Something very different and extremely personal.
This weekend, me and Mrs S attended an awards ceremony, not to receive an award but to support all our friends and colleagues for all the hard work they have done. The ceremony was part of BNI Kents recognition for the past 12 months.
BNI sometimes gets a bad rap and if you listen to those who have had a bad experience, you will find they haven’t truely understood many of it’s main core values. The one main value we believe is “Givers Gain”. This states that if I give and keep giving business to a member, over a period of time they will want to give something back. That thought actually goes deeper than just getting work for many of the members. If you can support someone, not just with work but also the struggles they may have in business or life then you know that support will be worth more than the money itself.
As you can guess we are both members of BNI Kent. It has really helped my business at a time it was needed and Mrs Stuart’s who was a very reluctant joiner but has massivly grown in her own self confidence and belief of her own business skills. I have had times as a business owner where I constantly question myself or feel in a fog. It is the members of BNI that I turn to for help. Everyone of them has so much knowledge but also each others interests at heart. It can be a lonely place running a business and this support is what we all need. We can watch the glorious social media reels explaining how to make a fortune in seconds on crypto or get super ripped in 28days by drinking a shake and swinging a kettle bell. The truth of the matter is all these things require a lot of time and dedication to work. It is no different in BNI, the more I invest in other peoples business, the more they invest in mine.
All that said, this weekend bought it back to my reason for staying a member for so long. Me and Mrs S were nominated by a dear member who’s story had the room in tears and the award was for “Givers Gain”. It was such a shock that this gobby bugger was lost for words(for once). Up against so many other well deserving nominees, it came like a baseball bat to the back of my head when our names were called out. This members business is going well but has had some personal problems in the past year. Some of their own making, some not. We have never judged and nor will we, but we will always be there for them.
I suppose all I am trying to say is business is tough but it is the people who’s friendships we forge that help us through those tough times. I know they say BNI is not for everyone but it is for me. If you are a new business or new to running one then you need all the support you can get. Try a meeting, meet some people, who knows you might even like it but what I will tell you, I may have joined for the money but I stay for my friends.
If you fancy meeting me one Friday morning, come along to one of our meetings as my guest.