The School of Greatness - 15 Give and Take: The Revolutionary Path to Success with Adam Grant

Episode Date: April 23, 2013

What if I told you the key to success was not going after what you wanted, but helping others get what they wanted instead? Better yet, what if there was research that proved the more you gave of your time and resources willingly to others, that you'd be on your way to achieving your wildest […]

This is episode number 15 with Adam Grant. Welcome to the School of Greatness. Each week we bring you the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. My name is Lewis Howes, and I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, and former pro athlete. And I'm on a mission to find out

how we can all achieve a higher performance in life. Please leave us your comments on iTunes and join us online at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it. Hey, what is up all you greats out there in the world? I hope you're having a fabulous, fantastic day today. And quick shout out to everyone who is listening. And quick shout out to everyone who is listening.

I just saw the stats and there are people from over 160 countries listening in each and every week. So I appreciate all of you everywhere in the world. Obviously, the United States is getting the most amount of traction. And it looks like Texas is the biggest region. Texas and California are getting the most downloads in the U.S. But everywhere around the world, I appreciate you guys for listening in on the School of Greatness. It means a lot to me, and I'm excited to bring you more amazing guests each and every week. And this week, we've got an awesome guest. His name is Adam Grant. He's got a new book out called Give and Take, A Revolutionary Approach to Success. I'm going to have him talk

about this revolutionary approach to achieving your success and achieving greatness here in just a few minutes. You're not going to want to miss it, but I want to give a quick shout out to the review of the week. I was pretty flattered by this because one, it was a great copy. It was great writing, but it was very flattering. Flattering. Is that a word? Flattering? Anyways, we'll say it is.

Here it is. It's from MyJobsIt is the name, MyJobsIt, and the title is Warning. Warning, this podcast stimulates dramatic amounts of energy that can motivate anyone. Due to the intensity of this podcast, anyone looking for the extra kick once a week should climb on board. There are no age restrictions and anyone with a pulse will benefit from sudden amounts of greatness you'll feel after listening. of greatness you'll feel after listening. If you've never joined this podcast, I personally recommend listening to episode number eight and prepare to take on the world after listening. Lewis Howes is absolutely amazing.

I appreciate it. My job's it. For the flattering, why am I messing up this word? I feel like the flat, I'm like, I am ignorant today. I don't even know how to speak, but the flattering review is what I'm going to say. I don't know why I can't figure out the word for that, but I'm going to leave this in there. Okay, so

thanks so much. If you guys haven't left a review, I'm picking out a review every week. The most flattering review every single week is going to be announced before each episode. So thanks again to MyJobsIt. I just got back from New York City from a week-long trip,

had some exciting things happen, which I'm going to share with you guys in the near future. I don't want to spoil it too soon. But I just got back from the MAN 2.0 book launch, Engineering the Alpha book launch by John Romanello and Adam Bornstein. Had an amazing time. Some of the previous guests were on here. We had Tim Ferris who was there and a lot of other great fitness experts and celebrities in the building. But if you have not checked out the previous episode, episode number 14 with the Alpha Twins. Go ahead and check that

out because it's really inspiring what those guys are doing in the fitness world and I recommend their book as well. But today we've got a new topic and it's a revolutionary approach to success. And it's my man Adam Grant who is the youngest tenured professor at the Wharton School of Business. He's been recognized as Wharton's single highest rated teacher, one of Business Week's favorite professors, and one of the world's 40 best business professors under 40. Now, previously, he was a record-setting advertising director at Let's Go Publications, an all-American springboard diver, and a professional magician. And his new book just came out. It's called Give and Take, A Revolutionary Approach

to Success. And yes, it did hit number two on the New York Times bestseller list in the first week. So this is an exciting one. I'm excited about this because Adam and I talk about our differences to leveraging LinkedIn. And he has a different approach than I do. And it's interesting because in my LinkedIn book, I talk about some of the things that he covers here, but he's much smarter than me. And he dives way deeper into the research and the science behind everything. You're going to learn about weak ties and strong ties. And also the most important one that a lot of people miss out on, which is dormant ties, those dormant relationships and how those can actually be the biggest opportunities

for you. There's a lot of other things we're going to be covering here in this episode. So make sure to get out a pen and paper or just take mental notes because this one is going to blow you away. I hope you guys enjoy this one and make sure to stick around to the very end to hear who's coming on next week and some other goodies from me. Now let's get after this. My man, how are you doing?

I'm delighted to be here. I'm excited about this. Your name has been everywhere recently on the news and online, on the cover of, I think, New York Times Magazine. You've kind of been all over the place. I'd never actually heard about you before recently, and now I want to know everything about you. So I'm excited to bring you on here.

And as we were just chatting before and as I was reading your bio, you were also an all-American athlete, springboard diver, which is pretty interesting and challenging at the same time. Diving, I think I tried it in middle school and I could only do a one and a half, but I could never get the dive actually down. I could just kind of belly flop after that. So I know it's extremely challenging sport. So congrats on your success there. Oh, thank you. It's like anything else. You start out terrible and you practice and slowly but surely you improve. But my coach always told me that diving was a nerd sport and it didn't attract a real

athlete. So you can become much better than you thought because you didn't have to compete against people with actual talent. Right, right. Well, I'm sure you were extremely talented. And you're also a magician, right? Well, I'm retired, but yeah, I used to perform as a magician. Very cool.

Well, I'm sure you got to learn a lot about human psychology and the way people think and react doing that. And I think that probably gave you some good insights into your book, Give and Take, which I want to dive into actually right now. And in your book, you talk about – there's three different types of people. You talk about givers, takers, and matchers. Is that correct? That's right. I've been growing up in business over the last, I guess, five years now. And I've seen all these people.

