The Power of Half: One Family’s Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back

Where to buy The Power of Half: One Family tree’s Choice to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back books online?

• ISBN13: 9780547248066
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description

This glaring disparity led the Salwen family tree of four, caught up like so many additional Americans in this age of consumption and waste, to follow Hannah’s urge to do something, to finally just do something. And so they embarked on an incredible journey together from which there would be no turning back. They chose to sell their Atlanta mansion, downsize to a house half its size, and give half of their profits to a worthy charity. At first it was an eccentric scheme. “What, are you crazy? No way!” Then it was a challenge. “We are TOTALLY doing this.” Each week they met over dinner to chat about their plot. It would transport them across the globe and well out of their comfort zone. Along the way they would inspire so many others wrestling with the same questions: Do I give enough? How much is enough? How can I make an impact in the world? In the end the Salwens’ journey would bring them closer as a family tree, as they learned, together, that half could be so much more.

Warm, amusing, deeply moving and wholly uplifting, The Power of Half is the tale of how one family tree slammed the door on the status quo and threw away the key.

Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Leader Kevin Salwen

Dear Amazon Readers,

What does “living well” mean? By traditional standards, our family tree was there–nice cars, expensive vacations, dream house, fancy stuff in it. It took a fourteen-year-ancient to make us take a second look.

That teenager, as you probably know from glancing at the book description above, is Hannah (now seventeen). As she and I waited at a stoplight just a few blocks from our home, Hannah’s head swiveled between a homeless man and a pricey new car. As she wrote in her journal later: “Driving past the homeless man that one time changed my life. I felt sad, like I wanted to help him, but mad, really mad. At myself mainly. Thinking there was so much I could do for this man and for a lot of the poor people in this world considering I had so much.”

Now, Hannah is not one to keep emotions to herself. She brought that rage back to our family tree’s dinner table, challenging us to “be a family tree that makes a difference in the world, even if it’s a tiny difference.”

My wife, Joan, and I defended ourselves: We volunteer for Habitat and work at the food bank.

Hannah stared, unimpressed.

Joan and I described the checks we wrote to charities each December.

Hannah rolled her eyes.

Finally, Joan chose to challenge back: “What do you want to do, sell our house? Go into one half the size? Give up your room?”

That opening series of questions launched our family tree on an audacious project that we chronicle in The Power of Half. How we chose to sell our house. How we chose to invest the proceeds. Our travels to the places where we chose to work. Along the way, we tried to figure out how much was the right amount to give to charity, both in time and money (the average American gives 2.1 percent of income). We learned about extreme giving (50 percent, anyone?) by average people and about new programs popping up to teach kids about sharing and spending.

But if that were the whole tale, I doubt we would have written this book. Joan and I started to realize that our “Half” project was transforming our family tree–heightening our trust in one another, empowering our kids, building a deeper tie. Because we, as the parents, shared influence and listened in a new way to our kids, our project to make the world a small better was building the chemistry between us a lot better. In additional words, we had traded some stuff for togetherness–and I bet a lot of folks would take that deal.

So Hannah and I are hoping that our book can inspire you to make your own “Half” project. We don’t expect you to sell your house, of course (that’s nuts!), just to look at your life to determine what you have more than enough of. It could be time; it could be personal effects. Depending on what issue you care about, you can brainstorm creatively what you can live with half of. (One example: If fighting drug addiction is your passion, you could give up half of the cups of caffeine-laced coffee and cola you drink.) By following the road map in the book, you can erect your own project, and in turn make deeper bonds among your family tree, community, any group you choose. Oh, and of course make the world a small better at the same time.

That’s our definition of living well now.

Kevin Salwen

(Photo © Allison Shirrefs)

A Q&A with Kevin and Hannah Salwen, Authors of The Power of Half

Q: What made you choose to write a book about your family tree’s experiences? And what is meant by “the power of half”?

Hannah Salwen: After we chose to sell our home and give half the profits to a charity, we started getting questions from friends and others about how they could do something like our family tree did. They didn’t want to sell their houses (no one is that crazy!), but they saw how our family tree was taking action and had become connected. So we realized that we could help people know that this is an incredible way to improve relationships within families while building the world a small bit better.

