Dr. Ivan Misner's 8 Rules for Building a Global Networking Empire

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You'D why Podcast where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of Contribute to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact in the lives of others. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily have to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish successes that contribute to the greater good of of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You are often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate, and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. So today I have a great guest for you. His name is Dr. Ivan Meissner. He is the founder and Chief visionary officer of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. Founded in 1985, the organization now has over 11,000 chapters in 76 countries throughout every populated continent of the world. Last year alone, BNI generated 13.3 million referral referrals, resulting in more than $20.4 billion worth of business for its members. Dr. Meisner's PhD is from the University of Southern California. He is a New York Times bestselling author who has written 29 books, including his newest, the Third Paradigm A Radical Shift of Greater Success or to Greater Success. He is also a columnist for the entrepreneur.com and has been a university professor as well as a member of the Board of Trustees for the University of La Verne. Called the father of modern networking by both Forbes and CNN, Dr. Meisner is considered to be one of the world's leading experts on business networking and has been a keynote speaker for major corporations and associate associations throughout the world. He has been featured in the LA Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, as well as numerous TV and radio shows including cnn, the BBC, the Today show on NBC. He has traveled to all seven continents of the world, including Antarctica. Among his many awards, he has been named Humanitarian of the Year by the Red Cross and has been a recipient of the John C. Maxwell Leadership Award. He is especially proud that he and his late wife Elizabeth are the co founders of the BNI Charitable Foundation. Oh, and in despair time. He's also an amateur magician and a black belt in karate. Dr. Meisner, welcome to the show.

Hey Gary. Thank you very much and please call me Ivan.

Okay, great. Well, thanks Ivan. That is quite a bio and interview is almost over.

New.

Yeah, I don't think we have time for anything else.

Yeah, it's great.

Well, let's do this. Let's go back in your life.

Yeah. Where were you born?

What were you like in high school?

Well, you know, I was, I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When I was 6 years old, my parents moved to South Central LA. So I lived in the South Central LA area. After about a year, we moved to Azusa. I grew up in the Azusa area, which is a, I went to Azusa Unified School District. It was a very, very, very blue collar.

Middle, low income kind of community. And that's where I grew up. And you know, I had, I started high school pretty unpopular, ended up high school doing reasonably well. But it was a, it was a pretty horrible beginning. It was sort of a follow through to my junior high experience, the beginning of my freshman year in high school.

So what do you mean by that? It was a rough start for you?

Well, it was a rough start because, I mean, you know, it, the rough start totally involves my, my personal why.

For.

Who I am as an individual. I, I was really pretty unpopular in, you know, junior high school and I'd run for student council several times and not only did I lose, I was like last and I was sort of the laughing stock of the class. And it was my freshman year in high school and I.

Was in a history class which every freshman had to take history. So they picked the student council representative for the freshmen from the history class because they weren't there the previous year. So they were selected the first couple of weeks in the school. So in this history class, Mr. Romero was my teacher and he ended up making a huge difference in my life. And Romero asked The class. He said, we're going to select our student council representative who would like to nominate somebody. And if, if there's no nominations, you can nominate yourself. And I, I remember thinking, gary, there's no way I'm, I'm not going to do this again. Been there, done that. It was brutal. It was, you know, really horrible. I'm, I'm, I'm not going to run. Not that anyone would nominate me. And of course they didn't. And he said, well, you know, it's okay if you nominate yourself. And I'm like, I'm not going to nominate myself. And I remember sitting in the class and. And one of the cheerleaders, her name was Cindy, she said, oh, Mr. Romero, I, I would, I would volunteer, but I'm just so busy in cheerleading right now, I can't do it. And Romero's like, okay, Cindy, thank you very much for, you know, not dominating yourself. That's fine. Is there anybody? And nobody, Gary. Nobody volunteered, and nobody nominated anyone. So Romero says, all right, well, if nobody is nominated and nobody volunteers, then I can pick. Are you, as a class, are you okay if I pick someone? And they're like, yeah, yeah, pick anybody. We don't care. And he said, are you sure? And they're like, yeah, yeah, we don't care. Pick anybody. And so Romero looks around and he looks at me, and, you know, I'd only known him for like a week and a half, and I have no idea why he did this, but he said, ivan, I bet you'd like to be student council representative, wouldn't you? I was like, wow. Yeah, Mr. Romero, I, I, I would. I'd like to be student council representative. He said, okay, Ivan is the student council representative now, Gary, imagine the entire class at that moment. I'm not exaggerating. At that moment, they go, oh, no, not Ivan anybody. But even, Even Cindy was like, oh, if you're gonna pick Ivan, then I'll volunteer to the beginning. And I remember sitting here thinking, yeah, I'm 13 years old. I'm 13 years old. And it's like, hey, you know, you guys see me here, right? You're saying these things about me, and I'm right here. And when you're at that age, you don't. You don't see your future, right? I, you know, I didn't know that I would start a company that would be global, that I'd be a New York Times bestselling author, that I'd be a keynote speaker, that I'd run this business. I, you Know, you don't. You don't know any of that.

