The OffBeat #27: The Power of Pronoia

The whole world's out to help you

In his 2017 TED Talk on givers & takers, Adam Grant covers a concept I can’t get out of my head. It’s called “pronoia”:

“I believe that the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed. And if we can spread that belief, we can actually turn paranoia upside down. There's a name for that. It's called ‘pronoia.’ Pronoia is the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being. That they're going around behind your back and saying exceptionally glowing things about you.”

In his book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, Grant explores what he deems the three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Givers are selfless, helping others without expecting reciprocity; takers are selfish, focused only on what they can get. Matchers will help you if you’ll help them. Takers produce paranoia—distrust and a sense of threat. Givers produce pronoia—the feeling that others are applauding you behind the scenes, that the world is manipulating circumstances around you in your favor.

Take a second to embody the wholesale mindset shift this concept creates. Some examples:

• Your direct report constantly brings you problems

  • Pronoia lens: You’re being given the opportunity to strengthen the leadership muscle of empowering your team to create solutions; this is harder than swooping in and fixing things for them, so the reps are critical

• You miss out on a major opportunity

  • Pronoia lens: Your time and energy are being preserved for something more fruitful in the long term

• You flubbed a high-stakes presentation or performance

  • Pronoia lens: An ego bruise allows you to separate self-esteem from results; detaching personal meaning from your accomplishments strengthens groundedness and self-confidence

In the long run, givers are overrepresented in leadership roles because of the social capital and political support they’re able to bank on—and pronoia plays a significant role in that equation.

Imagine the different choices you’d make if you navigated your life with the knowledge that everyone’s out to help you, not to get you.

Have a great week,

Allison