Bonus Podcast Release: Charlie Bresler

The latest episode of "Lives Well Lived," the podcast I co-host with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, is now available.

In this episode, we speak with Charlie Bresler, co-founder with me of The Life You Can Save. Charlie began his career in very different environments—academia, corporate retail—and only relatively late in life transitioned to the non-profit sector, raising more than $100 million to help people living in extreme poverty.

On giving and feeling good:

Charlie: “I give because it makes me feel good. I even went so far one time to say to Peter, sometimes I feel like the life I'm saving is my own life.”

On the value of relationships:

Charlie: “The biggest impact I've had clearly is once we started The Life You Can Save and the work that I've done since then. And I think that makes my life much better in terms of it being well lived. Without that, I think my life would have been comfortable and nice and I wouldn't have felt like a failure, but it's only the last 11 or 12 years that allows me to look in the mirror as a 75-year-old and say to yourself, not that bad at all.”

On the motivation behind giving:

Charlie: “Doing good, effectively. Not just, like, think you're doing good, because, oh, you know, I gave some money away, but actually doing it in a thoughtful way, where you're giving to really well vetted non-profits, so you should feel even better than just handing it out kind of willy nilly.”

On the struggle to balance family and global causes:

Charlie: “One of the things I struggle with … is how to divide up what I want to do for my family and my grandchildren versus what I want to do for children that I haven't met…I have my children who are living a nice life and my grandchildren, and I really struggle with how to focus my energy on them versus others who are clearly materially, and in many other ways, more needy.

Peter, when you gave away the million dollars that you won, you did that easily. If I won a million dollars for being a great tennis player in the mid 70s, I don't think I could so easily figure out how to divide the money between the people in my inner circle, not just my family but friends and these other people, and I think you do, you do it in a way that I feel more comfortable with, but I do it in a somewhat different way.

And one of those things, when you visited my son's farm, he's been working like crazy for 13 years to make something of that farm. But he wouldn't have that farm if Diana and I hadn't helped him. And so, and he would probably agree, I probably shouldn't have helped him buy the farm. Not because he doesn't want to do it, because it wasn't the most ethical thing to do. I struggle with that. I do feel like the feeling good and doing good isn't always easy to titrate.”

Peter: “Well, firstly, let's mention your, your son is growing food organically, right? So there is an ethical value in preserving the environment and producing healthy food. I think there is some ethical value in that. But secondly, the larger question you raised, of course, is this division of things for our children and grandchildren.

So I think perhaps this is a bit less of a dilemma for me because I don't think that leaving your children and grandchildren a lot of money is necessarily a good thing for them. I think you want to encourage them to be independent to a certain extent. And I'm not saying that I haven't helped my children… So yes, I faced the same situation, but I do think that enough is enough and that perhaps we think too much about accumulating wealth for our descendants, more than they need it.

I'd also say that comparing winning a million dollars as a tennis pro when you're in your late twenties or thirties and winning a prize for your work for philosophy when you're in your seventies is a different matter. You know, then that you're going to be comfortable that you have enough. You don't have to really save for the future, certainly not for your own future.”

On the significance of giving:

Charlie: “if you're wealthy, think about giving a lot of money and giving generously, and if you're not wealthy, think about starting on a path of giving that will contribute to your life being well lived. I feel so lucky that I was able to come to this at this stage of my life, and it would not have been the same without it.”