And, and so it was. It. It, you know, it hurt to the core.

What they were saying about me. And, and Romero was firm. He was like, nope, you gave me permission. And he's who I'm picking. Everyone, open your book and turn to chapter two. And that was it. And. And I remember thinking, I. I thought two things. First, I am not going to let this man down. He. He just picked me. I don't know why. I talked to him, you know, a little bit later. It was like he thought I. He thought I would be highly committed to it. And I don't know why he thought that. I didn't add 13. You don't ask, you know, those kinds of deep questions. I should have. But he said he thought I would be interested, and I was. But the other thing was I. I wanted to do this. This was my passion. I wanted to make a difference and, and to engage in this form of leadership with the students. And so I wanted to do the best job I possibly could. And Gary, that same class, that same class that said, oh, no, not Ivan. When it came time to vote for the sophomore student council representative voted for me.

Overwhelming majority, because of how I. How I did the. The role. And I ended up in my senior year being ASB president.

And so, you know, here as a freshman, it was like, oh, no, not Ivan. As a senior, I was ASB president.

And so I realized years later, and I've written a blog on this about Ivan's why. I realized years later that every business I've ever started was about giving someone an opportunity to be their best, giving them an opportunity to do something amazing. I, you know, he. He didn't make me a great student council representative. He didn't make me a good student council represent. He gave me the chance, and I'd like to think I was. And in what I have created with, certainly with bni, is I can't make you successful as a business person. I can give you the opportunity, I can give you the system. I can give you the structure. Now you have to do the hard work to make it happen. And that was my why. And I'm 67 years old, and I'm still living that why many decades later.

Wow, that's awesome. That's a great story. And, you know, when you. So you were the student body president, when you graduated, when you. Yeah. Graduated high school, where did you go from there? Continue on your journey with us?

Well, I, you know, I went. I was accepted to Occidental College with a 50 scholarship. But, you know, I came from a very poor family, so I couldn't afford the other 50%, so I had to turn down the scholarship to Occidental. And I went to community college. Okay. And had a great education at the Citrus College in Azusa. And then I went to Cal Poly Pomona for my bachelor's degree, and then I went to graduate school, and that's where I went in debt. Now I had some scholarships, but, you know, I knew I'd go to graduate school. I mean, I just knew I would. And so I did my master's and doctorate at USC as a young man, and I'm really glad I did. It was a great experience.

You know, just out of curiosity, when were you at usc? What years? Do you remember?

Yeah, yeah, sure. I started in 79. Okay. And finished in 93. You know, my. My. I did my master's in two years, but my doctorate took over 10 because, you know, I started a business. I went through a divorce. I had a number of challenges that I had to deal with. But I got my doctoral degree in 1993 from the University of Southern California.

And I was there from 84 to 88.

So I was there roughly the same time. Yeah, yeah. I sang to our. I don't know if you remember. Warren Bennis.

I remember the name.

Yeah. Well, Warren Bennis was, in his day, the world's leading expert on the topic of leadership. And I studied under him at usc. He was the John Maxwell of his day and amazing man, very brilliant. And he passed away about five years ago, but I. I didn't see him after the. I got my degree. I didn't see him for almost 10 years. But I ran into him and I lunch and. And we reconnected and maintained that relationship until he passed away.

Oh, that's great.

Okay. So he's an amazing. Can I just tell you real quick story? Yeah. Amazing man. When I met him 10 years after I got my degree, he said, you look really familiar. He was just on my committee. Right. I hadn't taken a course with him, but I studied under him in my committee, my doctoral committee. He said, you look really familiar. And I said, yeah, Dr. Benders, you were on my doctoral committee. He said, oh.

Was I mean to you? That's what he asked. Was I mean to you? I'm like, well, you were pretty tough, Dr. Bennis. He said, I hate sitting on doctoral committees. He said, really? Why? You said, because you got to put these young people through their paces, and you Got to make sure that they're qualified to receive a PhD from the University of Southern California. And you're going to be really tough on them. That's not who I am. And I just hate sitting on doctoral committees. And that gave me a completely different perspective of who that man was becoming. You know, I don't want to say friends, but associates. We spoke with some regularity.

That's great. Okay, so you get your PhD and then where do you go from there?

Well, my PhD was on business development networks like B and I. And it was really interesting because I had an associate of Dr. Bennis, Bert Nanis was my chair, and he was brilliant. He, he asked me, what do you want to do your dissertation on? And I, and I told him the topic and he's like, yeah, tell me about that B and I thing that you've got going. And I tell him about bni. And he said, yep, that's it, that's what you want to do your dissertation? Or like, no, I'm not prepared for that. I'm prepared to do this topic. And he said, yeah, I heard you talk about that topic. And you, you're knowledgeable. It's clear that you're knowledgeable on that topic. But I listened to you talk about BNI and you lit up. He said, I do not want another PhD abd under me. And I'm like, what's that? He said, a PhD of a dissertation. And he said, if you do your dissertation on business development networks like bni, you know, how does, how does a networking organization impact local communities financially? That was the idea. He said, if you do your dissertation on that topic, you're gonna, you're going to complete your dissertation. And, and so I said, okay, that's what I'll do. So I did my, I did my doctoral work on business development networks and how they can impact local communities financially.

So you already had BNI at that point?

I did, yeah. I had B and I going for. Well, at the time I started my dissertation, probably five years B. And I was so operational.

What was your thinking in starting bni? Because it wasn't. Were there many things like BNI and BNI during that time?

No, there weren't many. I mean, there were some, but there weren't many and they weren't large.

I, I started being I because I needed referrals for my consulting practice. I was a management consultant and I started a 1B and I group. You know, I'd like to tell you I had this vision of an International Organization with 11,000 plus chapters in 77 countries. But I just needed some referrals. And so I put together some people I trusted. I hoped that they trusted me. And we started referring each other. Someone came and we took only one person per professional classification, which is still the case now. And someone came to me, Gary, and said, wow, this is amazing. I could get a lot of business out of a group like this. Would you help me open up my own group? And I said, no, this isn't what I do. I'm a business consultant. I don't run a network. And she said, well, it is. It's kind of consulting. You're helping me build my business. That's a stretch, but okay. So we opened up a second chapter. And at the first meeting of the second chapter, two people came who couldn't join because their classification was already represented. And they said, would you help us open up two more groups? And I said, no, this isn't what I do. I'm a business consultant. And they gave me the same argument. I said, okay. We ended up opening 20 chapters the first year by accident. Wow. I did not plan on that. And that's when I had my Brody moment. Do you remember the movie Jaws where Sheriff Brody at the end of the movie turns to the captain and says, you're going to need a bigger boat?

Yeah.

He sees the shark for the first time. And that was my Brody moment. I realized at the end of 1985, after we opened 20 chapters and I wasn't trying, that I was going to need a bigger boat, that this was going to be a whole lot bigger than I anticipated. Now BNI has 10,000 people who work for the company all around the world. Oh my gosh. It's quite amazing. And you mentioned that we know we, we've done. I think we're up to in, in the past 12 months, I think we're at 14 or 15 million referrals. And we've generated in the previous 12 months from yesterday back 12 months, we've generated 22.6 billion with a b. 22.6 billion US dollars worth of business for our members. Now, here's the amazing thing about that. If you take a country's gdp, gross domestic product, based on the United nations estimates of GDP, there are 115 countries in the world with a lower GDP than what BNI generated for its members in the last 12 months. That blows my mind.

That is crazy. Could you have ever envisioned that? Was that in your PhD?

No. No, it wasn't. It was. You know, what kind of impact can you have financially on communities. I did think that we could hit 10,000 chapters someday. We're at 11, almost, almost 11,100.

It was, it was 18 months into BNI. I was doing calculations and it took me two or three months to do the calculations and estimate how many, how many. See, and this is important for people watching this because you have to be a vision maker in your business. You have to think long term. Where do I want to be 10, 20, 30 years from now? And so I sat down and I thought, how big could be an IB someday? And this is back, you know, it was 1986, year and a half after I started B9, and there was no necessity or Google. You know, I had to go to the library and get reference books to figure out calculations and populations. And I, I calculated and believe that someday we could, we could hit 10,000 chapters. And I remember telling a friend of mine this. I can, I think, I think we should have 10,000 chapters and be a nice someday. Now, this is June of 1986. And he said, and how many chapters do you have now, Ivan? I said, I said, 30. He said, 30. You have 30 chapters and you think you could have 10,000? I said, yeah, I absolutely think we can have 10,000 chapters. And in 2020, BNI had 10,000 chapters.

Wow, that's amazing.

What.

So tell us a little bit about the growth of BNI. So first year, 22nd year, how, like kind of give us an estimate, an idea of how quickly it went?

Yeah, I mean, the first three years were pretty much 20, 20, 20, because I was, I was creating systems and structures and I, and I created the organization with some problems. I, you know, I, I didn't realize it was going to be a scalable business. And so the way I set it up was, I mean, a couple of stupid mistakes. And so I had to fix those things. By the, by the fourth year, we were opening 40 chapters or more. Today we're opening hundreds of chapters a year. Hundreds of chapters a year. Wow. Two and a half years and we've opened over a thousand chapters. Give you a sense. Wow.

So those of you listening, Ivan's why is to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact in the lives of others. As you can see, he's done that his whole life. How he does that is by simplifying things, making them easier to do. And ultimately what he brings is the right way to get results, to make it predictable, consistent, be able to, to follow the structures. And that's pretty much what you just said. There that's what you did over those first four years is, hey, let's simplify this. Let's get the structure down.

And now we write it down and teach people because education is a leaky bucket process. You know, if I teach you how to do something, some of the information leaks out. When you teach someone else, more information leaks out. And so you got to have everything written down so that the information doesn't leak out and you have those systems and those processes in place that are replicable.

Ah. What do you feel is the key has been the key to the success of bni? What? There's others. Why has yours been so incredibly successful?

Well, there's a few reasons. There's never one reason. You know, I tell you, when people ask me what's the one reason? I tell them you didn't ask that. But when people ask that, I say, here's the one reason. Here's the one secret to success. There is no one secret. It's a recipe. It's always a recipe. And so, you know, for us, it begins with culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture is the secret sauce to any successful organization. And so from the beginning I realized that the core values of the organization were critical and that we had to establish core values and that we had to consistently train on core values. Our principal core value is that of givers gain. This idea that if I help you, you'll help me and we'll all do better as a result of it. And so givers gain was our principal core value. But we have seven core values. And, and we really work hard to try and train those core values constantly. And here's the thing. If you're a business person and if you don't, if you don't know the core values of your business and if you're not teaching the employees of your business the core values, they're going to create their own core values for your business and you might not like them. And so it's very important that you be clear about what those core values are, why they are important to you and to the business, and then educate people on those core values consistently. So Culture eats strategy for breakfast. It is the secret sauce to a successful organization and the core values are the DNA of that secret sauce. The second is the systems and processes. You have to have systems, you have to have processes and you have to apply them. And they need to be as simple as possible. Entrepreneurs, just the entrepreneurs. Feature creep is a big deal in, in any business, people just start adding stuff to something until it becomes so Cumbersome. It doesn't work. And one of the biggest challenges that we have had and that most businesses had. Have had as they age and grow is people adding stuff to a good system. You know, met Richard Branson on a number of occasions, and he has said to me, any idiot can make things complicated. It takes a brilliant business person to make things simple. And I could not agree more with that. And that's what we. And it's a journey, not a destination. You never get there. You're constantly working on keeping it simple.

Man, you were speaking my language. My why is to find a better way and share it. How I do that is by making things clear. And ultimately, what I bring are simple solutions. So for me, it's got to be better clear and simple as well.

So.

Yeah, that is exactly. I'm right in line with you there. So the first one was culture, and the second one was systems.

Systems and processes. I think those are key. And then I'll give you a third one. You want to be successful in business, you got to do six things a thousand times, not a thousand things six times. And most. Most businesses do a thousand things six times. And I keep this here because I talk about this. A lot of their cons, most business people are constantly chasing bright, shiny objects. There's this like, oh, look at this. Try this idea. Oh, yeah, let's try that. And they bounce around from idea to idea. You want to be successful, do six things a thousand times. It doesn't have to be six. It could be five, it could be seven. But you do a handful of things, and you do it over and over and over again, and that's the way you achieve success. If I have any superpower as a business person, it is that I am a dog with the bone. I will work something and work something and work something until I get it to work, and then try to teach other people how to do that.

So when you talk about culture, how do you define culture?

Well, you know, culture is defined by your clients and what they perceive your organization to be like. And I think for bni, it is generally defined by our principal core value of giver's gain. And to me, giver's gain is more than a phrase. It's a way of living one's life. It's a perspective to view and interact with the world. It's an attitude, not an expectation. And when it's applied properly, it'll change your life. And when it changes enough lives, it'll change the world. And that's the kind of Culture that we have tried to create within the context of bni.

So how does that. Let's, let's. For there's probably not too many people that aren't familiar with bni, but for the ones that aren't, how does that play out in bni? Givers gain? What do you mean by that?

Well, you know, we meet. We have 11,000, almost 11,100 groups. We meet every single week. Every week. Some groups meet in person, many still have gone back to meeting in person. Some meet online, some are hybrid. And what we try to teach people is that this is. The process is relational, not transactional. Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. It's about cultivating relationships with people. And so the way to do that is the best way to create a relationship is to help somebody. Think about some of the best friends that you've had. They've been there for you, they've helped you out, they supported you. And in some way. And that's what we recommend in a good network like BNI is you join. And first and foremost, before you get, you want to give. It's. It's better to put on an apron rather than a bib. Yeah, you get first. It's about what you give first. You give, you help, you support. And when you build relationships with people, they're going to give back to you. And that's what givers gain is about, is that you give and you help other people and they're going to do the same for you because you've made a commitment to help them.

And it seems like you'll create a really good tribe as well.

Oh, yeah. That's the key is building these relationships with people that you know like and trust. And, you know, I've had many people say to me, I built friendships that'll last a lifetime past my retirement. You know, there are people that will be part of my life.

Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. Starting with. Well, obviously you had to start with 1 and then to 20 and then to. As far as you've taken this, what's the future going to be like for bni? Or is it. Is there a maximum? Is there any final destination as to how big you want to get it?

Well, b. And I would like to be in every entrepreneurial nation in the world. If it's a country that has an entrepreneurial culture, we would definitely like to be there. You know, in some countries, givers gain has some completely different perspective. You know, it's like, you know, give me, pay me off and I'll help you out. You know, those are not countries that we're not going into anytime soon. But yeah, we would like to be in every single entrepreneurial nation in the world. And I think we could easily have 30,000 chapters, not 10,000.

No new vision.

I think. I think we can have a million members in BNI easily.

Really?

Yeah, we. That presently at 312,000 members worldwide.

Wow. And so if for somebody who's not as familiar with bni, it's a networking group where people go and help each other. The types of people that are in bni, what would. How would you characterize the types of people they would be meeting in their groups?

Well, if you're selling a product or a service to individuals, or if you're selling products and services to businesses, it's probably a good fit for bni. I mean, I've seen every kind of business you can imagine. Lawyers and printers and chiropractors and accountants, but also unusual professions like, you know, commercial light bulb salesman and a pet shipper, if you could believe that, somebody who ships pets commercially. So, I mean, just about any business that wants to operate based on referrals can do very well in bni.

What has been the best part for you in seeing this grow, in being part of it? What. What have you seen as the being the best part for you?

For me, personally?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, there's a couple of things. One is it's. For me, it's very humbling to go to an international convention for BNI where we get thousands, literally thousands of members and directors from around the world. They show up and we have flags of all the countries represented at that convention. And it's like going to a United nations meeting where all the countries actually like each other. And it's just an incredible experience to observe and to be part of. I think the second thing is, you know, I've been doing this almost 39 years now. That's a long time. And I kind of have gone from being King Arthur leading the charge to being Colonel Sanders, being spokesperker for the organization. So I love the role that I have evolved into. And for those who are listening, I think the lesson there is, you know, work towards working at your flame and not your wax. If you can find your flame. Your flame is when you're on fire, you're excited, you love what you're doing. People can see it in the way you behave. They hear it in your voice. When you're working in your wax, it takes all your energy away. People can see that in the way you behave. They can hear that in your voice. And if you can drive over time to be working mostly in your flame, you're going to love what you're doing and you're going to be living your why. And I think I live my why. You know, probably 95% of my time now because of the Liverpool too.

What you've chose. What the. One of the ways that we talk about that is when what you do is in line with why you do what you do, you'll have passion for what you do. Exactly right. And passion is that fuel that gives you the energy to pursue your dreams.

Yeah. Nothing great in life has ever been done without a little bit of passion.

Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about that for a minute. What I know you've written about this. As far as the power and the, and the value and the need to discover your why. What's your thoughts on that?

I think a lot of people don't really give much thought to it until somebody has a conversation with them or they come to a podcast like yours where they start thinking about their why. When people understand their own personal why, it kind of is a light bulb moment. I think for people it's like, wow, okay, I kind of understand. You understand who you are a little bit better. You know, when I figured out my why, um, I, I kind of had a better sense of who I was. Even though I remembered that story about Mr. Romero and it, and I knew it was powerful to me, it, it wasn't until, you know, a couple decades ago that I realized that was, that ended up being my why. And it's, it's a light bulb moment for, for people. And I would urge people to really think about. Well, their why is because.

Sort of frames who they are as a person.

If we were to go back in time to your middle school now and think in ad, and I don't know if you can, but to think in terms of what was going on in your head. One of the, one of the things that I got out of that story was what happened to you when you got to contribute to others and then what was going on with you when you really weren't able to give to others because you weren't given the authority or put into that position.

And what was that like to not be able to contribute?

Well, I mean, yeah, when you're called a loser a lot, like a lot of people.

Doesn'T feel good. I think I had enough personal self worth to know that that wasn't true. But it's still, it still hurts your attitude about life and certainly about people. So I think, you know, if you go back to junior high, that was, that was, that was kind of in many ways a challenging time for me. But I always, I always believed in myself even when other people didn't believe in me. And I think that's really important. People have to believe in themselves.

If I were to ask your mother way back then or your father what you were like, would they have said you were somebody that always wanted to help, always wanted to, you know, you were ready to contribute in any way that you could, or what would they have said about you?

Well, I can tell you what my mother said, which is kind of in a different direction. And, and I can tell you this because she gave me this paperweight when I was 13. I'm 67. She gave me this paperweights on my desk to this day. I was 13 years old. And she said to me, and this was when I was selected by Mr. Romero to be on the student council. She said, honey, I love you, but you are a bull in a china shop. You just knock people over. You have got to learn how to work with people. And the, the. The paperweight says, diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way. I'll repeat that, diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way. And she said, you got to learn how to collaborate with people. It's not about manipulation, it's about collaboration. You have to learn how to collaborate with people. If you do that, you're going to be a great leader. And, and that was great advice from my mother. I mean, great enough that it sits on my desk. Many decades later, it still sits on my desk. My, my dad, my dad was, you know, whatever people skills I have, I got from my mother. Whatever work ethic I got, I got from my father. My, my father was a very, very hardworking man. And I certainly got that work ethic from him. I also got a really funny recommendation from him. I don't think he meant that it's funny, but years later, it's funny. He could fix anything. My dad was great with his hands. He could fix absolutely anything. Blue collar worker, amazing with his hand. He called me out to the garage once, I think I was 17. He put his hands on my hands on my shoulder, and he said, son, you better go to college because you're never going to make a living with your hands.

And I'm like, good advice, dad. Thank you very much. And it was good advice. And it was true. I was never going to make a decent living with my hands, so. So I went to college.

Well, that leads us to our last question, and you might have already answered it, but I'll. I'll. Let's see. What's the best piece of advice you've ever given, or the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

The best piece of advice I have ever given.

To others.

Probably to a young man where I told him that the secret to success without hard work is still a secret.

You know, he had this expectation that because he had done X, Y and Z, that he would just, you know, success would drop in his lap. And I had to tell him that the truth is that it takes hard work and that luck has very little to do with it. You know, I have found that the harder you work, the luckier you get. And I've seen this in bni. You know, I had somebody who once said to me, wow, I was really lucky. You know, I got this referral. It was huge. You know, it was really lucky that I got it. I'm like, really? It was lucky? He said, yeah, it was just incredible luck. Like, how many. How many years have you been. I. You said three years. And I said, and how many meetings are there a year? He said, about 50. I said, so. So you've gone to 150 meetings and you're saying that's luck? And he said, maybe it's not. I'm like, no, it's not luck. You worked hard, you built relationships with people, you got this referral because you've been. You went to over 150 meetings in the last three years. And so, you know, I think. I think the harder you work, the luckier you get. It's probably one of the best bits of advice that I got. I. As for that I gave. As for advice that I got, it was probably my mom's diplomacy. I'm constantly, you know, reminding me myself of that one.

Wow, I love that. So it was. The secret to success without hard work is still a secret?

Yeah, yeah, it's still secret. I don't know. Has been incredibly successful in the long term. I mean, think about this for a moment. Think about how many people have won the lottery and lost all the money. It's. It's almost a meme. I mean, it's happened to so many people. Why? Because they didn't know how to manage money. Why? Because they hadn't built a career where they've had failures with a lot of money. And so they come in and they just kind of go wild. They don't have the system, the structure and the process in place to manage it. And so I, I, I think it, I think it takes hard work to get to where you are. And if it's just given to you, the chances of you losing it are way higher than you taking the time to earn it and learn about it.

I think failure is your tuition for success.

I love that.

And having failures teaches you the value of success.

And, and I think a lot of people don't. They don't get that.

They don't stick to it probably long enough to work through the failure.

No, they don't. And they have a failure and they give up. It's like, I give up. It's not working for me. Geez, I've had so many failures. I paid so much tuition.

A lot of tuition. I have enough tuition that, you know, several people could retire.

All right, what was your biggest failure that turned into a success?

Oh, well, it's almost like you set me up for that question because I literally have just come out with a book on that topic.

No way.

Yeah, I have. I am so a blatant promotion. This is the book. It's called the Third Paradigm.

A Radical Shift to Greater Success. It talks in there about my biggest failure. It turned into a success, and it was by far my biggest failure. I almost filed bankruptcy over it. But here's the secret. Okay. This is just between us. Just. Okay. Just between us, Gary, you, me, and whoever's listening to this or watching this podcast. The story that I tell in there is about an online platform. It's a true story being developed by a guy named Richard. What, what we don't say in the book anywhere, including at the end, is that Richard's blame a little name. Um, the story's about me, but we didn't want to say that in the book because we wanted people to read the story and, and really immerse themselves in the story without thinking, oh, this is just about one of the authors. But, but I'm Richard, and, and the story is how I started a project completely based on competition. The third paradigm is about competition, cooperation, co creation, first, second, third paradigm. I started the project with competition, moved to cooperation, and ended successfully with the project through co creation. We surveyed 4,200 people for the book. And so I love having the story interwoven, but we also had the data that says, here's what makes co creation work based on 4,000 surveys with people. And so it's an interesting combination of both hard data, our philosophy And a true story.

