#147: WHY You Need To Shift Your Focus From Getting To Giving with The Go-Giver Bob Burg

Shifting your focus from getting to giving. Now, when we say giving in this context, we simply mean constantly and consistently providing immense value to others. Understanding that doing so is not only a more pleasant way of conducting business, a more fulfilling way, it's also the most financially profitable way as well.

Come on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. Hi and welcome back. I am so excited and honored to have my guest here today. For over 30 years, Bob Berg has been successfully showing entrepreneurs, leaders and sales professionals how to communicate their value and accelerate their referral business. Although for years he was best known for his sales classic Endless Referrals, it's his business parable, the Go Giver, co authored with John David Mann that has created a worldwide movement, literally. While part of a four book series, the Go Giver itself has sold more than 1 million copies and been translated into 30 languages. It's unbelievable. It was rated number 10 on Inc. Magazine's list of the most motivational books ever written and was on HubSpot's 20 Most Highly Rated sales books of all time. Bob is an advocate, supporter and defender of the free enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve. Bob, thank you so much for making time to be here today.

My pleasure, Heather. Thank you for having me.

I'll tell you, as an author, hearing that you've sold a million copies of a book is mind blowing. Is it still mind blowing to you?

Yeah, I mean, it's something. I really appreciate that there's been a market for it. It's funny, whenever I hear 1 million copies, I think of that. Remember the Austin Powers movie One Million Dol?

I love that. My son has been big into Austin Powers lately. And it's so funny you say that a doctor said to him, oh, we only have pink cast left. And my son said, how about no? So Austin Powers comes up a lot in this house. I appreciate that.

That is funny. I love your invitation. Yeah.

So, Bob, okay. Selfishly, I need to ask you some questions that are helping me because I am in. Okay. So I definitely am grateful for this moment for you to be here. So, as you know, there's a lot of anger and animosity online right now for a lot of reasons. Right. Obviously, people are sick of the pandemic. People have been isolated, there's loss of jobs and frustration everywhere. And so, again, I understand it. However, recently I've had a number of People coming at me with a lot of hate and anger. And that's why it's so great to have you here today. The antithesis of this. However, Bob, when I researched you, I did a deep dive into Bob Berg somewhere. I read that at one point in time, you used to have issues with anger management.

Oh, there was no question. For a big part of my life, I'd say up to age 35 or so, which is when I went on a quest to really improve myself and. And really turn my life around, I was run by a lot of anger. It was kind of just part of me. I mean, there were specific reasons for it, I'm sure, like with anybody else, but I. Yeah, I was filled with anger. And, you know, if someone, you know, did me wrong, you know, insulted me or said, you know, I held a grudge, and it was so very counterproductive to, you know, to what I needed to be as a human being. And there were a number of character deficiencies I felt I had that. That I needed to really work on and improve myself on. So. But anger was certainly one of them.

How did you start that journey? Because I feel like a lot of us get into those moments where we're frustrated, we're upset, and we're angry, and there aren't a lot of strategies that readily come to mind in those moments.

