Whenever Dr. Misner returns from a trip to Necker Island, people ask him what Richard Branson (creator of the Virgin brand) is like. Here are five traits that Dr. Misner has observed that we can emulate.
Go out of your way to connect with people. Richard Branson can connect to anyone at any level of an organization and make them feel empowered and good about themselves.
Be gracious. Be kind, courteous, and patient with people. How we treat wait staff is often an indication of how we treat other people.
Be a good host. Can you be as good a host to new members and visitors to your chapter as Richard Branson is to guests on Necker Island?
Be tolerant. How do we behave with our fellow members…especially when they annoy us? Patience and tolerance are incredibly important to building relationships.
Relax and have fun. If there’s one thing Richard Branson knows how to do, it’s relax. Are you having fun in business and in BNI? Keep the fun in the fundamentals.
Richard Branson (left) and Ivan Misner (right) after catching some sun on Necker Island
Share your thoughts on this topic in the comments!
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Complete Transcript of Episode 664
Priscilla Rice Hello, everybody and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan, how are you today?
Ivan Misner I’m doing fantastic, Priscilla. Thank you. I’ve got an interesting topic today, I think. I’ve been blessed to be able to spend some time on Necker Island and was able to do so again this year. I think I mentioned in a previous podcast, I spent some time there–before the Great Pause, you know, as a matter of fact it was one of my last trips–and every time I come back, people usually will ask me what’s he like?
And so what I thought I might do here is talk about some of the things that I observed from him that I think we can all use in our interactions with other people because he has immense emotional intelligence. He is incredibly good at working with people and dealing with people. And I spent some time thinking about what in particular was it that he did, that made me think he had such high emotional intelligence. In all my interactions with him, I found him to be personable, intelligent, surprisingly humble, and very direct.
I think there are lessons that we can all learn from this. And so I’ve actually come up with five specific things that I’ve observed, that I think make him really great at interacting with people. Now, I’m sure he’s not like this all the time with people, you know, we all have bad days. But this is what I’ve seen from him on the number of times I’ve spent with him. Here the five takeaways.
One, he’s able to connect with everyone in any level of an organization. He’s remarkable at this. He can connect with the staff and make the staff feel empowered and good about themselves. And he’s great with incredibly successful business professionals. I’ve never seen him personally interact with a politician, but I’ve seen him on–no, I take that back. I was there when he met with the governor of New Mexico in Mojave, and I watched him interact with the governor of New Mexico and he treated the governor of New Mexico just like he would one of his employees or one of the other people in his organization. He seems to treat people very consistently. And I’ve talked about that in some of the other podcasts that I’ve done.
I wrote years ago in an article that I think that a great leader leads from within and not from above. And there’s no question in my mind, he leads from within. And the question then for us is, do we do this? No one’s perfect. But do we go out of our way to connect with people in some small way when we meet them? I think that’s the lesson here for us: to improve the way we connect with people. In observing him and how he’s dealt with people, it’s improved my focus on how I connect with people at all levels of an organization.
Number two is be gracious. He is very courteous, he’s very kind, very pleasant with people, very patient with people. Sometimes it’s easy to lose our patience with people. And so do we treat people with grace? I used that term in the last podcast that we did. Do we give people grace? And I think that whenever we can, it’s important to do that. How we treat waitstaff is often an indication of how we are in treating other people. I’ve been out to lunch with a couple of really successful people who are well known, and they treated the waiter or waitress like…they treated them badly. Yeah, and I remember thinking, man, you know, you don’t have to do that. They’re there. They’re in awe of you. You don’t have to treat them like that. Be nice. I even said something to one of them who shall remain unnamed. With Branson, he always treats people very graciously.
Third be a good host. He’s an amazing host, absolutely engages with everyone. He cares about everyone’s experience. You know, I’ve been to Necker three times, and each time I’ve observed him asking people, “Having a good time? Did you enjoy this? What did you like about that? Hey, let’s play a game of chess.” You know, we’ll sit down and you know, I’ve played him chess a number of times. He plays with anyone who asks him, he’ll play them a game of chess.
