Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant. 

4/5 rating.

Book #142 of 2019. Read December 16, 2019.

This is a lovely book about our reciprocity styles and the way that giving can help you succeed.

Adam does a great job of going through many people and stories that illustrate the three reciprocity styles: giver, matcher, and taker. As you might be able to guess, givers contribute more than they receive, matchers work to keep the balance even, and takers ensure that they give much less than they receive.

While it is not always apparent, Adam shows that givers are usually the most successful people in life. This being said, givers also end up being other people’s doormats and taken advantage of. Adam tells how to avoid being a “selfless” giver and instead being “otherish”: contributing a great amount, but not at the expense of one’s self.

I loved this book! As an aspiring giver (though one that falls far flat much too often), it is a wonderful reminder that we don’t have to choose between being kind and giving, and being successful! Go pick up this book and see what changes you can make in your life and those around you.

Quotes:

“You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody.”

“Daniel Pink finds that the first words that come to mind when we think of salespeople are pushy, ugh, and yuck.”

“As Bill Gates argued at the World Economic Forum, ‘there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest, and caring for others,’ and people are most successful when they are driven by a ‘hybrid engine’ of the two.”

“One hundred seems to be a magic number when it comes to giving. In a study of more than two thousand Australian adults in their mid-sixties, those who volunteered between one hundred and eight hundred hours per year were happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who volunteered fewer than one hundred or more than eight hundred hours annually. In another study, American adults who volunteered at least one hundred hours in 1998 were more likely to be alive in 2000.”

“In one experiment, adults either gave massages to babies or received massages themselves. Postmassage, those who gave had lower levels of stress hormones – such as cortisol and epinephrine – than those who received.”

“Indeed, Cialdini finds that people donate more money to charity when the phrase ‘even a penny will help’ is added to a request. Interestingly, this phrase increases the number of people who give without necessarily decreasing the amount they give. Legitimizing small contributions draws in takers, making it difficult and embarrassing for them to say no, without dramatically reducing the amount donated by givers.”

“Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.”

“They see success in terms of making significant, lasting contributions to a broad range of people.”

“By shifting ever so slightly in the giver direction, we might find our waking hours marked by greater success, richer meaning, and more lasting impact.”

“Help generously and without thought of return; but also ask often for what you need.”

IG Link.