Yeah. I'll tell you what was a big one for me, Heather. An old mentor of mine. His name was Charlie Tremendous Jones, and he sent me a book. It was by Benjamin Franklin, one of the US Founders, and it was Ben Franklin's autobiography, a brilliant, brilliant book where he shared just such life wisdom. But one of the chapters was where he explained that he himself had many character deficiencies that he felt, and he was told by someone that it was going to hurt him from being as successful as he wanted to be and ultimately being as happy. Because when you think about it, really, it's about happiness. Everything we do is in an unconscious quest for happiness. To be happy. That's what, you know. And so he. You know, of course, there were no personal improvement courses at the time. So Benjamin Franklin, who was an inventor, he invented his own. And what he did is he put himself on a program where he would take one character trait that he knew he needed to work on, and for one week, he would focus totally on that one thing. Okay, so maybe it was, you know, gratitude and. Because he. Because maybe he didn't feel he had. That was actually my first one. I can't remember if that was Ben's first one, but I used some of what he used and others were more specific to me. So for that first week, gratitude would be the total focal point. It would be focusing on everything you have to be grateful for. Didn't mean the toys you had or having a plane or anything like that. It might meant being able to see, touch, hear, taste and smell. It might be knowing you have a cup of coffee you can drink a delicious cup of coffee, or a roof over your head, or that you have a family who loves you. It might be that it could be anything, all the things that were to be grateful for. And he would focus. He'd put his yellow sticky note. No, I'm only kidding. There were no yellow sticky notes back then. But he would remind himself. That's what I did though. But he would, he would remind himself constantly. Now what he did is he came up with 13 of these traits, okay? And he would go for one week, putting every ounce of energy into improving himself. That one trait, keeping that at top of mind. End of the first week, he'd go on to the second one. It might be anger issues for the second one. Third one might be speaking respectfully to others. Fourth one might be money management. Fifth one might be whatever it happened to be. And he'd go through 13 weeks. Now at the end of the 13 weeks, he'd start over at number one again. Now there are 52 weeks in a year. 13 times, four are 52. So he could actually go through his course four times in a year. And at the end of that year, he found that he had basically knocked out the counterproductive traits and turned them into positive ones. And that's what I found for me that that's what happened. Now my first one was gratitude. My second one was anger. My third one was positive speech because I also spoke, I spoke down about others, I gossiped about others, I listene to gossip. That was something I needed to really work on. So I went through Benjamin Franklin's course and it made a huge, huge difference in my. My life.

Wow, that's so intentional and so focused and powerful. One of the things that comes to mind for me when I'm hearing that process is what's interesting. I've been big into personal development for at least the past decade. And what's interesting is thinking through what you're talking about. I see an onion, and as you peel back the layers, wow. You start to expose parts of yourself you didn't realize. And it can. Some of those 13 steps, I'm sure some of them are really overwhelming when you start digging into it.

Oh, absolutely. And you know what Ben Franklin said he was looking for was moral perfection. Admittedly, he said he didn't reach it, he didn't attain it, and of course, neither did I. But it's not the point to attain it, it's to go for it, you know, and so what that did is going through his course didn't make me perfect and doesn't mean I don't have issues and so forth with any of the ones that of the 13. But you get a lot better.

And so for you, when as you moved through this, did success start coming easier to you as a direct result?

Much easier. Because there were times where I was successful, but I was successful in spite of myself and in spite of those things, not because of them. And as I released a lot of that garbage from my life, success came easier to me. Life was more fun. It was just more pleasant. Yeah, absolutely.

So those angers or upsets or personal challenges that everybody deals with, those are almost like blocks to success?

Oh, I think they are blocks of success because that anger, which typically will have a lot to do with ego and a lot to do do with what you want to control and what you can't. Right. And when we start to realize that we're not the general manager of the universe, we can't control what happens to us or what other people do. What we can do is we can control our own responses, we can control the things that we legitimately can control, and we can focus on that which we can control and not be attached to that which we cannot control. Now we, right there, we create very much a benevolent context for our success.

You're so speaking to me right now because I decided about a year ago that rewind one year and put ourselves back, you know, in 2020. I decided that in one year from that time, live event business would be back, my speaking schedule be packed, I'd be back at everything in live events. So in my mind, I thought I was helping myself. First of all, Bob, like focus on something you're looking forward to, things are going to get better, you know, putting positive out there and. But however, fast forward to today, I've only had one in person speaking event and everything's been on zoom and it's been. I started feeling like everything's out of control. Why does everything feel out of control? And I had to stop. And you know, just like you were saying, realize I'm not in control of the universe. I can't predict the outcomes. However, it can Feel pretty stressful in the moment.