As you explain who givers are, who matchers are, who's takers, I've seen all these people. As you explain who givers are, who matchers are, who's takers, I've seen all these people. And the takers, you really notice really quickly because you kind of feel like this sick feeling in your stomach. You feel like, should I even talk to this person? Do I want to hang out with this person? It's kind of like this very standoffish approach to networking and to business and to relationship building. approach to networking and to business and to relationship building. Now, tell me more about the matchers and the givers, though, because you say everyone should be a giver, but there's two types of givers. Is that right?

That's right. Yeah. So just as a little background, the takers are these people who love to get as much as possible from others and try not to give anything back unless they absolutely have to. Right. And, you know, I think a lot of people share that experience of the sick feeling when interacting with them or, you know, sometimes later when the takers are really good takers, getting the sick feeling after you confer. Right.

But, you know, the good news is most people actually are not takers. Most people fall in the middle of the spectrum are what I call matchers, which is basically trying to keep an even balance of give and take. That would be quid pro quo, tit for tat, reciprocity, I help you, you help me. Right. And, you know, most people think that that's a pretty good way to sort of protect themselves because if you go all the way to the giver end of the spectrum and you just help other people all the time without ensuring the best,

then you're going to be vulnerable to takers and you might burn yourself out. And so, you know, you can try to play it safe in the middle as a matcher and that way you keep your guard up a little bit to make sure you get things back but you're not so selfish to be a taker. Now, is there anything wrong with being a matcher? No, not at all. I think most people do operate that way, at least at work, and that's what the data I collected have shown over and over again.

And I do think it's a very safe and reasonable way to live your life, to make sure that everything is fair and balanced and even. But I do think there are some downsides that a lot of matchers overlook. One is that if you're a matcher, sometimes you create a little bit of a transactional impression. People feel like, well, you're only helping them because you want something back, as opposed to you really care about them. And I think you miss out on some goodwill that way. Right.

I think you miss out on some goodwill that way. Right. I think the other potential downside of being a matcher is you might build shallower and narrower relationships. Because you tend to only exchange with the people that you expect can help you. As opposed to a broader range of people who could benefit from your knowledge or your connection. Who then might end up doing great things one day if you couldn't really predict it. Right, right. It's interesting.

I actually wrote a book about LinkedIn about five years ago. As I was just starting out, one of my mentors suggested getting on LinkedIn to find opportunities to connect with influential people and just to see what was available for me in the business world. And I remember when I was starting out, I just finished playing football, just retired from professional football. And I had nothing to offer anyone. I didn't have a college degree yet. I didn't have a product, a service, any experience really in the business field. And I remember just trying to give constantly because there was nothing that I could really take from anyone. It was just a matter of trying to give and connect people and really listen about their

success and how they got to where they were. And I think the approach I've always kind of known, I guess in the beginning, I couldn't take anything. There was nothing I could really take. So for me, I was getting a lot more from just constantly giving and not expecting anything in return. And I feel like that's what's really helped me in the long run is just constantly giving people and connecting people and trying to be helpful the more resourceful I become,

I guess. And that's the approach that I feel like has really helped pay off for me. And I feel like it's going to continue to pay off by just constantly giving as opposed to thinking, oh, if I do this, what are you going to do for me type of attitude? And I think the law of reciprocity is extremely powerful as I know you talk about and Robert Cialdini talks about in his book, Influence. But you also talk about some givers use this law of reciprocity, but they always get walked on. Now, how can the two different givers lean on the good side, I guess, where they are actually getting something in return for the long haul

as opposed to getting walked over? What can they do? That's a great question, Lewis. And, you know, I actually think you're a shining example of what to do as a giver as opposed to what traps to fall into. Right. So I find that there are two types of givers. One type is the purely selfless giver who puts other people first all the time

and is so altruistic that he or she just sacrifices him or herself and runs out of time and energy or maybe gets taken advantage of by the takers. And then you have this other group of givers that's not selfish like the takers and not purely selfless. I call them otherish. Otherish? Yeah, otherish. Maybe a word that should never have existed. But, you know, I think it captures the idea that you can be a giver and say,

you know, my goal is to help other people and benefit them in any way that I can, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let go of my own interests and my own ambitions and goals. And so I'm going to try to integrate the things that I want to accomplish with the things that I want to help other people accomplish. And I think a lot of it is win-win thinking, but it's also saying, look, can I help others in ways that are high value for them, but low cost for me? And I would actually love to hear your perspective on that, because I think connecting people is one great example of that,

right? It takes often just five minutes to make an introduction, and two people can benefit a lot from that. Is that something you've done consciously as an example of not overextending yourself? Yeah, I feel like that's pretty much all I could do for the first couple of years. For me, when I was connecting with people on LinkedIn, I was connecting with a lot of people because all I had was time and I wasn't doing anything else. So for about a year, I was just on LinkedIn about six hours a day connecting with people and learning about LinkedIn and how to use it to grow a business or get a job or whatever it is people were trying to do. And as I would meet with influencers, I would say, what's the biggest challenge you have currently in your business? Or what are you trying to achieve right now? And people would say, I'm really looking for someone to help me increase traffic

to my website or find someone who knows a lot about SEO. Or I'm looking for a graphic designer or I'm looking for a sales rep, I would say, I just met three of the best sales reps in the last three weeks. And right then and there, I would connect them with who I thought would be the best fit. If we were in person, I would just jump on the phone with the person. I would give them a call and literally hand the phone over and say, you got to connect with this person.

