Book Byte #217 "Give and Take" by Adam Grant

Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

📣 Curious Quotes from the Author

“As Samuel Johnson purportedly wrote, “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

“The more I help out, the more successful I become. But I measure success in what it has done for the people around me. That is the real accolade.”

“Success doesn’t measure a human being, effort does.”

“The art of advocacy is to lead you to my conclusion on your terms.”

“You never know where somebody’s going to end up. It’s not just about building your reputation; it really is about being there for other people.”

“Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.”

“This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

“Regardless of their reciprocity styles, people love to be asked for advice.”

“So if givers are most likely to land at the bottom of the success ladder, who’s at the top—takers or matchers? Neither. When I took another look at the data, I discovered a surprising pattern: It’s the givers again.”

“highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard work, talent, and luck.”

“If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed. We can’t pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.”

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. —Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner”

📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea

Great individual and organizational success can come from giving more than you receive. We've been raised to think that taking what we need and competing with others are necessary for success. But as recent studies and historical data demonstrate, winners aren't always the ones who seize the opportunity. Giving allows one to soar to high heights and, in contrast to taking, makes others successful along the way. Which three interpersonal interaction styles are most common? Takers are self-centered and only consider how they can benefit other people. The motivation of givers is to support others and make the group successful.

Matchers aim for equitable and just exchanges with other people, somewhere in the middle of givers and takers. Our interactions with others influence how much we give and take. Why does taking not result in long-term success? Takers who don't go away lose credibility and suffer reputational harm. How can one become an effective giver? Because they prioritize the larger good, givers rise to the top of society. Givers who are successful build and utilize their extensive networks for the good of others and themselves. Givers are adept at identifying and developing talent because they sense potential in everyone they come into contact with. Givers have a significant edge when there is no communication at all. How can one prevent being a giver who fails? Successful giving depends on the givers' ability to prevent fatigue and abuse by the recipients.

🤝Collaborative Insight for Techies

Most Technically inclined people are givers by nature. We make things work for others, we problem solve all day for others, probably because are natural born problem solvers and tinkerers.

But because we are givers, we can sometimes let ourselves be taken advantage of, it sucks, but we play a support role and anyone who does that runs the risk of giving up too much, having a feed a man a fish instead of teaching him to fish type situation.

But we do tend to get acclaim for the roles we take part in in saving people in emergency type situations. But something better would be more promotions and opportunities to move up. Most executives feel support roles should never advance to the executive level, even though we are dealing with people everyday.

It’s a sad reality, unfortunately. Therefore you must take care and look at for your career just as you would your temperamental web servers.

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Try out the "Think and Grow Rich Challenge" by Russell Brunson and Learn more about the First Self Help Author Napoleon Hill

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