first section unveils the principles of giver success, illuminating how and why givers rise to the top. I’ll show you how successful givers have unique approaches to interactions in four key domains: networking, collaborating, evaluating, and influencing. A close look at networking highlights fresh approaches for developing connections with new contacts and strengthening ties with old contacts. Examining collaboration reveals what it takes to work productively with colleagues and earn their respect. Exploring how we evaluate others offers counterintuitive techniques for judging and developing talent to get the best results out of others. And an analysis of influence sheds light on novel strategies for presenting, selling, persuading, and negotiating, all in the spirit of convincing others to support our ideas and interests. Across these four domains, you’ll see what successful givers do differently—and what takers and matchers can learn from their approach. Along the way, you’ll find out how America’s best networker developed his connections, why the genius behind one of the most successful shows in television history toiled for years in anonymity, how a basketball executive responsible for some of the worst draft busts in history turned things around, whether a lawyer who stumbles on his words can beat a lawyer who speaks with confidence, and how you can spot a taker just from looking at a Facebook profile. In the second part of the book, the focus shifts from the benefits of giving to the costs, and how they can be managed. I’ll examine how givers protect themselves against burnout and avoid becoming pushovers and doormats. You’ll discover how a teacher reduced her burnout by giving more rather than less, how a billionaire made money by giving it away, and the ideal number of hours to volunteer if you want to become happier and live longer. You’ll see why giving slowed one consultant’s path to partner but accelerated another’s, why we misjudge who’s a giver and who’s a taker, and how givers protect themselves at the bargaining table. You’ll also gain knowledge about how givers avoid the bottom of the success ladder and rise to the top by nudging other people away from taking and toward giving. You’ll learn about a ninety-minute activity that unleashes giving in remarkable ways, and you’ll figure out why people give things away for free that they could easily sell for a profit on Craigslist, why some radiologists get better but others get worse, why thinking about Superman makes people less likely to volunteer, and why people named Dennis are unusually likely to become dentists. By the time you finish reading this book, you may be reconsidering some of your fundamental assumptions about success. If you’re a self-sacrificing giver, you’ll find plenty of insights for ascending from the bottom to the top of the success ladder. If you endorse giver values but act like a matcher at work, you may be pleasantly surprised by the wealth of opportunities to express your values and find meaning in helping others without compromising your own success. Instead of aiming to succeed first and give back later, you might decide that giving first is a promising path to succeeding later. And if you currently lean toward taking, you may just be tempted to shift in the giver direction, seeking to master the skills of this growing breed of people who achieve success by contributing to others. But if you do it only to succeed, it probably won’t work.