In today’s vlog @lornerubis and I ask you to analyze your true nature. Are you a taker? A matcher? Or a giver?

Adam Grant explains these three personas in his book “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success”. He describes takers as someone who views most relationships as transactional. They believe they need to “win” something from another person for that relationship to be valuable. Matchers have a tendency to look for reciprocation – they operate in a world of favours. And givers always look for ways to expand the pie. They believe in the abundance of ideas and opportunities to share.

So which one are you?  In reality, everyone has all 3 of these personas; however, most of us lean toward one more than the others. Grant presents research that says most successful people are givers at heart, which contradicts what we’ve always been told: to succeed, we must be cutthroat and take what we can.

This begs the question: how do we take steps to become more of a giver so we can be more successful?

First, try focusing on one or two things that you’re really good at and finding ways to offer those skills to others. Don’t think this means you should undervalue yourself or work for free. Instead, use your expertise to offer great ideas freely and be creative. Rather than always looking to one-up someone, you simply look for ways to expand the pie.

However, remember to give to yourself too. Giving all of yourself to everyone else will eventually drain you dry. For sustainable success, we need to strike a healthy balance. Remember that it’s not a bad thing to be a taker or a matcher once in a while. We must continuously nourish our minds, bodies, and souls to succeed, so be generous and kind to yourself. Self care is important.

This week’s key takeaways:

  1. Find opportunities to give more – use your best skills to add value to the world without expecting payment every time.
  2. Be generous to yourself as well as others
  3. Always ask “How might we …?”. Search for ways to expand ideas.

Here’s to disrupting sameness and achieving #betterwork.

Lynette