Successful givers secure their oxygen masks before coming to the assistance of others. Although their motives may be less purely altruistic, their actions prove more altruistic, because they give more.
Every action that we take has some motivation of either being selfish or altruistic. All that adds up.
One of the things I realized... is how few success stories there are in websites or products or businesses that exist primarily for an altruistic purpose.
I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me.
Whether you're saying 'thank you' to friends, family members, customers, or a hiring manager who interviewed you for a job, the case in favor of gratitude is both altruistic and pragmatic.
When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children - just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him.
Science is a victim of its own reductive metaphors: 'Big Bang,' 'selfish gene' and so on. Richard Dawkins' selfish gene fitted with the Thatcherite politics of the time. It should actually be the 'altruistic gene,' but he'd never have sold as many books with a title like that.
I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.
Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'
I think it's really easy to be the altruistic hero of your own narrative and story.
