grounds, or replaces squalor with livable homes. The recipients more often than not expand on their sense of growth by providing care to the homes and the community they worked so hard to help build. The community becomes an extended beneficiary of the outcome and receives a heightened sense of hopefulness for a future.

In the early phases of my contribution to Habitat I participated through a financial donation. Intellectually I understood that Habitat was helping people build homes and I felt good about helping out. But reflecting on this I think this feeling of goodness was not so much a genuine feeling of contribution but a sense of reducing a level of guilt for having such tremendous opportunity and reward in my life. Over time I, perhaps out of a sense of guilt, I told myself I wanted to expand this contribution a bit further through my own participation but at the same time felt hesitant. I wasn’t sure how to approach participating in a build, I didn’t think I had the skills to participate, I didn’t think I had the time to participate in a meaningful way, I didn’t have the tools I thought I would need to help, and the scarcity and fear list went on. I just didn’t have a deeper sense of what it would mean to participate directly. I just operated at a superficial, intellectual level where I allowed my analytical, judgmental and fearful mind rule my actions. So rather than step up and participate, I let this desire to participate fester and languish for several years while I contributed money to the cause as a way to be a bit more guilt free.

It was only in the past few years that my eyes and heart were opened when I participated in my first direct contribution effort while on a trip to Russia. As part of a trip arranged through the Anthony Robbins Platinum Partnership, our group visited an orphanage in St. Petersburg. It wasn’t so much an orphanage as it was a shelter for children who had been taken from families and homes that were considered abusive and unhealthy. When we arrived I was reduced nearly to tears when I saw what these children faced with for living conditions. The courageous gentleman who operated the center is a hero with little resource. Virtually blind, this compassionate man procured a place to help these kids while depending upon the economic support of a society who has, for about a century, been faced with repression and scarcity that contributed to a society with an undeveloped culture of contribution. In spite of becoming a more capitalistic society with a great influx of wealth due to oil reserves, Russia simply has not yet developed a strong sense of contribution since Perestroika was introduced in 1987 by Mikhael Gorbachev.

We knew when we embarked on our project that the Anthony Robbins Foundation had purchased some furniture we would be assembling for the orphanage, while most of the children were away on an outing. I still remember how my heart sunk when I was led to a room with others and was told “This is the room you will be responsible for.” We were standing in a small barren room not more than 15’ x 10’ with two doors. The radiant heater beneath the window was thick with dirt and dust stuck to layers and layers of aged, pealing pale yellow paint. You could feel the cold wind from the single pain windows as it fell to the floor, swirling above the cracked, torn, mildewed vinyl floor. You could quickly understand the irregular level of the floor when outside you could see the massive settling of the old church building, including many decades old broken concrete steps. The stench of urine and mold was ripe and strong.

“This room is the infirmary.”

We were told how this is the room that new children are quarantined within upon admission to the orphanage. The quarantining is important to ensure the kids who come in do not spread illness or lice to the other children until they can be confirmed to be healthy enough to join the other children. The level of dilapidation and volunteerism made it difficult for the center to be maintained at a level anywhere close to a standard of health within the US. And due to unpredictable nature of new admissions and volunteer healthcare providers, children may live in this room for several weeks sleeping on the floor. I shuddered to think what kind of conditions the kids must have lived in to be taken away and placed in this healthier and safer facility.

Somewhere around 40 of us spent that day assembling furniture and cleaning. When we completed our task we had made good progress but I couldn’t seem to shake my feelings of sadness as there was nothing we do about the cracked plaster ceilings that exposed dark voids through torn chicken wire—no doubt meant to hold back rodents. As a team we resolved to go out and purchase sheets and blankets so the children could cover up in the new beds we had assembled (a project completed the next day). But in spite of my personal horror and grief, I was quickly overwhelmed with the sense of connection, love and appreciation when I looked into the eyes of the children who were left behind for the day. While they didn’t speak a word of English, the need for words did not matter. You could see their appreciation for what we were doing, and their laughter was like music when we joked around with gestures, winks and smiles. While our achievement for the day was far below what any of us wanted to give to these children, I connected with the understanding that no matter how high my standard for living, I was able to help provide an improved quality of life and a better home for a handful of hopeful kids who’s worlds had been no more than squalor and abuse.

In that moment my excuses for not contributing with time began melting away. I knew this was something I had to do. More than that, I knew I had to be some sort of agent for helping others step out of their comfort zone and begin contributing too.

When we returned from our trip, Denise (my wife) and I began making time-based contribution a bigger part of our lives. Denise began a tradition of an annual basket brigade where we assemble and deliver baskets of food to people during the Christmas holidays, and an annual contribution of baskets to the Hope House where they have 25 apartments for low income women who are ready to leave the streets. We also began actively encouraging our employees to contribute by participating in Habitat build projects or other charities of their choice through an incentive program, resulting in a specific day for our business to collaborate as a team on building a home.

I tell you this not to receive accolades, or to position myself better than others. This testimony is to identify that I have been like the nearly 2/3rds of Americans who do not contribute but somehow made a transition to join the 1/3rd who volunteer their time to help others. It is to identify that I am no different than anyone else. I have human needs, I have certain resources, but mostly I somehow connected in a way that prompted action such that I carved out some time. It is to point out that I, like others, just needed clarity on why this was important to do and found that clarity once I did it for the first time. It is to identify that if we can all find a way to get through the chicken and egg problem, we could live in a world of great abundance and caring.

This realization has caused me to think more about contribution and what makes contribution happen. It makes me wonder more about how the beneficiaries are touched and what it means to their lives. It makes me wonder about the people who contribute and what caused them to begin contribution and why they chose the method of contribution they did. And it makes me wonder about the people who currently are not contributing and what barriers exist for them that prevent them from experiencing the kind of shift I experienced.

With this in mind I have decided that not only will I take this opportunity to contribute by building homes for the hopeful people of Chiang Mai Thailand, I will take this opportunity to understand what it means to the hopeful people who are contributing their time to help build these homes and to understand the transformations they have undergone as they went from non-contributors to contributors. Through this trip I hope to share some of their experiences in hopes to reach a few people who might, like I was, be on the fence in scarcity and fear—perhaps helping to expand the availability of help for those who are not looking for a hand-out, but are looking for a hand up.

I hope you will continue to follow my blog along as I start this journey. And I hope you will not just follow along but help me in that investigation through your comments and questions. While my blog site is a bit limited at the moment and lacks a mechanism for your participation, I hope you will contribute to my research by sending me questions you would like to have answered. I will compile these as a basis of interview questions I’ll use while I’m there working with contributors from across the globe, Habitat recipients, and Habitat for Humanity staff.

Please contribute now by click here to send me your questions