What principles do you build a business on? Glenn talks to the author of 'The Go-Giver'

Before leaving for the holidays, Glenn left a book on the desk of every employee of Mercury Radio Arts and TheBlaze. It was The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea. The book presents a new way of doing business, one that puts the customer front and center. Glenn plans to use The Go-Giver as a model for his company in 2015, and invited author Bob Burg onto the radio show to talk about the incredible book

Listen to the interview below at 38 minutes into today's show:

Below is a rough transcript of the segment:

GLENN: I have Bob Burg on the phone. He's the author of a book that I absolutely love. It's called The Go-Giver. I don't even know how long this thing came out.

Bob, are you on the phone. How long did you put this out?

BOB: Oh, John David Mann and I wrote this in 2007, was in the bookstores in 2008.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm right on top of things. But I read this, I don't know this fall and I'm changing my company a great deal. And someone gave this to me and said, Glenn, this is what you're trying to do with your company. You have to read it. I was so moved by this book, I bought all 300 employees, I bought everybody a copy of the The Go-Giver and gave it to them for Christmas. You know, Merry Christmas.

BOB: I cannot tell you how honored I am by that, Glenn. To have one of my heroes embrace the book like that and give it out as a gift. It's beyond being honored.

STU: Now you've lost credibility.

GLENN: Shut up. I didn't know you knew who I was. But I'm flattered. But, Bob, tell the story of this book.

BOB: It's about a young up-and-comer. Ambitious, aggressive well-meaning guy who is really frustrated. As much as he's working hard, he's very much focused on himself. He's what we would call a go taker. We love go-getters because they take action. He was a go-taker. A guy focused only on himself. Who owed what to him and everything was about him. The very valuable lesson he learned was that shifting his focus from getting to giving.

In this context, when we say giving, we mean consistently and constantly providing value to each other. It's not only a nice way to live life, it's a very profitable way as well. It's the actual ultimate embodiment of a free market-based economy. It's about liberty. People willingly buying and selling and trading with one another. If you want to be successful in a free market-based economy, you have to focus on value, on thinking more about others than yourself. Bringing value to others.

GLENN: No. Capitalism done wrong is selfish. And you will never get anywhere. In the long-run it will all end. It's the reason why Goldman Sachs has fallen so far. They used to be, let's do the right thing for the client. Even if it's the wrong thing for us in the short-term, it will be the right thing in the long-term. Let's do the right thing for the client. It becomes service oriented. And capitalism at its best, how can I make somebody's life better and easier? How can I help people? And if you truly love whoever it is that your customer is, if you truly love them --

I remember my father. He used to love watching people -- he would come out in front of the bakery. My mom would run to the bank or something, he would work the counter. I remember my father used to give taste tests all the time to people. They would come in, oh, no, you have to try this. He would cut a slice of whatever and he would give it to them because he loved watching them eat it. He loved his customer. He wanted them to be happy. That's the secret to capitalism, is love the people you're serving.

BOB: You mentioned about Goldman Sachs and others -- capitalism is the best regulator. It's the best natural regulator because it punishes the bad. Punishes those who do not care about the customer and rewards those who do. This is why John and I say, money is simply an echo of value. It's the thunder to value's lightning, which means the value must come first. One of my great Libertarian heroes Harry Brown used to say, in a free market-based economy, profit is simply the result of satisfying the need of another human being.

PAT: Bob, something we've been talking about is this new net neutrality thing they're talking about and trying to regulate the internet, which is the freest medium we have in the world today.

GLENN: Never been more free or freeing.

PAT: Never. Senator Ted Cruz has been talking a lot lately about this. And he brought up the telephone and the telecommunications act of the late 1930s. And that froze any -- any sort of innovation for about 50 years. He said, oh, yeah, we did have the major innovation of touch-tone dialing. As soon as they took those regulations off, what happened? The world was revolutionized.

GLENN: We had the answering machine, the fax machine, all that within ten years.

PAT: Cell phones. Long-distance service went away. Just unbelievably revolutionized the world. How do you get it across to people that government regulations are not the way to go? The free market is the way to go.

GLENN: With that being said, how do you get it across to people that the best deal for you, if it's not the best deal for the end user, it's not the best deal for you.

BOB: Right.

GLENN: Stop thinking so short-term.

BOB: Here's the thing: I truly believe this. The biggest challenge and the most important thing to do is to always go back to the basic premises. For example, we know that capitalism has resulted in a higher standard of living than any other system ever. Unfortunately, because of the government or the public school system or if the media, the mainstream, what have you, most people in America -- not most, but many people in America today, they confuse cronyism with capitalism.

What you were talking about earlier, you know, buying special favors from government, from these bought and paid legislators and the lobbying. So I asked people, I explain what the difference is. And I often say that, you know, to make it stick, you know, cronyism is to capitalism what -- or I should say because sometimes people will say crony capitalism and I hate that term because it misleads. But crony capitalism is to what capitalism what Chinese checkers is to checkers. Absolutely nothing.

