In Go-Givers Sell More, we talk about something we call left field, that mysterious and omnipotently benign place from which unanticipated rewards so often flow. Here’s how we put it in the book:

When we’re living a life of generosity, all sorts of value showers down upon us from that unnoticed, unseen place. We find a critical lead or make a crucial connection; a golden opportunity drops unexpectedly into our lap; we have some incalculably valuable thing come to us, not from the people or the places we were perhaps expecting or hoping for it to come from, but from out of left field.

We didn’t call it this in the book, but you could call this the Law of Left Field.

The other day our friend Gill Wagner posted a comment on a post on Bob’s blog that so beautifully brings this law to life, we just had to repost it here.

Standing in the crowded elevator about to head up. Doors closing. I hear squeaky wheels rolling quickly toward us so I stick my hand out to stop the doors from closing. It’s someone on the janitorial staff with a mop bucket full of water. He’s clearly relieved that he caught the elevator and I get a quiet “thanks” as the doors close and three people behind me let out their “give me a break” sighs.

Ten floors later it’s just me and the janitor. He pulls the stop button, thanks me for my kindness and says, “I don’t recognize you. Where are you heading?”

I tell him I have a sales appointment with Joe Jones on 12. He nods thoughtfully, then says:

“Joe is tough, but he’s fair. At some point early on he’ll challenge you to see whether you’re willing to stand up for what you believe. I can’t promise you’ll close a sale, but if you don’t back down, you’ll earn a friend.”

Joe Jones challenged me. I stood my ground. I left with a great sale in my pocket and a line of referrals that lasts me to this very day.

Never saw the janitor again.

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800-CEO-Read (also called 8CR), the nation’s premier distributor of business books, has formed a partnership with Inc. magazine to launch a cobranded list of bestselling business books, The Business Book Bestseller List. Compiled from 8CR’s raw sales data, the list appears both on Inc. magazine’s web site and on the 8CR home page, and will be updated monthly.

“We’re excited to partner with Jack Covert and 800-CEO-READ, the web’s top destination for business books, to create this list, and to better cover the ins and outs of the business book press,” says Mike Hofman, Deputy Editor of Inc.com.

Jack Covert, 800-CEO-READ’s president, says he was keen to find a media partner to extend the reach of a list he’s been compiling for 23 years. “This will help business owners sort through the vast array of books on offer, identifying those that have information crucial to succeeding in today’s business environment.”

So … ready for the punch line? The first edition of the list went online today, May 3, and debuting in the #3 position was (drum roll, please) The Go-Giver.

Also on the list, in position #20: Go-Givers Sell More.

Thanks, guys!

P.S. If you or anyone you know ever needs to place a bulk order for either book, the folks at 8CR are the people to call! You can contact our rep, Aaron Schleicher: aaron@800ceoread.com, or at 800-236-7323, ext. 204.

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As we mentioned a few days ago, Bob and I recently had the honor of getting to honor a true Pindar, the very first recipient of our Go-Giver Lifetime Achievement Award.

(What we did not mention was in the course of giving the award, our own Mister Burg did a highly credible Mister Ziglar impression that brought down the house, and got a big smile from The Man himself.)

Here is the auspicious event itself, as captured on YouTube.

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In Go-Givers Sell More, we tell the story of Heather Battaglia and ExecNet (now Exec Link) as an example of the Law of Value, and of the ability Go-Givers have to create their own economy of abundance during difficult times.

Heather’s story was the flagship example in Chapter 6, titled “Your Economy,” the concluding chapter of Part 1, which starts off with a quote from Pindar:

“In fact, Joe, you’d be surprised at how much you have to do with what happens to you.”

Heather recently sent us an update — and her story is getting only better with the passage of time! Here it is, complete with her update:

In the fall of 2008, Heather Battaglia was a director and vice president at CitiMortgage, in charge of a very successful and profitable division that she saw as recession-proof. Just before the end of the year, as the economy tanked, she was laid off.

