Four years ago I read Give and Take. My first reaction was: this book is idealistic, and reality is going to slap you awake. Looking back now, I can see it shaped me more than almost anything else.
Back then I was still working at a company. What everyone had always taught me was: don’t be too eager to help, or people will treat you as free labor; don’t trust people too quickly, or you’ll get burned. At the time those ideas seemed completely reasonable, even like the right thing to do.
But after finishing the book, I realized there really are people in this world who live by giving. They aren’t naive. They just choose to live that way. So right then I decided to try to change.
From my years as an employee all the way to starting my own company, reality did slap me awake 🤣. Nothing dramatic, just the usual stuff: replying with care, making introductions, spending hours going through someone’s material, and then getting left on read, or watching the other person disappear the moment they got what they needed.
But those experiences didn’t turn me into someone calculating. Instead they taught me that being a giver isn’t a moral label. It’s a choice about how to live. They also taught me how to be a mature giver. When I first read about “chunking” your giving in the book, I scoffed at it. Only after these past few years did I understand why it matters.
My mindset now is: I believe people are good until they prove otherwise.
A lot of people are so afraid of being used by takers that they keep their guard up all the time, and in the end they become the kind of person who only wants to take and never give. The giver mindset lets me treat people more sincerely, without constantly being on guard and keeping score. But I’ve also built a habit: I’ll trust you once, then see what you do with it. If you turn out not to be trustworthy, I take my time back.
What surprised me most over these years is that I’ve received far more than I’ve given. Plenty of senior people had no obligation to reply to me, no obligation to read through a pile of my stuff, and yet they still did. In moments like that, you become very clear about what kind of person you want to be.
So I keep telling myself: as long as it’s within my means, I want to keep being the one who’s willing to give first. It sounds a bit like chicken soup for the soul, but I believe the cycle of kindness is real.
Finally, I really recommend reading this book when you have time. You can borrow it from the library 👏
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