I want you to sit and think very openly and honestly for a just a minute about THIS question:
Are you a GIVER? Or a TAKER? Or perhaps you’re a MATCHER?
Seriously, when it comes to your personal network – your friends, family, acquaintance, parents at your kids’ schools, even the stranger you see at the grocery store – are you a GIVER or a TAKER or a MATCHER?
I would bet that at first instinct you thought, “Heck, Bob, I AM a giver!!!”
But a lot of us, myself included at times, are more “contingent givers”…or “matchers.”
Meaning, “I’ll give you to you as long as you also give to me.”
(For more on this concept, read Adam Grants’s book “Give and Take.”)
Now, I’m not blaming you or wanting to make you feel bad! Like I said, I’ve been guilty of this as well!
But, I want you for just a second to stop and think about how you truly think and operate when it comes to the act of giving!
Do you give back just to get something in return, or do you truly want to help others?
Do you truly have a service and impact mindset? Both inside AND outside of your business?
Because, here’s the thing….
The income that you earn is a byproduct of the impact that you make.
GIVING is the beginning, and the most important part of making an impact.
And honestly, giving is an factor to your future success!
Think of your business as a vehicle for making change in the world.
If you only give when you can get, you WILL NOT succeed.
In order to have true success, you have to give MORE than you can get.
And you have to give even to those who will give you nothing in return.
By doing this, you inspire others to do the same, which is what true leadership is all about.
You begin creating a ripple effect in the world around you, and people are not only inspired by you, but they also want to honor you and reward you with their business and purchases!
The income that you earn is a byproduct of the impact that you make. GIVING is the beginning, and the most important part of making an impact.
The Generosity Challenge
I want to share with you a challenge that we are currently running in my Legacy Leadership Academy.
I highly encourage that you try giving yourself this challenge any time of the year- especially whenever you feel the need to rebuild connections inside your warm market or to renew your enthusiasm for your business and your life!
For 12 consecutive days, I want you to take the following actions below.
Each activity only takes a short amount of time, but by doing these daily you will feel better about your business, you will inspire those around you, and you will begin to see extreme growth in your warm market!
TIP: Make two lists of people: 1) A list of 12 people in your network (not your team!) that you haven’t connected with in a long time, and 2) A list of 12 team members that you’ve not touched base with on a personal level for a while before beginning! It will make the challenge easier and more fun!
Activity #1: Reach out to someone on your personal list and reconnect.
When you start investing into your network, only then will it be of value to you.
Think of your relationships as a bank account. You need to make multiple deposits into that account so that there is something there to pull from when you want to withdraw.
A dormant tie is someone that, at one point in your life, you had a strong relationship with but fell out of contact. These are usually the people it scares us the most to reach out to, because we haven’t connected in a while! They are the key to unlocking the power of your warm market.
The goal here is to connect and re-establish a rapport. You DO NOT want to do this from the perspective of prospecting (yet). You are just looking to find out what is happening in their life, and find out a piece of information that you can use as a value-added follow-up.
Let’s say that you find out your college roommate is trying to lose weight for the New Year. You can follow up a few days later with an article or podcast you enjoy about weight loss!
Activity #2: Reach out to someone on your team, but NOT about the business.
Sometimes, we take people for granted a bit.
We get stuck in the rut of just talking about business. We don’t slow down to really make sure we are continuing to connect with them on a personal level.
If you have a leader on your team that has taken a step back, you should find out why.
Give a team member a call and see what is going on in their life. Let them know that it isn’t a business call, and show them that your relationship outside of business means something to you.
When people know that we care enough to understand them, our influence and ability to lead increases as well!
Activity #3: List three simple, yet very specific, things that you are grateful for.
It’s time to practice gratitude in your life.
So many people are focused on what they don’t have or what they haven’t yet created.
This causes you to lose sight of the power of expressing gratitude for what you do have.
Write down the small things that you are grateful for each day, and make sure you are specific in what you are grateful for.
As you begin intentionally looking for things to be grateful for, you begin to create a mindset of abundance. And when we feel like we are living life from a place of abundance, we want to give to others as well!
Activity #4: Practice a random act of generosity.
This is my FAVORITE action item, because it has nothing to do with your business.
This is you just putting generosity and giving out into the world.
Random acts of generosity can include anything from making a donation to a charity to something as small as holding the door for someone.
Generosity is not measurable, and it starts with the small things.
It can (and should!) start in the four walls of your own home!
You can simply do something you wouldn’t normally do, like cook a big meal. Or place kind notes in your kids’ lunchboxes.
Or, it can be out in the world, like paying for someone’s gas or letting someone with small inpatient children go ahead of you in the grocery store line.
Being able to show a little bit of gratitude and appreciation by bringing joy into someone else’s life is the ultimate goal.
Do one random act of generosity every day for 12 days, and you will get back at a level that you have never thought possible.
These action items are going to bring you a joy and fulfillment that will impact the way you do what you do every single day.
And when this starts to become a consistent habit, you will be blown away when you see what happens.