And so be a good host. He’s a great host. I think that’s something we really could learn from. Are we a good host to the visitors that are present at a BNI meeting? Are we a good host to the brand new members? You know, walk on up to a brand new member and say, “Hey, how you doing? Are you enjoying this so far? Need any help? If you ever need any suggestions here, you know, just reach out to me.”
That’s the kind of behavior I observed from him. And I think we could all learn from that.
Number four is to be tolerant. He’s incredibly patient. He is having his picture taken all the time. I’ve never, ever seen him get flustered. Not one time. I’ve never seen him say no. One time we were sitting down and we’re having a meal and somebody in particular was like, going all around taking pictures, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. And as he stepped away, from the person taking pictures, I said, you know, “Does that bother you?” He said, “No, absolutely not. You know, they want to have pictures of me, and me and them, and I get that. That’s okay.”
And so he’s very gracious and I think that patience and tolerance is something we can all learn from. How are we with our fellow members, especially the ones that annoy us a bit? And there are some people that I have met in BNI that annoy me more than a bit. And I have to, you know, say, hey, look, that’s my issue. I need to deal with that. And don’t let that impact the way I behave with this individual. And so be tolerant, tolerance is so incredibly important if you want to build relationships with people.
And the fifth one that I observed from him was relax, and have some fun. Even if you’re working, relax, and have some fun. One thing’s for sure he knows how to relax. And I think we could all take a lesson from him on how to relax and have fun. I’ve seen him relaxing in one moment and then put his head in the game and do business stuff for a while and then come back and relax. He’s a master of relaxing, far better than I am. He thoroughly seems to enjoy business and he also enjoys life.
And so I think what we could learn from that is, are we having fun in business? Are we having fun in BNI? I know sometimes there are challenges, but overall, you got to have fun. And if you’re not having fun, find ways to have fun, because BNI is such a great platform to build your business from. You’ve got to learn how to enjoy it as much as possible.
I know I’m at a great BNI chapter when they run a fantastic meeting, it’s really organized, and my cheeks hurt from laughing or smiling so much. I know I’m at a great chapter. It’s so important to keep the fun in the fundamentals. And I observed Branson do that really, really well.
Any thoughts on those five things before I wrap up?
Priscilla Rice Yeah. I have a question about Richard’s background. Like, where did he grow up? Did he grow up with money? Or did he have a more modest beginning?
Ivan Misner He definitely had a more modest beginning. He’s also dyslexic and he talks about that openly. And so learning was not easy for him. But he, you know, if there’s anything that I have some similarity with him, it’s one, in that, you know, he is a dog with a bone. He’s very persistent. And I consider myself very persistent. And I think that persistence pushed him through the disabilities he had in terms of learning. And clearly he is very intelligent, and to a large extent, self-taught, because, you know, he reads and he’s very informed. I find him quite able to talk about politics, business. We can’t talk politics in BNI. So I won’t say what he said. But business and spirituality, life–I mean, he is able to cover a lot of things. But he comes from a humble background.
Priscilla Rice Yeah. Well, the reason I asked that is because what I noticed, I had a very elegant stepmother who came from very modest beginnings in Minnesota. And she was the same, she would always treat everybody who was in a service position wherever she went, with so much respect and compassion and, you know, just warmth. And I think I always felt that was because of her upbringing that she came from, you know, more modest roots.
Ivan Misner Yeah, I think there’s something to be said for that. On the other hand, I’ve seen people that treat people very well who came from wealth. I think it has–it certainly has a little bit to do with–it may have a lot to do with with how someone grew up. But I also think it has to do with their philosophy of life and their attitude about working with others. I think that’s also really important.
Priscilla Rice Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Ivan Misner So the five takeaways that I got, from the multiple times that I’ve had opportunities to spend time with Richard, was that he connects with everyone at all levels of an organization and he treats them the same. He’s gracious, he’s a good host. These are the things that we could learn from. He’s tolerant. And he knows how to relax and have fun.