So I would try to make it an immediate impact. And I wouldn't expect anything in return, but I just feel like connecting people and helping them achieve their goals quickly is always going to pay off. And they would always say, how can I help you in return? After they got what they needed, they would just be like, what can I do to help? That's really exciting to hear. I'm also curious if that, you know, I guess one thing that I've heard from some givers and that pops up every once in a while in the research evidence is, you know, other people, especially if they themselves are not givers, if they're matchers or takers, are sort of surprised by this behavior and they don't know what to make of it.

Very surprised. Yeah, I can imagine, you know, some people looking at your background and saying, here's this guy, this superstar athlete who holds an NCAA record for receiving yards and who played for a national handball team. Why is he trying to help me? He must want something for me. How do you handle that? Right. I guess that's a good question.

I think it's all in the approach on how you work it. Because I think the matchers, you can tell when they want something in return because they will say, you know, we should do some type of joint JV deal or joint venture deal. We should partner. You can be an affiliate of my products or whatever it may be. So I think you can tell right away if they're going to be a matcher. Or they may follow up in the next couple of days and say, hey, will you promote me type of deal. But I never really do that. I'm just like, here, I'm going to help you and connect people or lead them to a resource that could be helpful or something like that.

I think the law of reciprocity is in your favor when you don't ask them for something in return and rather allow them to have the opportunity to say, how can I help you? And usually when they say, how can I help you? You know, I'm pretty fine. I don't need their help right at the moment. But, you know, it's nice to know that someone is willing to help me in return without, you know, without any strings attached as well. I love that example. Remind me, you mentioned Robert Cialdini a moment ago, and one of the things that he's often said is that when you help someone and they say,

what can I do for you, instead of asking them for a favor back, you should say, oh, no big deal. I know you would do the same for me. Sort of almost catching them in debt a little bit. I'm inclined, I think it's a really interesting approach, but I'm also inclined to agree with you to say, look, I think the goodwill is there.

And if you really need it, those people are willing to help you and you don't have to sort of pull them into helping you just because you helped them. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's fun once you – I think for me, it's the most rewarding when you're just willing to give and give and give and not expect anything in return. But obviously, you don't want to be walked on. So if people want to keep coming back to you, if they keep asking you for favors but then

they never offer to like just be helpful for you in return or be resourceful, or if you do ask them a question if they blow you off, then it's probably not the best idea to keep helping those types of individuals for the long run. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, so you end up scaling back a little bit when you encounter somebody who's been acting like a taker? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And for me, it's more of just like an energy feeling.

Like you can just feel it from them, their language, their, you know, the way they interact. But I think, I just feel like most people are good in their core and I give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt. So I think a lot of people are willing to give in return if they receive this type of, you know, giving without expectations from you. And I think eventually you're going to turn takers into givers, hopefully at some point if you do that. I would hope so.

One of my favorite tests that I've been using a little bit lately is when I help somebody and then they will frequently ask, how how can i reciprocate i will actually go and ask them to help somebody else that i'm trying to help and this is something i actually learned from adam richard that's our chapter two of the book and it's been really interesting one because you know it allows me to help more people because you end up with this network of people who want to be givers but two it's also a little bit of a test because you get to find out, are they willing to pay it forward? And, you know, some people I think are much more generous in doing that than others.

And it's an interesting way for me to assess, you know, how much time do I want to spend helping this person by looking at how much time they want to spend helping other people. That's very interesting. I've actually never thought of that approach. how much time they want to spend helping other people. That's very interesting. I've actually never thought of that approach. However, now, let's say we did that all day long where I would give to someone and then they'd say, how can I help you or return a favor?

And I said, go help this person or help this person. Now, does that mean you're basically giving up that debt card? Like once they pay it forward, they don't have to give you anything in return in the future ever? Or how does that work? Oh, that's fascinating. I hadn't thought about that.

Because what if you like tell everyone else to help other people, but then all the people you've helped, you, you know, you never get them promoting your book or, you know, whatever else you have going on in the future, you know,

who does? You know, it's, it's funny. It is, it is something that hasn't really crossed my mind because, you know, I feel like my, my goal is to try to, you know, it's funny. It is something that hasn't really crossed my mind because I feel like my goal is to try to, you know, when a request comes my way, if it's something I feel like I can help with uniquely, then I try to handle it. And if not, I'm immediately looking for the person who has better expertise or, you know, the right network to try to address whatever the need is. the right network to try to address whatever the need is.

And I try not to focus on what would I get out of this relationship. But I think what's interesting is I think if you do it right, what I've seen, I guess, over the past couple of years is that you end up creating this network that kind of operates on a pay-it-forward norm where you've got a community of people who have been kind of helping each other without any strings attached. And they just developed this mentality. Robert Putnam actually called it generalized reciprocity.

And he says the standard reciprocity is being a match. I help you, you help me. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And it's a one-to-one trading of favors. But it can actually be more efficient to say, yeah, I'll help you without expecting anything in return, knowing that if I do that, someone at some point is more likely to help me because I'm sort of spreading that pay it forward principle. And I do think that is what happens.

I think in a lot of cases, particularly matchers, what they do is they really can't stand to see givers go around being helpful and generous and not get rewarded for it. So they will often gossip about you positively. They will say nice things about you, spread your reputation. And I think that goodwill tends to carry over time. And what's that called? Generalized reciprocity? Yeah, generalized reciprocity, where the whole community basically is willing to help anybody who needs it. I like that. I mean, it's kind of like the law of attraction in a sense, like the same philosophy.

