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Sam. Foreign, Welcome back to BNI and the Power of One. Thank you for joining again as we once again inconsistently get these out. But we're doing our best to continue to produce these and to answer your submitted questions, which, which is what we're going to do again today. Actually, this one's going to start a series of them. We will probably jump between each one individually in between different topics that come in because it's a really good one and it's really important and one that I don't know that we've have dived into as much as we could have or should have or can. So the question comes from Robert out in Ohio. It just says could you do a series on core values of bni? And yes, we can and we should and we'll do them individually. So instead of as the request is, we'll do a series on them and we're going to start with the, the first and the most important and the core of all core values for bni, which is Givers game. My intent for these and I'd love to drum up conversation, even feedback through, you know, comments on the podcast, whether on Apple or Spotify, however you're finding it around each one because I want to talk about the good and the bad or the potential bad for each one. Because there is right sometimes these, these core values can have a negative effect under the cloak of, hey, this is our core value. Again, as I said, the most important one is givers game. It's where it all started. And it is under the assumption that the more you give, the more you will gain out of that. Okay. It's not just about business, though. It is at the same time, right. If you give business first without any expectation of getting any in return, you amplify the relationship that you have with a person. You increase your trust, you increase your credibility and in the long term are going to gain the reciprocity from that. And you may not even get it directly from that person. Meaning, you know, hey, listen, I'm going to give Nicole a referral and that's going to amplify our relationship. And I have no expectation of Nicole being able to give back, but Nicole is going to give to somebody else in the chapter and that's going to amplify that trust level and they're going to want to give back. And maybe it's not to Nicole. Maybe that's the one that comes to me and it goes around the entire chapter. Far too many people in this world go day to day thinking about what can I get from this? What can I get from this? What do you got? What, what do you have for me? And we try to operate in a different environment in bni. The environment is how can I help you? How can I help people in this room? How can I give to this team I'm a part of? And when everybody has that mindset, everybody will gain from it. Far too many networking events though, are not necessarily designed for the opposite of that, but create an environment of the opposite of that. Far too many people will come to your BNI chapter and judge the chapter immediately by what can I get out of this? And I don't know that that's even something we can completely avoid. But our messaging in the meeting, our highlighting of what givers gains means, how we introduce the referral section, how we talk about our chapter and our philosophy and visitor orientations, how we talk about this core value and what it means in member interviews for new applicants will help set the expectation in the tone going forward. I think it is kind of natural for people to walk in and go, you know, we're asking them to join, we're asking them to make a financial investment. Their first question is going to be, what am I going to get out of this? Now, I've said in the past, it's probably been a long time that you gain something just by the act of giving as well, right? My favorite, I would say second favorite holiday, my favorite holiday ever we've done is Thanksgiving because nobody has any expectations. But I love Christmas. I love that time of year. It is fun, it's meaningful, everything that's about it. But my wife will tell you, my kids will tell you, I'm not a gift receiver. Like, I do not care. I'm probably the hardest person to get a gift for because frankly, I'm an adult and if I need it, I'm gonna go buy it. But two is, that's just not my focus. I hate, I hate recognition. I don't strive for it. I'm uncomfortable with it. And I'm almost kind of uncomfortable with gift receiving in, in kind of a similar format. And I'm sure there is some therapy that needs to be done on why that is, but. But that is what it is. But it's my favorite holiday because I love to, I love to see my kids reaction when they get a gift. I love to see my wife's reaction when she gets a gift. And my game is always like, can I surprise any one of them and get them, get them something they had no expectation for right? Like they just didn't see coming and can I knock their socks off? That's like that moment. And even though it's fleet like in the. In it's very quick thing is a value add to my life. And I think it's very similar in bni, if we were to think that way, like finding a meaningful referral for somebody that I know is going to generate business for them and all the things that go along with that. Business generation means something, and I hope it means something to you when you're, when you're doing it. That again, we're not just this transactional system, but that, that, that act of giving something of true value should bring joy to you. It should bring some value to you in the simple act of doing it, not in the, all right, I did this for you. Now I'm gonna sit and wait for you to give something back for me. And that's the downside of givers gain. Too many people in the past and even currently try to use giver's gain as a weapon. Listen, I gave you something, you owe me. Now, that is not how it works. That is not the philosophy. That is not the game we're playing here. It is not a, you know, let's track what you've given me and I'll talk about what you've given or what I've given you, and I'm going to track what you've given back. I've heard horror stories of members doing that in BNI meetings during their featured presentations. Getting up and telling people all the business that they've given to them and what they owe in return. You want to talk about a credibility destroyer? That will do it. That will absolutely do it. That is a grotesque use of time that, that to me is on the lines for immediate removal from my, from my chapter. If I was a member, I would be so upset that somebody did that I'd be seeking for them to be out because it's not what we live and it's not what that philosophy is about. And listen, I know in my situation, based on my profession and where my business is at and all that, that I'm in a position to give to a lot more people than maybe receive. Like is kind of, you know, depending on your profession and the scale of your business, the size of your business, how long you've been in business, all these different factors might put you in a position to give a lot more. Maybe it's give a lot more in. In quantity. Like I can pass more referrals