Years ago, I got my license to be a psychologist. I had a rough childhood and I wanted to help others like me. But when I started my practice, I very quickly realized two problems:
#2 - Most of the people who really needed my help couldn't afford it.
50% of Americans who want to see a therapist don't have access to one. In non-Western countries that number creeps up to 80%. I wanted to help more people, but couldn't lower my rates because I had a growing family.
I needed a creative solution. I looked at all my clients and there were a few people that were in severe distress and needed expert help, but the majority of people were dealing with everyday problems and were not in too much pain.
So I thought – what is therapy really? At its very core, it's listening. Listening is a basic human skill.
Surely, we could train regular people, and non-professionals to help. That was a radical idea back in 2013, but I wanted to try it, so I created a website called 7Cups and started recruiting volunteer “listeners” to respond to online messages from anonymous strangers. I was the first listener, my wife was the second. People wanted to talk about their everyday problems – parenting struggles, relationship struggles, things not going right. Most conversations were short, but still – people were waiting 20+ minutes to talk to us. My friend - and a fellow listener - suggested putting a banner on the website: “The best way to help yourself is to help someone else. Become a listener.”
His idea worked, users became listeners, our wait times went down, and the community of listeners grew from a couple of dozen big-hearted people to now over 620,000 volunteers who provide free emotional support across 189 countries in 140 languages.
But here's where things get interesting – I'd always assumed that some listeners would charge for their services. I built that into the original platform – they could set their own rates, connect a bank account, and get paid.
But that didn't happen.
This strange ecosystem had emerged – people seeking help would also serve as listeners. They didn't want to charge for a service because they also benefited from it being free. Plus, many of our volunteer listeners were just altruistic people. They wanted to give to others because it was fulfilling and gave them a sense of purpose, new skills, and community.
And they were very clear: this service should be free.
I was surprised – because we assume that solving any problem in life means we have to pay money for it. Right?
But when I told my anthropologist friend Anderson about it, he said, “Oh yeah, that's a gift economy.” A what? “A gift economy.”
I looked it up.
A gift economy solves problems & generates resources WITHOUT the exchange of money.
Solving the world's biggest challenges isn't always profitable. Poverty. Homelessness. Climate change. Our disconnected communities. Our epidemic of loneliness…
What if we started looking at our problems not through the lens of lack of money, but giving?
Ancient pre-money cultures, like the people of the Kula Island ring of Papua New Guinea, ran on a gift economy. I'd give something to you - like this bracelet - you'd hold it for a while, give it to someone else, and then they'd pass it along. Many of the owners' names would be carved into the shells. The gift became more valuable as it passed through the community. These gifts strengthened their connections to one another and their social fabric.
Perhaps that sounds unrealistic, or nostalgic – but gift economies aren't just a thing of the past. When you really look, you'll see that gift economies are everywhere, hiding in plain sight.
Wikipedia is written, edited, and updated by hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Wikipedia sets the guidelines and offers a web platform. The volunteers give their time & expertise. We all benefit from reading it.
In addition to their community-led meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous encourages their members to sponsor others and to be a sponsees. A Sponsor helps their Sponsee stay sober through regular check-ins, emotional support, and knowledge of the 12 steps. And in giving back, Sponsors reinforce their own commitment to staying sober.
One of the coolest apps you've probably never heard of – Be My Eyes – connects blind & low-vision people with sighted volunteers. Through a live video call, sighted volunteers help find lost or missing items, shop for groceries, or read maps to navigate public transportation. There's obviously no shortage of sighted people in this world. Rather – it's a true surplus.
Gift economies like Wikipedia, AA, and Be My Eyes work because of a SURPLUS of talent, labor, and goods.
We humans aren't used to thinking about surpluses or abundance.
But there are hidden surpluses of goods & talent all around us. For me, gardening is a chore. But there are lots of people who would garden for free. Community gardens are a gift economy. A surplus of gardeners GET a plot of land to use, they GIVE their labor, and the community GETS free food. That's how nature works too, by the way, the original, biggest, and best part of the gift economy. The air we breathe, rain, and sunshine are all free.
7 Cups relies on a surplus of caring, compassionate humans. The listeners GIVE their time & attention and they GET free training and the satisfaction of helping someone. Users GET free emotional support and GIVE participation on research and anonymous data. Because we have so many people on 7 Cups, we've partnered with major research universities in the U.S. Those academics & scientists GET access to participants and anonymous data and in turn, GIVE back research that advances mental health.
Money never changes hands, everyone benefits, and importantly – there's no hierarchy in a gift economy. You give & receive gifts indirectly, without keeping track of who owes what.
If you give blood to a blood bank, it's not like you say “You give me blood now and I'll give you my blood later.” We humans have a surplus of blood. We give blood with no expectation in return. My daughter was born premature and needed a blood transfusion and I'm very thankful for that person that helped save her. This same process is true for organ donation.
And I bring up those two examples to prove a point: a gift economy isn't just a cute, well-intentioned, do-good version of a SUPERIOR market economy.
Gift economies can be innovative, world-shifting, life-changing, life-saving systems.
So think about the biggest problems in your life right now. I'll give you a second to actually think [pause]. Forget about spending any money to fix it. Put your wallet away – and instead, take a second look around your community. Because if YOU need help, I bet others in your community do too.
Is there a system you can tap into? And if not, is there a system you can create? You drive my kids on Monday, I'll drive your kids on Tuesday. You make dinner, I'll host the playdate. Most parents are already part of a childcare gift economy.
But you could also imagine a city-wide gift economy for basic things - like a furniture exchange or basic car maintenance. There are a LOT of retired men out there who would love to help. We could create a free exchange of oil changes, tire rotation, and car washes. You pay for your supplies but the labor is free. Small gifts like these strengthen our communities & compound over time.
But – I also challenge you to think bigger than this. Because gift economies can also free up the highly-trained, specialized experts of market economies to do better for everyone. The only reason we have the internet – THE INTERNET – is thanks to open-source or freely given code created by a surplus of computer geniuses. The Internet works because of the open-source gift economy. So let's think big.
70% of healthcare costs are tied to behavior change - heart disease, many cancers, substance use, and many mental health issues. You don't need a medical degree to help someone stop overeating, stop smoking, or start exercising. People just need social support. If we had a gift economy for fitness & health, we might see fewer patients in ambulances & emergency rooms for preventable illnesses. Doctors, instead, could focus their energy & expertise on the hardest cases.
Can you imagine a gift economy for affordable housing? Or transitional housing to get people off the streets & into stable living situations. How many homes & apartments are unoccupied right now? How much commercial real estate is up for lease? The housing market wants you to focus on scarcity.
Look for the surplus instead.
That's the lesson here - the world is chock full of talented people and every single one of us has something to give.
By tapping into each other's strengths and living with a spirit of generosity, we'll create a better world – together – for everyone.
Thank you.