But for those that may not believe in it, may be able to believe in generalized reciprocity better. So it's cool. I like that. Yeah, there's a little bit of karma to it. Yeah. But I think it's a more patterned and maybe even more scientific version of karma because it's not like you help people and then magically good things come back to you. But rather, you help people and then matchers want to make sure that fairness and justice

exist and they try to reward you for the good deeds you've done. I like that. That's like the scientific approach to the law of attraction. I like that. Tell me about, in my actually LinkedIn book, I talk about strong ties and weak ties. So it was interesting for me to read about. I was like justifying the fact that I was talking about this, about LinkedIn and how you can work your strong ties

and work your weak ties and the importance of both. But you talk about something else. In your book, you talk about something else in your book. You talk about dormant ties. Can you talk about the importance of strong ties, weak ties, and dormant ties? Yeah, I think this is one of my favorite ways to look at a network. LinkedIn has changed my life for sure in how I manage my network. It's amazing.

Yeah, I think it's good. I know you have helped so many people figure out how to use it to build their businesses and maintain and expand their connection. And I think that when I first got into LinkedIn, I basically saw it as a way of keeping track of my strong ties with people that I knew well and trusted. And I just like the fact that I didn't have to check in with them

every couple of weeks to find out, are you still at this job? Are you still in the city? Because they would update it and it was there. And I think the real value of strong ties, if you look at the data, is they give you a lot of trust and shared perspective. And so you can seek their support on things that you might not be comfortable sharing with the wider world.

You can open up a little bit. You can be vulnerable. And, you know, they're the people who really have your back when you need it. And, in fact, if somebody's a strong guy, chances are that they are a giver toward you, even if they're not always a giver in other relationships. Right. You know, if you think of your closest buddies, it would be pretty odd if you asked them for help and they were like, what have you done for me lately?

True. So, yeah, I think that's the value of the strong ties. And then Mark Granovetter at Stanford, as you know, has these great studies on what he calls the strength of weak ties showing that people are actually more likely to get a job going to their acquaintances than the people they

trust. And the surprise there is basically your strong ties tend to have redundant information. They tend to know the same people and the same information that you do, whereas the weak ties are traveling in different circles. They get access to different opportunities. And as a result, they can open up leads more quickly in ways you might not have expected. I think those are the relative benefits of strong and weak ties, but recently sociologists and psychologists have been wondering,

could you get the best of both worlds? Could you get the trust and the familiarity of a strong tie, but also that new information from a weak tie? And that brings us to the third kind of tie, which is the dormant tie. The people you used to know but lost touch with over the last few years. So these are like high school buddies or college friends or whatever it may be from 10, 20 years ago or something, right? Exactly, yeah.

Somebody you used to live with or work with or play on the sports team with. And the idea here is that the studies are amazing. Daniel Lebanon and colleagues actually ask people to reach out for advice on a dilemma or a project. And they have them either ask somebody they currently know, or they have them reconnect with the dormant ties that they have lost touch with. And they actually

got more valuable advice for the dormant ties because the dormant ties had the benefit of the strong ties, which is, you know, you did have that shared perspective. So it was more comfortable and it was easier to reach out to, you know, the dormant ties than the weak ties. But they also, because they've been meeting different people and learning different things

in the past few years, were able to give you more original information than the strong ties. And, you know, I think it's really powerful, right, to say we all have dormant ties in our network. And when we reconnect with them, they may actually be more profitable sources of help and advice than our closest and most trusted chance contacts and than our acquaintances. It's crazy, right? And I wonder if there's something else, maybe you know, like there was other science or research about this, about reconnecting with dormant ties, if there's some type of allure or like curiosity factor for when you get reconnected

that they really want to overhelp, they really want to relearn what you're up to and say, you know, I kind of knew you when and really kind of help you out now type of deal. I'm not sure. Is there anything, any research behind that as well? That's a great question. I think the research on dormant ties is very new. We're just learning about them. I would say anecdotally from experience, I think one of the things that's interesting about dormant ties that a lot of us overlook is people come in and you can do this if you take executives, for example. Levitt and colleagues

actually make this an assignment when they teach executives how to manage their networks better. They actually make them go out and reactivate some dormant connections. And there's always an executive in the room who groans and is like, but these ties are dormant for a reason. Why would I report or reconnect them?

And the point is as you know well, that most dormant ties actually are not people that we intentionally lost touch with. We got busy, we moved, we chased jobs. Right. And I think that oftentimes the conversation is deeper and more meaningful

than the people you talk to every day because you get to catch up on these really significant life events. You get to find out how things have changed in the past couple of years or even a decade. And there's a chance to really sort of rekindle the relationship by supporting each other in a way that just kind of happens more day-to-day in smaller doses with the people you know well.

Has that been your experience as well? Yeah, I'll tell you what, man. I have a recent experience in the last couple of weeks. My freshman year in college, I was playing football at a school in Minnesota and I was good friends with one of these seniors, another receiver, friend of mine. We went on a road trip to South Dakota, the Black Hills and saw Mount Rushmore. We went fishing. We did all these different fun things with a few of us receivers. Now, I left that school after my first semester.

