In life there are givers, and there are takers. Without both
of these types of people, there would be no exchange of anything. Without the
two halves of the relationship, there is no relationship. For every giver,
there must be a taker. In the past we never wanted to be known as takers. Takers
have a bad reputation; they take and take and take. They never give back.
Is that true? Why does it have to be considered that way? Takers
can be givers, and givers can be takers. After all, it requires two for this
process to work, doesn’t it? Perhaps these terms just have a bad reputation, a
bad feeling so to speak. Maybe we should change the terms to donors and
recipients, contributors and receivers. Isn’t it amazing how a simple change like
this can make something that seems to be bad into something that we can accept
or even like?
Givers provide something that the recipients want or need,
whether the recipients know it or not. If we give someone a referral, we are
the giver, and someone else is the recipient, or taker. If someone passes a
compliment to us about a shirt that we might be wearing, that someone is the
giver, and we are the receiver or taker. Every exchange takes two to make it
work, a donor (giver) and a recipient (taker).
Many of us just think that takers are bad people, the people
that we never want to be, the people that we want to avoid. If we are a giver, we
need takers; we need people to accept or receive our actions that we give. What
good is a referral without a person to whom to give it? What good is a
compliment without someone to whom to mention it?
No matter how many referrals or compliments that we might
give, we must have that many receivers, or takers. They may be the same person
multiple times, but spreading the wealth is so much better. Our receivers
should appreciate our efforts, especially the person who receives multiple
referrals, but they should do something else. They should pay the effort forward.
Pay it forward – wouldn’t that be a great title for a movie?
Repeating the efforts of which we are the recipient extends the process. Give,
get, repeat; it is a simple philosophy. What comes around goes around. When
someone gives something to us, give something to someone else. When someone
does something nice for us, do something nice for someone else.
What about the originator of the process? Why not just give
back to the person starting the process? Giving back to the person who gave to us
is our normal thought process, and it is not the wrong way to think. However,
why not do both, why not give back to the person who provided us something and
pay it forward to someone else? In other words, what goes around comes around.
Can we incorporate this philosophy into our business life? Referrals
are the backbone of any business, or should be. Passing referrals is like
giving someone money for their business. But what about other ways of using
this philosophy in our lives? Passing compliments or advice, providing a
friendly ear, sharing a meal, sharing any information that improves someone’s
life, even recommending a blog to someone, they all qualify.
When someone helps us through any of these ways, accept
their gift, for it is a gift. Then pass a gift to someone else, or even pass another
gift back to the person who helped us, who gave us a gift. Give, get, repeat;
it works for all of us. Extend, accept, duplicate; provide, receive, replicate.
They all mean the same.
Show gratitude to all those with whom we come into contact
during our lives, both business and personal. Accept their gifts and show gratitude
in return by passing on gifts to others and back to them. Then repeat the
process. What comes around goes around; what goes around comes around. It
really works, and that is Gratitude Marketing.
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