YOUR TURN NOW!

40th birthday – A big achievement or just another year? All of a sudden it seemed like 40 is such a big number, with all my friends celebrating it as a milestone birthday.

Being the founder of YOUR TURN NOW – a global movement of spreading smiles through random acts of Kindness and a father to a 12 year old son, I decided to carry out 40 acts of humanity to celebrate my fortieth birthday on 8^th March 2017.

40 random acts of kindness with 40 friends, ”The perfect way to usher in the year”. All 40 acts would be different from each other and they had to be performed along with me. All the 40 acts were discussed with my 12 year old, Vivaan with equal input from him.

Each act was UNIQUE in its own way, and Vivaan, my little child held my hands to guide me all along the journey. The objective was to would be capture it on camera and later would compile it into a video, to inspire 1000s of other hearts.

The idea that took seed in October 2016, was kick-started by making a list of friends who I believed had an inclination towards spreading kindness.

It took almost 2 months of constant follow up to convince few friends to kick start the project. The goal was to release the completed video in the first week of March. It was heartwarming to watch Vivaan’s enthusiasm, waking up at 5:30 AM every Sunday morning to do his bit of giving tea and biscuits to car washers.

The whole experience of making people smile by doing one act of kindness was one of mixed feelings and different. There were moments of surprises, blessings, wishes, love, tears, hugs, affection, gratitude and yes, denial and rudeness too.

Surprises because people were not used to receiving chocolates, sweets, tea or random favours from strangers on their birthdays. Tears and hugs because of the overwhelming stimuli which many of them had never experienced. Denial and rudeness, as a few weren’t tuned to unexpected kindness, or maybe they didn’t wanted to trust a complete stranger celebrating his birthday with them.

Honestly, even I experienced a little discomfort doing the first few acts, so I could understand the plight of the receiver! With such a large population, I think somewhere we still lack the human touch in our busy race of life. It’s only after giving several times over, do you ease into it, get used to the act of giving, and understand the satisfaction you get from it. You may get rebuffed occasionally, but only when you keep doing it, will you make the world a kinder place… a WORLD, where you trust more, give more.

We succeeded in bringing about the beautiful curve called “SMILE” to 2450 strangers. I am grateful to my friends and family who accompanied me in this beautiful mission. Hoping to inspire thousands of viewers and parents who can instill the beautiful way of celebrating their child’s birthday and raising socially conscious children.

What started out as a movement a few years ago has today become a way of life for me. It has become my life’s mission to make this world a kinder and richer place by touching 7.2 billion lives.

My movement is a simple one…I designed small blue cards, with the words ‘Your Turn Now’ printed on them. All you have to do is carry a few of these cards in your pocket, and think of opportunities to use them by performing random acts of kindness. And when you get thanked for it, you should simply hand over the card, and ask the other person to do a kind deed in return, but this time for another person. And so the chain continues…

Till date, 5,51,700 Your Turn Now cards have reached 44 countries.

In the last few years, we published two books chronicling the experiences of people who have performed random acts of kindness. Books by the same name, Your Turn Now, have been on the top of several bestseller lists in the children’s books’ category.

I also actively talk and do Your Turn Now Kindness workshops at forums, schools, companies and other institutions, spreading the word on kindness.

If you want to be part of this celebration, just call for YOUR TURN NOW cards and perform one act of kindness daily and pass on the card.…it’s a great way to start!

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Rushabh Turakhia

Rushabh is a complete family man! Rushabh is a writer, businessman, motivational trainer and life coach and a firm believer of living life positively. He has used his networking skills to connect with more that a thousand folks in order to spread the message of KINDNESS – HAPPINESS – JOY – COMPASSION.

For YOUR TURN NOW cards, email him at [email protected] or on +919029602897