I played football there for a semester and then I left for a number of reasons. The school actually burnt down. The main building burnt down and I was just miserable there. So I left, went to another school. And really didn't get connected for the last 10 years. I haven't spoken to this guy. We reconnected on Facebook, actually. And we were just kind of like chatting, texting every now and then saying, hey, how's it going, this and that. And the more we started to connect, he sent me this really amazing,

inspiring personal video, just talking about all the different things, just him in front of a camera out in the woods, talking about all the different experiences that he remembered about our relationship on the football team, outside of the football team, just the fun times we had. And it made me think of all the cool stuff we did that I completely forgot about. And it reconnected that kind of bond and that experience with him. And now we're planning to meet up in a few months when I'm traveling to go in the city he's in. And it's just cool to reconnect with people. And I'm not expecting anything out of it. I'm traveling to go in the city he's in. It's just cool to reconnect with people. I'm not expecting anything out of it. I'm not expecting him to give me anything, but it's just cool to reconnect from a dormant tie

and have that amazing bond and hear what's happened over the last 10 years. That's really my favorite part. If you leave aside the idea that they do often prove helpful in ways that we probably didn't anticipate, I think that a lot of times you really miss these people and, you know, you have an experience that reminds you of, you know, what it was like to be on a team together or, you know, a conversation that you had a long time ago or, you know, kind

of the role that person played in your life. And then, you know, the idea of getting back in touch, I think, really, for me, it's often very nostalgic, but it's also a way to sort of pick up where we left off and try to carry the relationship forward. This is a really dorky way of applying research to life, which is one of my bad habits. But I have a repeating reminder in my calendar to once a month reconnect reconnect with one dormant

I. It makes sure that I don't miss out on that opportunity. It's always something that I look forward to. That's really interesting. I got to start doing that more. Let me ask you a question about this. I want to transition to LinkedIn a little bit more here. Do you connect with everyone on LinkedIn who invites you to connect with them?

No. You know, it's been interesting, actually, since the New York Times story hit and some of the other publicity came out, I've gotten just a slew of LinkedIn requests from strangers. Right. And while I was doing research for the book, I read about this group that you know much longer than I have have, the LinkedIn Open Networkers who will connect with anyone. And I thought a lot about that and I loved the idea behind it, but at the same time,

I also feel like I have a responsibility to protect the people in my network against takers. And if you're a stranger, it's hard for me to make those judgments. And so what I've been doing lately is I've actually been looking at, first of all, do we have a common connection? And then secondly, have they given a good explanation for why they want to connect? Or should I just send a blind request with no account? And I'm pretty wary of accepting the ones that are not sort of, here's who I am, here's why I'd like to get in touch.

Now I have to, I'm going to challenge you for a second on this because I have a different approach. So there's no right or wrong. But I feel like that it is important to connect with everyone who sends you a request. And I'll give you my theory. A lot of people – and I think this kind of, for me, it makes sense, especially with your dormant, weak and strong tie approach. Because your fear was that you don't want people that you have no clue who they are that they're going to take from your trusted network.

Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Now, my question is how are they going to take from your trusted network by connecting with you on LinkedIn? That's a good question. Here's my gut reaction. And I realize this is probably going to be a situation where I end up convinced that I am wrong and you are right. There's no right or wrong. I'm just trying to open your mind to what I've been doing.

I stand prepared to adjust my approach at any moment. But my intuition so far has been this. So one of the things that I guess is sort of unusual about my network is I have, obviously, my friend, colleague, family members, and then former students. And the former students in my network, the ones I know well, of course, are the ones who have taken a class or multiple classes over semesters with me. Right. But I also teach you day-long executive courses where, you know,

a couple hundred people a month will come into the classroom and they will sort of sit with me for half a day or a day, and then we stay in touch on LinkedIn. And to rack up thousands and thousands of these, it's just hard to keep track of who's who. Right. And the way that I tend to use my LinkedIn network most is actually when a student comes to me for career advice or looking for a contact at a company, going through my network and basically trying to find someone who can help them. Sure.

And my work is that I will mistake a stranger for somebody who's actually had one of my classes, you know, who I met very briefly, you know, enough that I felt comfortable bringing them into my network. And, you know, I want to be careful to refer my students to people that I think will give them good advice. That makes sense. That definitely is a respectable answer. I guess my thought is, and maybe it's different because you're a professor, but for most people on LinkedIn, they have a job or they're looking for a better job or they're a business owner or something like that is what I tend to find. And for me, I hear a lot of people, there's three different types of people.

There's people that I connect with everyone. There's people that only connect with their strong ties on LinkedIn and they only want to have 100 to 300 or whatever it may be of these strong ties, everyone they already know. And when they tell me that they only connect to their strong ties,

I say, well, you're missing out on the dormant, well, the dormant and weak ties. Cause what about the people that you only met for 20 seconds at a networking event? Um, but they, you know, maybe they can open up to you more opportunities than a strong tie because those are the people in your circle, like, just like everything you talk about in your book. So I suggest that everyone connect with everyone who reaches out to you, not saying to spam a bunch of people and get just to have connections, but people who find you, whether it be online or you connect in person or they research about you or they read your book and they want to add you.

That's an inbound relationship in my mind. And by connecting with that person, you never know what type of opportunity they can bring you for your business. So you never know who they're related to at this company that you want to do business with or get an introduction to. You never know. And maybe they're a big fan of yours from afar and would be willing to help. So for me, I take the approach to connect with everyone. Now, a lot of people say, well, I don't want them poaching my leads or reaching out to connect with my connections who I really value and trust. And people won't really do that. And they can't do that. If they're going to send you

introductions or requests to introduce to other people in your network, you can just say, you can just not respond. You can just say, I don't feel comfortable doing this because we haven't met in person yet or something like that. But there's no way that they can really poach your connections except for the way you explain it where you may be mistaken for who they were or who they are and things like that. But I feel like that might be a rare occasion that that's going to happen. So that's my only thoughts on that. But I feel like especially for business, on LinkedIn exactly, the more people you connect to, the larger your expanded network becomes. So your second and third degree network. And that's powerful for business professionals because when people are typing in a keyword, let's say professor or they're looking for a sales coach or web designer or something like that.

or they're looking for a sales coach or web designer or something like that, if you only have 100 connections, you're not going to rank high for keywords on the search results for those keywords on LinkedIn. But if you have a larger network, then you're going to be found much more easily for people. So for business professionals, I suggest that connect with everyone so they can be found more easily and get more leads that way. But that's just my thoughts. That makes a lot of sense. And you're making me realize that what I actually need is just a better system for managing who's who.

