Law of Receptivity

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. We all heard, the saying: it’s better to give than receive. The giving part seams alright but like with everything in life there is always another side to the same coin.

Our book of the month November through the TEAM was the “The Go-giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann. It is an easy read since it is written in story form. The last of the five principles, the authors describe, is the law of receptivity.

The law of receptivity states: The Key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

In the book, Pindar has his young protégée exhale, while he was attempting to count to thirty. He didn’t even get past twelve, and young Joe started making funny noises. He protests to Pindar that he can’t continue to only breathe out, disregarding the fact that he took a very deep breath in.
Our body is a great testimony to the functions of giving and receiving. All these functions like breathing in and out, the heart muscles contract and relax, etc. take place without our doing. Pindar is making the point that it is insane to believe that it is better to give than receive all the time. After some contemplating, they both agree that: every giving can happen only because it is also a receiving.
Joe comes to understand that the secret to success is giving in order to get.
We all have had experience where we wanted to give someone a gift, a complement or just any other kind of attention, only to find the receiver rejecting or ignoring our gesture. That can be very disappointing and frustrating. By being more aware of the spiritual laws, we can achieve more enjoyment and satisfaction.
Give and receive seams to be a law of the universe. God created the whole universe including man for only one purpose: to receive love back from his children. There is a hierarchy of giving and receiving throughout creation. Every entity from the smallest atom to the solar system is involved in giving and receiving. The base of existence is the give and take between positivity and negativity, male and female, etc. Each individual existence has a life of its own and lives for a “higher purpose.” The food chain is a good example of this. Man’s breathing in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide while the plant kingdom lives on CO2 and gives us back oxygen is another. That’s the very base of the ecosystem.

Another very important aspect of the law of receptivity is staying open to new information. It is normal that we scan any news and often compare to past experiences. None-the-less, there is always room to learn something new and trusting that whatever idea comes to us, can be the source of important knowledge we need to continue our journey of life.


The Go-Giver can be purchased at bookstores nationwide or ordered to through the TEAM website, it can also be found by logging on to Bob Burg's website at http://www.thegogiver.com/.