Oh, sure. Well, that's very human. Because we want, as human beings, we want there to be that consistency. We want to kind of know what's there and what to expect. Well, the fact is we can't and we don't. So it's. How do we deal with that? So it's one of the reasons I love reading the Stoics, you know, from a couple of thousand years ago. Their big thing was focus on what you can control and relinquish attachment to that which you can't. You go back to Buddhist philosophy which says that all suffering is the result of attachment. Now that doesn't mean we don't care about things. Of course not. We prefer things. But so long as we're not attached to it having to be a certain way, then we can enjoy the process a lot more because we know we can make all the effort that we want. And to the degree we do the right things, that's the degree we're going to get the right results. But it's only to the degree we can control what happens, which is limited. So as long as we do the best we can, whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Okay? We just, we take responsibility for what we can do and then we can be happy with ourselves.

There's such a calm and clarity in your knowing, which I find very comforting. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That feels really good to me. I wanted to read what I felt was so incredibly relatable from your book the Go Giver, which is unbelievable. And by the way, I have received your book right here from so many different people as gifts over the past couple of years. Right. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn't asking for it. I didn't know about the book. I don't know how I didn't. And then people have been messaging me on social media. You need to have Bob Berg on your show. So it's just been, it's so serendipitous to have you here, but here's one just that I wanted to read from the book that I find so incredibly relatable. You're talking about the character Joe at the beginning of the book and how hard he worked and how he was heading for the top and working so incredibly hard. And I personally still relate to that. Still, sometimes it felt as if the harder and faster he worked, the further away his goals appeared. For such a dedicated go getter, it seemed like he was doing a lot of going, but not a lot of getting. I feel like so many people can relate to that. When you feel like you're on that wheel and you just keep running harder and harder, but you're not seeing the outcomes, where do you want people to start on this journey of the go giver?

So I think, and by the way, I just want to just to say that John David Mann, my co author, was really the lead writer and storyteller. He's just absolutely brilliant. I'm much more of a how to guy. You can probably tell from speaking with me for 10 minutes that I'm more of a step one, step two, step three person. So I, you know, without John's amazing writing abilities, this never would have been what it, what it is. So I would say to start with the focus and understanding. When we talk about being a go giver, right, it simply means this, Heather, that shifting your focus and this is really where again where it begins, shifting your focus from getting to giving. Now when we say giving in this context, we simply mean constantly and consistently providing immense value to others, understanding that doing so is not only a more pleasant way of conducting business, a more fulfilling way, it's also the most financially profitable way as well. And not for any kind of woo woo way out there, magical, mystical reasons. Not at all. It actually makes very rational sense. When you're that person who can take your focus off yourself and place it on helping others, serving others, focus on discovering their wants, what their needs, their desires. When you can take your focus off yourself and help people work through their challenges and problems. When you can take your focus off yourself and place it on helping others get closer to happiness, if you will. People feel good about you. People want to get to know you, they like you, they trust you, they want to be in relationship with you, they want to do business with you directly if they need what you have. But they definitely want to tell others about you. They want to be what we call your personal walking ambassador. So that's where I want people to start asking themselves the questions. Whether it's in person, whether it's on zoom, whether it's on social media, is what I'm about to say. Do tweet, post, what have you. Is it likely to add value to that person's life? And if you start there, I think you're facing in the right direction.

It's such a simple concept and one I came up in sales that we talk about, you know, obsessively, which is how can we solve others problems, how can we put ourselves in their shoes? How can we see through their lens. However, when I listen to you describe that, immediately my mind goes to charity, because charity is about helping other people. And, you know, it seems to me, having come up in corporate America, I thought about, you know, your job is very. It's very clearly written out, the objectives. And no one was ever talking back in corporate America about helping others. Right? There was never this initiative. So to me, I always saw it as charity work over here to help others and then corporate over here.

So here's the interesting thing, because indeed, charity work is very important. And whatever you do in that regard, that's congruent with your values. I applaud that. We believe in that. And yet the same principle worked on business. And here's why I would say, and I say this whenever I speak to sales audiences, and that's this. Nobody is going to buy from you because you have a quota to meet. They're not going to buy from you because you need the money or even because you're a really nice human being. They're going to buy from you because they believe they will be very better off by doing so than by not doing so. And when you think about it, that's the only reason anyone should buy from you or from me or from anyone else. And when you start from that direction, you know, it's gotta be all about them. This is why John and I say that money is simply an echo of value. It's the thunder, if you will, to values lightning. Which means nothing more, Heather, than understanding that the value must be the focus. Okay? The value must be the focus. The money you receive is simply a natural result of the value you've provided.

