Today, I’m talking to the founder and chief visionary officer of BNI, the world’s largest business networking company, Dr. Ivan Misner.
Since 1985, BNI has helped to generate billions in revenue for businesses in over 76 countries. Aside from BNI, Misner is a New York Times bestselling author, as well as being a revered humanitarian. I’m talking to Ivan about his life and career, as well as all the best (and worst) ways to run a BNI chapter.
As always, make sure you check out the interview in full, including the below highlights:
Ivan on his goals before BNI
Darren: What did young Ivan Misner want to be before BNI came along?
Ivan: In high school, I planned on becoming a lawyer and, for some reason, I changed my mind. This was a dream I had for, like, eight years and I decided not to go to law school after I’d been accepted. I really found a passion in management and organisational behaviour, and I did my master’s and doctorate with an emphasis on organisational behaviour leadership, studying under Warren Bennis at USC who was the predecessor of John Maxwell as the world’s leading expert on leadership. So, I went from wanting to become a lawyer to having many lawyers work for me, so I suppose that’s better in most ways.
Darren: Yeah, it is, it definitely is.
…on regrets and mistakes
Darren: Do you have any regrets about going down the route of BNI and would you rather have done something else if you had it all to do again?
Ivan: I try to have no regrets. I don’t regret most of the things I’ve done in life, and I think people who have regrets often have regrets because they didn’t live their values. If the question was did you make any mistakes, I’d say yeah, buttloads! Would you do it differently? Well, yeah, but I’d do it differently because I have experience, so to me mistakes are your tuition for success.
…on the keys to success
Darren: What are your personal secrets to success?
Ivan: From a macro perspective, the secret to success without hard work and good choices is still a secret, you know? It just doesn’t exist. One thing that I’ve been teaching people for many is if you want to be successful in business, do six things a thousand times, not a thousand things six times.
Darren: Bruce Lee had a similar quote actually, something along the lines of ‘I don’t fear the man that’s done 6,000 kicks once, I fear the man that’s done one kick 6,000 times.’
Ivan: Yeah, very much the same thing.
…on the beginnings of BNI
Darren: How has your initial vision for BNI evolved since you had it and did you expect it to be where it is now?
Ivan: I started BNI because I needed referrals for my consulting practice. I never had a vision of an international organisation with chapters all over the world. The point where I had my epiphany was a year after we’d opened 20 chapters. I call it my Brody moment – you remember from Jaws when he says “we’re gonna need a bigger boat”? I had my Brody moment in December of ’85 – it hit me and I thought ‘this is gonna be way bigger than I thought, I’m gonna need a bigger boat’.
…on sloppiness within BNI chapters
Ivan: Why accept mediocrity when excellence is an option? My experience is that if you expect the best out of people, you tend to get it, and if you expect less than the best out of people, you definitely get it! But if you’ve made it easy to accept poor performance, getting the chapter to change will be harder than if you’d started doing it right to begin with.
…on future aspirations
Darren: If you could do one thing in life knowing that it absolutely could not fail, what would it be?
Ivan: Well, I think I’m about to kind of do it. I am a future astronaut for Virgin Galactic.
Darren: Whoa!
Ivan: Yeah. I’ve been a future astronaut for a long time, 15 years. You’re never certain that it won’t fail, but I’m kind of banking on it! So, I’ll be one of the first hundred or so people who go up on the commercial flights with Virgin Galactic. I’ve had the chance to meet Branson many times – an amazing human being and very much a person who believes in excellence!
Dr Misner is still helping businesses maximise their success to this day, almost 40 years since he founded BNI.
For more engaging guidance and interviews from successful people, make sure you are subscribed to the Engaging Marketeer on whichever platform you use for podcasts.
