If you're looking for me in this video, five minute favors show up at 5:40.

But really all 13 minutes of this video are worth watching.

Watch it here: https://ted.com/talks/adam_grant_are_you_a_giver_or_a_taker

Tirelessly helping others could be the key to business and life.

http://nytimes.com/2013/03/31/magazine/is-giving-the-secret-to-getting-ahead.html

Adam Grant Reddit AMA was February 25, 2016:

https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/47l5m5/iama_wharton_professor_and_bestselling_business/

Reddit AMA question: "Curious if you consider yourself a giver, taker or matcher?"

Adam's answer:

It's not my place to judge. I aspire to be a giver, and try to spend as much time as possible helping others without asking for anything in return, but whether I succeed in doing that can only be evaluated by others. Over time, as I've gotten busier, I've had to become more selective about who and how I help. My priorities are family first, students second, colleagues third, and everyone else fourth. I became a professor to inspire students, not other professors. So that means students are probably more likely than colleagues to see me as a giver. On the how, I used to field all kinds of requests. Now, I try to focus on saying yes where I can have a unique impact, which often involves (1) sharing knowledge about work and psychology (I love it when the esoteric studies I read are actually useful to someone), and (2) making introductions (as a professor, I get to orbit in lots of different communities).

Reddit AMA question: "What is your definition of happiness?"

Adam's answer:

(a) Being content with the path you chose, instead of wondering what might have been.

(b) Making others happier. To quote John Stuart Mill: having your mind fixed on something important other than your own happiness.

https:[email protected]/does-trying-to-be-happy-make-us-unhappy-21d3a60ea05

I like this answer. A lot.

Reddit AMA question: "We always hear the cliche around "being fearless" and "fail fast to succeed sooner" so what would you say to someone who has been down this road (via innovation efforts) but is now walking with bruised confidence?"

Adam's answer:

I wrote this post for that person:

https://medium.com/life-learning/to-overcome-the-fear-of-failure-fear-this-instead-d880ce3e5ccf

The punch line: you need lots of bad ideas to have a few good ones. It's scary to fail, but it's even scarier to fail to try. In the long run, our regrets are inactions, not inactions. This video captures is beautifully -- a chalkboard in NYC asked people to write their biggest regret, and the majority were chances not taken:

http://aplus.com/a/clean-slate-blackboard-experiment

Adam in the AMA:

Networking: First, there's no evidence that extraverts are better at networking than introverts: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140218125055-69244073-5-myths-about-introverts-and-extraverts-at-work

Second, I think networks are usually the result, not the cause, of success. People end up with rich relationships after they accomplish interesting things-- they end up getting invited into rooms with interesting people. 

Third, that said, there are plenty of strategies for networking more effectively. Keith Ferrazzi gives some great tips in Never Eat Alone. For a preview: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20030101/25049.html

Emotional intelligence: I don't think we should have a horse race with cognitive ability. They're both important. The data do suggest, though, that cognitive ability is far more consequential for success in most jobs than emotional intelligence. See http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-dark-side-of-emotional-intelligence/282720/

My favorite read on improving emotional intelligence is The Emotionally Intelligent Manager by Caruso and Salovey. See also these apps for learning to read micro-expressions of emotion:

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/micro-expression-trainer/id364347764?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Mazuzu.ExpressionTraining&hl=en

More intensive, and more expensive: http://www.paulekman.com/product-category/face-training