The BIGG Successs Show
5 Laws of Stratospheric Success
We talk with the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Go-Giver. Read the show summary at biggsuccess.com.
Welcome to The Big Success Show. Today, we'll discuss the five laws of stratospheric success. The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. Have you ever felt like you were working harder than ever and yet still struggling to meet your goals? If so, you should read the book The Go Giver. It's a great story about Joe, an ambitious young go-getter who desperately needs to make a sale before the end of the quarter. So he goes to Pindar, the wise consultant for mentoring. Pindar doesn't help Joe make the sale. Instead, he introduces Joe to five people in five days who share the five laws of stratospheric success. It's getting some great reviews from some of the biggest names in success literature, like Seth Godin, David Bach, Brian Tracy and Michael Gerber. And today, we are fortunate to have Bob Berg, one of the authors of The Go Giver with us. Bob, welcome to The Big Success Show. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you. And congratulations on all the rave reviews. Well, thanks. I think the rave reviews are really owed to my co-author, John David Mann. You know, I consider myself a how-to author. John is a brilliant, brilliant storyteller, so I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with him. Well, for those people who love stories, this is a fantastic story with a lesson. That's right. And so your character, Joe, learns these five laws of stratospheric success. So what is the first one? Well, the first law is the law of value. And that simply says that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Now, that sounds counterproductive. You know, it sounds like it's a quick recipe for going out of business. How do you give more value than you take in payment and still prosper? Never mind, you know, stay out of bankruptcy. And what we just need to understand is the difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, a dollar amount. Value is the relative worth or desirability of a thing to the end user. A very quick example. If you hired an accountant to do your returns and they charged you a fee or price of $500, but through their diligence, hard work, their knowledge, they were able to save you $2,000. Then they provided you $2,000 in value while charging you just a $500 price. They made a profit, but you felt great about the transaction. And that's the kind of transactions we want to have with our customers and clients. All right, number two. Law number two is the law of compensation. And that says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. So where law number one says to provide more in value than you take in payment, law number two tells us that the greater the number of people we provide that exceptional value to, the more money with which will be rewarded. So in a sense, number one talks about the value. Number two talks about the reach. The word of mouth, right? Exactly. And when you provide that great value to people, what happens is you've got all these people who feel so good about you, who want to tell others about you, you basically develop an army of what I call personal walking ambassadors. So what's number three, Bob? Number three is the law of influence. And this simply says you're influenced and determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Now, again, it sounds just, you know, Pollyanna at Destin in, you know, downright suicidal business, but no, it's actually quite practical because all things being equal, as Sam tells you in the book, all things being equal people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust. And as you guys know, there's no faster, there's no more effective, there's no more powerful way to elicit those feelings toward you and others than by finding ways to put the other person's interests first. Always thinking, how can I add value to this person? How can I help this person in their life? Boy, it seems like you see people kind of do the opposite. They always think, what can I get from this person as opposed to what can I give them? Well, that's why a lot of people are broke. That's right. All right, law number four. Law number four is the law of authenticity, which simply says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. And as Deborah Davenport and the story found out, all the techniques, all the skills, they're all for not, if you're not authentic and if you don't come across as authentic. However, when you are your true self, when you are authentic with yourself and authentic with others, then what happens is it takes those skills, takes those techniques, takes that, you know, and it multiplies them geometrically. So please understand that skills are necessary, you know, the knowledge is necessary. It's all necessary, but, you know, without the authenticity, the power in it just isn't there. Yeah, people are pretty smart. They can see a fake when one's out there. Exactly. Coming up, Bob is going to share the fifth law of stratospheric success. Today we're talking to Bob Berg, co-author of The Go Giver, and we've discussed four laws so far of stratospheric success. Bob, what's the fifth? Law number five is the law of receptivity, which says the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. Pindar, the mentor, says to Joe, Joe, I want you to breathe out and don't breathe in. So Joe tries, after eight seconds he's gasping, ten seconds, gasping. 12 says he cannot do it any longer. He finally starts coughing. He says, "I can't, I've got to breathe in. I can't just breathe out." Pindar says, "Well, Joe, what if I told you it's been scientifically proven that it's healthier to breathe out than it is to breathe in?" And Joe says, "Well, that's crazy. You've got to do both." Pindar says, "Exactly. They're both opposite sides of the same coin. You must breathe out, which is giving. You must breathe in, which is receiving." And it's the same with anything else. We have to do both. Bob, it seems like sometimes we give and give and give, but we run into those people in our lives who do nothing but take. What's the advice for that situation? Well, you're right. There are some people who they've really mastered the art of giving, but haven't allowed themselves to master the art of receiving, which is one thing we really show you how to be able to do in the book. And we've gotten some nice commentary, some nice feedback on that. Regarding your excellent question, I think we've got to be careful. Because being a go-giver should never be confused with being a martyr or being sacrificial, self-sacrificial. So we need to make sure that we're associating with and attracting the type of people into our lives who are go-givers themselves or can learn to be go-givers. It's got to be win-win. Yeah. All right, so obviously Joe gets all sorts of great lessons here in the book, The Go Giver, and you've got to get the book to see if Joe actually learns from it and makes that sale. And Bob, you've got a great deal on your site, the gogiver.com. You can get a free chapter of the book. It just comes through www.thegogiver.com. Download chapter one for free to see if you like the book first. What a deal. Well, thank you so much for being with us, Bob. Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. And you can get a written summary of today's show, and we also have that link to thegogiver.com at bigsuccess.com. And let's get a big quote for the day, George. Our big quote today comes from Tyson Deshamaru, who said, "To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give." So give unselfishly and receive abundantly. Next time, we'll talk about five success factors. Tune in to see how your perceptions measure up. And until then, here's to your big success. The Big Success Show at B-I-G-G Success.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]