[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and today is a tribute to my good friend, John Ruhlin. And this episode is dedicated to John. It is dedicated to supporting his family and his legacy. And I’m sharing with you five of the lessons that I learned from John. He’s one of the most prolific gift-givers in the world. He is the author of Giftology. And I’m going to share five lessons that I learned about appreciating other people through the art of gift-giving.

Now, this applies these five strategies, these five lessons, they apply if you’re giving gifts to your spouse or your family or your friends but they also apply and maybe even more so if you’re giving gifts to your clients or your employees or your referral partners. Or, in fact, if you’re not giving gifts to those people, hopefully, this will open your eyes to why that is such an important strategy for really making people feel acknowledged and appreciated by giving them a gift that they will use regularly. Maybe every single day they will think of you, they will feel the love and appreciation from you for that gift.

In fact, one of the things that John said in regards to why gift giving was so important is that a physical gift is a representation of the value you place on a relationship. I know you’ll hear me say that again during the episode, but a physical gift, right? If you give someone a gift, a physical gift, every time they look at it, they feel those warm and fuzzy feelings. And John’s company, the Ruhlin Group, and his book, Giftology, which I highly recommend, I’ll talk more about that in the episode.

But it was essentially opening people’s eyes to there’s the way this is done, which is like buying people whatever gift you think they might like or giving clients your gift with your logo on it. And there’s a wrong way and a right way to do it, so to speak. And so, this episode is going to share with you five lessons that I learned from John before he passed away that will live on with me forever. And now that I am finally reading his book, Giftology, I’m kicking myself for waiting so long but it’s a game changer in the way I’m going to approach my relationships both personally and professionally from this moment on. So, I think you’ll really enjoy today’s episode.

Before we dive in, I want to take just a minute to thank our sponsor, Organifi, bringing you the highest quality organic whole food supplements, which I take every day. There’s a handful of Organifi supplements that I take from when I wake up until when I go to bed. And so, whatever your health objectives and goals are, if you want to lose weight, if you want more energy, if you want better ability to focus, if you want to improve your sleep, you name it, Organifi has a solution.

And when you go to their website, Organifi.com/Hal, you get a discount for being a listener of the podcast episode. Organifi.com/Hal. That is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, two Is at the end, Organifi.com/Hal and use the discount code ‘HAL’ for 20% off and you can shop by objective, right? So, you can look, “Okay. Here’s what I want to do in terms of improving my health,” and you’ll find the Organifi whole food organic supplement that will help you do exactly that.

I also want to mention in terms of this episode being dedicated to John Ruhlin, there are two ways to support John Ruhlin right now. His GoFundMe is still up. I’ll put the link to that in the show notes and that is to support his wife and their four daughters. When John passed away, he was only 44 years old. He died unexpectedly on their family’s vacation. And he left behind his wife, Lindsey, and their four girls. And so, the GoFundMe is one way to support. And the other way to support is this week, John, his team just launched a course called the Referral Partner Transformation course that John was working on before he passed away.

He deeply understood that becoming what he called radically referable meant building lasting relationships and staying top of mind when it matters most. And so, he developed a thoughtful, sustainable system for creating meaningful connections and generating referrals, so referrals to grow your business, to increase your income, your revenue, and grow your client base. And in honor of his legacy and the generosity movement that he championed, his team is offering a special discount on the course to Achieve Your Goals listeners. I will not make any money off of this. It’s all going to his family but this is a way to continue sharing his timeless principles, five of which you’re going to learn about today. If you’re interested in the course, go to ReferralsWithNoAsking.com. That’s ReferralsWithNoAsking.com. And there’s a significant discount for listeners to the podcast.

All right. Goal achievers, I love you. And I’ll just say this before I transition to the episode that thinking about John and who he was and how he showed up and nurtured his relationships and his friendships and love on other people, that’s the greatest lesson. You know, there’s going to be these five lessons, these strategies, but like overall, this is just John really poured into what matters most, in my opinion, in this lifetime, which is our relationships. And so, that’s the spirit that I encourage you to listen to this is how can you love on the people in your life that matter most to you both personally and professionally? All right. Goal Achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, friends, family, I love you. Enjoy the episode.

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: I met John Ruhlin 25 years ago when we were both relatively new salespeople at Cutco Cutlery. And John went on to be the number one sales rep in the 70-plus-year history of the company. He amassed over $20 million in sales, which he did when he was really in his 20s, primarily 20s and 30s, so relatively young. And while being the number one sales rep in the history of a company would likely be the ultimate lifetime achievement for most people, that was really just the beginning for John, and it’s not what he’s best known for.

