In business, you’ve got to give before you take. And then you’ve got to give some more. No one knows this better than my pal Adam Grant, the youngest business professor at Wharton, and the NYT bestselling author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. When I first read Grant’s book last year, I was blown away, and so were many.
It’s coming out in paperback today, which means it’s a great time for you to get your hands on it if you haven’t already.
In honor of the paperback edition, Grant put together a list of the ten signs you might know you’re a taker. So, if you see yourself in this top ten list, you might want to turn up the volume on your random acts of (selfless) kindness and get on the giving train.
10 Signs You Might Be a Taker
10. You look significantly hotter in your LinkedIn profile than in any other photo of you.
9. When a child draws a picture of you, it sometimes resembles a snake or a weasel.
8. At family dinners, you secretly enjoy grabbing the last cookie.
7. You brag about your SAT score, and you’re not even in school anymore.
6. You’re planning to plagiarize part of this post without giving proper credit.
5. Your Facebook wall is dominated by selfies of you with important people.
4. When your children ask you to read them a story, your first instinct is to ask, “What have you done for me lately?”
3. After reading The Giving Tree, you thought the tree got what it deserved.
2. You’re convinced that most people are takers.
1. You go around telling people you’re a giver.
Let’s add one more: you blushed as you read this list.
Are any good ones missing from the list?
You go through a training seminar where attendees label each other as givers or takers and you get labeled a taker by more than 80% of them.
You know, for example.
HA!
Hi Claire,
I smiled when I read this list at work and laughed when I read no 9. but not because a child has drawn a picture like that of me. Thanks for your humorous insights which gave me a good start to the day. I always think that acknowledgement is a good way to give too.
regards
Henare
Hi Clair,
Really like the list. Currently I’m travelling through Borneo and have one to add cause I just met someone in the diner area at the B&B I’m staying at that didn’t even hide the following; When you meet someone new, the first question is where they are from and what they do for a living to see if they might be a good new connection.