The Go-Giver

Recently I was recommended a short book to read called The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Seeing as I was going to be spending some time on a plane I thought it would likely make a good choice as something to get through quickly while traveling.

The book is written in the form of a parable explaining five laws to stratospheric success. The tag line for the book is “A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea”, but as far as I’m concerned it can be applied to life in general. It’s not a hard read, but very engaging and it really explains the principles in an easy to grasp and fun way. I won’t give away all the laws but, the main idea is that giving to people without the expectation of anything in return, as the secret to be hugely successful.

Even though I’ve seen some of these things hold true in small ways in my own life I would have still been a little skeptical. However by looking at the concepts and comparing them to Open Source, and WordPress in particular, you can see how it can be true. The whole concept of open source is just that, people contribute to a project because the believe in it or think it is important. In the case of WordPress the project itself, and many people, have become very successful. There is a large number of people who make their living using, building on, or supporting, WordPress. The results of the 2014 WordPress survey had over 7500 people making their living with it.

There are are many other parts of the book that relate as well, but I’ll leave it for you to read, but think value, and influence as a couple others. Even without this I’d recommend the book, I can see me reading it a few more times to really try and absorb it all and trying to live closer to concepts in it.