ENDORSEMENTS
This is one of those rare and wonderful books that has the ability to transform your business and personal success. I highly recommend it.
Keith Ferrazzi, New York Times best-selling author of Never Eat Alone
Hows this for a business strategy? Do good deeds for every person you meet and dont ask for or expect anything in return. Sound crazy? Then read this book. Jonathan Keyser has built his whole company around selfless service, and it has worked brilliantly.
Bo Burlingham, Former Inc. editor, Forbes contributor, and best-selling author of Small Giants and Finish Big
This book is a field commanders guide to accumulating wealth through service, and I will not be surprised if every single person who can read will one day have read this book.
Steve Chandler, NBC contributor, author, speaker, and master coach
Reading this book has been like putting the missing coordinates into my lifes GPS and hitting GO!
Gary Mahler, author, speaker, and executive business coach
Business is changing. It doesnt have to be ruthless, and thankfully, Jonathan Keyser is showing us another way.
John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market
Copyright 2019 Jonathan Keyser
All rights reserved. The Keyser Way is a trademark of Keyser LLC.
The book is owned by Jonathan Keyser.
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0425-4
My Disclaimer: My story and examples within these pages are relayed to the best of my remembrance at the time. As someone who has learned to live in the moment, some of the timelines, details, people, or representations may be out of order, remembered differently by others, or simply inaccurate. It is not intentional, as I truly did relay my journey to the best of my remembrance.
Additionally, some items within have actually been altered intentionally to keep the people, stories, and recommendations confidential.
Lastly, this is a story about my journey and philosophy around how to create success through service. While I believe wholeheartedly in our approach and philosophy and have personally created success through service, there is no guarantee that the ideas, strategies, and recommendations employed within will guarantee success for you or anyone else. If you are interested in truly reinventing yourself around service and you feel like you would like additional assistance, call us, and we will help you however we can.
For my beloved children: Jonathan, Ulysses, Finnegan, and London.
Each one of you is a priceless gift, and I am honored and humbled to be your dad.
The joy of being your father is my greatest blessing, and I am forever enriched by you.
You are each extraordinary, uniquely talented, loving, selfless, and kind; I am the luckiest guy in the world to be able to call you my kiddos.
Each of you is perfect exactly as you are. Dont ever be anything other than your true self. There is only one you, perfect and priceless and infinitely powerful, so never try to be anyone else or anything other than your own perfect self.
Follow your heart at all times, and never forget who you are and what you are capable of.
In dark times, remember that your dad loves you unconditionally, and nothing any of you could ever do could change that. I will always be here for you when you need me.
Thank you for having the generosity and grace to forgive and love me despite the many times that I have failed as a dad and not showed you unconditional love and selfless service.
My wish for each and every one of you is that you will find for yourselves the joy and power in living a life of service to others, and that it will transform your lives as it has mine.
Contents
Only a life lived in service to others is worth living.
Albert Einstein
An Invitation
I envision a world
A world in which business people selflessly help one another and, as a direct result, achieve extraordinary levels of success.
A world where the brightest graduates from the best universities transform the companies that hire them through selfless service.
A world where business people focus 100 percent of their efforts on selflessly helping their clients, colleagues, and other business leaders succeed. As a result, they achieve unusually high levels of success for themselves simply because they helped other people.
A world in which everyone lives by the mantra Give, and you shall receive.
This may seem unrealistic, but I believe it is indeed possible. In fact, we are proving it every day in one of the most ruthless industries in the world.
I invite you to join me in the expansion of one of the most unlikely, yet phenomenally effective, approaches to business youll ever see.
I had been in the industry for ten years. Ten years. And I had lost myself in the backstabbing drudge of it all.
I had started the same way anyone does in the commercial real estate businessat the bottom, scratching up business wherever I could get it, making cold calls, trying to survive off a commission - based income. But after ten years, even with the financial success I was experiencing, nothing felt right.
It was in the last two of those years that I began to reinvent myselfI wanted to do business differently. I had heard about the concept of selfless service during a breakout session at a business conference, and I couldnt let it go. I dug in deep, researched, hunted down others who were practicing this method, and even took on a coach to help me internalize the process. While I was starting to see some success, a brick wall had planted itself firmly in front of me.
I was doing others first work in a take all you can get world. While I was finally feeling good about the work I was doing and beginning to make headway, the endless sound of their mockery echoed in my mind: No one can survive doing business by just helping others. It was getting harder to stay focused, harder to stay the course. Friends, family, other business leaders in the community, and even people within my firm at the time were convinced I would fail.
I began to avoid going into the office and started working from home or from my car. My sleep was restless, and the stress was becoming unbearable. All I could hear were the voices of people repeatedly telling me I would never make it.
One morning, I woke up in despair and called my coach, Steve Chandler. I hadnt met with him for a while at this point, but I needed to talk to someone. He agreed to meet with me, so I drove out to his office, and as I sat down, he asked, So, whats going on? I just couldnt do it anymore. I am not usually a crier, but I was so frustrated that I broke down, unloading all the frustration and anxiety I had been holding back. In that moment, the strain was so great that I broke into uncontrollable sobs. I was at my wits end, up against relentless opposition and surrounded by critics, and I didnt know what to do. My head was filled with constant concern that I would lose my job, and I didnt feel I could keep going.
Steve listened. He waited. Then he reminded me of the advice hed already given me and said, You need to call Steve Hardison. Hell help you do something about this. Hell help you move to the next levelthen youll look back at this moment and recognize it as your turning point. Your life will never be the same.