He’s best known for being one of the best in the world at gift-giving, at building relationships, at loving on other people. In fact, that was a phrase that he used a lot is he’d call me and go, “Hal, who do you want me to help you love on right now? Who in your life could use some love and appreciation?” And that’s just who John was. Now, he’s the founder of The Ruhlin Group. It’s a gifting company that works with big clients, Wells Fargo, Chicago Cubs, Miami Dolphins, John Maxwell Company, Morgan Stanley. And he works with these companies to create these gifting strategies for their clients, for their employees.

Well, because he was one of my closest friends, I got to work with him firsthand. Again, that’s where those phone calls would come in, “Is there anybody that you want to love on, Hal?” And what that really meant was, “Is there anybody that you want to give a really meaningful, special, one-of-a-kind gift to to honor that person?” There’s a quote from John, as he would say, that a physical gift is a representation of the value you place on a relationship. I’ll say that again. A physical gift is a representation of the value that you place on a relationship. And John’s the author of the book Giftology.

Now, I’m holding this book in my hands right now. And I’m somewhat almost I don’t know if embarrassed is the right word but I didn’t read this. He wrote this in 2016 and I’m just now about to finish it eight years later. And I don’t know if it was because that was the year that I got cancer. I don’t know if that’s an excuse or if that’s actually why. Maybe the book came out and I was in the hospital and I didn’t get a chance to read it. I don’t know why, but either way, I’m regretful that it took me eight years to read the book because it’s a phenomenal book and I mean really phenomenal book. And it’s really designed for professionals.

So, if you are an entrepreneur, if you are a business owner, if you are an executive, right, if you have clients, if you have employees, if you have team members, it’s how to use strategic gifting, if you will. And I don’t like the word ‘strategic gifting,’ I don’t know if that’s what John called it, because strategic can kind of sound cold and like void of heart and emotion and love and empathy, which those things were all very much factors in how John treated others and gifted other people.

But if I had read this book earlier, I would have done things significantly different. That’s why I’m regretful that I did not read the book earlier. You know, what I would have done primarily, one example is I’ve been a keynote speaker for 15 years-ish, right? 15 years. I’d say at least 12 years. So, a professional keynote speaker and I may have occasionally gotten a gift for some of my speaking clients but what John teaches in Giftology is like reinvest 5% of the profits that you earn from a client to gift that client something that’s really special to them.

And I just imagine if I probably got, I don’t know, 150, 200 speaking clients, give or take, that had I followed John’s Giftology philosophy, they would all probably have a set of Cutco sitting on their kitchen counter engraved with their family’s name on the steak knives and maybe if they have quotes or their company philosophies or values or whatever on the other knives. And we’ll talk about that here in a few minutes. But just this personalization where something that really like John said in that quote that I just shared from him, which is a physical gift is a representation of the value placed on a relationship.

And I’ll give you some examples of some stories before we get into the lessons of how John impacted my life. There are so many ways in terms of the philosophies that he lived by and how loving he was and how generous he was and how thoughtful he was, but specifically with his philosophies around giving gifts. And one of them was you give gifts to people that you appreciate that you might not yet work with. So, as opposed to like, “Hey, thank you for your business,” gift. This is like a, “Hey, thank you for the work that you’re doing in the world,” gift.

And he was always with his gifting strategies and his philosophies. It was never, ever give a gift because you are trying to get something in return. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with knowing that, ‘Hey, this hopefully might lead to a relationship with that person,’ but never let that be the primary intention.” He said, “You’ve always got to get really pure in your heart and you’ve got to come from a place of true radical generosity, wanting to serve the other person and add value to the other person’s life.” Where is it? I wrote a quote down. We’ll get to that here in a few minutes when I get to the lessons. But I’ll give you an example of this.

So, Aubrey Marcus, in case you don’t know who Aubrey is, he is the host of the Aubrey Marcus podcast, one of the top podcasts on the planet. And he wrote the book, Own Your Day, Own Your Life, but where he’s maybe most known is he is the former CEO and the founder of the company Onnit, which he and Joe Rogan were partners, I think like 50/50 partners in that. And Onnit was a supplement company that at the height I think was doing $20 million a year back in 2020 when Aubrey was running it. And then he ended up selling that company.

Well, I was a huge fan of Aubrey, so I listened to his podcast. I just admired and appreciated the way he showed up in the world. And so, I called John Ruhlin and I said, “Hey, I’d like to get Aubrey like a full set of Cutco,” and John’s strategy was always around personalization. It was like, “Let’s engrave the knives with Aubrey’s quotes.” So, we went through his book and online and just googled “Aubrey Marcus quotes” and engraved every single knife with one of Aubrey’s quotes. So, unlike a lot of companies that give gifts, whether it’s to their employees or to clients, they put their logo on it like, “Hey, I got you this,” and it’s always a cheap trinket, John was always about giving gifts that are the best in the world, which Cutco, the world’s finest cutlery.