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How do you help yourself to understand the lens at which someone's seeing your products or services through? Because obviously we're all coming at these things. I might think that I understand what they're looking for to solve their problem, but I may be seeing it so differently.

You make a fantastic point. We all do. Because as human beings, we all see the world through our own particular set of beliefs. What's a belief? It's a subjective truth. It's the truth as you or I understand the truth to be. Which means it's our truth. It doesn't mean it's the truth. Right. And so where do our beliefs come from? Well, from a combination of upbringing, environment, schooling, news media, television shows. By the time we're a little more than toddlers, our basic belief system is pretty much set in stone. And most people grow up subject to what I call an unconscious operating system, thinking that they're making choices based on thought and consciousness, when really they're operating within a matrix. Speaking of other older movies, a matrix, if you will, that they don't even know they're. They're in. Just like in the. In the movie, the first movie, because the second and third one we won't talk about. But. And so, so, but here's the thing. We tend to believe that other people see the world the same way we do and that they value the same things in the same way. This is what you were alluding to, and it's just not true. So how do we know what they find to be of value? Remember, value is simply the relative worth or desirability of a thing, of something to the end user or beholder. What do they believe is so valuable, so worthwhile about this? Okay. Value is always in the eyes of the beholder. It's not what we think is of value, it's what they do. There's only one way to discover this, and that's by asking questions and then listening and listening, deeply listening to truly understand where they're coming from. And even when we hear their answers, to realize that what they may be saying, they may mean differently than what we think we're hearing. So we have to be able to politely, tactfully, diplomatically dig deeper and ask to make sure that we understand right. And it's only when we can really know where they're coming from, that we're even in a position to begin communicating value to them.

That is so true and reminds me of the power of active listening. That is one. Active listening is one of the ways to get another person to elicit dopamine from their brain and start, start feeling good and start feeling heard and start feeling a connection. So that coming from that place of curiosity, I really like that. Because as I was mentioning earlier, with a lot of negativity out there, one of the ways I'm challenging myself when someone reaches out to me, you know, in a very negative, more of a attacking kind of fashion, is how can I become curious as to where this is coming from? How do you approach responses when people are attacking?

