Let’s say you are a business owner in the construction industry or in a related field. There is some old “wisdom” that says not to give anything away. This “wisdom” says you should not reveal your hand. You should not let customers know your expenses. And you should get as much money as you can.

I am a small construction business owner myself. I certainly do believe in profit and in being paid fairly. We should be paid fairly for quality work. We should be able to retire some day and take vacations along the way and reap benefit from our hard work.

I also believe we should approach our businesses with a generosity of spirit. When we make it very important to serve our customers, when we are grateful for them and we want to give them the best of yourself, we actually attract more generosity and appreciation from them.

When I started treating customers in this fashion they started treating me with value that actually surprised me. One friend from years ago who worked for me at times when he was not working on his own said he had never seen customers chase the builder to hand him money, as some of mine did. “How do you do it?” he asked incredulously.

Mainly, I was there to serve my customers to the best of my abilities while doing my best to be true to myself at the same time. In fact, treating them well WAS and IS part of being true to myself. And they perceived and appreciated this.

To be honest, I have overworked and obsessed over my business more than I should have, and I know I have not been alone in these imbalances! And I have also had numerous customers who have clearly valued me. Customers who have given me and sometimes my key people bonuses. Customers who have insisted on taking me to dinner. Customers who became friends and who I want to keep in my life.

How did I achieve this level of relationship? I made taking care of my customers thoroughly and honestly my priority. When I did this, and they were totally convinced I was working hard for them, they did not begrudge me my money. It was a win-win flow. And boy, it felt good. It felt good to take good care of them. It felt good to be appreciated. It felt good to make a decent living after having shortchanged myself for too long.

When my generosity towards my customers increased, my own bank account grew. This may sound paradoxical, but it really is not. There is a natural law which governs this experience. And I went to bed feeling that I had served my customers well and honestly.

I took note of their priorities and generally asked about them outright. I looked for little clues. Did they seem disturbed about something? Did they seem extra pleased? Was there something else going on in their life that was especially difficult or disturbing? Was there anything not being covered?

When I took more genuine interest in them and stopped seeing them as people around whom I had to maneuver and who I had to watch out for, my work life became very different.

And I knew that the people who said to run my business like I was in a win-lose poker game were wrong. What a relief!