Throughout my life, I wouldn’t say I lived with the “everything for myself” mentality, although I would say I didn’t know the true power of giving until only recently. It wasn’t until I found my love for compassion, integrity, and simply doing the right thing that I learned giving has exponential power over receiving.

This is a dog eat dog world and competition is always going to matter. Being able to give someone 10x what you hope to receive back is the difference between the average and the people who impact millions or billions of lives.

The Evidence.

A long time ago, my dad was watching something that I can’t remember the name of. I had to be about 15 years old when I watched it, maybe even younger (would link it if I knew the name of it.)

It was about an individual who had a book deal with a publishing company. Something went wrong with the publisher and he decided to put the book out entirely for free. The results of this and I remember him clearly saying, “I made more money when I put out my book for free instead of charging for it”.

That line always resonated with me and so many years later, I still remember it.

I’m going to break down 3 Reasons why giving will ALWAYS be more valuable than taking/receiving.

1 — Appreciation

The world is full of people who only want to help themselves and leave everyone in the dust. Fortunately, the people with that mentality are the ones who get left in the dust. When working with someone who merely treats you like a customer, they are easily distinguishable.

People want to work with others who value and appreciate them, no matter what. People would rather deal with those who see them as a friend and not just a few extra Benjamin Franklins.

Those who care about their customer’s health, family, relationships, and career are always going to stand out.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again.. There is NO substitute for caring.

The funny thing about giving information, services, knowledge, and expertise without asking for anything in return, is that when you’re beyond helpful, they almost want to throw their money at your face for how much you value helping them.

Believe it or not, business is 100% about giving to the customer; not taking from them.

You might have the best product in the world and there’s no denying it, but no matter how good it is, building a relationship and being dedicated to solving their problem will always triumph.

2 — Word Of Mouth.

Now is the time to turn a startup into a multi-million dollar business purely by word of mouth. Giving more than receiving greatly capitalizes on that statement.

We live in a world where news spreads almost instantly. The internet and social media have changed businesses forever.

Businesses that are not adapting, focusing on the importance of customer retention, and building a social media brand are going to be forgotten or fail eventually.

Innovate or die — Gary Vaynerchuk

What does this mean? Why could word of mouth actually affect my business?

Well, if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 10 years, things like Yelp, Angie’s list, and social media are excellent tools for virtually anyone to give their opinion on an experience with a particular company.

When you leave a customer with a bad experience you could lose 3, 4 or even 100 customers. When you leave them with a good experience, that is you potentially gaining 4, 5 or even 50 long-term customers.

Are you starting to understand why giving is more important? It’s not always about giving things away, but being of so much value that your competitors are pretty much forgotten.

You can do this by sending follow up letters, asking about family, throwing a couple free items, discounts, or just genuinely exceeding expectations in any way possible.

If you go the extra mile for them, they will go the extra mile for you.

Being unique, understanding, and relatable are things that will 100% separate you from the pack of wolves.

3 — The Good Feeling

For some people, giving puts off a bad feeling. For others, it moves them and fuels their internal drive.

If you’re like me, when you give to someone or help someone, it puts a smile on your face and makes you feel special. I’m actually the type of person that feels as if I can accomplish anything after going out of my way to help others. It sounds silly but I truly feel that way.

I think about the millions of people who only care about themselves and would never even toss a quarter to a homeless man or spend a moment of their time helping another person. I can’t relate to those people.

I’m grateful to know that giving will get me further in life.

I absolutely love giving money to the homeless. I won’t throw out more than I can afford, but giving away a 5 dollar bill to see someone smile and have their day made is well worth it.

When I give even 5 dollars away to the homeless, it leaves me with this sense of accomplishment that I can do something incredible just by giving.

I despise when I hear the statement regarding giving a homeless money;

“oh, he’ll just buy booze” or, “He’ll just buy cigarettes”.

It might be true; he or she might just buy booze, cigarettes, and maybe even drugs, but it’s not about what he does with the money; that is his choice.

Regardless of what he uses the money for, it was my choice to help him and I know it’s the right thing to do. I know God will thank me for sparing some money once in awhile to help someone struggling 50x more than I am. I don’t care what they do with it, It’s the fact that I made the right decision.

I want to work extremely hard in life so I can give on a scale I am currently not capable of now. The sense of accomplishment that would come from donating over 100 grand would be like no other feeling. Not everyone feels that way but I can guarantee you those who do will make a much bigger impact on the world.

It’s so important to understand that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to win and also be better than your competition. It more or less means that doing so in a giving, caring, and compassionate way is the game changer. If you want results, you need to be willing to put out 10x the effort of what you hope to receive in return for your hard work.

Being someone who only cares about receiving and taking from individuals may seem like the quicker and smarter path. Those who focus purely on exceeding expectations with clients and customers will always be in first place.