Like, if you’re going to give something, and it doesn’t have to be expensive, there’s lots of examples John gives throughout the Giftology book of relatively inexpensive gifts but make it the best in class. Like, if you’re going to give a vacuum, it’s the best vacuum in the world. If you’re going to give a gift, it’s the best gift in the world, whatever the class of that gift is. And for him, Cutco Cutlery being that was his background, that’s how he started was giving Cutco gifts. And that was something that it was the world’s finest. It was guaranteed forever. It was something people used every single day. It sat on their kitchen counter, right? So, he bought real estate in their kitchen for them to think of him every time they looked at that block of knives or use the knives.

And again, it wasn’t about him. It wasn’t his logo that was on those knives. It was their logo on the knives. And so, I got Aubrey a set of Cutco and it was right before I was diagnosed with cancer, I got Aubrey this Cutco. And then I went through my cancer journey and one of my good friends, Brad Weimert, reached out at some point after, I think, I was toward the end of my chemotherapy or I just finished my major treatments. And Brad said, “Hey,” He goes, “Listen to this podcast that Aubrey Marcus did. It was an interview with somebody else.” And he said, “Fast forward to the, whatever, 17-minute and 30-second mark and listen to what he says.” And Aubrey was asked the question, “How did you connect with Joe Rogan, one of the biggest or the biggest podcaster on the world and get him to be your partner with Onnit?”

And I don’t remember the details of that story, but Aubrey shared that he had gone out of his way to show Rogan appreciation and connect with him and do something thoughtful for Rogan that he cared about, meaning Joe cared about. And then Aubrey said, “I’ll give you an example from my own life.” And he said, “I received this gorgeous set of cutlery,” and I’m paraphrasing. I don’t remember word for word how he said it, but he said, “I received this gorgeous set of cutlery that was engraved with…” I think it might’ve had the Onnit logo on the steak knives. It’s been eight years. I don’t remember exactly how I did it. “And it had all of my quotes on the main knives.”

And he said, “Now, that’s how you do it. If you want to build a relationship with somebody,” he said, “If that guy,” I don’t think he even said my name. He just said, “If that guy reached out to me and wanted a favor to connect with me, like, of course, I’m going to give him my time. Like, he went over and above to show appreciation and do something really special for me.” And I was like, “Oh, thank goodness I heard that podcast,” because I reached out to Aubrey. I said, “Aubrey, hey, sorry, I didn’t follow up on the knife set. You know, it’s three years later but I went through cancer and all of that but I love to connect and have you on my podcast.”

And then I had him on my podcast and then he invited me on his podcast and I got to his podcast twice. But all of that is because of John Ruhlin and his philosophies around doing something for people going over and above in the way you appreciate people, in the way that you do something for someone to acknowledge them or the gift that you give them. Again, John Ruhlin was the author of Giftology. His company, The Ruhlin Group, focused on this high-level, really extraordinary gift-giving. And that leads us to the first lesson from John Ruhlin and that lesson is radical generosity.

So, I’m going to share with you five or so lessons from John. I wrote down five, but some others might come up as I’m recalling my good buddy. And there are so many things I learned from him, countless things like definitely not limited to five, but in the sake of the podcast and time, I’m not going to share all 100 strategies that I learned from John Ruhlin. But the five lessons, the first being radical generosity. So, John taught me, he taught all of us that generosity isn’t just about giving. It’s about giving radically. It’s about going above and beyond in a way that leaves a lasting impact the way that that gift that I gave to Aubrey did and ended up selfishly, if you will, right?

I didn’t give it to him. I listened to John’s advice. It’s like take a deep breath and get to a place in your heart where you’re giving the gift selflessly, even if nothing ever comes of it. If that person never even says, “Thank you,” you’re not giving the gift for what you get in return. And of course, we can apply this to our relationships in our life, with our spouse, with our family, right? Are you doing something so that they say thank you and then you’re mad if they don’t say thank you? “You should have said thank you. I did the thing for you.” It’s like, well, why are you doing the thing? Are you doing it from a place of pure love and service without any expectation? And that’s this underlying gift that transcends business, right, is that doing things for people from a place of pure love and service and contribution.

And so, I’m going to quote something that John said in his book, Giftology, around this concept of radical generosity. John said, “At some level, everyone hopes that the good they put out into the world comes back to them. For me, personally, it’s been my faith in Jesus Christ that has taught me that a man reaps what he sows and that the good we do has a ripple effect. The concept of Giftology goes far beyond invoking a warm, fuzzy feeling. There’s a life-changing advantage to treating people well and developing an attitude of gratitude. The added bonus comes from seeing it positively impact your bottom line.”

So, again, it’s coming from this place of genuine love and service for another person and then knowing that some of those gifts or some of those acts of radical generosity will come back. And you’re kind of playing the long game. You’re playing the big-picture game. And John gave an analogy in his book. I’m blanking on the analogy now, but I just remember him saying like it was something along the lines of, if you make ten efforts, let’s say you give ten gifts, you’re not going to get ten positive responses or you might get ten positive responses but you may get nothing more than a thank you.

