My Year of Giving Dangerously

Just over a year ago, I embarked on a crazy experiment: I wanted to see if I could make a living by giving. Not investing in startups, not donating a portion of my time and money to a cause, just giving. After reading Adam Grant’s book, Give and Take, last summer, I decided to take the “Give First” idea espoused by Adam, Brad Feld, David Cohen, and others to its logical extreme. I would give first, second, and third, then give a little more, without requiring any equal trades in return, and see what happened. I wanted to see if Adam was right, that people respond to generosity with generosity, that the majority of “matchers” in humanity want to lift givers up while bringing takers down. I’d already seen what takers could do and I was not impressed. Now I wanted to see what a giver could accomplish.

Spoiler: it’s a lot.

As I’ve done with similar activities, I established some ground rules to make this easier to both explain and carry out:

1. As long as I could make the time, I would say “yes” to anyone who asked for my help or advice. I expected that this would mostly be related to building a tech startup, but if someone wanted help packing boxes and I had time, I’d do that too.
2. My advice and experience were free, period. As long as the other person left with the to-do list, then I would never charge them for my time and advice. I didn’t want anyone to stop asking for help because they were afraid the meter was going to start running.
3. If someone asked me to own something, then we could talk about payment. Consulting was now my livelihood, so at some point someone was going to have to pay me. If I took on the to-do list, then I would charge for my time or — if I ever built one — my team’s time.
4. If I had to “sell,” I was out. I have great respect for those people who can make cold calls, work the room at a networking event, and somehow get permission to show up at someone’s office and pitch goods and services, but I simply can’t do it. Before I took the first step on this journey, God and I made a deal: no “selling” to people who weren’t interested. If doing this meant that I had to become a hustler, then I would rather work at Starbucks. I hear they have a great health plan.