Episode 264: Who Has Inspired You?

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Synopsis

A post on the BNI Facebook page asking members who had influenced them generated a lot of responses, so Dr. Misner decided to share some of  the people who had influenced him personally and professionally here on this podcast.

1. Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth. Systems, systems, systems. Write everything down and make it replicable and sustainable. Dr. Misner applied this to BNI and almost 20 years later had the opportunity to meet Michael Gerber.
2. Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. What Dr. Misner loves about him is that despite selling a quarter of a million books, he doesn’t have a big ego. He’s highly engaged when he attends seminars. Read his book on success.
3. Stewart Emery, author of Success Built to Last and Do You Matter? Two of his key ideas that have made it into BNI are “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” and “Who’s in your room?”
4. Entrepreneur Richard Branson. Dr. Misner talked about him more in Episode 192.

List three people who have made a difference in your life and why in the comments here. (And yes, Dr. Misner reads every single comment posted here.)

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 264 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I am doing great and I have a topic that I think members and Directors will find interesting. We posted a message on our Facebook page about who has influenced you in your life. We have some interesting members and discussion and might make a good podcast. I gave some thought about a handful of people who I thought have influenced me in terms of business and personal development. I thought I would talk about those people and why. It’s possible that some of this may resonate with others. If nothing else, when you are listening to this, think about who has influenced you or has helped you in terms of personal development or professionally in your business.

Gratitude is a good thing. If you know these people personally, telling them that is also a good thing. Letting them know what a difference they made, I think, is also important. I certainly appreciate it when people say something to me. But that’s not the point of this podcast. I want you to think about others as well who have made a difference in your life and talk about them.

So here are three who have influenced me personally and professionally. The first is Michael Gerber. He wrote the book The E-Myth. I did not know Michael when I read the book. I first picked up the book when I started BNI. One of the things that really resonated with me in there was he said systems, systems, systems. You have to write everything down. Create systems. Make it replicable and sustainable and you have to learn how to work on the business, not just in the business. There are so many things that he wrote in the book The E-Myth that I have applied to BNI. I truly believe that BNI as an organization today exists the way it does because of influence that Michael had on me when I read the book, The E-Myth.

What really amazed me is that going forward almost 20 years, I finally had the opportunity to meet Michael and spend a fair amount of time with him. He went to my home and it has only reinforced my attitude about his knowledge and business acumen. He is amazing. I highly recommend that you read his book. He absolutely will make a difference in people’s business lives.

Number two is personal development, as much as business development. That is Jack Canfield. Jack, you may know, from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Jack wrote that book with has now sold over a quarter of a million copies, worldwide and with variation. A quarter of a million copies! It’s amazing to me. Here is what I like about Jack: first of all, he is one of the most well-read people I have ever met. I got to know Jack really well.

He invited me into the Transformational Leadership Council, which I have been a member of now for a number of years. I am on their board. It’s fun because I am actually doing stuff like membership committee. I was on the membership committee for TLC. It’s fun being able to apply some of the things that we have learned in BNI.

Jack is an amazing guy. Very well-read. This is what I love about him. I tried to go to school with him. He is really low ego. For somebody who has sold a quarter of a million books and is as well known as he, oftentimes, ego enters the room several minutes before they do. Not so with Jack. Amazing person, very well-read, low ego, very intelligent, very personable, very driven, but very connectable. He’s easy to talk to. Here is one of the things that I really love about him. He is highly engaged when he is at a seminar. He’s way better at this than I am. He is up front, listening to everyone’s presentation and taking copious notes. He’s an amazing guy. I have learned a lot from Jack. I really like him. He is a great guy. I urge people to go out and read his book on success. And read any of the Chicken Soup books. They are outstanding.

Third person that I would recommend is someone who may not have the name recognition that the first two had but has really influenced me personally and has influenced BNI. That is Stewart Emery. Stewart has written a number of books, including Success Built to Last. I highly recommend that book. He has also written a book, Do You Matter? It’s about branding and design of a business, which is really good. There are so many things. I think Stewart is one of the great minds of our time. He really has come up with some ideas that are really powerful, one of which has made itself into our organization and what I talk about. The other will be making it into our organization as time goes on.

First is culture eats strategy for breakfast. I love that concept. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. If you are part of an organization that has marginal culture and great strategy, you’re not going to do well as an organization. If you are part of an organization with great culture and a marginal strategy, you will probably do pretty well. If you are an organization that has great culture and great strategy, you are going to beat the competition every day of the week. I talk more and more about how culture is so important to BNI from the top down. From the chapters to the headquarters, it’s about organizational culture, and the healthier you make it, the better.

The second thing that I learned from him is the who’s in your room concept that I will talk more about within BNI. The idea there is that assuming that you let somebody into a metaphorical room that you create and you can’t ever let them out, would you think twice about who you let in? It’s a great concept and it is particularly relevant in BNI because if you bring people in, you realize that you are going to be with these people for a long time- and I could never get rid of this person if I let them in. I think that’s a brilliant idea. Brilliant concept.

I think these are the three people who I think have influenced me in many ways, both personally and professionally. Michael Gerber, Jack Canfield, Stewart Emery. And I’ll give you a bonus fourth. That’s Richard Branson. I got a chance to meet Richard several times, spent about 5 days with him on Necar Island. I got to know him reasonably well. There is a lot that I have to say on him and have in previous podcasts. I would refer people to those and maybe we could make it as a hotlink on here. Episode 192. So rather than repeat it all here, let me just give you episode 192. Listen to it. Man, I have gone to school on Richard and his ability to network effectively with all people at all levels of an organization. So I recommend that episode.

So those are people who have influenced me. I have a couple of closing thoughts, but any questions or comments before I do that, Priscilla?

Priscilla:
No, but that I just love that you did this. I wrote down the names. I am going to go check out some of their writings and try to learn from them also. Some of them I really hadn’t heard of, like Michael Gerber. I hadn’t heard of him at all.

Ivan:
Michael is an icon in the field of management. His The E-Myth book was groundbreaking. By the time members hear this, the book may be released, but Michael asked me to do the forward of the 25th anniversary edition of The E-Myth. I was really honored to be asked. To think that 25 years ago, I read the book and applied these concepts to my business. Then 25 years later, I am asked to write the forward for his 25th anniversary edition. Soon, members will be informed about when that book comes out.

Priscilla:
Can you tell me what  E-Myth stands for?

Ivan:
It stands for entrepreneurial myth. Basically, the premise of it is anybody can be an entrepreneur but in fact, you can be but you have to understand that being an entrepreneur is different from being an employee. What happens is people start a business and they act like an employee. They act like it’s a job and they own the job, but they treat it like a job rather than like an entrepreneur. You must treat a business differently as an entrepreneur than you would as an employee. He talks about what those differences are. One of those key things is creating systems that are replicable. That’s your responsibility to make sure it’s done in the company and the other is make sure you work on the business and not just in the business. Those are two key elements of his book.

So here is my wrap up: If you are listening to this podcast, this is what I would like you to do. I would like for you to put two or three- or if you would like to throw in a bonus one, that is fine. But three, and no more than four, people who have made a difference in your life, a short reason why, and post that. I think it’s good for all of us to look. By the way, I read every post that goes up on BNI podcast. Every single post I read. I see those and I would love to see who has influenced you in your life personally and professionally and why. I think it is really important for you when you do that to let those people know one way or another if you can and if you are able to connect with them. Let them know that they have influenced your life and how.

That’s it for today’s podcast, Priscilla. Thank you.

Priscilla:
Okay. Great. That was a really nice one. I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by networkingnow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.