Right, right. Like basically creating some different groups. Okay, here are strangers who reached out. Here are people that I've talked. Here are people that I actually know in a meaningful way. Yeah. I mean, again, it might be a little more work. It might be more confusing for a while.

But also another benefit to LinkedIn is the more connections you have, you can export that into a database. You can export all those first-degree connections and receive their email addresses. And so you can use that to connect with them elsewhere down the line. So there's little benefits to connecting with everyone, but definitely people have the same hesitation. They don't want to be introducing people they don't know or they don't really know at all. So I understand that, but I feel like the benefits to connecting with everyone and learning a system on how to manage the people you don't know outweighs just connecting with people you do know.

So that's my thoughts. You make a very persuasive case. Well, we'll see. But that's what's worked for me. That's all I know. Now let's talk about personal branding what's your thoughts on kind of self-promotion and personal branding it's a fascinating topic that i am always ambivalent about yeah i i think there's a very fine line between creating a brand

that actually allows you to attract attention, gain leads, bring in business, make connections, and self-promoting in a way that makes you appear like a taker. I think it's always easier to have other people to promote you than to promote yourself. But I don't think everybody has that luxury, especially in situations where you're meeting somebody face-to-face and they're not going to have a chance to hear about you from somebody else in that moment.

I think it creates a big dilemma. And I think that probably I would like to see most of us do a combination of two things. One is to be clear about a few objective facts or accomplishments, you know, that are usually verified, which, you know, I think are, if you look at the research on self-promotion, they're less likely to be perceived negatively. You know, if you say, hey, I accomplished this, and you have the data to back it up, it's a lot more credible than if you say, hey, so, you know, I am the greatest networker you will ever meet. Right.

You know, and then the second thing is, I think that most people feel like they have to self-promote in ways that make them seem, you know, just sort of flawless or perfect. And I think that that really overlooks the importance of vulnerability for human connection. And I think that self-promotion should often be coupled with some commentary on weaknesses or an embarrassing story or a humbling experience that allows you to sort of show the full range of who you are. Right. So give me an example. So for me, I could say something like, yeah, I played professional football. I did this.

I did this in sports. But I was never good enough to make the NFL because I was too slow and I wasn't strong enough. So it wasn't really that big a deal. Would that be an example? I think it's a great example. Obviously, it shows that you're incredibly talented and hardworking, but it also shows some real humility. And I think that generally, if you look at the data, that tends to build trust. My version of that, when I ended up writing about this in Chapter 5 of Give and Take, I was asked when I was 25 to teach a group of Air Force colonels who were about twice my age. And I went in and thought I had to be really confident and sort of make my credentials clear because otherwise they weren't going to listen to me. And so I talked about my training and all the research I'd done.

And it was not, by the way, at all comfortable for what kind of person I am. But I thought that's what I had to do. And I remember reading the feedback forms and all the comments were unpleasant. But one in particular was burned in my brain. One of the guys wrote, there was more knowledge in the audience than on the podium. That's funny. I walked out of that realizing I needed to do something to be much more humble

and open and vulnerable and connect with the audience. I typed the next group and I taught the exact same material, but this time I opened my saying, look, I'm Adam. I know what you guys are thinking right now. What can I possibly learn from a professor who's 12 years old? And they just sat there and stared at me for a minute. I was like, oh God, this bomb. And then they started laughing.

One of the guys says, no, no, no, that's way off. I'm sure you're at least 13. And it really just broke the ice. You know, I think they called out the elephant in the room, and they realized that I didn't think that I was superior to them, but they had experience, and I had some different knowledge, and we were going to try to learn from each other. And they walked away from the session much more enthusiastic

and getting more out of it. I think that is very similar probably to the way that you tell your story about your athletic career. Right, right. I think there's a fine line between personal branding and sharing about who you are, but also having the humility. I think the more humble you are, maybe not just tearing yourself down so much, but just giving people a little vulnerability as well makes them really trust you more and make you more likable, which is also a key part of influence, Robert Caudini's influence. Yeah, I agree with that. It reminds me also, I think a lot of people, when they're trying to figure out, okay, how do I be open? How do I reveal my weaknesses?

I think a lot of people, when they're trying to figure out, okay, how do I be open? How do I reveal my weaknesses? To your point, they do push it too far. They end up talking about their worst failures in a way that makes you wonder, is this person going to be good at their job? Right. I think the same thing with D.A.R.E. is to be helpful on dimensions that are not confidence relevant. My favorite example of this was an old story from Abraham Lincoln.

He was in a debate at one point in his career, and the opponent accused him of being two-faced. And Lincoln, without even skipping a beat, said, you call me two-faced? Do you really think if I had another face that I would wear this one? You know obviously you know very quick-witted

but also somebody who recognized you know that he did not have the most conventionally attractive appearance and that you know poking a little fun of himself

on that was a great way to connect with his audience you know without at all calling into a question what kind of leader and president he would be. Yeah, that's very interesting. Wow.