Kevin Salwen: As to “why half”–well, the concept of “half” provides a measurable way to keep track. When we reflect about charity, so many of us say, “I ought to do more.” But “more” is so mushy that we don’t end up doing anything significant. The size of the project doesn’t matter; it can be as simple as watching half the number of hours of TV each week and using the freed-up time to make a difference in others’ lives (and of course your own).

Q: In these trying economic times, how can we expect people to even reflect about giving more?

KS: These are hard times indeed. But The Power of Half is a book of hope and optimism. The American Dream has permanently been about parents wanting their children to have a better life than they did, but it usually has been measured by social standing and assets. Joan and I wanted a better life for our children too, but our American Dream all ears more on their inner selves than on their assets.

The Power of Half tells the tale of a family tree that chose it can make a difference in building the world better–even, to use Hannah’s words, if it’s a tiny difference. We like the quote by Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop: “If you reflect you’re too tiny to make a difference, you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito.” The “secret sauce” for our project is that we did it together and over a sustained period of time, unlike many volunteer or giving actions, in which individuals head in different directions or work together sporadically. That unity brought our family tree a heightened awareness of one another’s perspectives and wound up us not only to want to do more work in the world but also to know one another better.

At this time when people need to cut back on their spending, the time invested in family tree becomes even more critical. The Power of Half shows how effective together builds a stronger family tree. Right happiness comes from community, and family tree is the most core community we have.

HS: One additional thing. Doing a power-of-half project doesn’t require a ton of money. We chose to sell our house because it was a sacrifice we felt we could live with. But the power of half works just as well with lower-cost or no-cost “halves.” We permanently clarify to people that they can choose the clothes in their closet, the time spent playing video games, or the fee of meals eaten out. Readers can choose their own “half”–it’s all about the process.

Q: Why did you choose to support Africa as a replacement for of a project closer to home?

HS: We spent a year as a family tree deciding exactly how and where to use our money. It was a process, by the way, in which we kids had exactly the same say as the adults–after all, we were giving up our house too. It was appealing because my brother, Joseph, wasn’t exactly excited about this thought from the beginning. He became our family tree skeptic, and we knew that once we proved something to Joe, we really had it right.

KS: While we had been–and remain–reasonably active in Atlanta (we volunteer regularly at the food bank and Central Night Shelter, and I have been on the Atlanta Habitat board for six years), after a series of family tree votes we chose to do this project in Africa because
• we view the world as a single community, a place where the luck of where you’re born shouldn’t be the largest determining factor in whether you receive help
• there is no safety net in rural Africa–no Head Start, no food stamps–to fill critical gaps
• we wanted our project to completely solve a problem with a group of people, and since our money goes further in Africa, we learned that we could help entire villages erect their futures
• we wanted something exotic, something that would take us out of our comfort zone. It was so helpful for our kids (and for us as parents too) to be “the additional” for a small while, to admit what it feels like to be a name born lacking the privileges we delight in.

Q: Any additional reasons The Power of Half is particularly significant now?

KS: These times are extraordinary for so many reasons, particularly the competing moods of dread, change, hope, stress. Parents are feeling persons emotions even more fervently (and it’s even more acute with divorced or single parents). With our senses heightened, so many of us are rethinking our lives. The Power of Half offers readers inspiration and new tools to bring their lives a in excellent health focus, all wrapped up in an entertaining family tree tale.

(Photo © Allison Shirrefs)

Photographs from the Authors of The Power of Half
(Click on images to enlarge)

The Salwen family tree in front of their ancient house	Moving day at the Salwen house	Hannah Salwen cuts the ribbon for the Hunger Project	Where “the power of half” brought the Salwen family tree

Buy Cheap The Power of Half: One Family tree’s Choice to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back Online

Related posts:

1. Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start
2. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
3. Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself
4. Stop Calling Him Honey and Start Having Sex: How Changing Your Everyday Habits Will Make You Hot for Each Other All Over Again
5. Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder