Dr. Misner wants to talk about the article he contributed to the recently published e-book The Way Out! Steer Clear of the Recession and Drive Toward Success and Prosperity. (If you download the e-book, please leave a comment here about what you’ve read and what you liked about it.)

Dr. Misner’s article is on page 49; it’s called “Networking Mixers: Break the Ice, Build Your Contacts, and Grow Your Business.” Next time you’re at a mixer, take a look at the way people stand.

If people are standing in closed groups, face to face, they’re not inviting you to join them. You can ignore them until they’re finished with their conversation.

But if people are standing at an angle to each other, with space between them, there’s an opening for someone to come into that group. Those are the people you can go up and talk to.

Also, look for the people who are wearing badges, especially if the badge mentions what business they’re in. That makes it easier to strike up a conversation.

Download the e-book and leave a comment here on the blog.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 109 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. Thank you very much.

Priscilla:
What do you have to share with us?

Ivan:
Well, I want to talk about a book that I just a contributing author to. It’s called The Way Out. It’s about how to steer clear of the recession. The subtitle is Your “GPS Guided Path to Success.” And I was a contributing author along with some other fairly well known business professionals, Bill Bartmann, Brian Tracy, Jim Cathcart, and myself along with about half a dozen other business professionals. And I did an article that I just wanted to talk a little bit about on this podcast. And for all the listeners on the podcast, we will be providing a link where you can download this e-book, and the price is great. Do you know what it is?

Priscilla:
Is it free?

Ivan:
It’s free, yeah! The price is free for this e-book. Actually, I shouldn’t have said free; there is one small for this. The price to download the book is I want you, if you download the book, to just leave a quote or a comment, any comment, about an article that you read in this e-book that you liked and what you liked about it. That’s the cost to download it. So it’s all on the honor system. That’s the cost to download it. Download the e-book for free here on this podcast, and read over some of the articles. Mine’s one of them. And I’d love for you to leave a comment. If you’re listening to this podcast, leave a comment under the Comment section here on the podcast about an article that you liked in this book.

It’s a book that just came out, and I did an article that was a little bit different. It’s a joint article. It’s a combination of a couple of pieces that I had written in the past. One is a piece that I talked about here on BNI Podcast about a year or so ago. It’s Episode 32 and Episode 33, and that’s the Ten Commandments of Networking a Mixer. I did those quite a few episodes ago, Episode 32 and Episode 33. And so, we’re talking about things like having the networking tools with you at all times, setting goals, acting like a host not a guest, giving a referral whenever possible, spent ten minutes or less with each person you meet. These are part of the Ten Commandments of Networking a Mixer.

That’s part of this article, but there’s another part that I’ve never really talked about in any of my podcasts, and that’s what I want to talk about for the next few minutes.

Priscilla:
What’s that?

Ivan:
When you download the book, I’m on page 49 of the e-book. I’m on page 49, and the title is Networking Mixers: Break the Ice, Build Your Contacts, and Grow Your Business. The first part of the book is something that I’ve not written about much, I haven’t talked about it at all, and that’s how to read a room when you walk in to network, how to look at it, and where do you start? Because many times when business people attend those ever popular networking mixers, they have a difficult time reading the crowd and knowing when and where to get started.

So what I did was I put together some material, and there’s actually some diagram, so if you download the book, you can have diagrams to look at while I’m talking here. And these diagrams allow you to assess the room to start the process. For example, imagine that you were on a balcony looking down on a large crowd of people. And you look at this crowd and it’s a mishmash of people and you really don’t even know where to start.

So with that in mind, what I want you to do is the next time you go to a mixer, take a look at how people stand, physically grouped together. You’ll find that people stand with their bodies clearly indicating whether or not they’re open to having someone approach them and join in or not. Literally, you want to look for open groups versus closes groups.

So take a look at the diagrams that are in this article, and you’ll see that there are some diagrams of people that are, what I would call, a closed group. Imagine two people standing face to face with one another, standing parallel with their shoulders squared off in a way that they’re looking face to face with each other. That would be a closed two. It’s kind of hard to walk up and start a conversation.

You’ve been at mixers, Priscilla, two people talking like that, it’s hard to walk up and start talking to them, right?

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
But imagine instead of a closed two, where people are standing face to face with each other, that one or the other is standing slightly askew; they’re standing a little bit open. That an open two. Almost like if you were looking down from a balcony, they would be, from the top down, it would be sort of like a V. So a third person could walk in and start speaking fairly easily. That’s an open two.

So when you look at a room, look for open groups. A closed three would be three people who are standing. Looking down, they’d be standing like a triangle, shoulder to shoulder. Right? And there’s no opening. An open three would be like a U, where there’s an open spot that people can come in.

So being able to read a crowd, any size crowd, and gauge when to come into a group of two or three or four or five, ten people is really an acquired skill, and it’s something that you can look at a room very quickly and get a sense as to what groups are open and what groups are closed.

Now, I described this once. I was in Switzerland for a big conference, and I had a chance to do an interview with a CNN reporter. And I was describing this to him. He was, “Yeah, kind of makes sense. I’m not quite sure I get it.” And then, it was really funny because later after the interview, and this is what he actually broadcast, he was in a balcony looking down on a room and the light bulb came on. And he stood there, and he goes , “Oh, my gosh. I see it! There’s an open two; there’s an open three; there’s an open group.”

So if I were down there mixing, I would be looking for groups like that where I could come in and make that first introduction. And that’s the start of the process.

And so my article merges the Ten Commandments with How to Visualize a Room for a Mixer. So you start with looking for the open twos, threes, and fours. And then you start to apply the Ten Commandments.

And this is the article that I wrote that is available here on BNI Podcast for free. Anyone can download it, read it. The only cost is I’d love for you leave a comment and tell me what you either liked about one of the articles that you read or my piece in particular; either is fine with me.

Priscilla:
I want to ask one question.

Ivan:
Sure.

Priscilla:
It seems to me that if you see some people and they’re talking, maybe they would be a closed two or whatever, but if you approach them and you speak to them that they may just then open up. Isn’t that true? Or would you not approach somebody who seems – you would not want to interrupt them, is what you’re thinking?

Ivan:
What I’m talking about is really literally a physically open group. If you have three people standing shoulder to shoulder in basically a triangle, it’s hard to break into that.

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:
So what I’m talking about is physically three people standing together more in a U shape where there’s an open spot so that you can kind of saddle right in and start that conversation that you’re suggesting. But what happens is people go into a mixer and they’re overwhelmed because there’s hundreds of people and they don’t even know where to begin. So with this technique, I can immediately eliminate 50 percent of the room.

Priscilla:
I see.

Ivan:
Whereas you can focus on the other 50 percent of open groups where there’s a spot where you can walk into. Now the question is: What do you say? And that’s really the other half of the article, which I talked about in Episode 32 and 33 in an earlier podcast.

Does that make sense?

Priscilla:
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Ivan:
Of course, when you strike up that conversation, one of the things that you want to look for are people who are wearing badges. If somebody is wearing a badge and they have their name on it, particularly their profession or their company, I can start a conversation with anybody on the planet if I just know what business they’re in. Because if I know what business you’re in, I can strike up a conversation about that business. “Oh, I know a number of people in the mortgage business. I think things are pretty tight right now. How are things going for you in your area?” You can start up a conversation like that fairly easily if you just know what business they’re in.

Let’s say it’s the name of the company and you have no idea what that company does, that’s how you open up the discussion. “I have not heard of that company before. Tell me a little bit about what you do.”

Priscilla:
That’s great. I always just make it over to the food, and then I have lots to talk about!

Ivan:
I try to get the food out of the way, then go meet people.

Priscilla:
That’s great, Dr. Misner. I think that might be as much time as we have for this podcast.

Ivan:
Great. I just want to remind people they can download the book here, and please leave a comment.

Priscilla:
Well, thank you very much.

I want to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Dr. Misner wants to ask listeners “What’s your BNI story?” His own favorite story is that he met his wife through BNI; that was the best referral he ever got. So today he’s sharing some stories from other BNI members. You can read more of them in BNI SuccessNet.

• Tim Seitz says that BNI took his business from the verge of collapse to new heights of success in seven months.
• Patty Chakales reports that 51% of her new business in Q1 2009 came from BNI referrals.
• Paul Williams prevented layoffs at his company by infusing his office with the BNI mentality and refusing to participate in the recession.
• Carl Frazier credits $6000/month of his income to BNI referrals.
• Carolin Bennett is a second-generation BNI member; her mother was on the original BNI Board of Advisors.
• Javier Unzueta has increased his income 723% as a result of joining BNI.
• David Lewis got a $4.9 million referral.
• Ian Holligan from Barbados says his 3 years in BNI have improved his leadership and public speaking skills.
• Richard Swan wrote a BNI Song. Watch it on YouTube!

What’s your BNI story? How has BNI helped you? Post your comments here and share your story.

Brought to you by Networking Now.
Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 106 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan, how are you, and where are you?

Ivan:
Hi, Priscilla. I’m doing great. And, shhh, I can’t tell anybody where I am.

Priscilla:
Why is that?

Ivan:
Well, it’s actually that I’m on an anniversary trip with my wife, and so it’s just kind of pulled away just to do this podcast. My wife and I got married 20 years ago yesterday, and we’re taking a little getaway, and we don’t want to tell anybody where we are because we don’t want to have to break up our anniversary trip. We are out there right now in one of your regions. Somebody listening to this, we’re in your region. But we just did a little getaway; I almost never do this, and that’s what we’re doing this time. I married my beautiful bride 20 years ago yesterday. I know I’ve told many members this before, but she was a member of BNI. It was the best referral I ever got, and we’re still married 20 years and going strong. So I’m in one of your regions right now.

Priscilla:
That’s great. Well, congratulations to both of you.

Ivan:
Thanks.

Priscilla:
So what are you going to share with us today?

Ivan:
Well, I thought I have certainly an interesting story with having met my wife in BNI, and I thought it would be a good topic today to basically ask members, “What’s your story? What’s your BNI story? What is that you have gotten out of BNI? How has BNI helped you in some way, either personally or professionally?” And I say that because this is a people business; it’s a people organization. It’s all about people helping people to increase each other’s business through referrals.

Interestingly enough, we found that there are many other benefits that have cropped up along the way, some that I just didn’t expect. And what I thought I would do in this podcast is to talk a little bit about people’s stories, because many members have been sending me their stories. We’ve published some of these in SuccessNet, and I think that they’re really powerful. So I just wanted to share some of them today with BNI members because I think it’s good to see some of the kinds of benefits that other members have gotten.

Priscilla:
Great. Okay.

Ivan:
Tim Seitz from Bay Ridge “Morning Money Makers” chapter said that seven months ago he was afraid he had to close down his business during these recessionary times, things were difficult. He said, “Today my business has been doing so well that I’ve been putting sales people in other BNI chapters,” yet, seven months ago he was afraid he was going to have to close. Here’s a member who has not only survived these difficult times, but has thrived during these difficult times.

We have a couple of other members who said something that was almost identical. They both said words to the effect that, the expression that I’ve used for a while now, “I refuse to participate in a recession.” Both of them said words to the effect that, “I refuse to participate in a recession is not just a slogan.” It’s not just a slogan to them.

Patty Chakales from North Carolina said it’s a way of life for them as a member. She said, “I’m one of the owners of Brank Insurance Agency in North Carolina, and the economy is affecting a lot of people.” But she said she’s using her BNI resources to keep that from happening to her. She’s attending training, serving on a leadership team, doing one-to-ones every week. And in the first quarter of 2009, 51 percent of her business came from BNI referrals, 51 percent of new business came from her new referrals. That was just amazing to me.

Priscilla:
Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Ivan:
One of the most incredible stories I’ve heard recently was Paul Williams. Paul is with the Achievers Chapter in the United Kingdom, and Paul said, “About four weeks ago I was informed that there’d be layoffs in my company, and the thought of any of my team members being laid off was just devastating. So I decided I would do whatever it took to ensure that that didn’t happen.”

So he wanted to infuse some of what he called the BNI mentality into his team, and he talked about my articles on refusing to participate in the recession. They, as a team, resolved to look for changes that could be made within the business for the long term benefit of that organization, not just to get through the recession, but to really do well. And on a large white board, he wrote in the North-West Office of his company, “We refuse to participate in the economic downturn.” And every one of those employees signed their names on the white board, and then they sent an e-mail out to members and staff all across the company offering them the opportunity to join them in their stance in refusing to participate.

He said the reaction was unbelievable. Within just one week, the financial situation had turned around enough so that no layoffs were made in the organization, and the staff actively looked for increased business opportunities and had their best week since November of 2008. So the North-West Office of this company generated more business than any other four-week period over the last two years, and he said in his closing comments to me, “If it were not for BNI’s mentality, one of my team members would now be out of a job. And for that, to me, this is worth the membership alone.”

Priscilla:
Oh, that’s a great story.

Ivan:
These are just incredible stories, and I get these every week from members. And I think if you, as a member, are listening to these – and I’ve got some more. If you, as a member, are listening to these, take a look at SuccessNet because in SuccessNet there’s always a My BNI Story, and there’s some great stories in there about how people have benefited from the organization.

Carl Frazier from Hawaii said, “I love BNI. Someone offered me $100,000 for my seat. I would not sell it.” He said, “I can track back $6,000 a month in income I’m making from my membership in the organization.

You know, it’s really amazing is that these stories are now coming from second generation members of BNI. Second generation members. I’ve seen people who were children when BNI started. One is little Carolin Bennett. I have a photograph of Carolin Bennett. When I first met her, she was, I think, 11 years old, and there’s a photograph I have of her in a tree at the house that I used to go to for Board of Advisors meetings when she was a little girl. And we’d have Board of Advisors meetings at her mother’s house, Raoul Bennett, in Glendale, California. And that was back in 1986.

Today little Carolin Bennett is now a BNI member and in an acupuncturist in a chapter in Southern California. She used to kind of sit in on the side of the these original Board of Advisors meetings that her mother helped to get started back in 1986 when I was running them, and more than 20 years later she’s a member of a BNI chapter today.

Priscilla:
Wow, that’s great.

Ivan:
And so I’m seeing more and more of these kind of second generation members, people whose parents were involved, and now they’re involved.

There are new people like Javier Unzueta. Javier is with Speedy Signs & Engraving. And Javier, if I mispronounced your name, I’m so sorry. You can call me Misner from now on if you want!

I’ve met Javier, and he’s a sign company. Great guy, and he told me personally, I asked him to write this down, he sent it to me. He said, “My gross income has increased 723 percent because of BNI. Thank you, Javier; it’s great having you in the organization.

One of the biggest success stories that I heard this year was from David Lewis in the BNI High Flyer Chapter in Dubai, and he said that he had been a member for quite a few months. I don’t recall exactly how many months, but I think it was as much as nine months he had been a member. And he hadn’t gotten any referrals, and he was a little concerned because he hadn’t gotten a referral. And one of the very first referrals he got turned into a $4.9 million referral.

Priscilla:
Wow.

Ivan:
It was the biggest referral that the company had ever gotten, turned into business. He said, “I think this is a 480,000 percent return on my membership!” He said, “I’m not exactly sure if I did the math right.”

I said, “That’s okay. It’s close enough, David.”

480,000 percent return. I think David’s story is a great one because he said, “I was in for nine months. I didn’t get any referrals. None.” But when he finally got one, it was huge. Some businesses take longer to get, but when they get them, it’s incredible.

And it’s not all just about the business. Ian Holligan from Bridgetown, Barbados, said that his three years in BNI has given him great leadership skills and improved his public speaking, which is really incredible because he told me a story in something he sent to us in SuccessNet that he had to speak at his father’s funeral, and there was a time where he could never stand up and speak in public. And he said from his years of experience in speaking in BNI he was able to stand up and give the eulogy at his father’s funeral, and he said, “My dad would be proud. My dad would be proud of me and what I was able to do.”

And so there’s so many things, so many stories that members have about how this program has helped them, not only increase business, which was my intention when I started BNI, but things they’ve benefited from that are just incredibly powerful.

Here’s one that you’ve got to listen to. Go to YouTube and listen to The BNI Song by Richard Swan. We’ll make sure and put a link in this podcast. The BNI Song. You want to see how BNI has impacted somebody, you’ve got to watch this six minute song. Richard did it to the tune of American Pie, and he changed the lyrics; very powerful.

I know we’re running out of time. Let me just give you a couple more. Lou Brockman said he was a sales and leasing consultant. “BNI has changed my life both professionally and personally.” He’s gotten over a million dollars in referrals.

Here’s a letter I got from someone who wasn’t a member but affected their life, little ten-year-old Liam. Liam is in elementary school, and the BNI Foundation contributed to musical instruments for their music class. And I got a handwritten note that said, “Thank you, BNI Misner Foundation,” and I love this. There’s a little drawing of Liam with a guitar rocking away, and he says, “Your company rocks for helping our school.”

Priscilla:
That’s great.

Ivan:
We are changing the way the world does business, and we’re changing people’s lives. And nothing is more an example of that than Calvin Cheng, who, when I was in Hawaii, told me a story. He came up to me and he said, “I have my adopted children today because of BNI.”

Priscilla:
How’s that?

Ivan:
And I said, “Wow, how can that be? How did that happen?”

And he said, “I went to Kazakhstan to adopt my children, and you have to speak in front of a judge. I was petrified to speak in the past, but I was able to stand up, and it takes six weeks go get an adoption through in Kazakhstan, but,” he said, “my first time I was able to stand up and speak to the judge and tell him what I do and tell him how important it was to get the children as soon as possible because one of the children has a heart condition.” He said, “I spoke so convincingly and so well that the judge approved the adoption right there on the spot, and I was able to get my children.” And he sent me a photograph of he and his two children and his wife. And he says, “I have my adopted children today because of the skills that I learned in BNI.”

Priscilla:
Wow, that’s a beautiful story.

Ivan:
Well, I know we’re way over time, so I just want to wrap up and say BNI truly is changing the way the world does business. We’re helping people in so many ways, so my last comment would be: How has BNI helped you? What’s your BNI story? What have you gained from the organization either in terms of business or personal skills? I would love for you to put your comments up on this podcast and share your BNI story with the rest of the BNI members.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Thank you, Ivan, that was a wonderful podcast.

Well, that’s it for this week, so I just want 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. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Until recently, Dr. Misner assumed that if he made an appointment with someone, he was going to be there, but there seems to be an emerging trend requiring people to confirm the appointment closer to the actual day. People have been saying “When I didn’t hear from you, I assumed it was off.”

Dr. Misner wants to state for the record that if you make an appointment with him, it’s firm, unless you hear otherwise. And he believes that should go for any BNI member: if you make an appointment, people should be able to count on you to show up.

BNI members who treat the BNI meeting like an appointment with prospects and business associates are much more likely to be successful. You don’t want to miss an appointment with your best referral partners. The chapters that understand this are the strongest.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 105 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan, and how are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. And I still want to know, did I miss the memo?

Priscilla:
I think you might have, but what does that mean to our listeners?

Ivan:
Well, there seems to be a new trend in keeping appointments that I was completely unaware of until recently. You see, I’ve always operated under the assumption that when I set an appointment with someone for a meeting, a breakfast, a lunch, or some kind of face-to-face engagement that it’s presumed that I’m going to be there unless I notify them otherwise.

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:
However, it’s recently come to my attention that I’m apparently no longer safe in assuming that that’s the case. Just last week I received this frantic call from a friend of mine who had confirmed a lunch meeting with me a few weeks earlier. And he called because he seemed uncertain if we were still on for lunch. I thought it was really interesting because he was about 90 minutes away by car, and he hadn’t left yet, and the lunch was in 30 minutes. So I was a little frustrated by that.

More and more I’m experiencing scenarios that are really similar to this, and there seems to be this emerging trend now. I’m beginning to see that if you schedule an appointment and don’t hear from the other party again before the scheduled date and time, this means that the appointment has been magically and mysteriously cancelled by the appointment fairies. Now, I’m not alone in this either, because my wife, Beth, had the same experience last week with a group of ladies that she was planning a brunch for. One of the women said, “When I didn’t hear from you over the weekend, I presumed it was off.”

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:
She was told that my one of the five ladies who didn’t show up.

I just want to know, when did this start happening? Did I miss the memo? Maybe it’s tied to the reminder call system that most of my doctors are using now where the front desk has the task of calling clients a day or two before their appointment to remind them that the doctor is expecting them at such-and-such time.

Now, my wife, Beth, told me that spas and beauty salons are now doing the same thing, but I really can’t vouch for that from personal experience. How about it, Priscilla, do they do that? Do the spas and beauty salons do that?

Priscilla:
Definitely. Especially the beauty salons; that’s what I can vouch for. Yeah, they do; they have to.

Ivan:
Well, if the doctors didn’t have the front desk call me to remind, or if the spas didn’t call you for you appointment and we went ahead and presumed that the appointment was cancelled because they didn’t call, I wonder if they would waive the no-show fee for not showing up. What do you think?

Priscilla:
No, I don’t think they would.

Ivan:
Probably not. So I’m just kind of stating for the record that if you set an appointment with me, it’s firm unless you hear otherwise, and I think that’s the way it should be for any business person. We’re all part of a networking organization, and we have to have a commitment to our fellow BNI members and to other business professionals that if we set up an appointment, we going to be there. Unfortunately, there seems to be some new trend coming on that when it comes to an appointment protocol and I’m just asking, “Can someone please send me the memo, because I must have missed the last one on this one.”

Priscilla:
You know, Ivan, I think it’s because we’re on such an overload, to be honest with you, that people are completely overscheduled and inundated with information, and it’s their way of handling things. That’s what I think, but it’s very rude, so I’m with you on that.

Ivan:
It is. And all joking aside, I am seeing it start to happen more and more, and I think it’s almost a self-sustaining kind of problem. Because it’s happened more and more, people are starting to call just to confirm that everything is still one, and so there’s this sense of, well, this person didn’t call, so it must not be on, which is just crazy to me.

And I think that this is really relevant in BNI, don’t you? Isn’t a BNI meeting a little bit like an appointment?

Priscilla:
It is like an appointment, and it’s one that you’ve made a commitment to for the whole year other than a few absences.

Ivan:
Yeah, I know that this is sort of a side issue from the main discussion, but I think it’s an important one. BNI members who treat the BNI meetings like an appointment with prospects and fellow business associates are much more likely to be successful in this program, because these are appointments. These are appointments with your best referral partners, and you don’t want to miss an appointment with your best referral partners. It’s very important. I think that the chapters who have this sense of accountability where the members understand that this is an appointment and you need to treat it like a good appointment should be treated, and you don’t want to just not show up and have a poor attendance at the – I think that those people tend to be stronger business professionals and more successful, and they certainly are going to build better relationships because of their regular participation in the local chapters.

Priscilla:
Yeah, I agree. So we all need to be there. I agree with you.

Ivan:
Well, I’m not going to send a memo, so this podcast is going to have to do the trick. So everybody, if you set an appointment, be there, and treat your BNI meetings like an appointment.

Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, great, Dr. Misner. Thank you so much.

Well, that’s it for this week. I just want 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. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

Congratulations to Dr. Misner and BNI on producing 100 episodes of this podcast!

Imagine being dropped off in the middle of a foreign city with only a handful of cash and being told you have to start a successful business before you can go home. That’s the premise of the BBC series “The Last Millionaire.”

What does this have to do with BNI? A recent winner of this show, Lucy, looked up BNI while in Hong Kong and used a visit to the Hong Kong Attraction Chapter to help her make four times as much money as the other contestant.

The Hong Kong BNI members showed how BNI can really work. BNI isn’t just a great way to get business, it’s an even better way to do business.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 100 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
Doing great, and I think this is a tremendous topic for the 100th episode, and I’m glad we could put it in on this episode.

Priscilla:
Congratulations, by the way.

Ivan:
Thank you. One hundred episodes. That’s a lot of podcasts.

Priscilla:
That is!

Ivan:
We’ve got a lot of content for BNI members, and I know many of them are appreciating it. I get emails all the time thanking me for these podcasts.

This is a great topic. It’s about a television show that played in the United Kingdom called The Last Millionaire, and it was brought to my attention by Sam Schwarz, who’s an executive director in the U.S. and co-national director in Israel, Romania, and he travels in Europe a lot, and he came and told me all about this.

Imagine being dropped off – this is how the show operates – imagine being dropped off in the middle of a metropolitan area of a foreign city with absolutely nothing but a few hundred dollars. Then you’re told you have to start a successful business that beats out your competition before you can go home. That’s the premise of the BBC television show called The Last Millionaire.

Twelve of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs competed this year on the series, and each of those contestants lead very plush lives, very successful lives. Some of them actually live in castles, and they all live in mansions, they drive luxury cars, they dine at the finest restaurants. And on the show, their lives of luxury are left behind because they compete in the world’s toughest markets to build a business from scratch. They’re stripped of all their home comforts. The live in hostels. They have to make money, more money than their rivals, and the last contestant is named The Last Millionaire, which, of course, nobody wants to be. So it’s sort of a flip side of The Apprentice where everyone wants to be The Apprentice, here, nobody wants to be The Last Millionaire. And if you keep losing, you keep living in the hostels and you don’t get to go home to your mansion.

Priscilla:
Oh, I see. It’s not like a victory to be the last one left.

Ivan:
No, not at all. You don’t want to be The Last Millionaire.

So, okay, where does BNI come into this mix? Let me explain. The show is down to the last two contenders, Natalie and Lucy. And they were taken from the United Kingdom and dropped off in the middle of Hong Kong, where they were given the equivalent of a few hundred dollars and were told to create a product and sell it in five days. They could recruit student helpers from a list that they’ve both been given, but otherwise, they had to do it all on their own. Natalie started calling the student contacts for help. Lucy, however, went to an Internet café and Googled business networking.

Now, I invite BNI members to go Google and type in business networking, and you’re going to see, as one of the top two names up there, you’re going to see BNI, not under the advertised sponsors’ names, but as a search engine name, we will always be in one of those top names. And you’ll see sometimes 50 million hits, and BNI will be one of those first ones.

Priscilla:
Wow.

Ivan:
So take three guesses. She did this search and BNI came up as one of the top names.

So what the show didn’t highlight is that Lucy’s company had been a BNI member, and she had a great experience with the organization. I had an opportunity to speak to her just a couple of days ago, and she loved the organization. Her company is now franchised, and she’s telling the franchisees to go join BNI. So Lucy was a little bit familiar with BNI. She was able to find it on the Internet in Hong Kong; she’s from the United Kingdom. There, she’s dropped off in Hong Kong. She does a search. She calls the president of one of the BNI chapters in Hong Kong and asks if she can visit their next meeting.

Now, you cut away to the BBC narrator who says, “Lucy has discovered a business networking meeting taking place in two days’ time. It’s a high flying group of Hong Kong executives and company owners.”

Then you cut away back to Lucy, and she’s there visiting the Hong Kong Attraction Chapter of BNI, Hong Kong Attraction Chapter. I’ve met many of the people that were in that episode. I saw them, and I thought, “Oh, my goodness! I just saw them a few months ago during my visit to Hong Kong!”

Well, the president is shown on the episode in front talking about how the meeting runs and, I love it, right behind him is this great big BNI banner, right there in the background. Nice. It was really great to see that kind of exposure for the organization.

And again, cue announcer: Lucy is in her element with Hong Kong’s top entrepreneurs,” and it cuts away to scenes of Lucy networking with BNI members and getting referrals for contacts that will end up designing, producing, and selling her product. And these were great contacts. Some of them were the top manufacturers in Hong Kong. She decided to do a shirt, and the referrals that she got from that chapter led her to the largest merchandising agent in Asia, a designer, and one of the top manufacturers in Hong Kong came from BNI members at the meeting that she went to.

Now, when the contest was over just a few days later, she earned 16 times her startup capital in five days.

Priscilla:
Wow!

Ivan:
She earned 16 times her startup capital and made more than four times the amount of money that Natalie made.

Priscilla:
Wow, that’s great.

Ivan:
Come on; admit it, Priscilla. You thinking the same thing I am? BNI rocks!

Priscilla:
Absolutely.

Ivan:
That was just so amazing to me. What a testament, first of all, to the Hong Kong members. I’ve met many of these members; absolutely class acts in business. These are the kind of members that you want to bring into a BNI chapter. They are definitely movers and shakers in the community.

And what a testament to the BNI program. I cannot think of a better episode to have on this podcast for our 100th episode than this story.

Priscilla:
I would love to see this episode. Is it possible to view it?

Ivan:
I would so much love to have people see it. I did have an opportunity to see it. It is great. It is very difficult. The BBC won’t release the episode. Maybe someday they will, but at this time, at the time of this recording, they won’t release the episode, and you can’t view it at their Web site. You can get some information about the episode from their Web site, but you can’t actually view it. And that’s unfortunate, but I’ll tell you, if it’s ever available, I promise you, we will make that available to BNI members because I think it’s a real powerful story.

But you know what? I’d like us to consider the bigger picture in this great story for BNI.

Priscilla:
Yeah, how are you going to do that?

Ivan:
Time when many businesses are struggling, it’s a testament to the BNI way of networking that someone can be dropped into a foreign city, with a little help from BNI members, as a past BNI member, her company was a BNI member, as a fellow BNI member can win an entrepreneurial contest to build a business in less than a week. I think it’s a great example of the brand we have built showing up in one of the number one spots on an Internet search and an even better example of the power of the BNI program based on the great contacts that Lucy received.

Today more than ever business people need BNI. When times are difficult, referrals are king. We, as business people, can not only survive, we can thrive during difficult economic times if we strive to build our business based on personal contacts, relationships, and support of our fellow members. I am proud of the BNI members in Hong Kong.

They showed how networking can truly work, and I think it’s a testament of their commitment, their skills, and to the effective application of the BNI program.

Priscilla:
Well, that’s really a fun story. I really enjoyed it, and I’m sure the other listeners will love that.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Ivan:
Sure. I think if I could add one thing to the actual episode, in my mind, I can visualize one more scene where it fads away to Lucy winning, not being The Last Millionaire, because of her work with BNI. When I spoke to her, she said she loves BNI, and it absolutely was instrumental in her winning that episode and was very grateful to the organization. I could see a cutaway, fade-away to Lucy sitting on her veranda overlooking her beautiful pool as she sips her morning mimosa with her butler, once again, at her beckoned call, and I can just see her smiling slyly to herself and saying, “BNI is not only a great way to get business, it’s an even better way to do business.” And I think that’s a powerful message for our members all around the world.

Priscilla:
That’s great. Well, thank you, Ivan. That was a wonderful story and a fantastic podcast for your 100th, so congratulations to the whole organization.

Ivan:
Thank you very much, Priscilla, and thank you for your part in that. It’s been great working with you, and we look forward to continuing to do these podcasts with you over the years.

Priscilla:
Oh, good. Well, thanks so much, and I just want 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. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

What you should do is what you like to do. You can’t achieve sustained success if you don’t love what you do. More and more businesses are based on hobbies and personal interests.

Rather than finding out the hard way that you can’t stick it out at a job you hate just for the money, think about what you really love to do before starting a business or choosing a profession. Loving what you do is no guarantee of being successful, but if you’re not happy at what you’re doing, you can never achieve sustainable success over time.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 093 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
Doing great, Priscilla. I’ve got a topic that’s near and dear to me. I really love this topic, and it is, as you said, “Do what you love, and you’ll love what you do.”

As an adjunct university professor for almost 20 years, I’d often have students say to me, “Well, Dr. Misner, what kind of business or profession should I consider going into right now?”

And I’d always tell them, “Well, what do you like? What do you really enjoy doing?”

And they’d say something like, “No, no. You don’t understand. I’m asking what I should do.”

And I’d say, “No, no. You don’t understand. What do you like to do? What are you really interested in?”

And they’d look at me like I was from outer space. They were perplexed. They’d stutter out something about trying to figure out what a good profession to go in would be rather than what kind of business that they like.

And I’d go on to explain to them that you cannot achieve sustained success over time. You cannot achieve sustained success over time without doing something you love. Therefore, I would tell the students, “You need to think about what you really enjoy doing and then look for opportunities in those areas.”

I don’t know if you know this, but according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, it’s estimated that 60 percent of all businesses started in the late ‘90s were based on hobbies or personal interests. More and more you see people turning their dreams into their livelihood.

I saw a great example of this really in action when I attended a fundraiser at a local university here in Southern California, it’s Azusa Pacific University, and I was there at an evening fundraiser that the BNI Foundation was supporting. And the program highlighted a graduate from the Physics Department, and his name was Steven. He graduated in 2001 from APU, and after graduation, he went to work at NASA’s JPL in Pasadena. He had a great job. And while he was working at JPL, a close family member passed away in a really tragic accident, and Steven and his wife, she had also had a very successful career, sat back and really evaluated their lives. And they decided that they were going to make a major change, and they chose to pursue a hobby that they had for some time and to walk away from very, very successful jobs that they had. And their hobby was making all natural body care products, and they wanted to turn it into a full-time business, because they just loved it, and they loved what it did throughout the world. And I’ll explain.

One of the reasons they did it was, it enabled them to, of course, work from home. They had a new family; they could spend time with the kids. The name of the company is Anti-Body, A-N-T-I hyphen Body. Here’s the interesting thing is, it not only offers all natural body care products, but it promotes global Fair Trade. That’s what really interested them, was to have some product that was natural but to also help those in need. And so what it does is it sources out all its raw materials directly from workers in developing countries creating sustainability for those who might be exploited in those very same markets.

And to me, this was a classic example of doing what you love and loving what you do and the impact that it has on the community or on other communities throughout the world. This decision really changed Steven’s life; it changed the course of his life. And now he’s really happy doing what he’s doing. He loves working every day, and his business is thriving, and I think it’s because – and by the way, he gets to do what he was trained. You may not think it, but he basically runs the physics department of the company, which is what he was training – and although it’s not aerospace – part of his training was in physics, and so he is able to use some of that training in the labs to help create the products. And I think that’s an incredible story.

I understand that loving what you do is no guarantee that you’re going to be successful. That’s important. Some people say, “I love what I do, but I’m not successful.” However, I’m equally confident that if you’re not happy at what you’re doing, you can never achieve any sustainable success over time. And that’s important.

So if you’re thinking about starting your own business, you’ve got to find what you love to do. I use the crazy story, but it’s almost like what I used to tell my kids when they were really small and we’d go to an ice cream shop and they just couldn’t decide what they wanted to have for ice cream. I’d say, “Well, what do you feel like?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Stick your tongue out, wave it around. What’s it feel like?”

They would laugh and stick their tongue out and wave it around and say, “Well, it feels like chocolate chip.”

“All right. Well, pick chocolate chip.”

So what I tell business people and certainly what I tell college students now, “Stick your tongue out, wave it around. What do you feel like doing? Pick something you really want, something you really want to be doing, and you’ll be a lot happier in life.” And I’m not just talking about picking ice cream.

Priscilla:
Yeah, you keep talking to us about that hidden ingredient, the secret ingredient of passion and how it affects the energy that you bring when you talk about your business, and I think that this topic is an example of that.

Ivan:
Yeah, if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, you not going to be successful in the long haul. You can get by for a certain period of time, but certainly, when times are tough and the economy is a challenge, that’s when it really hits if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing. And that’s really important. I think if you can find something where you’re doing what you love, you’re going to love what you do and the chances of you being successful are much, much greater.

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, Priscilla, but I love what I do.

Priscilla:
I have noticed that, Ivan.

Ivan:
This is a fun business. I really feel like BNI is absolutely my calling. It’s the greatest business in the world. I’m able to help hundreds of thousands of business professionals in dozens and dozens of countries all around the world to build their business through a really great way. To me, BNI is not only a great way to get business, it’s an even better way to do business, and so I certainly have found what I’m passionate about. And anybody who’s out there that’s able to find theirs is going to achieve a much higher level of success.

Priscilla:
Well, thank you, Dr. Misner. That was wonderful.

I think that’s it for this week.

Ivan:
That’s it. Thank you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
I’d like to remind all of the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks 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.

Dr. Misner and John Assaraf from OneCoach address three questions:

1. What causes entrepreneurs to plateau at a certain income level? Internal mental programming based on our genetic and experiential conditioning. You need to develop a clear vision and impress it into your subconscious in order to break out of your rut. Read The Answer for more details.
2. What are three of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make?
   1. Allowing circumstances to control their goal-setting exercises.
   2. Not creating a blueprint for success.
   3. Thinking they can do it themselves.
3. Why is it so important not to participate in a recession? Remember that 90% of your competition is thinking in negative ways. Don’t miss this opportunity to position yourself as the leader.

Go back and listen to Episode 86 of this podcast for BNI’s own positioning efforts for 2009. Visit ReadtheAnswer.com for a special offer on John’s book.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 092 -

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’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
I’m doing great, Priscilla. I’m really excited today. I’ve got a good friend of mine, John Assaraf, whom I met in the Transformational Leadership Council. I’ve talked about TLC a few times on the podcasts, and John is the founder of OneCoach, a great coaching organization. We have many of their coaches in BNI throughout North America. He’s also one of the teachers from the movie, The Secret, and he’s the author of Having It All and The Answer.

So John, it’s a real honor to have you be on the podcast with us today.

John:
Thanks, Ivan. Great to be on.

Ivan:
There were three questions that I wanted to run by you that I think would be of value for my BNI members and particularly education coordinators.

And the first one is: What causes entrepreneurs to plateau or to get stuck at a certain revenue or income level, and what can they do to grow again when they get there?

John:
That’s a great question. One of the things that I have found in the brain research that I’ve done is that we become conditioned either through genetics or through our experiences to think, perceive, and behave at certain levels of revenue or income. And we tend to stick at those levels no matter how much information we gather, no matter how many courses we go to, or no matter how many programs we might do at home.

What we must understand is that any of the results that we are getting in our outside world, or our physical world, is an absolute duplication of the internal mental programming. No differently than software on a computer can do certain things, well, software of the brain is due to the genetic and experiential resources that we have in our life. So we’re going to see a direct correlation between how we’ve been conditioned and what our results are.

So anytime we hit a plateau, that tells us not how much information we know or gather, but it tells us what our mental financial conditioning has been up to that point. And in order to break through that, we really have to change the software of the brain so that we perceive and behave differently so we achieve different results.

Ivan:
You know, I ran into something similar, I think it’s similar anyway, to what you’re describing. I was talking to a friend of mine about creating territories, and he had some experience – and this was in Scandinavia – with this company where they were hitting certain dollar revenues, the sales people, and what they did, which was a little counterintuitive, was they actually split their territories in half. And everybody was really upset, but interestingly enough, everybody ended up bringing the revenues right back up to the same level that they were at before –

John:
Correct.

Ivan:
Even though they had half the territory. So the company split their territories again in half. And guess what happened? Within a few months, they were bringing the revenues right back up to where they were before. And they did it a third time before they really started to see any kind of impact.

And the whole point that the company kind of figured out was, the people kind of developed this comfort level with income, and they just want to reach that and they tend not to go beyond it.

John:
Yeah, what actually happens is any time there’s a deviation in the income, high or low, our brain will actually release a neurochemical that will either cause us to pick up the pace or to sabotage the success we’re having so that equilibrium, or homeostasis, is the order of the day. And in order for us to break through that barrier, we have to actually make some neurological changes. No different than an athlete who wants to perform at the next level or a musician who wants to perform at the next level has got to practice different things, business owners must practice mentally different things in their business that will get them to the next level so that their brain doesn’t trip up any of the success that they have.

Ivan:
Well, can you give us a couple of examples of what they can do to grow again?

John:
Absolutely. Number one is to set an absolute, clear new vision of what it is that they want to achieve. And so let’s say you’re earning $100,000 or $250,000 or $1 million, what you want to do is set an absolute, clear vision for the brain to be able to pick up, number one, on that vision.

Number two, you want to impress that part into the subconscious or implicit part of the brain versus the part of the brain called the explicit memory system that actually chooses what it is that you want. And we impress those images into the brain, Ivan, through, A, visualization techniques; seeing ourself playing at that level over and over and over again so that we create the new neural networks in the implicit part of the brain, which is the automatic side of the brain. Number two, we can create affirmations of declarations that when we do with emotion, we actually accelerate the neuron connections of the brain as well.

Number three, we can actually put ourselves into meditative states through self-hypnosis and use auditory technologies, or brain-and-train technologies, that will embed these new affirmations, or declarations, into the nervous system, basically, of the brain.

Those are three simple things that anybody could do inexpensively to make sure that our brains are being rewired at the part that actually is responsible for 96 to 98 percent of our perceptions and behaviors. And over the course of 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, we’re actually reprogramming our brains at the level that’s going to cause all of our perceptions and behaviors to change over time.

Ivan:
For my BNI members that would want to go deeper in understanding what you just described, because you described it very well, but I get the sense that you really have to go deep to understand it and apply it, which one of your books would you recommend that they go to to go deeper with those ideas?

John:
Without question, pick up the book, The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom and Live an Extraordinary Life. It’s a New York Times bestselling book, and it really has all of the science behind what we’re talking about to be able to do a process that we create called the neural reconditioning process. And it’s simple, and it’s easy, and it’s brilliantly effective.

Ivan:
Well, let me ask you one other question. We’re running pretty close to being out of time, but I really want to ask this question. What are three of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and how can they solve them, in your opinion?

John:
Right. Number one, entrepreneurs must not allow their present circumstances to control their thinking or their goal setting exercises.

Ivan:
Like maybe a recession?

John:
Like maybe a recession. What I mean by that is, when we look at the results that we’re achieving right now, we’re looking at history. So we’re looking at history; we’re looking at your past thought patterns and your past behaviors.

What we want to understand is we could set any goal that we choose, and when we take that goal and we get emotionally attached and emotionally involved with it, we’re doing a couple things. Number one, we are creating the neurological chemistry that sends out that signal to this quantum field, this space in between everything. Well, we know that the universe is intelligent in response to it.

Number two, when we set a clear goal of what we want and we impress it into that subconscious part of the brain I’m talking about, we’re actually giving our brain an instruction to figure out how to achieve that. So number one, set big goals, and then figure out how to achieve them. Number two, most business owners don’t think in terms of: What strategies and tactics can I apply in order to achieve those goals and create the plan that is going to give them the road map, or the blueprint, to follow?

And number three, they’ve got to get out of the belief that they’ve got to do it themselves. I’ve got a saying that I’ve loved for 30 years, and it goes like this, “Hire people or barter or trade people who play at things you have to work at.” So discover what you play at, what your unique abilities are, and then get people on your team, either that you hire, you barter virtually, or in your local marketplace, that play at all the other things that need to be done in order to achieve your goal. And you will multiply your personal respect of this many, many times over.

Ivan:
Penny Power, who’s the founder of ecademy.com – I don’t know if you’re familiar with it; it’s a great online social business network – she uses an expression that I really like as well, “to be in your flame rather than your wax.” When you’re in your flame, you’re doing the things you’re really excited about, but when you’re in your wax, when you’re doing those things you’re not excited about or not good at, that you’re taking away all of your energy, you’re using yourself up. But when you’re in your flame, that’s exciting. It’s, I think, another way of saying a little bit about what you’re trying to say there.

John:
Absolutely.

Ivan:
One last thing. You were talking about, in the very beginning, something that we agree on, that the recession idea that if you buy into the recession in terms of your actions, if you let the recession determine your actions that it’s going to take you to a different direction. Do you want to just talk about that? I’ve talked about that on a podcast a number of times. I’d like to have somebody else throw in a couple of comments.

John:
Sure. Any time we’re reading the newspaper or magazines or watching TV and we buy in to what’s happening in the marketplace, we’re going to modify our thought patterns and behavior to match what we’re hearing, listening, and buying into. And that’s the absolute worst thing we can do, and I want people to maybe just shift their thinking for just a moment.

If you’re in business right now, let’s assume that 90 percent of your competition is thinking in ways that’s going to be negative in their production and their thought pattern. That means that you have an opportunity now to actually gain market shares; to gain mind awareness, or top of mind awareness; to actually position yourself, your product, or your service at the leader. Why? Because you can buy advertising cheaper; you can get your message out cheaper. You can market cheaper; you can do everything that you were doing before cheaper with fewer competitors in the marketplace.

So now is the absolute time for you to shift your thinking to: How can I utilize my revenues, my investments to gain more market share, to gain more clients, and to make more money? And when you give that instruction to your brain, every one of us is a genius. So we can figure out how to versus why we can. So the quality of our performance is going to be dictated by the quality of the questions we ask and the perceptions that we ask our brain to give us in the marketplace.

Ivan:
And it’s really more of a solutions focus than a problems focus. Would you agree?

John:
You got it.

Ivan:
Focusing on the solutions and how do we get to where we want to get as opposed to “Woe is me; look how bad things are.”

John:
Absolutely. And I can share with you that in our company, we have not just coaching but consulting and a whole bunch of different tools and resources. We’re innovating right now. We’re asking ourselves, “Great; what’s happening in the marketplace,” and we’re responding to what’s happening in the marketplace by innovating our offers, innovating our services, innovating our product lines to match what the marketplace wants and needs. And so we expect to do better this year in these recessionary times than what more people are doing, and that’s how to scale back.

Ivan:
Well, thank you very much, John. That was really some great material.

And for those of you listening, go back and listen to Episode 86 where I talked about Raising the Bar, because the end of that episode was talking about exactly what John just spoke about. We are raising the bar in a time when everybody else is lowering the bar; we’re investing in BNI in one of the biggest projects we’ve ever done in the history of the company. And now’s the time to do it if you want to gain market share.

John, you had some great content. I’d love to have you come back again sometime, if you can. You’ve written some really good books. I’d like to send my BNI members to a particular Web site, ReadTheAnswer.com, which is about your book, The Answer. And you have a special offer. Do you want to share that with everyone?

John:
Yeah, absolutely. For anybody who goes to ReadTheAnswer.com, we’ve got a couple of free chapters for them, and they can also sign up for our million dollar business giveaway. We’re giving away a million dollars – actually, more than a million dollars – in prizes and cash to entrepreneurs all over the world, that we’ve been giving away the prizes for the last several months, and it’s been incredible.

Ivan:
ReadTheAnswer.com. John, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

John:
Thank you. Always my pleasure.

Ivan:
Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Well, that was fascinating. Thank you, both. I just enjoyed that so much.

I think that’s it for this week. I just want to remind all of the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks 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.

Today’s podcast is based on a blog post Dr. Misner wrote this summer. As business professionals, we need to make sure we take time to notwork, not just time to network. Dr. Misner spends three or four weeks every year at his lodge in Big Bear with his family because he believes success is about having time to spend in a place you love with people you love.

But if you’re looking for balance and you own a business, forget about it. Strive for harmony instead of balance. Remember the phrase Be Here Now.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 077 -

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 working dowloadables.

I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
Doing great.

Priscilla:
And where are you?

Ivan:
I’m in Cleveland this week visiting BNI groups and having a great time. The best part of my job is to meet BNI members around the world. So, this week is in Cleveland.

Priscilla:
Well, great. Tell us about this topic. What do you have to share with us?

Ivan:
This topic really began in the summer. I wrote an article, a blog over the summer about this, and I thought it would be great. Somebody suggested, actually, that I share it on my podcast. It’s different that any podcast that anyone has heard me do, because I’m usually talking just about business or mostly about networking, but this one is about not working, not working instead of networking, which is sometimes good. People have heard me say for years say, “It’s not called Net sitter or Net eat; it called Net work.” And effective networking is all about learning how to network the network that you’ve developed effectively and appropriately. But I also believe that there are times to not work, and I think that many times entrepreneurs, salespeople, professionals don’t fully engage and understand that. I’m pretty confident that when I’m 70 years old, I’m not going to be sitting back saying, “I wish I spent more time at the office.”

So I believe that we entrepreneurs, business professionals, and salespeople need to make sure to take time to not work, not network but to not work. I do some of my best not working at my lodge in Big Bear. I’ve got a place up at Big Bear, California. I’ve done some of these podcasts from Big Bear. We have a tradition that each family member gets to pick two things that we’re going to do together during the time that we’re up there. And we’re usually up there three to four weeks, of which I’m working two to three weeks, and I take a week or two off where I don’t. I work from up there, but then I take time off up there.

We take two items each person, and we type it up. As each item is completed, the family member puts his or her initials next to it, and we post it on the refrigerator. We now have almost ten years of these things posted on the refrigerator, and it’s kind of fun for the family to go up – and we go up there fairly often – and to look at the things that we had done for part of our vacations over the years. Some of them are things like – this year, my son chose a mental health day. We hang around the house, watch TV, read, play games, mostly just veg out.

And I think it’s that kind of thing that recharges people’s batteries. And it’s important for us, as business professionals, to say from time to time, “Hey, you know what? Life is not just business. There are other things.” And success for many people, it comes to many people in different ways. To me, success is about having time to spend in a place I love with the people I love, and that’s what success is to me. I talk about this in a book that I wrote called Masters of Success, and it’s about having the time and the ability to do the things that I want to do, not just the things that I have to do. For me, family and travel and charitable causes are the things that bring balance or harmony in my life.

On that subject, Priscilla, would you like to know really the secret for creating balance in your life as a business professional?

Priscilla:
Absolutely.

Ivan:
Are you ready?

Priscilla:
Yes, I’m ready.

Ivan:
All right. For those listening, pull out a pen and write this down. Are you ready? Here it goes.

If you’re looking for balance in your life and you own a business, forget about it; it’s never going to happen.

Priscilla:
I thought you were going to say, “Do nothing.”

Ivan:
A good friend of mine, James Ray, talks about this, and he got me thinking about this concept of harmony versus balance. We, as business professionals, are going to be out of balance throughout much of our life. We have a mission. We have a vision. There are things we want to do. We want to achieve something with our business. So life is not perfectly balanced. I don’t spend 30 percent of my time working, 30 percent of my time with my family, and 30 percent of my time sleeping. You can’t do that every day successfully and run a business. But what you can create is harmony.

You can create harmony. It’s more than just semantics. There are times when I’m crazy busy where I’m traveling, like now when I’m on the road and I don’t have time to spend with my family. If my entire life was like that, if my entire life was out of balance, we, as business professionals, wouldn’t be as successful as we can be. There are times when you’re out of balance, but then what you have to do is flip it, because you can create harmony without having balance. You have times where you spend not working where you work from a mountain retreat. Not everybody can do that.

I’m a 20 year overnight success. It took me 20 years to be able to be in that kind of situation where I could have a retreat to go to. But before, I would take two or three weeks off and stay at home. Or maybe work from home. Does that work for everybody? No. But you’ve got to find what works for you as an individual to create harmony in your life. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re out of balance, because we are all out of balance if we run a business. But you can create harmony.

Let me give you another example of what I do. When I wrote my first book, I didn’t have time to it during the day. Now I take a day off a week and I write, every Wednesday, if I’m not traveling. But back then when I wrote the first book, World’s Best Known Marketing Secret, which was the first nationally distributed book, I wrote most all of it from midnight until 7:00 in the morning. And so I would work all day, come home, have dinner with the family every night, spend some time with the family, put the kids to bed, put the wife to bed, and then I started writing around 11:00 or 12:00. And I’d write until 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, sometimes 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.

Priscilla:
And when was the sleeping?

Ivan:
Then I went home, slept for a few hours, maybe three, four hours, and went back to work.

And I could do that. Could everyone do that? No, not necessarily, but many people can do that. I’m now in my 50s. I’m not sure I could do that as easily now as when I was in my 30s.

Find things that work for you. See, that created harmony for me. My kids never knew I was working on a book. All of a sudden, I had a book out. They’re like, “Well, when did you write it, Dad?” I wrote it in the middle of the night. They had no idea. That’s the way you create harmony. Not doing that specific thing, but that concept of finding ways to achieve what you want to achieve so that you can have harmony in your life, because it might not be fully in balance, but you can still create harmony. Does that make sense?

Priscilla:
Yeah, total. You also sound like you have a very understanding spouse.

Ivan:
Yeah, well, I met Elizabeth in BNI. It was the best referral I ever got. So she knew what she was getting into; she was a BNI president when we met. Yeah, she understands. I think it took a while for her to understand what it’s like being an entrepreneur, but then on the other hand, I travel a lot, but then I get to take the family traveling many times. So if you can, again, create that harmony. If I was just on the road all the time and never took them, there’s no harmony in that.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
But if I’m on the road a fair amount and I get to take them on the road more than what would be normal or common, then that creates harmony.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
And I think one other thing that I would leave the listeners with – and this is a very unusual podcast because I don’t usually talk about personal things in my podcasts; it’s mostly strictly networking and business, but one of the things that I found that works for me right now is a real simple statement. It’s: Be Here Now. Wherever you are, be there.

So if you’re at work, don’t be thinking, “I wish I would have spent more time with the kids last night.” Be at work. Do what you’ve got to do. Then when you’re at home, be at home. Don’t be thinking about all the projects that you left unfinished that need to be done. Be Here Now.

Wherever you are, be there. And if you’re fully there, that’s one of the really important ways to create harmony. The power of harmony is that you’re a better person. And if you’re a better person, you’re going to be more successful.

Priscilla:
Yeah, and a lot happier.

Ivan:
A lot happier. And if you tie it to networking, I’ve got to do it. What can I say? I’ve got to do it. One of the top ten traits of a master networker is that they have a positive attitude. Part of having a positive attitude is being happy doing what you’re doing and having a happy life.

And so I see them as being part of the integrative whole of being a person. Although this is kind of a different podcast topic, I hope that the BNI members enjoyed it.

Priscilla:
I think it’s really important. Everything you said, I agree with, and it’s just a challenge to find a way to create harmony, but I think it’s a wonderful goal.

So thank you, Dr. Misner.

Ivan:
Thank you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
And thank you, listeners. I’d just like to remind you that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for working downloadables. Thanks for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.