Now, who are some of the famous givers and famous takers out there that you can, through your research, say this person became very powerful through giving or this person was powerful but fell from the top because he was only a taker. Are there experiences like that or people you can recognize like that? I think so. I think that the successful takers who fell from

grace are the easy ones to spot. You think of every major corporate scandal that's happened in the last decade or so. You think of Ken Lay from Enron. you think of Dennis Kisielski from Tyco having his multi-million dollar birthday party for his wife on a private island of the company's time. That's crazy. You think about Bernie Madoff, swindling lots of investors.

I think those are extreme acts of taking that fell into the category of unethical and certainly illegal as well. You know, but I think there are a lot of ordinary acts of taking that are a little bit less visible. You know, what interests me, you know, in Chapter 3, I was just writing about Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect, and Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine. And, you know, I think that they're both widely celebrated for their accomplishments, but I think that both have had some taper moments in their past that actually jeopardized some of their success. In Frank Lloyd Wright's case, he went through about a nine-year period where he hardly finished

a single building. Wow. right kick. He went through about a nine-year period where he hardly finished a single building. It was more or less because he thought that he could do it all alone. He moved out into the wilderness and didn't take any of his great apprentices with him. Then he had a hard time getting his apprentices on board when he finally realized he needed them because

he insisted that even if he didn't work on a project, that his name had to be signed first on every document. That's why he'd say it was a forgery. Obviously, that didn't work on a project, that his name had to be signed first on every document. Oh my gosh. Otherwise, you'd say it was a forgery. You know, and obviously, that doesn't build a lot of trust and respect. Right.

And then Jonas Salk, when he successfully created the polio vaccine, there was a big announcement, and he got to give his thank you speech, and she didn't recognize the six key people in his lab or the Nobel Prize winning scientists who did the work that made the vaccine possible. And he was more or less shunned by a lot of the scientific community for it. So he just took full credit. Yeah. And, you know, it was one of those things where he had the opportunity to set the record straight over, I want to say, 40 years after that.

And never really did. And, you know, I just thought his colleagues were really jealous., 40 years after that, and never really did. And I just thought his colleagues were really jealous. Wow. But what I got really interested in is why would somebody do that, especially somebody with such a humanitarian passion for curing the world of polio? And it breaks down into what I end up calling the responsibility bias. There's all this research showing that people overestimate their own contributions to a marriage or to a work team relative to what others think they've done. And a lot of people think that's because you have a big ego and you want to sort of see yourself in the most flattering light.

But it's actually less of that. like Ross and his colleagues showed, it's more about information. You literally know more about your own contributions than other people's because, you know, in a marriage, for example, you were there when you took out the garbage and drove the kids to school. And you weren't there for all the stuff your spouse did and same thing goes for your work team.

And I think that happens a little bit to Jonah's talk, right? He wasn't there every moment that his lab was working. He remembered his own blood, sweat, and tears. Right. Those are, I think, some examples of takers. Are there any takers who stand out for you before we look at the gamer side? All I can think is just personal people that I know,

as opposed to famous people. But, you know, probably like someone like a Pete Rose, maybe, like a sports person. I would assume he'd be like more of a taker. Is that right? That's interesting because of his because of his gambling yeah well i think i think it's like the people that that do stuff and then they lie about it or they deny it you know or steroid you know steroid users or maybe like even a lance uh lance armstrong might be a taker even though you you know maybe i'm wrong but you know he so much, half a billion dollars in research to cancer, maybe it was even more, but then,

you know, lied about certain things for years and years. So I don't know what that category that goes under. That's very interesting. In some ways, that's being very literally a taker. Right, right. But yeah, I think actually that's a really nice way to look at it. Right, right. the needs of the team above their own. I would think of the players who are willing to play sort of the less glamorous roles, right? The rebounders in basketball, the linebackers in football.

Yeah, right. And I think that what you see among the takers is this sense of, well, I'm going to bend the rules, and I'm going to do things that might be illegal to get myself an unfair advantage. What about on the giver side? Are there some business people or athletes who have impressed you as being very generous or helpful? My mentor, Stuart Jenkins, I've got a few mentors, but he's one of the early on ones.

He's the VP of Innovation at Decker's. He's constantly collaborating with any organization he's at. He's constantly collaborating with any organization he's at. He's always collaborating, giving credit back. He's never just taking full credit. He's always willing to pay it forward. For me, just a personal connection, he's one of them for sure. I'm trying to think of just

famous people, but he's definitely one of them. Now, what about Steve Jobs? Was he a giver or a taker? I'm assuming he was a giver. I think it's so complicated. It's always hard to judge people when you've never met them. Right.

I've interviewed some people who worked with and for Steve Jobs, and I think the most common reaction has been that he was a really interesting and unusual mix of giver and taker. I think the gi common reaction has been that he was a really interesting and unusual mix of giver and taker. I think the giver part was the complete impatience with any product that wasn't truly useful to people. Yes.

You know, it's sort of an incredibly intense passion for creating the best products that would allow people to connect, to get work done, to share information, to be entertained. I think on the other hand, I think that there are some people who worked with him who said, look, the guy could be a bull in a china shop. And when he was on a mission, don't get in his way. In a sense, I think're reading the Isaacson biography, you know, it does seem like he was a little bit of a taker in his relationship with Steve Wozniak, you know, when they started Apple and Woz was much more of a giver and, you know,

willing to stay in the shadows and let jobs claim more of the credit. And, you know, and you wonder, was that actually part of jobs of success, to surround themselves with givers? Or did he succeed in spite of the fact that he had these taker moments? But I think it's really hard to say. I think he was obviously a true genius and maybe the giver-taker spectrum is just the wrong dimension on which to evaluate. Right, exactly.

