Reinforcements

Chapter 6

Don’t Make It Weird

My friend Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg, coauthor of Innovation as Usual, has helped me more times than I can count. I’ve also seen him cheerfully say no to enough requests to know that like me, his generosity is not without limits. He recently told me about a time he’d helped someone, and the story stood out to me both for how well it illustrates the research findings on giving’s benefits, and for his refreshing (though quite typical for Thomas) degree of candor on the subject:

I’m flying back from a speaking gig in Singapore, and I meet in the airport a friend of my mother’s who’s been out visiting her son, who happens to live in Singapore. As I board the plane, I’m called first because I’m in business class, and ...