But if you’re trying to generate business and you’re trying to build relationships with people that you believe you can help and that they can help you, right, this mutually beneficial interaction with people, he said maybe three out of those ten gifts net really significant returns. And of course, reaching out to Aubrey Marcus and gifting him that set of Cutco so many years before landed in being on my podcast at least once or twice and then me being on his podcast. And so, that relationship, you know, and I played basketball at his house and we have a friendship now, that all stemmed from me listening to John’s principle on radical generosity and going above and beyond in a way that leaves a lasting impact.

I’m going to relate this now. I’m going to share the second lesson and then I’ll share a personal example. So, the second lesson that I learned from John Ruhlin is surprise and delight. So, the first is radical generosity going above and beyond. The second is surprise and delight, which is like, for example, John doesn’t give gifts. He never gave gifts on Christmas because he said you’re just lost in the shuffle. For him, it was always giving gifts that are unexpected out of the blue. It was surprise and delight. And there’s two ways to do that. One is the timing, right, of when you give the gift.

If you give a gift when everyone expects to get gifts, it doesn’t land the same as when you come out of the blue and you give a gift to someone that wasn’t expecting it. John said, and I quote, “You get the best response from people when they don’t expect the gift. So, I always suggest gifting people in unexpected times. If you surprise people, it’s amazing what comes off as a ten out of ten experience versus the attitude of, ‘Here’s what I expect and you would better not mess it up,’” right? You ever had that happen, especially maybe with somebody very close to you, a loved one, a family member, or a child where you get a gift and they’re like disappointed? “I expected something different or better. This wasn’t what I wanted,” right?

But if you give a gift when they’re not expecting a gift completely out of the blue and they didn’t have any expectation, like John said, it’s amazing what can land a ten out of ten gift, well, because they weren’t expecting it. And a couple of personal examples. I know I give a professional, but for my wife’s 35th birthday, I wanted to go all out because I had messed up her birthdays because she expected certain things and I didn’t meet her expectations. So, for a 35th birthday, I started planning it months, maybe six months in advance. And her family, her mom and dad at the time, lived in California, we’re in Texas.

So, I reached out to her dad and mom and I said, “Hey,” and they’re separate and they’re divorced. So, separately, I reached out and I said, “Hey, would you come out for Ursula’s birthday to surprise her? So, you cannot tell her. And I want to arrange a surprise.” And they said, “Absolutely.” And so, we flew her dad out, flew her mom out. And then I also arranged a surprise birthday party for her with all of our friends. Now, here’s the thing. I wanted to orchestrate it so it was like layers of surprises. So, here’s how it happened.

Her dad flew in, he Ubered to our house, and I took Ursula out for lunch so that she wouldn’t see him arrive. And then I had him sitting on the living room couch. So, when we got home, she walks in, puts her keys up, thinking nothing of it, and all of a sudden walks in, and her dad and his longtime girlfriend, Linda, they were sitting on the couch. And she and Ursula, just like you can imagine that, right? You’re coming home and all of a sudden your dad’s there like it was a total her brain like took a minute to comprehend then she started crying. She’s crying. So, she thinks that’s her big birthday surprise is we flew her dad in for her birthday.

And then I told her that we were going out to dinner at this special location, and I told her the special location because the next surprise was we had to pick her mom up from the airport, but there’s nothing else by the airport. So, I told her I had arranged a dinner, a private dinner at this, I forgot what I told her like a chef’s house or something. It was some random story and we ended up driving. And then I go to the airport and she’s like, “Why are you going to the airport?” I said, “Oh, he lives past the airport.” She goes, “Weird.” And then I turned into the airport. She goes, You’re turning into the airport. I go, “Oh, my gosh, I made the wrong turn. I’m so sorry.”

She’s like frustrated. She goes, “What are you doing? I thought you were supposed to go over there.” And anyway, then she sees her mom and she starts crying again. Surprise number two. And then we end up going out to dinner at her favorite restaurant. But then we get home and she thinks, “Oh, my gosh.” She like her adrenaline, by the way, is like her adrenals are probably stressed from all the surprises. But then we get home, we walk in the door. She thinks she’s got her mom there, her dad there. She’s been crying. She’s so grateful. This is the best birthday ever because she loves her parents, of course. Family is there. Then we walked through the house into the living room. There’s a big banner on the wall that says “Happy 30th Birthday Ursula!” a bunch of pictures of her built into it, and then 20 of our friends are yelling surprise and our kids and everything else.

So, that’s an example of surprise and delight, right? And the impact that that birthday had on her supersedes any impact any birthday ever had because of that fact. So, how can you apply radical generosity to other people, right? By going above and beyond to do special things to make a lasting impact. And when you are doing that, keeping in mind surprise and delight, and that’s based on the timing of when you do something for someone that they least expect it.

