It's Better to give before you receive.

I was reading “Give and Take” by Adam Grant, and I find something which turns the conventional wisdom upside down about "what it takes to win and get ahead".

I would like to share something from the book which I believe will help us to change our fundamental views about success and reason behind networking, I am sharing it because I feel these words have strong power to comprehend that...

“One of the great secrets of the life is that those who win most are often those who give most.”

In silicon Valley , A quiet man who looks like a panda bear is taking transparent networks to the next level. His name is Adam Rifkin , and he has called giant panda of programming.He describe himself as a shy ,introvert computer nerd with a two favorite language.

As the new millennium approached , Rifkin confounded KnowNow, a software start-up,helping companies manage information more efficiently and profitably. KnowNow achieved a decade of success after bringing in more than $500 million in venture funding .

By 2009 , while still in thirties,Rifkin announced his retirement.

What goes around comes around

When Adam Grant searched about him,something caught his eyes that he found Adam Rifkin fortune’s best net worker.

In 2011, Adam Rifkin had more LinkedIn connections to the powerful people on fortune’s list than any human being on Planet. He beat out luminaries like Michael Dell, The billionaire founder of the Del computer company, and Jeff Weiner, The CEO of the LinkedIn.

Adam Grant said in his book that he was stunned that a shy,star trek loving anagram obsessing software geek managed to build a network that includes the founder of face book, Netscape, Napster, Twitter, Flickr and Half.com.

Adam Rifkin built his network by operating as a bona fide giver. He said “ My network developed little by little, in fact a little every day through the small gestures and act of kindness, over the course of many years, with a desire to make better the lives of the people I’m connected to.

Since 1994, Rifkin working diligently to strengthen the relationship and help people resolve online conflict. He said Frankly I would like to see more people helping other people. Later on he decide to become full time giver offering extensive guidance to start ups and working to connect engineers and entrepreneurs with business people in large companies.

He Founded a professional network where he educating people through dialogues, he said , he has been roped in to giving free advice to others entrepreneurs ,which is usually worthless then they pay for it, he however emphasis his hobby.

Helping others is my favorite things to do

This approach has led to great things not just for Rifkin, but also for those he has helped him along the way. In 2001, Rifkin was a big fan of blogger, an early blog publishing service. Blogger had run out of the funding,,so Rifkin offered a contract to the Blogger's founder to do some work for his own first start up KnowNow.

“ We decide to hire him because we wanted to see Blogger service”.

Rifkin said we gave him to contract to build something for our company so we could use it as demo and he could keep blogger going . The money from the contract help the founder keep Blogger afloat, and he went on to confound a company called Twitter.

Rifkin reflects “ you never know where somebody’s going to end up.it’s not just about building your reputation it is really about being there for other people.

People like to approach those people whose heart is in right place. People whose natural way is “giving” always get the highest return. Rifkin Says when you have nothing, what’s the first thing you try to do ? you try to make a connection and have a relationship that’s give you opportunity to do something for someone else. In 2012, on LinkedIn 49 people have written recommendation for Rifkin, and No attribute is mention more frequently then his giving.

The gist of the story is Rifkin gives more then he receives. It’s better to give before you receive.

 Do you really care about helping me, or are you just trying to create quid pro quo so that you can ask for a favor. Study shows if you insist on quid pro every time you help others , you will have much narrower network.

Givers are the sun , they injected light around the organization. Giver creates opportunity for their colleagues to contribute rather then imposing their ideas and hogging credit for the achievement. When they disagree with the suggestions, they showed respect for the people who spoke up rather then belittling them.

 Rifkin Real aim is to change our fundamental ideas about how we build our networks and who should benefit from them. Here on linked we see lot of article on how to increase followers in a month or 3 months time, but the fact is before increasing followers it is important,what we are giving to the every person who connect to us. Giving does not mean that we personally meet him , it’s as simple as that we write and share good things which can help people to think or behave differently when they are really in trouble.

This is a huge platform and we have ample amount of opportunity, rather then just connected with a Big people , yes that is also important but we can not ignore some one when we think that he or she is not important enough. Networks are not meant for claiming our self it’s all about creating value for everyone.

The Giver approach to networking can uproot the traditional norm of reciprocity in a manner that’s highly productive for all involved.