Only when you -- you know, when you can explain to someone -- we have to do it keeping in mind their ego and keeping in mind that they're probably well-meaning in what they're thinking. They have been educated in a certain way. They have a certain worldview. As we talked about it in The Go-giver, all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to people they know, like, and trust.

First, we need to create the relationship with them where they trust us enough to say, hmm, okay, maybe I'll listen to this person and allow what they say to kind of sink in.

GLENN: So, Bob, I actually am very -- at some point I'm really pessimistic because I see people just going down this road of, you know, giving government more power and giving crony capitalists, you know, a pass time and time again. But other times, I look at the younger generation, and I think, they've never been more free. They've never had more opportunity ever in the history of the world. And I really think that the younger generation actually does get it.

They want to do -- nobody wants to go to work and just be part of a machine or a cog. They want to go to work because they want to feel like they're making a difference. They're changing something. They're doing something of value. And do you have faith that in the world as it's changing so rapidly, that without a real champion for, you know, the principles laid out in your book the go giver, that this will catch on?

BOB: No matter how much over the last 100 years, we've grown from basically a free market economy to more of a socialistic economy, no matter how much that has happened, especially of late, the entrepreneurial spirit of the American individual is so strong, that I don't think it can be denied. And that's why despite, you know, what we've seen with all the -- the business unfriendly measures that take place, the economy still continues to grow. Not like it could if capitalism was unleashed. If government fulfilled their, you know, legitimate function as article four, section four in the Constitution. Protect from force and fraud and otherwise just create the context where people can live their lives however they see fit. If that happened, of course, we would absolutely explode.

But if I think you said, the youngsters today they kind of get it and they want to be free and they know they can create. And the thing about value is when value for value is exchanged, it creates a bigger pie. It creates a pie of abundance. We don't need to redistribute a limited pie. Instead, we create a bigger pie. And that's really what I hope The Go-Giver is about. That's exactly what I believe true free market capitalism is about.

GLENN: Tell me what the big the biggest hurdle is. When people read this big, for me, it's been hardest to convince businesspeople, old, lying businesspeople that being selfless and just saying, look, you know what, I don't want to go out of business and I won't do things that hurt our company, but I'll take the hit here because it's right for them. Let's do things -- like, for instance, next year I'll give away one of my books. I'll just give it away because I know that by giving it away, it will actually become bigger. The message is more important than any money I could make on the book. So I'll just give it away. That is a hurdle to get businesspeople to say, wait. Wait. What? I need the exchange here for that.

No, you don't. You don't. You can do things differently and look for a long-term relationship of trust and decency that will far outweigh anything you can make in the short run. Is that the hardest thing to convince people of or what is the biggest hurdle?

BOB: I think the key is to act in alignment, act congruently with your values. The people that write the check for $10,000 for their local animal shelters, they're doing that because it aligns with their values. They feel better about doing that than not doing that.

I love it when people make a profit because profit helps everyone. But the key though is to make a profit by providing much more in use value than what you take in cash value.

The accountant who charges $1,000 to do someone's tax return, but through their effort, their diligence, their caring, they save that person $5,000 in taxes. They provide them with peace of mind and security, so the person who is the buyer gets much more in value than what they're paying, but the accountant is very happy to sell his or her time for a thousand dollars.

But I love the idea you're giving away the book because you also make a profit. Your profit is the joy of spreading a message that you just really love.

GLENN: In a world that is increasingly, A, you didn't build this, it was the collective that built this. And then, B, you don't deserve it, so I'll just take it. How does a book like The Go-giver make the dent?

BOB: I have to say, that was a discouraging thing to hear from our president. To actually say something like that. I was hoping that was taken out of context, Glenn.

[laughter]

GLENN: I remember when I was young and naive too.

BOB: Yeah, that was like three months ago for me. And just, you know -- when candidates -- Hillary Clinton, you know, a couple of months ago states make no mistake about it, businesses don't create job. I mean, oh, my goodness, gracious. You know what, I just hope -- and The Go-Giver has sold about 500,000 copies. And John and I both really want to just keep moving it. We really think the message of free markets, of kindness, of doing the right thing, because you're really authentically want to be part of the solution and be part of the value giving process. I speak at a lot of sales and leadership conferences, and I always within the messages of the The Go Giver want to -- I want to point out the people like John Allison, the CEO now of the Cato Institute. The Libertarian think-tank.

And John Allison for 20 years, he led BB&T. Hugely profited. One of the few, one of the few banks in the country, one of the few banks that did not participate in subprime lending, making only conventional loans. Why? Because it was contrary to the values of the bank, which was to provide value for their customers, and he knew that didn't.

He knew that the fiddling between government and the government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae as well as the cronyism, he knew it wasn't beneficial. He did the right thing. When the cards came crumbling down, he didn't need or want the bailout. The tax funded bailout money. Of course, they made him take it under a veiled threat. There are a lot of people doing the right thing. I want to focus on them and use them as examples of how go givers really do better.

