During the first week of April, your BNI Heartland Director Team
travelled to Dallas, TX for the BNI U.S. National Conference. We joined in with nearly
600 Directors from across the country to live out our core value of Lifelong
Learning.
The week was packed with educational presentations from some of the
best BNI leaders and speakers from across the country. In addition to our founder Dr. Ivan
Misner’s presentation “Who’s In Your Room,”based on his latest book, two additional
keynote speakers, Mike Rayburn and Rick Sapio were featured. We'd like to reflect and recap a few of the things we learned from them and the entire event in this blog.
Many BNI members are already familiar with Ivan’s analogy of
your life being lived in one room, and that one needs to exercise their right
to control their room by using a “doorman” to help determine who enters. A BNI
specific version of this book was released a few years ago. Ivan’s
co-authors added content and exercises that expanded the application
of this concept to encompass your entire life. Ivan reminded us that once
someone is in our room, they remain there forever, but we can use our "doorman" to help us say no to people, and other
tools like “benign neglect” to reduce the impact of those already in, with a
goal of leaving only those in our room who help us live our best life.
Mike Rayburn spoke at a BNI Conference a few years ago, posing “The
What IF?” question. It’s a challenge to visualize what can be, even if it seems
impossible, and then finding a path to make it happen. After delivering that
keynote, Ivan Misner asked Mike where he could possibly go from there. Mike
fulfilled that challenge with a brand new presentation: “What’s Next.” From this,
Senior Area Director Brandon Souba recalls an important message: “Our vision
controls our perception, our perception becomes reality.” Brandon observes that
often when we talk about perception being reality, it is due to some negative situation.
But a positive vision gives us the opportunity to control that perception! We
all can put more work in on our goals and day to day activities, but when you
have a vision and you focus on that every day to the point it becomes your reality,
you control what others perceive about you. In this spirit, Vince would like to
challenge you to visualize what’s next in your business, and in your BNI
chapter. Then shoot for the moon! Even if you miss, the view is phenomenal.
Our other keynote Speaker was Rick Sapio, who co-authored
“Who’s In Your Room,” with Ivan Misner. Rick talked more in depth about
“Success by Subtraction.” He shared his personal story of how he came to
realize the importance of simplicity, consciousness, and rhythms in our actions.
He encouraged us to use what he calls a catalyzing statement along with a
clear, concise purpose and values to create a frame for success. Rick reminded
us that as human beings, we crave rhythm. We love steady repeating patterns and
actions, and that it is the job of a purposeful leader to beat the drum and
never stop. The faster we find monotony in purpose and action, the happier we
will be.
The theme of simplifying our environment, and building
positive rhythms as established by our keynote speakers were echoed throughout
the conference.
Wyoming Area Director Nellie Nutting appreciated the
breakout session about how to “Speak Like an Entrepreneur” from BNI Chicago
Executive Director Dawn Lyons. Nellie recalls: “We can look at our membership as a part of our business as
opposed to something in addition to our business, the accountability piece is
key to our business success as well as our BNI success. The activities
recorded in the Power of One report are putting food on the table, starting
college funds, and providing family trips for our members. The WHY of
each member's business is linked to the activities performed by each member of
their success team - their BNI chapter.”
As a team,
we also had the opportunity to connect and exchange ideas with BNI chapters
from around the United States. We’ve already begun to implement some of the lessons
we’ve learned from what has (and hasn’t) worked elsewhere. We hope we were able
to provide some insight to others as well. Look for more to come from your
Director Team, and shared in BNI University in the near future.
In the
meantime, we encourage you to seek out more from our keynote presenters at
the following links:
Mike Rayburn - https://mikerayburn.com/
and https://youtu.be/6c_bd4guK38
will give you an idea of what Mike was like.
Rick Sapio - https://vimeo.com/328055353
contains portions of Rick’s captivating story.
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