“Everytime we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return?” (pg. 4).

“Givers and takers differ in their attitudes and actions towards other people. If you’re a taker, you help others strategically, when the benefits to you outweigh the personal costs. If you’re a giver, you might use a different cost-benefit analysis: you help whenever the benefits to others exceed the personal costs . . . if you’re a giver at work, you simply strive to be generous in sharing your time, energy, knowledge, skills, ideas, and connections with other people who can benefit from them” (pg 5).

“There’s something distinctive that happens when givers succeed: it spreads and cascades” (pg 10).

“It takes time for givers to build goodwill and trust, but eventually, they establish reputations and relationships that enhance their success” (pg 15).

“My default is to give. I’m not looking for quid pro quo; I’m looking to make a difference and have an impact, and I focus on the people who can benefit from my help the most” (pg 22).

If you give only so you can succeed, it probably won’t work (pg 26).

“Although takers tend to be dominant and controlling with subordinates, they’re suprisingly submissive and deferential toward superiors. When takers deal with powerful people, they become convincing fakers. Takers want to be admired by influential superiors, so they go out of their way to charm and flatter” . . . they are “obsessed with making a good impression upward, but worried less about how {they} are seen by those who follow {them}” (pg 32).

“Takers often rise by kissing up, but they often fall by kicking down” (pg 32).

“It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others” - John Andrew Holmes (pg 61).

“Highly talented people tend to make others jealous, placing themselves at risk of being disliked, resented, ostracized, and undermined” (pg. 75).

“Responsibility Bias: exaggerating our own contributions relative to others’ inputs” (pg 81).

“To effectively help colleagues, people need to step outside their own frames of reference” (pg 90).

“When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When people focus on others, as givers do naturally, they’re less likely to worry about egos and miniscule details; they look at the big picture and prioritize what matters most to others” (pg 114).

“Takers tend to worry that revealing weaknesses will compromise their dominance and authority. Givers are much more comfortable expressing vulnerability: they’re interested in helping others, not gaining power over them, so they’re not afraid of exposing chinks i their armor. By making themselves vulnerable, givers can actually build prestige” (pg 133).

“If people give too much time, they end up making sacrifices for their collaborators and network ties, at the expense of their own energy . . . givers end up exhausted and unproductive” (pg 155).

Selfless givers are people with high other-interest and low self-interest . . . successful givers are otherish: they care about benefiting others, but they also have ambitious goals for advancing their own interests” (pg 157).

“When people give continually without concern for their own well-being, they’re at risk for poor mental and physical health” (pg 170).

“Those who volunteered between one hundred and eight hundred hours per year were happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who volunteered fewer than one hundred” (pg 173).

“Trust is one reason givers are so susceptable to the doormat effect: they tend to see the best in everyone, so they operate on the mistaken assumption that everyone is trustworthy . . . in reality, they ‘re wildly inaccurate” (pg 190).

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