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.

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

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The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

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The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

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Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.