One of my coaches, Nettie Owens, made me hip to Bob Burg & John D. Mann and their classic business book, The Go-Giver when she shared Bob’s Linked-In page with me. I was instantly impressed at his level of humility and high engagement, and knew I wanted to learn more about this Go-Giver stuff.
Audible had the book, so I downloaded it and listened to it at 1.4x speed. Fast enough to get through the book in a couple of hours, not so fast that I couldn’t hit pause to take notes.
The following is a list of rough gems I picked out on the first lesson. I wouldn’t skip reading or listening to the actual book because it is structured and narrated as an engaging tale of a struggling account manager and his newfound mentor.
These are his 5 laws of the Go-Giver
- The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value, than you take in payment.
- The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve, and how well you serve them.
- The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
- The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
- The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receive.
These were my takeaways…
The more you give the more you have.
People will do business with humans the know, like, and trust.
The first question should be “Does it serve?”
You give, give, give. Why? Because you love to. It’s not a strategy, it’s a way of life.
Your compensation is directly proportional to how many lives you touch.
You make your own story. You just make it up.
Be energetic, curious, youthful, enthusiastic, interested.
Survive. Save. Serve.
Create your own army of personal ambassadors. Humans who want to see you succeed, and you want the same for them.
Giving makes you magnetic. Givers attract.
Whatever it is you sell, add value.
What I’m here to sell you on is you.
The cleansing pain of honest self-reflection. (I honestly would have found high value from buying this book from this sentence alone.)