than the quantity of referrals I'm going to receive. But the quality of the referrals I receive, I know are going to be bigger. Right? It's, it's a lot easier to pass referrals to a barber, into a hairdryer, hairdresser, into a florist, into these easier transactional type of professions than it is to a life insurance agent, a financial advisor, a commercial real estate agent. Like some of these bigger tickets items that it's more about quality than quantity. I might know that my business is, is more seasoned, it's been around longer, I have bigger clienteles, I have all these things which puts me in a position to help and pass more to those whose business might be newer and might not have the same clientele and might not have the same contacts for as long as I have to generate the opportunities to pass referrals. If I live givers gain as I gave you, you now owe me. I'd be disappointed the entire time. Instead of what it is, is this is, you know, some people helped me and they gave to me and that's what helped my business grow and it's what helped me get to the place I am. And now I'm able to do that in return for other people and they're going to be able to do it in return and so forth and so on. It's under the positive mindset of the more I can give to you. The more I can give to this group, the more I'm going to get in return. It goes beyond just the transactional, it goes into. What else can I give to this chapter besides referrals? Well, I can give my time, I can give my expertise, I can give my skill sets. How do we do that? We do that by getting involved in leadership teams. We do that by volunteering our time to maybe help out before and after the meeting. We give that in time to meet one on one with fellow members and maybe help them beyond just, hey, I'm going to tell you how to give me referrals now. There is a plethora of opportunity to give into our team to give in to the fellow members. Well, again, with no expectation of a return, you should not take a president's role going, if I take the president's role, I should get 10 more referrals. No, you take the president's role because you want to give that time freely to your fellow members. You want to give that skill set you have to help lead the chapter. You want to make an impact on that chapter and help that chapter reach new levels of success. And when you do all of those things, you're going to gain significant increase in visibility, you're going to gain significant increase in credibility. And over that time with, through those things, you will increase your profitability. It's not a transaction based thing though. It's not a I know I'll get this or I should get X. It's giving back, giving that time and again. A successful chapter is one where everybody's willing to do that, not meaning everybody's willing to be present. Maybe president isn't the right role for you right now, but maybe visitor host is where you can help or maybe education coordinators where you can help, or maybe it's on the membership committee you can help. If your mindset is, oh, I'm just too busy and I've got too much going on, I can't get involved in the leadership. Leadership team. That's the opposite of that. Because you're, you're then saying to everybody else in the chapter, you do that for me, you, you spend your time for my benefit. I have no interest in giving back, I'm too busy. Which basically you're then telling them they're not. Everybody in your chapter is very busy. Everybody in your chapter has a million things going on. It is why we change leadership teams every single year is to give people that opportunity to be able to get involved, to be able to give back and then thus receive the increased visibility and credibility from doing those roles. Now the downside of that, and I'll talk more about this this summer obviously, because I do every summer when we were in leadership training and stuff, is you gain an amazing opportunity to destroy both of them as well. So you got to take those chance, you got, you know, those opportunities seriously, you got to do it right. But again, that's what's giving back. If you're taking a role, it's not and with no intentions of doing it right, you're hurting people now. Right. That's not giver's gain at all. It's why many years ago BNI used to automatically freeze the dues of presidents, vice presidents and secretary treasurers. And they got rid of that. And I was a fan of getting rid of it as long as there's other things, but a fan of getting rid of it for one big reason and that was people were taking those roles and just to get the time and thus were not serious about the roles, didn't care what happened, you were getting that time even if you destroyed the chapters culture, size, what have you and so it wasn't really a good incentive plan for those chapters. That should not be the deciding reason for somebody taking the role. We used to have members going like, I'm going to take the secretary treasurer's role because I'm up for renewal and I don't want to renew. Well, then you're definitely not the right fit for the secretary treasurer or president's role or vice president's role. So you know, it was a change, but it was a necessary change. I know it was cloaked for a lot of people as a, a way for BNI to, to increase revenues and stuff but really the driving factor was it wasn't working. It just, it wasn't effective and in fact had a lot of downsides to it. So look, I again, everything that we do comes back to this, this most important core value that again givers gain is about long term investments in relationships. Just like any other valuable relationship in your life. Spouse, kids, friends, these relationships require you to give to them. You need to give time, you need to give focus, you need to give sincerity. You got to give value back. You got to make the investment of that time in order for that relationship to then give back to you in a profitable way. It can't just be I gave you, you, now you give me. You need to be just focused on how much can I give into it. Think of it as an investment account, a bank account. The more I can put in, the bigger the return will be. So just be focused on the giving part. I'm going to give, I'm going to give. I'm going to give with faith and belief that that's going to come back to you. And again, it might not come back directly from that person, it's going to come back from the other person that person influenced because you influenced them and so forth and so on. It is a great way to run a chapter. It is a great way to run an organization. It's a better way to run your business and your life and it should never ever, ever be weaponized. And if you're finding that people are, that's a violation of our code of ethics and core values. And that should require a separate conversation at the chapter level and director level, etc. So is a great question and I'm excited to do this series again. We won't do them, you know, each one back to back to back to back. I'll sprinkle them in with other questions. So keep submitting your questions, your topics. Bnipowerofone.com have a great day. Sam.