And if you get them a gift and you give it at a time when they’re not expecting to receive gifts, the impact is far greater. The third lesson from John Ruhlin around gifting is to make the gift about the recipient. Again, many companies put their own logo on gifts when they give the gift, and it’s usually a cheap trinket, right? It’s like, here’s a keychain or a coffee mug, like I have enough coffee mugs, but putting their name on it, not your logo.

Some examples, John once sent me a really beautiful Tumi leather computer bag and it had a plate on it engraved with my initials. And I use that computer bag for years. Again, remember, a part of John’s gifting strategy is something that people will use very often, if not every single day. That’s why Cutco made such a great gift and it still does. I just ordered a set of steak knives for a friend of mine engraved with a special family phrase that him and his family have that I’m going to give to him soon, not on a holiday, an unexpected holiday, if you will. But Cutco is still my favorite gift to give because they’re going to use those knives on a daily basis and they’re engraved with something that is meaningful and unique to that family. That computer bag John gave me, I had it with me all the time, if not on a daily basis, every time I travel a few times a month. And I was always thinking of John every time I looked at it.

And I’ve given Cutco steak knives to– or not steak knives, well, steak knives, but also full sets of Cutco to Robert Kiyosaki. For example, after he had me on his podcast that he agreed to appear in the Miracle Morning documentary, I sent him a beautiful set of Cutco steak knives. And again, it was John Ruhlin’s idea to engrave all of the steak knives with all of his quotes, and then made especially for the Kiyosaki family on each of the steak knives. So, all the big knives had full-on one, two, three sentence quotes from Robert from his books, and then the steak knives I had made for his family. The same for James Altucher after he was in the Miracle Morning movie.

And then our custom mug is something else that John Ruhlin started doing that was really cool, where he found this artist that would carve in a ceramic mug an entire scene based on what was important to the recipient. So, I’ve got a couple of these mugs that John gifted me. It’s got my kid’s name on it. It’s got a big sunrise happening and it says the Miracle Morning and the impact and it says Elevating Consciousness and all these things that are really important to me. And the idea is, sure, we get plenty of cheap mugs with logos on them from companies like our bank, but this is the only mug you’re going to have in your life. It’s the one you’re going to use every single day because it’s got what matters most to you carved in to that mug.

And the last example I give you is a gift that I gave to Tom and Lisa Bilyeu. Tom is the host of Impact Theory, and he’s had me on his show twice. And John Ruhlin reached out at one point. Again, he and I are friends, so we talk as friends. And occasionally, he’d reach out with more of a business intention for the call and say, “Hey, Hal, has anybody that’s really done, open doors for you lately or done something nice for you? Anybody in business that you want to love on, that you want to appreciate?” And I said, “Yeah, I was just on Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu for the second time. Like, he’s so generous having me on his show and I wanted something to really appreciate him.”

If you don’t know who Tom Bilyeu is, he was the founder of Quest Nutrition initially, and they sold that company for $100 million and he became very, very wealthy. So, it’s kind of like, what do you gift somebody that could buy anything that they want? And of course, John Ruhlin being that his expertise is gifting, it was like, “Hey, John, what do we get for Tom Bilyeu?” And he said, “I just started working with this artist in St Louis.” In fact, I encourage all of you to check out her Instagram. You can actually see the Tom Bilyeu art piece that we got him. Her Instagram is S-T-L, short for St. Louis, stlartist on Instagram. That’s her Instagram handle, S-T-L, like St. Louis, @stlartist on Instagram. And you can look at her art, I mean, so what she does, she creates these giant art pieces that are made from broken records, like hundreds of pieces of broken records. It’s hard to even explain. And John Ruhlin has gifted these to Tim Tebow, the famous quarterback, on stage.

John would gift these to people that have– they have enough money to buy anything that they want. And it’s not often that you usually run into those people. But creating one of these art pieces and these are extravagant, this isn’t like an everyday gifting strategy for most of us. I’ve only given one of these. And John Ruhlin actually helped me pay for the cost because it was so expensive. He was awesome like that. He’s like, “I just want to get this gift in this person’s hands, Hal. Like, I’ll help you cover the cost.” It was amazing.

But what it was, it was a seven-foot wide– only the picture. This is a portrait made of broken records that from a distance, you can’t tell it’s broken records. It looks like a beautiful painting. And as you get close, you see it’s hundreds and hundreds of little pieces. It’s a mosaic, right? Hundreds of pieces of broken records. And it was seven feet wide by four feet tall. So, imagine how big that is. It’s like takes up an entire wall, right? And it was a picture of Tom, so Tom Bilyeu, his wife Lisa, and their– I believe, it was their puppy, their dog. They don’t have children. I think their dog is like their child. Is it a cat? I’m drawing a blank right now. Anyway, it was their animal, their favorite animal, and it was the two of them. And it was, again, seven feet wide, four feet tall. And so, we had to hire a delivery service. John set this up. I flew out to Beverly Hills where Tom lives, Tom and Lisa. And Lisa was actually– she was gone. She wasn’t there, but she left me the sweetest voice note right after she got home and saw the art piece.