Well, so, so one thing you just said is part of the answer. You said, how do you respond or responses respond instead of react. I first learned this from zig Ziglar probably 40 years ago. The difference between reacting and responding, right when we react, we are letting someone else control us. When we respond, we're in control of ourselves and in what we say, what we do, how we act. So the first thing is to. And we talk about this in the Go Giver Influencer, which is the fourth book in the series, the third parable, and that is to control your own emotions. This is where it all begins. The sages asked, who is a mighty person? And they answered, that person who can control their own emotions and make of an enemy or of a potential enemy, a friend. This is where it begins. Because it's only when we're in control of ourselves that we're even in a position to take a potentially negative person or situation and turn it into a win for everyone involved. Okay, now we know this and we know how much we respect that man or woman who's able to really keep their head about them and keep calm and, you know, be in control when things around them are kind of all going crazy. Right? We know this, yet how often do we, based on what someone else says or does, we allow that to make ourselves upset or victimized or helpless or angry. And we say or do the very thing that brings the opposite results of what we want. Now again, why do we do this? Well, because we're human beings. And as human beings, we are emotional creatures. That's just how we're built. We'd like to think we're rational and logical and of course to a certain extent we are, but we're pretty emotion based. As human beings, we make major decisions based on emotion and we rationalize Afterwards, Right. So we tell ourselves rational lies in order to, you know, in order to provide the justification for what we've said or done. That was. Now, here's the thing, Heather and I think this is so important. We're not in any way saying that. That you should deny your emotions or for. Oh, your emotions first. It just wouldn't work. It's not sustainable. It's contrary to human nature. But there's also no reason to. Emotions are wonderful. Emotions are a fantastic part of life. They bring us joy. They make life worthwhile. No, by all means, have your emotions. Just make sure you're the master of your emotions as opposed to your emotions being the master of you. Or as one of my friends and mentors, the great Dondi Scomachi, as she so eloquently puts it, by all means, take your emotions along for the ride, but make sure you are driving the car. And that's what's so important. So, yeah, we need to learn how to do that. We can do this through reprogramming, through rewiring our brains. Let's say, for example, that a situation comes up. Maybe it's online, maybe it's at the office, maybe it's a place where you socialize, whatever it happens to be. But let's say there's someone who typically says or does something that you just find kind of maddening every time. And you find yourself. You know, it. Just find yourself reacting to that. So what I want you to do is picture this in your mind. Picture it happening, because whether that specifically happens or something close to it doesn't matter. It's the principle that counts. Picture it in your mind and picture the way you would usually react and feel, how kind of yucky that feels, because it results in an argument and. And you losing control and feeling lousy afterwards. Right? Okay, that's fine. Now forgive yourself. Let yourself let that go. Now picture the same thing the person says or does, what they usually say or do. But now you picture yourself responding to it. You listen with nothing but a kind look on your face. You let them finish. You don't interrupt, and picture yourself saying the perfect thing. That just kind of takes that anger away and absolutely just, you know, mollifies that person. They feel great about it, and you feel great about it, and you're able to engage in a very wonderful conversation. Now picture how that feels out. Don't worry about what you say. Those are the. You know, those are the words. Those can be learned. That's, you know. But for right now, I just want you to get the feeling of it. Okay, now rehearse that and rehearse it. Rehearse that conversation in your mind again. The feelings of it that they say or what they do. You're fine with it. You're totally unattached to it. You just have that pleasant, loving look on your face. You say the exact right thing. The situation just totally goes away. And it's a pleasant picture. Picture feeling good about that. Rehearse it. Rehearse it. Just like an astronaut before going up in space on a mission, he or she will run hundreds of what? Simulations. Why? So that when they're up in space and heaven forbid something happens, they've already been there, they've done it. They know exactly what to do. Now we might say, well, but that's not. The simulation isn't the same. Not the same, but it's close enough. We know that the unconscious mind cannot distinguish between what has really happened and what has been suggested to it over and over and over again. And you don't have to do it a hundred times, but just do it so that you really feel it. Now, the next time something happened, this person or something similar, you're going to go into a nanosecond of oh yeah, this is what Berg told me about. I know about this. I've been rehearsing this. You know, you'll have this little conversation in your head. I've been waiting for this to happen. This is great. And the person says what they do and you just respond and you're just listening. You say that you have a gentle, kind response that totally just dissipates all the negative emotion and feeling. And you can tell how much more this person respects you and you're in. And you feel great about it now afterwards, really take pleasure in how this conversation went and know two things. One, since you did it that one time, you could do it every time. But secondly, you won't do it every time because we're all human beings and we all mess up from time to time. But by and large, I mean, you just do this for three weeks and I am telling you, you'll be a different person. People will look at you differently. They will respond to you differently. They'll see that it's just a whole. It's just such a difference maker.

Oh, it's so true. And as you were describing that I thought of two incidents in my life that are very similar but had totally different outcomes based on how I acted. I'll never forget I was driving and I had a lot of People in my car, great friends. I was in a great mood and. And we came to a red light and I tapped the car in front of me and I was in the best mood. And the person in front of me leaned out the window to look back and you say, like, what? You know, what are you doing? And I said, oh, my gosh.

Hi.

I'm so sorry. That was a love tap. You're fine. There's no pain on your car. You're good. Wishing you the best day. And he waved and drove off. And that was it. Now, another day, I was at the gas station and a car camera up behind me and tapped into me and I was not in a good mood, and I leaned out the door and I said, what is wrong with you? And this man started attacking me verbally, so much so screaming, it ends up the police ended up coming. And I wasn't backing off either. It was so much anger at one another and yelling at one another, which, of course, was not going to solve any problem. But it's the same situation. The one clear difference maker was I approached it very differently.

