Hey friends,
A thought I've recently been pondering is how I go about interacting with others and in particular moments where I seek advice, knowledge or a favour.
A key concept that comes to mind when thinking about how it is best to go about engagements, is the concept of acting with:
reciprocity
/ˌrɛsɪˈprɒsɪti/
noun
the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, especially privileges granted by one country or organisation to another.
"the Community intends to start discussions on reciprocity with third countries"
In macroeconomics, there is a well known phrase; 'Growing the Pie', which refers to one of the two ways in which to view the economy (the pie in this instance) and the need for government intervention.
Here are the two ways of main ways of looking at the pie:
How the pie has been sliced - Here each person around the table looks at the proportion of the existing pie that they have received. Each individual acts with the intention to increase their proportion of the existing pie.
Growing the pie - In this case everyone just looks at baking a larger pie. In which case if everyone were to keep their existing proportions of the pie on the table, everyone would have a larger slice than before.
This assumption provides the view that if a nation were to go about growing an economy as a whole, it would create more wealth and opportunities than focusing on the 'redistribution of wealth'.
Although this principle may be up for debate in the macroeconomic sense, I think there is a lot that can be taken away from this concept with regards to how we view our interactions and community.
There is one way of viewing our progress and interactions as if we are able to take something away from it in the moment then we are increasing our proportion of the pie, whereas if we were to act with reciprocity we can create a bigger pie as a whole and all take away a bigger slice!
I'm no expert when it comes to this topic, but here are some of ways I'll try acting with reciprocity:
Doing my research
Encouraging my network
Providing introductions
Sharing resources
Aim to be concise
Anyone down to bake a pie? 🥧
Quote of the week 💭
“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop
A recommended listen 🎧
🎙 How I Built This with Guy Raz — Airbnb: Joe Gebbia
I only came across this podcast 2 weeks ago and have been binging it ever since! My favourite listen so far has to be on how Airbnb was built. Hearing from so many founders stories has really opened my mind to how we view current problems in the world. In the case of Airbnb, people thought the founders were out of their minds thinking that homeowners would allow strangers to stay overnight in their homes; today Airbnb is valued at 116.49 Billion Dollars
A question❓
How can you go about baking a bigger pie?
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Have a great week! 🙌
Great read, keep it up Dylan!