The $5 Project

If you had an extra $5, what could you do with it?

….

Not much huh?

I probably spend that much on the gas used to get me to work but with nothing left over to buy coffee to keep me awake. Five dollars doesn’t seem to go very far at all anymore.

photo by Sarah Gilbert

A Risky Investment

I’m always looking for a guaranteed investment. The kind that always pays off in the end.

As a math nerd, I do the numbers. The numbers and I take a little journey. What if I had $10,000 to invest into that one stock nobody has discovered yet? And then what if it went up 100x in value over the next year? And then what if I sold the stock?

It’s fun to think about isn’t it? I bet I know what you will be doing the rest of the day.

Of course, those are big if’s. Anything but guaranteed. There is always the threat of the other potential story.

What if I had $10,000 to invest, and I lost it all?

Pieces of a Rainbow

Last week I attended the Love Does Stuff conference hosted by Bob Goff. The building was decorated with floating balloons. A sea of orange and blue and red and yellow.

Each balloon seemed to possess a little bit of extra bounce. It felt as if each one was smiling at me. Each one a piece of a rainbow willing to endure separation to join us for 2 days.

I wondered if the balloons were filled with whimsy instead of helium. I wondered if Bob blew them up himself.

After parading through the disarticulated rainbow, I was given a bag of goodies, similar to what is received at most conferences. Inside were advertisements by sponsors. A coffee mug. Fresh balloons waiting to be filled, as if Bob was hoping we were full of whimsy too. And a card.

I opened mine and was surprised. Inside was a 5 dollar bill and a note.

How far does $5 go these days?

Maybe you can’t buy a ton, but you can certainly change someone’s day! What if you bough that stranger behind you in line at Starbucks a coffee? What if you bough some stamps and and handed them out at the post office.

$5 goes a lot farther than we could imagine. Especially if the person you inspire pays it forward. So what are YOU going to do with your $5?

How much fun is that?

A Worthy Investment

Bob was teaching it that it doesn’t really take much from us to make someone else’s day a little better. These little things are worthy investments.

• Smile.
• Bring donuts to work.
• Engage in a conversation with a stranger.
• Call an old friend.
• Promote a friend’s website or business.
• Send someone a card when it isn’t their birthday.
• Do $5 worth of something for a random stranger. Just because.

The $5 Project

What can you do with $5? Not much. But it could be one of the best investments of your life.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am asking you to join me in a project. Would you be willing to do something for someone else today?

I know what you’re thinking right now. How is Jeremy going to get $5 through the internet and into my hand so that he can give me the opportunity to experience making someone’s day brighter.

I’m not.

But I am generous enough to let you use $5 of your own. Consider it a sacrifice on your part. The beauty of sacrifice is that the more it cost you, the more benefit you receive.

There is no pressure. I won’t be disappointed if decline. After all, you wouldn’t be doing it for me. You would be doing it so that you can catch a taste of generosity and whimsy.

I hope you discover that although $5 won’t buy you much, if you are generous with it, generous with your life, you could get way more out of it than the face value. You can turn $5 into a guaranteed investment.

If you do choose to join me in this experiment, encourage the rest of us by telling us what you did with your $5 in the comments.

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