The Art of Giving

As with the many articles I have published in the past, I have continuously emphasised the importance of being a value provider. Being someone who is generous, altruistic and selfless with their resources often reap many benefits than to the opposed selfish and egoic manner in which many roam the world. Today we will discuss the art of giving, because it is certainly an art.

The Art Of Giving

Giving is actually the natural way humans are wired to act. Ego and selfish behaviour is often a learnt trait as a result of scarcity during pressing survival conditions. This puts the act of giving in a dilemma. Those who give selflessly without expecting anything in return often have their resources stretched thin, while those who act to selfishly do not benefit from social cohesion.

It was in a Harvard study where a professor discovered that the greatest predictor of a happy and long life is strong and established network of connections in which an individual can rely upon. In a moment we will start to understand why selfish behaviour are often destructive to these networks.

We can generally classify people into three buckets. Takers, matchers and givers. You can think of takers like black holes, where they would take and take with no mechanism to return the favour. Matchers on the other hand will only give back what you have given them, matching your contribution. Givers give spontaneously, expecting nothing in return.

I am very fortunate to have grown up in an environment where my caretakers exemplify the art of giving and instilled in me the spirit of being a giver. Unfortunately however, growing up, I was surrounded by a slew of takers, who relentlessly taken everything I had to offer.

This made me realize that giving and contributing to others was an artform. When done right, the act of giving and contribution can extend your life by 10 years. When done wrong, it can lead to disaster and martyr-like scenarios where you are eaten up by vultures and spat out away as bones.

The art of giving states this: You must only give to other givers or matchers and must not give and cut ties with takers. The reasoning is simple:

1. Other givers will appreciate your gesture and give back spontaneously, creating a strong network in which we have described to increase one's lifespan of 10 years.
2. Matchers will remember your contribution and seek to "match" whatever you have given them in the future. This is knows as "goodwill." As you continuously give to more matchers, you bank goodwill for the future.
3. Takers act as vultures and only take. In this manner, takers are of no use and only serve to damage the ecosystem of value we have built. Therefore, it will be more productive to remove their influence.

The Nature Of Takers

Is giving, taking and matching wired into our DNA? No. Mostly these are responses of initial survival conditions on whether what dominant strategy one takes. In the book "Give And Take By Adam Grant", he mentioned that matchers are a majority of the population, making up the middle of the bell curve.

If you follow the idealized understanding of giving described in spiritual books, you will very quickly undermine your own survival agenda when you meet takers ready to exploit your generosity. This is actually how most people become matchers.

An example of the idealized version of giving is how most NGOs and charities operate. Because takers continuously extract the NGOs resources, they continuously beg for more resources from givers. This makes their allocation of resources incredibly inefficient, weighted againts to the impact they make.

Therefore, it is very important to know who is what when you first meet them. Givers are very obvious in your presence, but the distinction between takers and matchers are much more difficult to make, especially during first impressions.

The easiest way to know if someone is a taker is to observe how they behave around those that cannot benefit them. If they seemingly extract value without feeling the emotion "gratefulness" and "appreciation", this is a great way to know that he/she is a taker.

The reason why we observe how the person under evaluation acts around others is because we never know what "the other" stands to gain from us. Make some emotional space and keep untrusted individuals in our outer circle until you can carefully observe which "type" this person turns out to be.

Real World Applications Of The Giving Mindset

In businesses led by givers, they tend to be very generous with their resources, often spending their time, money and operational manpower for some sort of social good to the best of their ability. By not focusing on only profits, these brands can cultivate trust, loyalty, and long-term relationships with matchers and givers. In this way the business sustains its survival.

In friendships and social circles led by givers, they are often the ones who support, encourage, and elevate the morale of their compatriots. This compassion creates an environment where others feel valued and empowered, fostering deeper connections and mutual growth. Because of this, givers hold a great network of support and goodwill that comes back to benefit their lives.

With leadership structures led by givers, they often exemplify the traits of a leadership style known as "servant leadership." Such leaders who prioritize the needs of their team, focusing on serving others rather than demanding respect. This approach builds trust, nurtures collaboration, and unlocks the full potential of individuals, resulting in higher engagement, innovation, and long-term success for entire organization.

This is why many great leaders spend a lot of time picking who they allow into their organizations and inner circles. Giver style networks are built on the understanding of collaborative and mutually beneficial survival which one egocentric taker can cripple the entire network the giver have spent so much time to create.

The Importance Of Acceptance

To cultivate the art of giving, you have to be in a position of abundance first. What to realize here is that abundance is more so a psychological thing rather than what you actually have right now.

Ask yourself, in what aspect of life do you feel scarce right now? Why can't you accept your current circumstance? Abundance = the full acceptance of current circumstances. How beautiful is that!

How To Transition Into A Giver

There are many stories of takers destroying their abilities to form genuine connections. If the only reason in which you do something is to advance your own survival agenda, you will be quick to realize that you have given yourself a miserable life.

Here are some of my recommendations in becoming a giver:

1. Evaluate your social circles and cut ties with all takers. Takers force you to treat them in a transactional manner. This toxicity will spread with the way you deal with other people. Not good.
2. Deal with other people focusing on connection. Rather than trying to extract something from them, try to evaluate if you actually like this person fundamentally as an individual. If not, just move on and meet more people.
3. Continue to be generous with your time, money and effort cultivating relationships with givers with no agenda. When you have excess resources, trickle them down to matchers.
4. Never discriminate and give everyone a chance. It may take some time to discover on whether they are a taker, matcher or giver. You might be delightfully surprised.
5. Genuinely forgive often. Everyone (which includes matchers and givers) may make mistakes that sometimes and negatively influence your agenda. Acknowledge their apology and forgive them.
6. Praise often and see the best in others. Acknowledge that the fundamental principle in which that everyone is trying their best. Offer your empathy and help whenever applicable.
7. In the case of a taker, enforce your boundaries often. I often like to make a joke at their expense or be rather rude so that I show that I do not tolerate them around my presence. Practice not being a pushover, often takers get the message and will find another gullible mark to extract value.
8. Listen attentively and practice the principles of love. Spend 20% of the time taking 80% helping. Be curious about other people and life in general. Once you understand them, give them opportunities and value.
9. Create high-quality cultures that uses the principle of servant leadership to take care of those whom you lead and encourage them to give as well. Use meritocracy rather than hierarchy and rank as arbiters of respect.
10. Understand what is happening around you in order to see where you can contribute and make a positive impact. Rather than look to extract value from your environment, look at add value.

As you transition into becoming a natural giver, you may suppose to come across people who question and critisize your generosity. Do not worry as this reflects their own lack of abundance common to the symptoms of a matcher and a taker rather than them making an accurate critique of your personality and self image.

Conclusion

I hope I have illustrated how you can practice the art of giving. Giving is not an act, but an attitude towards life. The words you speak, the way you act, the thoughts you think, all reflects how abundant you are in your own life. With this article, I hope that you can take the first step in becoming more abundant, and therefore more happy.

That's it for me. Best of luck. Please check out my other posts and practice everything holistically. Send me an email if you want a specific topic written. You can see "coaching" to see if I have room to onboard new students.

Cheers,
FriendlyWrenChilling.