So say those three again. The first sentiment that you're trying to write down. Yeah, and I didn't get the third one.

The first paradigm is competition. Competition that really came about in the business world in the late 1800s, early 1900s with Frederick Taylor, the Galbraiths, the Gantz, Max Weber, where they're talking about productivity and lean the other guy out of business. It's all about productivity and competition. The second paradigm was about cooperation and that was in the late 50s, early 60s with people like McGregor. We talked about theory X, theory Y and how people, how people were important and we talked about Warren Bennis earlier. Bennis told me he worked with McGregor in the 60s and that McGregor would constantly get bomb threats.

At the university because theory, why people being important was communist. And I mean today we look at that and go like what? Seriously, like people are your most important resource. But back in the 60s, early 60s, that was, that was new age. And so cooperation is the second paradigm. The third paradigm is co creation, creating something together. And the best known example of that is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is the best known example of co creation. But there are others and we talk about them in the book and we talk about what it takes to create a co creative environment within a business.

I love that.

What do you. What's your feeling on the. And I don't know if this is a question you even want to answer, but it's. I've had a lot of conversations recently with some of the Gen Z and you know, they have just such a different thinking that some of this might not even resonate with them. You know, the, the whole thing about hard work in our, our definition of hard work. What's your take on kind of what you're seeing in the new workforce? Or is that even a fair question?

It's a completely fair question.

There. I want to see if I can remember the quote that.

I'm thinking of. There's this great quote. We can find it real. Yeah. The children now love comfort. They don't have social skills. They have bad manners, contempt for authority. They show disrespect for their elders, and they love talking in place of exercise. Do you know who wrote that? Socrates. Okay, Socrates. So look, you know, every generation has got their differences. Certainly, you know, my generation growing up in the 60s and 70s, you know, my elders thought the world was falling apart with the love children in the 60s and 70s. So every generation, you know, the, the previous generation shakes their head. And that's been going on since Socrates, probably before Socrates. So I, I, I, I'm not worried about the upcoming generation. They'll, they'll figure it out. They certainly aren't going to make it any worse than we did. I don't think, you know, we've made our mistakes. I think they'll be okay. And certainly when it comes to networking, because that's the big deal with, with me. And people are saying, well, new generation, they don't know how to network. Like, you know, that's not true. That's not true. We didn't know how to network. When I started bni, we were clueless how to network. You know, how we thought networking was. Hi Gary, my name's Ivan. Here's my cards. We should do business. Let's, you know, it was very transactional. We didn't know how to network. I method acted my way through the process of learning how to network effectively and that it was all about relationships. So I don't think the new generation has it much worse. In a way they have a huge advantage in that they know how to network online.

They know how to do that, and they know how to do that really well. We didn't have that and so we don't know how to do that as well. So yeah, they have a weakness, maybe in person, but so did I when I was in my 20s and 30s. So I, I have faith in them. They're gonna do okay.

They'll figure it out, right? We had to figure it out.

They'll figure it out. And I think that there's content today that exists that didn't exist 40 years ago. That will help. Yeah, figure it out.

I love that. Well, I know we're probably over time here, but I really appreciate you spending the time with us today, Ivan. This has been great. And what's coming up next for you? I saw your book. Feel free to plug that again if you want. And where people can get that and how they, you know, if they want to learn more about it, where should they go?

Well, the Third Paradigm is available at bookstores and it's available on Amazon. The subtitle is A Radical Shift to Greater Success. And of course people can go to bni.com if they're interested in information on BNI. And I have a blog. You can have a link. There'll be a link to my blog. Book up on the blog. I have a blog. It's Ivan Meisner.com. i have 15 years of free content up there. I have been posting twice a week for 15 years. So there is a ton of free content up there and you can get a link to my book if you're interested. But if you really want to create a co creative environment, check out that book.

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much for being here today and really enjoyed this. I look forward to staying in touch.

My pleasure, Gary, thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discuss. Discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.