Exactly. You know, two different frames were set for this. And a frame is the foundation from which everything else occurs. So when we set the correct frame, we're basically 90% of the way to obtaining the results we want. And so, yeah, it was all in the frame. But see, you know, what happened was a very human thing, you know, And I mean, that says. So the more prepared we can be for these things happening, the less the chance the negative one will happen and the more the positive one will happen. I often say, and people say just positive expectation when you expect the other person to be helpful and friendly. Does that really work? Well, yeah, it works, but it's not magical. Positive expectation works not because it changes them, but because it changes you. And that's what changes them. When you look at that first person whose car you tapped and you looked out and you just had a great smile on your face and you said, oh, I'm sorry, that was just a tap. It's. Everything's fine. Oh, I'm. You know, have a great day. You set a frame for that person of, you know, you were grateful for them, you were loving on them, you were it. Right? So what did that person. It's hard not to like somebody who likes them and is so nice to them and is so right. So that's what changed them. And so we can take the opposite with the other person. And so, you know, it's just, these are just the things we need to do and keep reminding ourselves of and not be too mad at ourselves when we don't do it correctly. Because we again, we realize we're humans and we want to learn from that and just kind of advance it so that the next time we do it the correct way.

That's so true. Bob, you talk a lot about influence and you know, in sales and in sales processes, how do you suggest people to influence others behaviors versus just telling them what to do?

Well, influence, when you, you know, on a very, very basic level, Heather, can be defined as the ability to move a person or persons to a desired action, usually within the context of a specific goal. That's by definition, that's influence. Now that's the definition, but that's not its essence. The essence of influence is pull. Pull as opposed to push, as in how far can you push a rope? And we know the answer is not very. At least not very fast or very effectively. Right? Which is why great influencers don't push. They don't push themselves. They don't push their ideas, they don't push their will on others. They're not pushy. You never hear people say, wow, that Tom or that Mary, she is so influential. She has a lot of push with people. No, she's influential. She has a lot of pull with people. That's what influence is. It's pull. It's an attraction. Great influencers, what we call genuine influencers, attract people first to themselves and only then to their ideas. And they do this again through pull. Now how does this pull manifest itself? Again, it all comes down to where your focus is. I believe we need to be internally motivated and externally focused. Okay? It's about them. So the great influencer asks themselves questions such as, how does what I'm asking this person to do, how does it align with their goals, with their wants, with their needs, with their desires? How does what I'm asking this other person to do, how does it align with their values? How is what I'm asking this person to do likely to get them to where they want to go and feel good about themselves and feel successful and feel happy? Right? And when we ask ourselves these questions thoughtfully, intelligently, genuinely, authentically, not as a way to manipulate another human being into doing our will, but as a way of building everyone in the process? Now we've come a lot closer to earning that person's commitment as opposed to trying to depend on some type of compliance.

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That is so true. And I've seen it done both ways. And pulling people towards you is so much more effective and rewarding when, when you look at these situations. What role does empathy play, play in the strategies that you share?

Well, empathy is very, very important because it's what really allows us to connect with another human being. So the dictionary definition of empathy is the identification with or vicarious experiencing of another person's feelings. Which sounds like just a fancy way of saying, you know, stepping into the other person's shoes. But that's not necessarily so easy when you think about it because most of us have different sized feet. Okay? So again, you know, literally we can't step into another person's shoes figuratively. We can't step into their minds and hearts because we're not them. Remember, we come from different belief systems, different experiences. Now, sometimes it's close enough that we really can understand what they feel. And when that's the case, great. But most of the times we really can. Now here's the thing. The good news is that communicating empathy isn't about necessarily understanding exactly how they feel. Again, most of the time we can't. Communicating empathy is about communicating. And this isn't always through what you say, though sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just how you show up. It's communicating that you understand they're feeling something and that this something is distressful to them and that you are there to help them work through it. That's empathy. And when we can do that, now we make a person feel safe. We make them feel comfortable with themselves and with us and they know there's a connection between the two.