But it was like the delivery, they brought it in, covered it with a sheet, and then Tom came downstairs. And this is probably, I don’t know, six months after we did our last interview. And he told me, he’s like, after I showed it to him, he was blown away. And he’s like, I was so nervous because I’m like, what if I don’t like this gift? Like, you’re flying? What could it possibly be that you’re flying out here to give it to me, right? But this goes back to two things that– well, three things, all three lessons are incorporated in this gift. Okay? It’s important for me to go back and bring all three of these lessons into this gift.

Number one, radical generosity. I’ve already been on Tom’s show twice. I don’t expect him to ever have me on his show again. I literally have no expectation that I will ever get anything from Tom. That is not why I gave him the gift. John’s philosophy, John Ruhlin’s philosophy, radical generosity, it’s about going above and beyond and giving the gift for the sake of loving and appreciating on this person, right? That leaves a lasting impact. So, that first principle, radical generosity, is in the gift that I gave to Tom Bilyeu. I wasn’t expecting and am not expecting anything. It was just truly, Tom, you’ve been so generous having me on your show twice. Thank you so much. I hope this gift brings joy to you and Lisa for the rest of your life as it hangs on a wall in your home.

The second, surprise and delight, right? That was a true surprise and delight. It was one that caused Tom some stress because he was like, what if I don’t like the gift? But luckily, I had pretty, I had a lot of confidence that if you give somebody this one-of-a-kind art piece that’s seven feet wide, four feet tall, and also the art piece had Lisa’s comic. She illustrates comic books. Her comic books were embedded all through the background of the art piece, which was another really cool personalization piece. And that’s the third lesson, make the gift about the recipient, right? That gift didn’t have my logo on it. It wasn’t a copy of the Miracle Morning framed or something. No, this was 100% about the recipient.

And I’ll share two other strategies that I learned from John Ruhlin about gifting. And I encourage you, by the way, seriously, get the book Giftology. Do not make the mistake that I made and waited so long to get this book and now that I have it, I’ve got spreadsheets, I’m writing. I mean, I’m literally creating a gifting strategy and I’m going to go back and gift people from the past that I should have gifted back when they hired me, or I’ve got– I won’t say who this is because he may be listening, but one guy in my life is one of the biggest advocates for the Miracle Morning, and he has brought the Miracle Morning into his company. And they have a Miracle Morning– no, is it weekly? Weekly or monthly, a Miracle Morning meet-up, a call for his entire company. It’s a big firm, nationwide, and they have a Miracle Morning community within their company. And so, I realize, I’ve never gotten him a gift. As I was reading John Ruhlin book Giftology, that’s when I realized, I’ve never gotten him a gift. And so, absolutely, he’s the first person on my list that I am going and getting a really special gift and not because I expect anything from him and it’s going to be engraved with his family’s name on it and be really special for him.

The fourth lesson from John Ruhlin, I already mentioned this earlier, so I won’t spend a lot of time, it’s best in class, meaning the gift should be high quality. Now, best is relative, right? It’s like, well, how do you know it’s the best? Well, it should be really high quality that’s going to last. If it can be the absolute best in class, like if you’re going to need a watch, get a Rolex watch-type thing, right? And again, that’s not affordable for everybody. So, here’s what John says, “If you’re claiming that your product or service is best in class, then your gifts should be to always ask yourself, what can we buy that’s best in class that is within our budget?”

And just going back to Cutco knives, you can buy someone a really high-quality Cutco knife that is guaranteed to last forever. That will become probably the only knife that they use, their favorite knife. Get him a utility knife for 50 bucks or whatever. Not going to break the bank. But if it’s engraved, think about that. And when you give it, there’s a note. And by the way, well, I’ll get there in a second. There’s a note that says, hey, this is a knife that I use every day. And this knife, our family uses every day. I know you’re married, you’ve got kids. I’m sure you guys cut stuff in your kitchen whether or not you’re a full-blown chef. And I wanted to do something as a small token of my appreciation for all that you’ve done for me. Thank you so much. I hope this knife is something that gets used in your kitchen every day and makes your life easier, right?

And John Ruhlin would always use language, like, thank you for carving out some time for me, and your company is a cut above the rest. And I think it’s kind of goofy, but the point is, for less than 50 bucks, you can give somebody a knife with a note that lets them know and it’s engraved with their name or their family’s name or their logo that they’re going to use every day literally for the rest of their life because Cutco is guaranteed forever, right? When I was a Cutco sales rep, I would see people that had Cutco for 50 years and they had gone and sharpened a few times for free by the company because the company guarantees them to be as sharp as new forever. They’ll sharpen them unlimited amount of times for free. And so, the people would be like, yeah, I’ve had this Cutco knife for 50 years and I still use it every single day, right? How many gifts can you give someone? I’m not trying to sell you on Cutco, like I’m not a Cutco sales rep anymore. I don’t get money for selling Cutco. But that’s an example of something that’s best in class. that is affordable that you can give to somebody.