And these are lessons that I have learned from him and I hope that in sharing them I have given you some ideas that maybe you can improve, if you’re listening to this podcast, you can improve in those areas; I know that I have. And so I’d love to hear your thoughts here on the BNI podcast comments. Again, I read every comment that’s posted up on the BNI Podcast. I comment back on some of them, but I read every single one.
Priscilla Rice Ivan, I have one more question for you.
Ivan Misner Yeah.
Priscilla Rice So some people might not know who Richard Branson is, and why we should be interested in him. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about him?
Ivan Misner That’s a great question. And I’m glad you asked. You know, Richard’s a billionaire. He’s the founder of the Virgin Group, which he started in the 1970s. It started I think, with Virgin Records. Then of course, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Atlantic, and there’s a Virgin cruise line, every just about every business that’s a Virgin Something is him. And he’s been doing this for a long, long time. He’s an amazing guy. And you know, the truth is, I don’t know many billionaires and so it’s interesting to observe him to see how he got where he got.
I can tell you one real quick, funny story about him. His headmaster when he was in school, told him he would either end up in prison or become a millionaire.
Priscilla Rice Oh, wow.
Ivan Misner His headmaster was wrong. He never went to prison and he actually became a billionaire. So I think that’s kind of a funny story that he acknowledges. Back to you, Priscilla. Thank you.
Priscilla Rice Okay. Well, that’s great. Thank you so much, Dr. Misner. The sponsor for this podcast is Ivan’s Inner Circle. Go check out the great content available. It’s at www.ivansinnercircle.com and he has assembled a variety of interesting topics for you to learn about and participate in.
Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.
第666集 引薦人的5個級別（經典播客） 由於 "666 "這個數字對某些人來說意味著一些邪惡的東西，所以我們認為我們將做一個 "魔鬼在細節中 "的播客。 這個主題的細節非常重要，我們認為與數字有關的事情會很有趣。 我們保證，這個主題不是邪惡的。 它很詳細，所以要接受這部分。 米斯納博士曾一度概述了一個引薦的16個級別。但當他在寫第二版《 Networking Like a Pro 》的時候，他意識到他的級別應該與世界上大多數BNI引薦單上的5個級別一致。 這5個層次的介紹是累積起來的，在書中有詳細的闡述。 您分享了希望您的引薦夥伴聯繫的人的聯繫信息。 您還分享了有關與潛在客戶聯繫的人的其他信息（名片，營銷材料，網站）。 你給潛在客戶一個關於你所引薦的人的個人引薦信。 你打一個私人電話，安排潛在客戶和你引薦的人見面。 您可以在潛在客戶和您引薦的人之間進行面對面的介紹。 引薦的級別越低，將其轉化為業務的難度就越大。你的目標應該是給出至少是3級的引薦 引薦人的5個級別在《Networking Like a Pro》第36章。第二版中的第36章。你也可以在Misner博士的博客上閱讀更多關於它們的內容。 由Networking for Success頻道在YouTube上為您帶來。 第548集的文字記錄 Priscilla : 大家好，歡迎回到BNI官方播客，由YouTube上的Networking for Success頻道為您帶來，該頻道有Ivan Misner博士和其他許多網絡專家。我是Priscilla Rice，我從加州伯克利的Live Oak錄音室為大家帶來。我今天在電話中加入的是BNI的創始人和首席願景官， Ivan Misner 博士。你好， Ivan ，你在哪裡？ Ivan : 嗨， Priscilla 。我現在很好，我在北卡羅來納州夏洛特的新的全球支持團隊總部，在BNI的全球總部，BNI大約一年多前搬到了那裡，這就是我本週的工作地點。 Priscilla : 很好，跟我說說引薦人的五個級別。 Ivan : 引薦的五個級別-多年來，我已經撰寫了有關引薦的各個層次的書籍。 我曾經將其分解，我認為這是商務引薦中16個引薦級別。 我在 《 Networking Like a Pro 》 第一版中縮小了範圍。 但是在第二...
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