Oh, the safety element is so big and often overlooked.

I agree.

One of my clients recently was sharing with me that she took her team, she's the leader of a company, she took her team to one of these courses that, you know, exercise courses or challenge courses. And she explained to me that the person leading the course said, okay, what is your instinct? If you're to climb the pole right now and everyone's going to encourage you to go, what is it that you want to hear? And my client says, I want to hear cheering. I want everyone saying, go, go, go. And I agree too. I said, that's me too. I love that. She said, but guess what, Heather, the next woman, when they asked her that question, she said she prefers complete silence and no one to Yell, but to get a hug when she's done and the next person. Right. Everyone had something different. And it takes me back to being empathetic to people that I just assumed everybody would want the cheering. But that isn't always the case.

That's right. It's, again, what other people find to be of value. And what we find to be of value isn't necessarily what they do. You know, I take it, I give an example because I speak at a lot of real estate conferences and I'll say, you know, it's sort of like taking. Walking somebody through a home, showing them the home, and you're in the living room and you say, oh, you know what I love most about the design of this living room? Well, who cares what you care about? You know, Love the most. It's whether the customer, whether they. What they like most about the living room, you know, and so again, that's just. But that. That happens in sales a lot. You know, remember, most people when they're in sales, they believe in what they're doing, they love what they're doing, they love certain things about it, and they assume that what they love about it, the prospective customer or client would love about it. And it's just not so. So it's so important that we understand what they believe is of value. And sometimes it takes a lot of empathy to be able to walk through with somebody and help them open up to the point that they will really let you know.

Absolutely. One of the big takeaways for me from the book is the five laws that you share for stratospheric success. And I was hoping you could share them with us.

Well, the five laws themselves are the laws of value. Compensation, influence, authenticity and receptivity. And the law of value is all about the immense experience you provide to another person. It's not just the product or the service, it's making yourself that additional value to that person. Right. Just being able to distinguish yourself. So you're not selling on low price, you're selling on high value. You become a resource to that person as opposed to a commodity. So it's all about having that person feel so delighted by the experience that they willingly choose to buy from you. And they profit because they're coming away better off than they were beforehand. And you're profiting because you're coming away better off than you were beforehand. The law of compensation says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. So where law number one, the law of value is about your Potential income. Law number two is all about your actual income because it's all about the number of lives you impact with that immense value. Law number three, the law of influence, says, your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Now let me qualify that. When we say place the other person's interest first, we don't mean you should be anyone's doormat or a martyr or self sacrificial in any way. Absolutely not. It's simply understanding that as Joe, the protege in the story, learned from several of the mentors, the golden rule of business, of sales, is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust. And there's simply no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you and others than by genuinely moving from that I focus or me focus to that other focus. Or as Sam, one of the mentors in the story, advised Joe, making your win all about the other person's win. Law number four is the law of authenticity, which says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. In this part of the story, Deborah Davenport was the mentor and she explain that all the skills in the world, the sales skills, technical skills, people skills, as important as they are, and they are indeed all very important, they're also all for naught if you don't come at it from your true authentic core. But when you do, right, when you show up as yourself, day after day, week after week, month after month, people feel good about you, comfortable with you, safe with you. This is where the relationship can really take off. The key, though, to being able to do this is to understand and embrace the value that you provide. And sometimes that's difficult because as human beings, we tend to see ourselves from that very limited. As one of my great friends and colleagues, Mark Sanborn, says, we look at other people's highlight reels and our own blooper tapes, okay? So that's why it can be so important to have a coach like yourself who can help someone to really be able to see what it is they bring to the table. Their strengths and their greatness and their abilities. And then law number five is the law of receptivity, which is the key to effective giving, is to stay open to receiving. This really means nothing more than understanding that you breathe out and you also have to breathe in. It's not one or the other, it's both. You breathe out carbon dioxide, you breathe in oxygen, you breathe out, which is giving you breathe in, which is receiving. Giving and receiving are two sides of the very same coin. Despite the messages of lack that we receive from the world around us on a daily basis, horribly negative messages about money, prosperity, abundance, business. And so we need to realize that giving and receiving are simply two sides of the very same coin. It's not, are you a giver or a receiver? It's no, you're a giver and. And a receiver. But what we know is that the giving of value comes first. And all these things, those first four laws set up that benevolent context for your success, and then you've got to allow yourself to receive.

