The Secret To Success

By: Kathie M. Thomas - A Clayton's Secretary

Last July saw another event with Ivan Misner speaking - this time to an audience of 340 people from Melbourne at the Carlton Crest. Ivan is the founder of Business Network International (BNI) which is a worldwide organisation. The event was called ‘The Big Breakfast’ and BNI chapter members from all around Victoria attended the meeting. Ivan is obviously well-versed in speaking publicly and he kept the audience entertained, whilst educating them at the same time. He also came out with some great phrases and stories.

He told us about Masters of Success and some of the stories within. Such as:

• Dr Zeuss had 23 rejections with Cat in the Hat before it was accepted - now it’s sold millions of times over, in many languages and has had a movie made.
• Henry Ford went bankrupt twice before he succeeded.
• Richard Hooker, author of Mash was rejected 21 times before the book was accepted - we all know the movie and television series that grew from that.
• Coca Cola in their first year only sold 400 sodas.
• Erin Brokavitch talked about how self-talk is very important.

Ivan went on to say that success comes in ‘cans’. If you believe you can, or believe you can’t, you will be right.

He also talked about BNI being a referral group and when you give someone a referral it’s giving a part of yourself away - it’s a part of your reputation. So in BNI, the weekly attendances, the building of relationships and getting to know each other’s business is an important part of the membership so you can confidently refer other members to your family, friends and colleagues.

He said that success = persistance + systems.

You need to learn the fundamentals of anything you set out to do so you can do them flawlessly. This applies to both life and business.

Finally he told us that:

The Secret to Success without hard work is still a secret!

Ivan then challenged us to contact someone we know personally whom we believe to be very successful and ask them a simple question: What’s your secret for success?