Book of the Month: The Go-Giver
A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea
“Most people just laugh when they hear that the secret to success is giving... Then again, most people are nowhere near as successful as they wish they were.”
The quote above captures the central idea of this book called “The Go Giver”. Through a short and sweet story, the book presents quite a different perspective to the idea of success and role of giving in it. It follows Joe, a young, ambitious go-getter who is always looking for ways to get ahead. Joe is driven, always reminding others when they owe him something, and trying to get the most out of every situation. But despite his best efforts, he currently is struggling in closing a deal and meeting his quarter’s quota, with only a week left in the quarter. In a last-ditch attempt, Joe seeks advice from a senior colleague, who puts him in touch with The Chairman, a very famous and successful businessman. Joe thinks that if only he could get The Chairman to pull some strings, he could land the big deal he is aiming for.
Next, we get to meet Pindar who is The Chairman. Just from his very first dialogues, and his description, we learn that he is quite a unique personality. To me, he also gives very Dumbledore vibes, wise, calm, and mysterious. Pindar is very happy to meet Joe first thing in the morning, and is more than willing to share his trade secrets with him. He plainly tells him that the secret to his success has been ‘giving’. Confused, Joe waits for Pindar to say more, but Pindar reaffirms that that’s pretty much it. To give Joe more clarity, he gets into a pact with Joe that he would meet him for the next five days. Along with Pindar, Joe would also get to meet someone else every day during lunch hour, and each day, he would learn one of his laws for what he refers to as ‘stratospheric success’. Joe is surprised to hear that Pindar isn’t charging him anything. He only has one condition: Joe needs to apply each of these lessons in his own life the very same day he learns it.
The very first law that we learn along with Joe is the Law of Value. The Law of Value states: “Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.” We hear it through Pindar’s friend who used to run a hot-dog stall, but has now become the owner of multiple restaurants in the city. He credits his success to this very principle. When Joe questions him about how this law is consistent with making enough money from a business, he elaborates: “‘Does it make money?’ is not a bad question. It’s a great question. It’s just a bad first question. “The first question should be, ‘Does it serve? Does it add value to others?’ If the answer to that question is yes, then you can go ahead and ask, ‘Does it make money?’”
Reading about this principle actually reminded me of my English teacher in school, Mohan sir who definitely seemed to follow this principle. He had taught me in tenth grade, but in twelfth grade, another teacher was assigned to our class. In my school, almost all the teachers were taking after school tuition/coaching classes. Almost all students were also attending coaching classes because 12th standard is usually a crucial year and which college you get admission into largely depends on how you perform in that year’s exams. Given the criticality of the year, I also approached him for coaching as given my experience learning from him in tenth grade, he was the best teacher I had ever had in school. The coaching classes generally used to be expensive, with teachers charging at least a 1000 INR per month (back in 2011). But during this time, Mohan sir was charging only 250 INR a month. Even for that, I am sure he would have been happy to reduce the charges further if someone requested. He also didn’t care if some students stayed on to ask questions for three hours. He was always available to help in whichever way he could. His lessons were also some of the best I have had, to the extent that I still find myself recalling some lines of the poems that we read with him. He was definitely giving a lot more in value than what he was charging.
I feel there is something really beautiful about this kind of uncalculated giving, that you actually feel like paying them more. There is a Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi word called ‘barkat’ which my grandmother used to use a lot. It loosely translates to abundance but also carries a deeper meaning of blessed prosperity. Whenever I remember Mohan sir's classes, even though they weren’t helping him accumulate financial wealth, I always feel there was barkat in his teaching.
Coming back to the book, the next four days, Joe meets a new go-giver, and tries to apply the daily lesson in however small way possible, sometimes seeing the results right away, and other times, just feeling good for applying the lesson and not disappointing Pindar. I’ll not give away the rest of the lessons as I highly recommend reading the book. It’s a light and feel good book. I actually read it for the first time a couple of years back, but recently, I re-read most of it. Throughout reading the book, one feels certain questions coming up, and Joe tries his best to ask those questions on our behalf. One question that I kept wondering about, and probably you are wondering about too as you read this, was one of the first ones to be asked by Joe too.
But…. wouldn’t an awful lot of people take advantage of you?
“Excellent question”, Pindar also agrees. He goes on to explain further:
Most of us have grown up seeing the world as a place of competition and limitation rather than of co-creation and inexhaustible treasures. But in life, you get what you expect. Or in other words, what you focus on is what you get. Go looking for conflict, and you’ll find it. Go looking for people to take advantage of you, and they generally will. Go looking for the best in people, and you’ll be amazed at how much good you’ll find.
Joe is somewhat convinced by Pindar, but is still slightly skeptical, and to be honest, so was I. In today’s world where we see news of creative ways in which people get scammed, this fear of being taken advantage of can be the biggest challenge when it comes to being more open or giving. But then, at the same time, we do see examples such as gurudwaras offering langar to everyone without being concerned that they may not get any contributions from a large proportion of people eating there. Even in the email Wikipedia sends every year, they mention that less than 2% of their readers contribute anything, and they don’t have any other way of making money. I am sure they wouldn’t have been able to start this initiative if they were concerned that 98% of their “customers” will take advantage of them. We also see such examples in our circle where some friends/relatives tend to be more trusting of others, and always believe that nobody is really going to take any advantage of them.
So, there are probably examples all around us to inspire us, but I agree that it can be a hard path to walk. There is a fine balance here also (as with most things in life). I personally try to be more on the giving side, but soon enough I start wondering if I am being too naive or if I am being taken advantage of. I also start remembering the past experiences where I for example, gave money to someone but never received it back. I do like coming back to this book though to be less calculative in life and hopefully, develop this attitude that for every one person who would use such behavior to their advantage, there are thousands who won’t. But it continues to be a journey! No matter how many steps you tend to take in giving anything to anyone, the book will make you want to go at least a tiny step extra in that direction.
Favorites of the month
Song(s): Shreya Ghoshal and Sonu Nigam showed up recently on Kaun Banega Crorepati, and the best part was that Shreya sang a lot of songs (yes, Sonu Nigam did too, but Shreya is Shreya). If you don’t want to watch the full episode, someone has acted as a true go-giver, and has kindly put together all the songs sung by them in the episode. You would love it if you are a fan of either of them, or just generally enjoy old-ish Bollywood songs.
Series: I have recently started watching Ted Lasso. A friend had actually suggested this to me quite a while ago and he said I would love it. Turns out he was right. I am still on the first season, but the show has a very feel-good vibe.
Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
Sagar
Thank you VERY much, Dr. Sagar Sir for your kind and thoughtful review of John David Mann's and my book! Honoured and delighted to know that you enjoyed and found it to be of value!