Is there one law that you feel like impacts people the most or people need the most?

No, because I think if you take away any of them, you really can't be as effective as you would be. I think the hardest for most people to really grasp is the last one, the law of receptivity. Because, you know, again, with all the messages the world has given us, it really gets into people's heads. And on an unconscious level, people resist receiving. Think of how hard it is sometimes when someone just gives you a compliment. Do you go, oh, no, no, no, that's not. Or do you say, thank you so much and you know, if you can't take a compliment, it's hard to also receive. You can't receive a compliment. It's hard to receive a $10,000 check. So we need to. We need to work on that and be able. And that's why I'm a big believer, by the way, that prosperity needs to be studied on an active, ongoing, everyday basis. Why? Because the negativity comes at us all the time. Oh, my gosh. So that's why people like Randy Gage, Bob Proctor, Sharon Lecter, Ellen Rogan, Ken Honda, these people, they speak, they write, they post, they blog on prosperity, and they give such great information. And 99% of what they speak on and write about is getting past the unconscious resistance to receptivity.

I love that, because that's not something that I've been intentional about. But you are so spot on the way that you just described it. Bob, you talk so much about mentoring. I would hope that you could share with everybody what you're doing with the Go Giver Success Alliance.

Well, thank you. This is a group that meets and really shares with each other on a deep level. We like to say we learn with each other, we strategize with each other, we collaborate with each other, we build really wonderful relationships with each other. And while it's an ongoing type of thing, Online, we're on the Mighty network. So it's not a Facebook group or it's kind of highlighted by. Once a week we meet live on Zoom and we have all these successful people in this group and all we do is share information with each other. We help each other with different challenges. Somebody says, well, you know, I have a customer who's not, you know, so we, you. You've got like three or four people that boom, they have the. And the, the, the wisdom that's shared in this group is so inspiring. But the best thing is because it's a group of go givers, everyone's focused on what value they can bring to everyone else. And when you've got all these people working together, all looking to give value and all looking to help each other, wow. It's just so very powerful. And so during the other days of the week, we also have discussion back and forth online. We have different, you know, challenge of the week and mining the nuggets. And we highlight one person every week and it goes back and forth. As long as someone has a smartphone, they can basically be engaged 247 with us. But it's that one weekly Zoom is just, it's mind blowing. You know, we welcome people to check it out if they'd like.

So again, that's go giversuccessalliance.com and so many people are looking for mentors and I hear all the time they don't know how to find them. Well, we just spelled it out for you. You can also go to your website, berg. Is it bobberg.com or berg.com?

No, it's berg.com. i like to keep things simple, simple minds. And when they scroll down on berg.com they'll see like four people at a coffee shop. Which of course, if you've read the Go Giver, you know, that's Rachel's Famous Coffee Cafe. And that's where we hold our meetings at Rachel's Virtual Famous Coffee Cafe. But if they click on that on the graphic of the people at the coffee shop, it will take them to the page that describes what the Go Giver Success alliance is.

Well, if you haven't gotten the book yet, the Go Giver, get it now. This is a game changer. And Bob, thank you so much for being the ultimate go giver and giving always so much more than you're asking for.

Thank you, Heather. I love the work you're doing. I love the value you bring to so many and I just wish you continued stratospheric success as we say in the book.

Oh, thank you. Well, now that I've got the roadmap to find it, I'm coming for it. Bob, thank you. And to everybody listening, thank you so much. I will include all of the links in the show notes below until next week. Keep creating your confidence. I decided to keep change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

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