‘Tis the season of gift giving. With two weeks until Christmas and with Hanukkah just around the corner, you might be reading this article and thinking, “whoa, I still have a few gifts to buy for my loved ones!” Never fear! Kurt, Mike and I are here to help with 9 holiday gift ideas from The Potentiality.
The holidays are a great time for connecting with loved ones, clients and professional role models – all of whom can be reminded of your affection for them with a simple gift. As you search for things that will help your friends, family and mentors reach their potential (or celebrate them for reaching it!) consider these gift ideas that are sure to get people thinking, collaborating, innovating, creating, and leading.
John’s Three Gift Ideas
- Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. Everyone has creative potential. And this engaging and practical book will teach you ways to bring creativity into your life. I love the recommended activities (energizers, icebreakers, insights-gathering-tactics) at the end of the book – I’ve tried each of them with great success.
- The Passion Planner. I love this thing. It is the “all-in-one weekly appointment calendar, journal, goal setting guide, to-do list, and gratitude log integrated in one planner.” And it was designed by Angelina Trinidad who just sounds like a delightful human being. Support her and organize your passion, too!
- A Membership in The Sharing Economy. There is too much stuff in the world and we don’t make use of it. For example, on average a power tool is used only four times in its lifetime. Embrace a more human-centered way of consuming, save money by borrowing, and meet awesome new people through the Vancouver Tool Library or another member of the sharing economy (not everyone needs a table saw, after all).
Kurt’s Three Gift Ideas
- Give something you’ve created yourself. This could be a nifty photoshopped card, a cool poem, a short story about you and the gift receiver or a colourful piece of artwork. If you wanna blast back to the 90s you could create a mix-tape (aka CD) of music you think they’ll love.
- A Home Cooked Meal. Gifts are great, but what people really love is companionship and your company. Having someone over for dinner (you cooked specially for them) is a great way to give without purchasing stuff. Best of all you both get to enjoy the spoils of the gift.
- Holiday Cards. These seem to have gone out of style with the invention of email, but you’re not going to find a more helpful networking and engagement tool than holiday cards. We send out dozens and dozens of them each year. They allow us to reconnect with professional acquaintances and close friends. Our preference is to use moo.com for our cards as it’s easy to create highly personalized designs.
Michael’s Three Gift Ideas
- Give someone a guided tour of one of your passions. There is, at least, one thing you really care about that isn’t your job. Dive deep and build a tour of something you care about for someone you care about. Think of this like a mixtape (you remember those right?) that’s also mixed-media. Is CanLit your thing? Food? Art? Take someone out or work up a gift that helps someone get to know you and your passion on a deeper level. You might even learn something great about yourself in the process.
- A membership in a great Cooperative. I suggest MEC, but a local co-op farm would work too and they’d have fresh produce all growing season. The cooperative model brings out the best in people, and MEC brings those people outdoors and closer to nature, which also brings out the best in us.
- A Ukulele or Juggling balls. Both are seen as silly but are a great challenge and very rewarding. They scale well, meaning you can plunk out a Christmas Carol or shred classical on the uke, and progress from tossing one ball in the air and catching it to passing pins and knives with friends. They’re not often seen as serious pursuits, but require great presence. Plus, nobody needs another guitarist or unicyclist around, unless that unicyclist is playing ukulele or juggling guitars.
Photo Credit: jDevaun.Photography via Compfight cc