“I thought I would have no trouble finding a new job. I had strong academic credentials and an impressive résumé of corporate experience. But as I began going through my connections, cold calling and doing whatever else I could think of to find my new position, no job materialized. A month went by, then two, then three.

“I had never been unemployed before; recruiters were always finding me. Now nothing was working.

“Eventually I got together with seven other laid-off executives who all belonged to a networking group and created an event for executives who were looking for work.

“A couple of people in the group had your book, and they said, ‘Whatever we do for our event, we need to make sure we are helping others and giving first.” Here we were, all out of work — and our conversation revolved around how we could help others find jobs!’

“The newly formed ExecNet of St. Louis adopted a mission statement and a vetting process for new members that included the question, Are you committed to helping other executives first?

“By the spring of 2009, we had over 150 members in our group — and we were all focused on helping each other first. Many of our group had landed new jobs, others were in final stages of interviews, and others were just getting started. Our group was only three months old and already moving mountains!”

Heather and her colleagues were in dire straights — but instead of giving in to recessionary anxiety, they took control of their own state of mind. In focusing their efforts on providing value to others, they created their own booming economy — and it paid off handsomely.

A few weeks after the book appeared Heather gave us this update:

“We are changing our name to ExecLink, and now have standing-room-only monthly meetings with 500 members, and a regular 130+ executives attend the meeting. Can you believe it has only been a year?!

“And here’s the best news: all the original seven founders have landed new jobs and continue to participate in the events.”

The whole story appears as our latest entry in The Go-Giver Scrapbook.

Which reminds us: when are you going to send us your story?

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We recently got an email from a fellow named Rick Thrasher, who works at a California-based nonprofit called Growers First:

“A friend referred me to The Go Giver a few weeks ago because of my new role at a coffee nonprofit, whose mission statement is very similar to Rachel’s Famous Coffee Foundation (as mentioned on page 125 of your book).

“I was wondering if there were real people associated with this idea.

“This is what we do. Dave Day, the founder of GrowersFirst, has been helping coffee growers for a decade.”

We love hearing about things like this! Rick is not the first person who has written to us with news of similar endeavors, although Growers First is certainly a lot closer in real life to the scope and impact of what Rachel, Joe and Neil Hansen are up to than anyone else we’ve heard about.

Starting in Oaxcaca, Mexico, Growers First now has a presence on three continents. And their home page reminds us an awful lot of those stunning photographs Claire noticed on the walls of the Rachel’s Famous Coffee “brainstorming” room!

In fact, the “Rachel’s Famous Coffee Foundation” project in the book was completely the invention of our fevered brains, and not based on any real characters or enterprises — at least, not as far as we knew. But it looks like, once again, reality and fiction love to intersect.

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The other day we woke up today to find we were on CNBC! Its web site, that is.

The network’s online book review column, “Bullish on Books,” featured a guest post by Bob Burg and me, entitled “Everything You Learned About Sales Is Backwards.”

Bullish on Books is the creation of Gloria McDonough-Taub, CNBC’s Editor of Blogs. Here is how Gloria describes her task:

“I read recently that about 11,000 business books are published per year. That’s a lot of books! You don’t have time to read all of them, but I’m trying. Here at Bullish on Books I will be your guide to the best business books on the market today.”

According to her bio, in Gloria’s 30-ish years of television experience (including local and national news, documentaries, talk shows and syndication) she has interviewed “presidents, pundits, and pampered princesses” — and now she just wants “to kick back and read a good book.” We’re honored and delighted that Go-Givers Sell More turned out to be one of them.

Thanks, Gloria!

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In January, in the midst of a flurry of new website launches (including the Go-Giver Award and the new Go-Givers Sell More site), we also launched a little site for your stories, called The Go-Givers Scrapbook.

With all the activity around the new book launch, that new site got a bit lost in the shuffle — but it’s starting to pick up steam.

We’re way behind in putting up the post entries we’ve received, but we did manage to post three new entries in the last few days, from Steve Dorfman, Pamela McBride and Jim Armstrong and Dan Ginnaty.

