The Go-Giver

What Carnegie was illustrating here was that there are limited resources and that if you didn't go out early and claim it for yourself somebody else would.

Or how about this one that you may be more familiar with:

Both of these essentially preach that we live in a world of scarcity where you have to fight for your share of those scarce resources.

The problem I have with this is it leads to a mindset where your competitors is an enemy to be crushed and your clients are a resource to be exploited.

What if there's a better way? What if we assume a world of abundance?

What if we saw business not as a competition, but rather as a cooperative venture. What if we focused first on adding value rather than on getting as much for ourselves as possible? Could that lead to a better world?

I think so.

My philosophy when doing business is to focus on adding value to my clients lives. It's as simple as that. I charge them a fee and then I make sure that I add more value than they expect. In return, they give me more business, and they see the world slightly different. 

This is why I really enjoyed the book. It gives words to a lot of the way I believe in doing business.

Granted, it is a very simplistic way of looking at things, but I think it is valuable as a prompt to think about your mindset and whether it is worth changing anything there.

The book focuses on what they call "The 5 laws of stratospheric  success":

The Law of Value

Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.

The Law of Compensation

Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.

The Law of Influence

Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.

The Law of Authenticity

The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.

The Law of Receptivity

The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

The book is hyperbolic and over-simplified, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it. It took me 3 hours to read and I'm not the fastest reader.