• The positive benefits of exercising selfishness remained largely overlooked.
• Strategic selfishness is a philosophy that encourages people to seek out or harness environments that can enable them to be their best selves.
• When strategic selfishness is viewed as an investment strategy it pushes one to make wise bets on interpersonal relationships.

Selfishness is unlikely to be listed among the beliefs that highly effective leaders cite as having considerably aided them in motivating their own achievement. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because the trait is typically associated with some degree of negativity. Most societies that we are a part of define selfishness as ideas and behaviours that are predominately focused on one’s own benefit.