We also have added photographs to most of the previously-posted entries.

If you haven’t already, consider sending us your story!

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Bob and I often say on interviews that readers tell us, “The first four laws, those felt comfortable — but that fifth law? That Law of Receptivity? Man, that one made me squirm.”

It’s quite amazing, how deeply ingrained it seems to be, in so many of us, that it’s good to be a giver, but not okay to receive. (How did you respond the last time someone gave you a big fat compliment?)

The other day we received the following note from a reader; I cried when I read it. After you read it, I’ll share my response.

Yesterday, I attended a group led by [a friend]. During that group, The Go-Giver was mentioned; I was curious and purchased the book. My curiosity was piqued because I have been told numerous times that I am a giver and not a taker.

As dinner was cooking, my husband and son were occupied, so I opened the book, planning to read a page or two before dinner. To my amazement, I was swept away — I read your book, no, not read, I absorbed your book in one night.

I was amazed by two things. One was that the individuals who said I was a giver and not a taker were right. I do give, and I don’t take. But what no one ever told me was that it is okay to receive.

I have given and given, never accepting anything in return. If someone did something nice for me in return, I always felt guilty or responded with, “Please, I couldn’t possibly accept,” until they stopped trying. I have given and not accepted anything in return for so long that I have lost myself along the way.

Just like your character Debra Davenport once was, I am a failed real estate agent. I have never even had a client, never mind a sale, but it is because I have tried to be someone I am not and have been focused on the end result. I have felt invisible and insignificant — I cried when I read your book, which may sound stupid, but my life is almost in ruins, and I now feel that I can turn that around.

My first step: realizing that I add value in my personal and social life. I plan on “becoming” Joe. What I mean by that is I am going to use the laws and I am going to apply one each day, starting today.

I am reading the book for a second time, it is so uplifting. I plan on making some changes, big and small!

I wanted to thank you for this gift that you have given me.

Sincerely,

(name withheld)
Real Estate Agent

In my note back to her, I wrote, “If we never heard from a single soul, never got a single note from any other reader but this one from you, it would have been worth all the effort to write and publish the book.”

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It would be hard to be much more excited than we are right now. It’s finally here: Launch Day.

The official release date for Go-Givers Sell More is … drum roll … today, Thursday the 18th. We’ve been hearing about sightings in airport bookshops, and rumors of the book being shipped by Amazon and others in the past few days. Last night the book plunged to #200 on Amazon (lower numbers are better, #1 is best of all), and dropping fast.

It’s happening.

Our aim is to make the biggest splash we can. We don’t just want to release a book — we want to have an impact on the way people do business worldwide. For us, that means hitting the New York Times bestseller list this week. And you can help. How?

By buying your copy this week. (Read: today—i.e., right now!)

We promised you a link that would gives you a handful of special bonuses for ordering now. (One of those bonuses, an ebook on “Living, Leading and Leaving a Legacy,” John is just now putting the finishing touches on — it is not and will not be available anywhere else. Another includes Bob interviewing Thom Scott on his “Marketing from the Heart” system. Yet another is Bob’s 268-page book Winning without Intimidation.) Here is that link:

And, if we may, one more favor?

Please share this link with your friends — and with anyone you think might be interesting in our new book!

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Cue drum roll …

A few weeks ago we promised to unroll a new web site. Here it is: The Go-Giver Scrapbook. (… cue sounds of champagne corks popping …)

The Scrapbook is devoted to you and your experiences. The idea behind this new site is to provide a place to highlight your stories about how utilizing the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success has made a difference in your relationships, your business, your organization, your life.

Why? Because it’s fun — and also because your story will inspire hundreds, perhaps thousands of others to gain new and creative ideas for how they can make a fulfilling and productive shift in their lives, too!

We’ve started the Scrapbook with a half dozen entries from friends, a few of them taken from our new book Go-Givers Sell More (which releases less than three weeks from now!) — and we’ll keep adding more.

We’d love to add yours.

P.S. To send us your story for the Scrapbook, just click on the Your Story button at the top of the site.

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