And the other thing I want to say is, handwritten notes, right? Or a handwritten letter costs you a few dollars. So, there are things that you can do if you get creative. This isn’t always about buying something or one example, you can– so here’s a great example. I’m looking at it right now. In my office, someone who was in my life who used to be in my mastermind, probably seven years ago, and I can look at my phone. But anyway, in fact, I want to do that because I’m bothered that I don’t remember his name, his last name, I’m blanking on it. But I’m looking on my wall an unbelievably, I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s the cover of the Miracle Equation, it’s my book cover. It’s three feet wide by about four feet tall, and it’s made where each letter is individually carved in wood. Each letter of the title of the book is individually carved in wood. It’s framed in black. It is absolutely exceptional.

Here’s my point– oh, Mark Crandall. No, wait. Yeah, Mark Crandall, right? Now, this is embarrassing. All right, I’m just going to keep going. But this hangs on my wall every single day. And I can picture Mark, I can see his face. I’ve been on his podcast. Again, I have brain damage. I apologize, I’m forgetting his last name. But the Miracle Equation’s book cover he got me, it’s on my wall and I look at it every day. So, imagine if you were to simply go to like, Shutterfly.com and you were to take something like a collage, make a collage of someone’s family, or take a quote from that person or a saying or their favorite philosophy and you were to print that out for a relatively affordable, inexpensive amount of money, you could send them that gift that would hang on their wall and they would look at it every single day. And even though it wasn’t that hundred or thousand dollars, it was just something that was meaningful to them. So, if it can’t be best in class, make sure it’s something meaningful to them.

And the last lesson I want to share is the importance of the inner circle. This was really something that made John unique in his philosophies around gifting, is the importance of the inner circle. What I mean is, he often was trying to get in with big companies that would become his client, that would then gift their clients and their employees and so on and so forth. So, he’s trying to get the attention of a CEO or an executive who is very busy. Everybody’s trying to get that CEO’s or executive’s attention. And also, that CEO, they’re receiving the royal treatment all the time, right? It’s like they’re getting taken out to fancy dinners by people that want to gain that CEO’s business and get them as a client. They’re getting tickets to go see a baseball game by prospective companies that want that CEO to hire them.

And so, what John would do is he would take care of that CEO’s inner circle. So, for example, Darren Hardy, John would gift a bag. I think this actually was something that he and I worked on together. It was years ago, but Darren Hardy, the former CEO of Success magazine, we got a gift for his wife. So, the inner circle being the family, often it was the assistant of the executive. So, if an assistant, the executive assistant was really helpful for John, he would gift the executive assistant something or he would gift the executive assistant and the CEO the exact same thing, letting the executive assistant know, like, hey, I appreciate you, you’re valued at the same level as the CEO, which they probably weren’t often treated that way.

But he would always take care of the inner circle. Also, when he got this set of Cutco, for someone who was trying to appreciate, well, you better believe that the spouse of that person, that executive, whoever it was, they were using those knives every day too, right? So, it made an impact not just for the recipient that John was trying to connect with, build a relationship with, but also for the family, for their inner circle. And I’ll give you an example. Michael Hyatt just had me on his podcast and I wanted to thank him. And so, I sent him a copy of– how did I put this? So, he let me know. So, if I find out that the person that I am going to be a guest on their show, Ryan Pineda was another one, I was on the Ryan Pineda podcast and found out that some people in their office are big fans of the Miracle Morning.

So, what I will do is I’ll ask for the names of everybody in their office or everybody on their executive team, and then I will– not just sign a book for the host of the podcast, but I will personally autograph copies of the book for every single person on the team and send them. So, Michael Hyatt, I sent a box of books to him and his daughter who interviewed me, but then also their team members. Now, Ryan Pineda, in terms of taking care of the inner circle, Ryan told me during our podcast interview that he’s been doing the Miracle Morning for, I think, seven years, ever since he read the original edition seven years ago, and it might be six years. But he said that his kids, he has three children who are relatively young, all under the age of 10. I think I’ve read the exact ages, but it’s like three, five, and seven, something like that. He said they often interrupt his Miracle Morning, and he said he’s always conflicted because he loves seeing his kids, but he’s also like, oh, I was in the middle of my meditation or my prayer or whatever, and you kids are interrupting me.

