Sam Jacobs - Kind Folks Finish First: The Considerate Path to Success in Business and Life

SAM JACOBS
WITH KERRI LINSENBIGLER

Copyright 2023 by Sam Jacobs. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Jacobs, Sam (Chief Executive Officer), author.

Title: Kind folks finish first : the considerate path to success in business and life / Sam Jacobs.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2023] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022035660 (print) | LCCN 2022035661 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119983002 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119983026 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119983019 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Success in business. | Kindness.

Classification: LCC HF5386 .J3123 2023 (print) | LCC HF5386 (ebook) | DDC 650.1dc23/eng/20220907

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035660

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035661

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: Julia August/Getty Images

For those who believe in a better way to do business.

There are too many people to properly thank for the community we've all built together over the past eight years. But a few that come to mind include Fred Mather, one of our earliest and most vocal supporters, Anne Juceam, our very first fulltime employee, and all the original Members of the New York Revenue Collective.

We wouldn't be here without the support of Max Altschuler, Founder and CEO of Sales Hacker, who launched the podcast with me and who introduced me to Wiley in the first place.

The first seven Chapter Heads played a critical role in our growth including Tom Glason, Rich Gardner, Butch Langlois, Andr Bressel, Kyle Lacy, Nicole Smith, and Joshua Amrani.

None of this would have happened without the support of my wife, Camille, who has stuck with me through thick and thin from my penniless days postAxial to today over close to 13 amazing years and helped bring so many beautiful animals into our lives, especially my beloved Walter.

Thanks also to my amazing family, including my mom, Ambassador Susan Jacobs, my dad, Barry Jacobs, my brother and sister, Josh and Wendy, my nieces and nephews, and especially Buster.

Special thanks to Kerri Linsenbigler for helping me finish the book, to Jared Rosen for being our first book coach, and the entire team at Wiley, including Shannon Vargo, Sally Baker, and Julie Kerr for their support.

And, of course, thanks to our thousands and thousands of Members who live our values every day and, in so doing, help demonstrate that kind folks really can finish first.

There is a fallacy in the business world that to succeed you have to be ruthless. There is one way to get rich and have truly global impact and that is to screw the other person before they screw you. Lots of people have succeeded based on that philosophy.

I'm here to tell you there is a different way. Being a jerk, focusing on the short term, emphasizing the art of the deal above longterm relationshipsperhaps that is one path.

But within the world, there are many paths to success. The path I will lay out for you offers the same thingswealth, impact, a legacy. But it does so in a way that will make you feel good. That will put positive energy into the universe. That will uplift you and those around you.

And to begin your journey, you don't need a wild stroke of luck. You don't need a trust fund. And you don't need to be a perennially upbeat happy person oblivious to the reality of the world around you. In fact, I'm pretty much the opposite of that. I'm grumpy. I'm moody.

But the lessons I articulate in this book are about a deeper sense of compassion and kindness. They are not about your mood. They are about a way of behaving in the world. A way that aligns you with positivity.

Some of it may seem hokey. And some of it may seem naive. There's a certain power and sense of superiority in cynicism. That's certainly true. It's up to you how you choose to lead your life. And this is just one way. But it's a way that I've found to work.

If you take that leap with me and go with me on this journey, I'm confident you'll come out on the other side with a deeper connection to success. We'll work through some of the challenges and objections you might naturally raise, and I'll share with you deeply personal information about my decadeslong struggles with the right sense of self, with depression, and with my near perpetual frustration with my station and place in life and with my career.

But, on the other side of all of that, you'll also discover what I've learned to truly change my life. To finally discover happiness. To build the tools I use almost every day to nurture that happiness. And to work through how that happiness and peace has transcended my professional life and impacted my life at home with my wife and my personal relationships.