GLENN: Bob, I'd love to have you back on television, maybe spend an hour, and you can go through the five laws. If you really want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem and you just want a new way of looking at business, I can't recommend highly enough the The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

. It's how I'm building my company and resetting things. As I said, I bought 300 copies and gave it to every employee at Christmas. The Go-giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Thank you so much, Bob, I appreciate it.

BOB: Glenn, I'm totally honored. Thanks for having me on.

GLENN: God bless. We'll talk to you again.

What do clay pots have to do with to preserving American history?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Why should we preserve our nation’s history? If you listen to my radio program and podcast, or read my columns and books, you know I’ve dedicated a large part of my life and finances to sourcing and preserving priceless artifacts that tell America’s story. I’ve tried to make these artifacts as available as possible through the American Journey Experience Museum, just across from the studios where I do my daily radio broadcast. Thousands of you have come through the museum and have been able to see and experience these artifacts that are a part of your legacy as an American.

The destruction of American texts has already begun.

But why should people like you and me be concerned about preserving these things from our nation's history? Isn’t that what the “big guys” like the National Archives are for?

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd in what is now the West Bank threw a rock into a cave nestled into the side of a cliff near the Dead Sea. Instead of hearing an echo, he heard the curious sound of a clay pot shattering. He discovered more than 15,000 Masoretic texts from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

These texts weren’t just a priceless historical discovery. They were virtually perfect copies of the same Jewish texts that continue to be translated today. Consider the significance of that discovery. Since the third century B.C. when these texts were first written, the Jewish people have endured a continued onslaught of diasporas, persecutions, pressures to conform to their occupying power, the destruction of their temple, and so much more. They had to fight for their identity as a people for centuries, and finally, a year after the end of the Holocaust and a year before the founding of the nation of Israel, these texts were discovered, confirming the preservation and endurance of their heritage since ancient times — all due to someone putting these clay pots in a desert cave more than 2,000 years ago.

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So, what do these clay pots have to do with the calling to preserve American history? I didn’t understand that prompting myself until the horrible thought dawned on me that the people we are fighting against may very well take our sacred American scriptures, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights. What if they are successful, and 1,000 years from now, we have no texts preserved to confirm our national identity? What kind of new history would be written over the truth?

The destruction of American texts has already begun. The National Archives has labeled some of our critical documents, like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as “triggering” or “containing harmful language.” In a public statement, the National Archives said that the labels help prepare readers to view potentially distressing content:

The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

According to this statement, our founding documents are either “outdated, biased, offensive,” “possibly violent,” or a combination of these scathing descriptions. I’m sorry, the Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.” Our Constitution is not “outdated and biased,” and our Bill of Rights certainly is not “offensive and possibly violent.” They are glorious documents. They should be celebrated, not qualified by such derogatory, absurd language. Shame on them.

These are only the beginning stages of rewriting our history. What if they start banning these “triggering” documents from public view because they might offend somebody? Haven’t we torn down “triggering” statues before? What if we are no longer able to see, read, and study the actual words of our nation's founding documents because they are “harmful” or “possibly violent”? A thousand years from now, will there be any remnant to piece together the true spirit behind the nation that our founders envisioned?

The Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.”

That is why in 2008, I was prompted to preserve what I could. Now, the American Journey Experience Museum includes more than 160,000 artifacts, from founding-era documents to the original Roe v. Wade court papers. We need to preserve the totality of our nation’s heritage, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need to preserve our history in our own clay pots.

I ask you to join with me on this mission. Start buying books that are important to preserve. Buy some acid-free paper and start printing some of the founding documents, the reports that go against the mainstream narrative, the studies that prove what is true as we are continually being fed lies. Start preserving our daily history as well as our history because it is being rewritten and digitized.

Somebody must have a copy of what is happening now and what has happened in the past. I hope things don’t get really bad. But if they do, we need to preserve our heritage. Perhaps, someone 1,000 years from now will discover our clay pots and, Lord willing, be able to have a glimpse of America as it truly was.

Top 10 WORST items in the new $1.2 TRILLION spending bill

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Biden just signed the newest spending bill into law, and Glenn is furious.

Under Speaker Johnson's leadership, the whopping $1.2 TRILLION package will use your taxpayer dollars to fund the government through September. Of course, the bill is loaded with earmarks and pork that diverts money to fund all sorts of absurd side projects.

Here is the list of the ten WORST uses of taxpayer money in the recently passed spending bill:

Funding venues to host drag shows, including ones that target children

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Money for transgender underwear for kids

Funding for proms for 12 to 18 year old kids

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Border security funding... for Jordan and Egypt

Another $300 million for Ukraine

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$3.5 million for Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade

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$2.5 million for a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire

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$2.7 million for a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people

$5 million for a new trail at Coastal Carolina University

$4 million the "Alaska King Crab Enhancement Project" (whatever that means)

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There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.