Nygard’s Golden Jubilee Review

It’s not an everyday occurrence to discover an individual who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps to achieve phenomenal success with a business that’s still breaking barriers, still achieving firsts, and still innovating fifty years later. What does it take? How did he achieve it all? And how can we achieve similar successes?

That’s what we’ll explore in this tri-weekly series. We’ll break down fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s achievements and look at how his accomplishments can serve as practical applications to others in business and life.

What Motivates Such Kindheartedness?

It is no small thing to give away millions of dollars of one’s wealth. 

Fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s level of compassion knows no bounds. He has given to all sorts of causes throughout The Bahamas and has given tens of thousands alone to individuals with medical challenges.

What motivates him and others like him? 

The world is made up of so many different types of people; we all wonder though, what makes some people so kindhearted or giving and others not so much? What makes an individual give up millions of dollars of his wealth to help others while another with even more wealth not give to help the lives of others at all?

Business Insider wrote an article about the 20 most generous people in the world in 2015 and it is amazing to see how generous some people have been giving away more than a billion dollars. There were some who gave away more money in their lifetime than they currently have.

Of course, no one is required to help others in any way. However, why wouldn’t you if you could?

In looking at the scientific research on generosity, it revealed some interesting things about generous people. A white paper called “The Science of Generosity”, was written by the University of California Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.

It used the University of Notre Dame’s Science of Generosity Project’s definition of generosity, which is “the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.”

With respect to psychological drivers of generosity, it revealed this:

“One of the most studied psychological motivations for generosity is empathy, and research has established a strong, if variable, connection between empathy and altruism (de Waal, 2008) [1385] (Page 29).”

The white paper also presented a discussion on a related factor:

“Related to empathy is compassion—caring for and wanting to help those in need—and research suggests that feelings of compassion can also lead people to behave generously (page 30).”

This shouldn’t surprise us at least with respect to Peter Nygard. He has often stated that he is motivated to help the less fortunate because he knows what it is like to be poor. He feels their pain.

With respect to ‘personality’, the paper states, “Personality traits also seem to influence a person’s propensity toward generosity. There may, in fact, be people who are more of a ‘giving type’ (page 33).”

This also appears representative of Peter Nygard. One example that illustrates that he is a ‘giving type’ is his willingness to help Bahamian icon Gus Cooper without thought or hesitation. 

When Nygard was asked to help Gus Cooper with his need to be airlifted to a hospital in Florida, Nygard was enjoying the day out on the ocean racing a sail boat with King Eric. He didn’t say ‘let me finish this, get back to shore and coordinate or prepare’ anything.

It was totally unexpected; yet Nygard handed over an unlimited credit card on the spot. Now that’s generosity—“the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly”!

The thing that we should never fail to remember is that the impact of the generosity of others is so much more than the value of the gift. The gift transforms the lives of not just the individual helped but others around that individual.

The athletes that Nygard helps, gain opportunities to go after their dreams. Each win motivates another Bahamian child. It creates a domino effect of inspired youth throughout our isles.

Nygard’s giving is no small thing especially when you think about how his generosity within the Commonwealth of The Bahamas creates a nation of achievers—like Tureano Johnson—all having opportunities because of a Peter Nygard.