Why you should "give something back" ethically, healthily and commercially.

If you're anything like me, you have a relatively busy life.  When you consider the amount of time you spend working, ensuring you have sufficient amounts of opportunity to spend time with the family, and importantly, enough time to recharge your batteries and it doesn't leave much space in the day for anything else.

However, I'm a firm believer in ensuring that, regardless of how busy you are, you should find time to support a charity, community group or get involved in supporting the community in some way.  Personally I try to help out my Daughters school by acting on the Governing Body, and also do as much as I can to support my Charity of choice - Richard House Children's hospice.

Firstly, and probably like you, I've been relatively lucky in life, especially when it comes to having two healthy and happy children, and therefore I absolutely believe that we all should support those who haven't had the same breaks in life.  The most important job in my life is as a parent, and therefore I choose to support a charity which supports unwell children and their families, due to the fact that it's so close to home.  When you are looking at who to support as a charity, select one which is important to you....and when it's cold and raining outside and you're looking to train for your next run, it might be just a little bit easier!

Now I do this for a number of reasons.  Secondly, it's to try to keep relatively fit.  I'm running for Richard House in the Greenwich Tough 15k in a few weeks, but unfortunately I'm not a natural runner (due to the combination of currently carrying a few extra pounds and having the coordination and balance of a three legged dog). However one thing I am is goal focussed and having an objective to achieve means that I'm more focussed to achieve the required level of fitness needed to get round the circuit.

Thirdly, it's a great chance to meet and connect with like minded people.  I'm doing the upcoming run with three other business people, Clive Myers, Ted Wigzell and Jeroen Geut.  Like many organisations (and more than likely yours) our business is a people business.  Our relationships with both clients and introducer's is built on a foundation of trust.  Working together on a common goal which is designed not to benefit us commercially, but help families who need our support actually builds those relationships.  Whilst this is not the key factor for supporting your favourite charity building these relationships can help you and your business too.  So, why don't you dust off those trainers, contact your local charity of choice, and help.