So, when I got home from the interview and this was just last week, I pulled out three Miracle Morning Art of Affirmations coloring books, which I coauthored with Brianna Greenspan. And each page is an affirmation in big bubble letters, but it’s also a drawing that fits that page with a coloring book where you kids can color out the pages, color a page, tear it out, put it on their wall, and have positive affirmations that are also works of their own art creation, right?  So, I sent three copies, one to each child with the idea that now when they come out in the morning and they interrupt his Miracle Morning, he can give them their Miracle Morning Art of Affirmations coloring book. So, those coloring books are less than $20 each. So, it wasn’t a super expensive investment. But that’s a gift where I’m taking care of his inner circle. And again, Ryan just had me on his podcast. I’m not trying to get anything from Ryan, and he wasn’t expecting those. Well, they haven’t arrived yet probably. I think I emailed him yesterday, but they will arrive before this podcast comes out, so that’s okay. But he wasn’t expecting those gifts. So, there’s a little surprise and delight there, right?

Let’s go through the principles. Radical generosity. I do not expect anything in return from Ryan. I’m getting these as a gift just to add value to his family’s life. Number two, surprise and delight. He’s not expecting these coloring books for his kids, so it will be a surprise., it will be a delight making the gift about the recipient, right? I mean, it is my book. So, I guess in that way, it’s about me a bit, but it’s about them. I personally autographed. I got the names of his kids and I autographed each book to his kids. I also texted Ryan. I said, hey, what do your kids call you, just out of curiosity? Do they call you mom and dad or Papa and Mama? And he told me what his kids called him. So, I wrote, this is a gift from your– and I don’t want to say it because it’s their own personal information, but I said, this is a gift from your blank and blank, what the kids refer to their parents as. So, I made it from their parents, not from me, although I mean, I signed it with love from me. I signed it with love, Hal. But it was this is a special gift for you from your mom and dad. But it was the unique nicknames that the kids call the mom and dad, right? So, making it about the recipient. Now, best in class, that’s debatable. Is this the best coloring book for kids? I would argue. It is, sure. And then number five, the importance of the inner circle, right? Yeah, this is about the inner circle. It wasn’t a gift for Ryan who probably gets lots of people gifting him or doing nice things because they want to get something from him.

So, these five philosophies that are taught by John Ruhlin in his book Giftology are all part of how I encourage you to think about giving gifts. And this can be in your business. Again, that was John’s expertise. He’s not going to make money by teaching people how to just give gifts to their family, right? It was, he would have companies that would hire him and he would– and by the way, this is still, even though John passed away, his company, the Ruhlin Group, they still do this. They do strategic gifting for companies.

So, whenever I have a gift that I want to give, there is a member of the team that I send an email to. I just did this with a set of steak knives that are engraved for my friend that I just mentioned. I literally emailed her a couple days ago and like, hey, here’s exactly what I want. And then they make everything happen. They do the ordering, they do the engraving, they do everything, they do the gift wrapping. And it appears the gift either goes to you and you can hand-deliver it or it goes directly to the person. But I encourage you to get the book Giftology. I know that right now, I don’t have the details of this yet, but I know that by the time this podcast comes out, they are launching a brand-new course that John was working on when he passed away. I will put the link to that course in the show notes. So, Episode 557, MiracleMorning.com/557. I’ll put the link to that course in the show notes and all of the money. I don’t know if there’s a referral fee for me or anything, but all of the money, if there is any earned by me, it will 100% go back to John’s family and his company to keep them running as well.

So, I believe that all of us can learn a lot from John Ruhlin, to give generously, radical generosity, to love on other people, to go above and beyond for the people in our lives, both personally, our family members, our friends, right? I’m encouraging you, how can you be better about loving on and appreciating the people in your life? Because that is the essence of what John taught, gifting was how he did it, right? He was one of, if not the world’s best gift-giver and teaching other people how to give gifts that are a representation of how much you value the other person and that are so unique and personalized and meaningful to that person and something that they will use repeatedly so that they will remember how much you love and appreciate them. And this is something not just for your clients or friends and family. If you own a company, this is for your employees, to love on the people in your life who add value to your life and make your life worth living.

All right, I love you so much. I wish I could gift all of you beyond just this podcast. I don’t know if that’s scalable with how many listeners that we have, but check out the book Giftology.com. Check out the referral course, which I know it’s a big discount for this week that it came out. And again, I will link to that in the show notes at MiracleMorning.com/557. Make it a great week. I love you so much, and I will talk to you next week.

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Hal Elrod: Hey, thank you again for listening to this episode. I just wanted to remind you that if you are interested in checking out John Ruhlin’s course that he was creating before he passed away called the Referral Partner Transformation. It’s designed to give you a systematic approach to building lasting relationships and staying top of mind when it matters most. John was the best in the world at this. Head over to ReferralswithNoAsking.com. Again, ReferralswithNoAsking.com, there is a significant discount that his team is offering to all of John Ruhlin’s friends and our community. And again, all the money that comes into this is all going to go to John’s family to support his wife, Lindsay, and their four daughters. So, love you so much. Have a great week. Talk to you next week.

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