m-cause

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve.”–Martin Luther King Jr.

If you watch too many episodes of The Apprentice, you might fall into the trap of thinking that in business, you only have to look out for #1.

This is definitely not what Bob Burg and John David Mann preach in their book (I need to add this one to my summer reading list) called The Go-Giver. The book was recently discussed by John Jantsch on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast.  The Go-Giver is organized into short chapters & uses a parable to get its message of abundance and “giving to get” across. The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success (which I pulled from an Amazon review) shared in the book are:

1. The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.

2. The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.

3. The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.

4. The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.

5. The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

I especially like #3 because it is not intuitive, but very true.  It is easy to get overly caught up in trying to measure the value we are providing to others (so we can put a price tag on that value).  Indeed, no one wants to be “taken advantage of” or put into “lose-win” situations…but #3 seems to point to the idea that we should go out & abundantly provide value to others in advance of them ever wanting to purchase from us.  The abundant mentality helps us consider how we can add life and light to the world with every business transaction.  Of course, our abundance must be authentic (see law #4)…we must place other people first because it is who we are and what we are all about.