Exactly. Well, who are some big givers that people do know about in your mind? Well, I think there are a lot of really great examples. One of my favorites I ended up writing about a little bit was John Hudson, Jr., who is probably known by most of the world as the father of the recent presidential candidate, Huntsman, Jr. Huntsman, Jr. originally worked for the Nixon administration and actually got out when he was asked to do some sort of early stage preliminary wiretapping kinds of activities and said, you know, no, this is not something I'm willing to do.

And he started a container company that grew to become the world's most lucrative chemical firm. And if you look at interviews with him from early in his life, he said, you know, I wanted to become successful and wealthy so that I could give more back.

And I think what's really interesting about his story is that a lot of us assume that the way to become a giver is to succeed first, to accumulate wealth, and then, you know, you can become a philanthropist. You can, you know, if you rise high enough at the corporate ladder, you can become a great mentor. And I think Hudson did it the other way. He said, I'm going to actually give first, and that's going to be one of my paths to success.

And he will say, if you look at his interviews, that his motivation to accumulate all this wealth was basically to be able to help as many people as possible. And I think he's done it in some extraordinary ways. One would be he's one of, I believe, 19 people on earth who have ever given away more than a billion dollars. Oh my gosh. A couple years ago in the financial markets tank, he wasn't able to fulfill his commitment to charitable donations that he had promised, and he actually took out a personal

loan so that he could deliver on all of those promises. Wow. And he actually took out a personal loan so that he could deliver on all of those promises. He's got actually a fascinating book called Winners Never Cheat, where one of the stories he tells is that he's negotiating a merger and acquisition with another CEO whose wife had just passed away due to cancer. And the Hudson family has had a lot of very sad experiences with cancer. And Hudson just said, you know, he really empathized with the guy. He didn't want to sort of fight anymore. And he just agreed to the deal on a handshake when he could have clawed another $200 million out of it. And just do things like that his whole career

that people would say financially make no sense. And yet, to your personal brand point, I think it built him an incredible reputation. You know, he's known as the man of impeccable integrity where people will do business with him on a handshake And yet, to your personal brand point, I think it built him an incredible reputation. You know, he's known as the man of impeccable integrity, where people will do business with him on a handshake because they really trust him. Right. That's interesting. Now, would you agree that your network is your net worth? I think so.

You know, I think that there are so many people who believe in the saying, it's not what you know, it's who you know. And I think that that's more true today than it's been in a long time, you know, given that the world has gotten so much more connected. Right. You know, we talked about LinkedIn. You know, obviously, social media has allowed us to stay in touch, to get back in touch with those dormant ties, but also to track other people's reputations if they're strangers through common connections, through following them on Twitter and so on. And the other thing is organizations have also gotten more networked. Globalization has meant that we can connect with people in different places in easier ways. We can travel a lot more.

And obviously, communication technologies are a big part of that. But we also have seen a rise in the use of teams and the amount of service work that gets done in organizations. So people have more interdependent

collaborators. They have more clients and customers and suppliers probably than they've in the past. And I think that's made our networks more

important than they ever were before. Exactly. Well, I don't want to give away all of your secrets because I know you've got a lot more goodies in the book.

So I want everyone to make sure they go out and grab Give and Take by Adam Grant. And I appreciate your time and the conversation. It's been fun connecting with you and learning more about all of this. Now, where can people best find you or connect with you online? Is it giveandtake.com? Yeah, giveandtake.com is the best place to go. A couple things on the website that I try to make as useful

as possible. One is the self-assessment that you can take to figure out whether you think most often like a giver, a taker, or a matcher. Always take self-assessments with a grain of salt. There's also a 360 assessment on the site. You can do all these for free

where you can email anyone in your network or connect with them on Facebook and ask them to rate you anonymously. Wow. And then find out how often you're seen by the people in your network as a giver, taker, or matcher. That's interesting.

And then there's a bunch of articles and videos. And my favorite feature, though, is a nominate-a-giver feature where one of my disappointments over the last few years is that even in organizations where givers succeed, the successful takers tend to be more visible.

They're going to claim the credit and hog in the spotless. This is just a small way of, you can write a little paragraph to nominate and recognize somebody you know who's been helpful and generous. We're going to feature one of those people a week on this site and you can go in and vote for them.

Getatake.com has all that and then the LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook feeds as well. Very cool. I like that. I like that as well. Well, Adam, I appreciate it, my man. If there's anything I can do ever to help, please let me know. This is my opinion for it. And we'll

make sure to stay in touch, man. Thanks so much. Well, at the risk of sounding cheesy, I would love to be helpful in any way I can. It's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for having me. And there you have it, guys. Another inspiring and educational

guest here on The School of Greatness. Now, make sure to head over to schoolofgreatness.com for all of these show notes. I'm going to be linking up a lot of the different things that Adam talks about. There's going to be some videos and a link to his book as well. Make sure to check that out. If you have any requests for future guests, feel free to shoot me a tweet at Twitter at Lewis Howes and let me know who you'd like to have on or who you'd like to make an introduction to. Other than that, guys, I hope you enjoy this one. Next week's guest is a

good friend of mine and very inspiring guy, Ben Neptun, who is host of The Buried Life on MTV. So make sure to tune back in for the next episode as this one is going to blow you away from some of the stories that Ben is going to share with you. With that, guys, thanks again for checking in today and make sure to do something great. Thank you. Hey. Outro Music Bye.