Text of a speech given at BNI Kenya End Year Gala 2023, edited to fit the blog.

The Philosophy of BNI is summed up in two simple words, Givers Gain!

Greetings

On March 11, 2021, I had a heart attack. It almost took my life. I was hospitalized for a total of three weeks being treated for the heart attack, then double pneumonia, and finally a crazy infection in my eyes that almost rendered me blind. It took more than a year to finally feel close to myself again. And truth be told, the self of today is not the self of pre-Covid.

What do you do when you face a crisis? What do you do when you face a series of unfortunate events?

If you are here tonight, you survive. You don’t shrink away, or retire into oblivion. You survive. And if you are like me, you move beyond survival, to finding a new purpose for your life. Or at least ensuring that, the life you are living is truly worth living.

That is the beginning of the story of Dr Faith version 5.0, the version that is standing before you tonight. The version that is a business woman, an entrepreneur, the version that is doing it in spite of the fear of failure, in spite of the shame and despair that often follows the series of unfortunate events.

Dr Faith is a woman of faith, pun intended. Faith in myself, my abilities, my competencies, my capacity for growth. Faith in commerce, in the possibility of creating new futures and solving the world’s problems through enterprise. Faith in the philosophy that undergirds BNI – that those who give don’t do so in vain, they also gain.

The drama of my life is not the story I want to focus on tonight, though it does offer the backdrop against which I stand. I survived, but now, I am seeking to thrive, to flourish.

If I were planning my life, I wouldn’t be choosing to be entering into the world of business in the current environment of global recessions, wars and rumors of wars, political instabilities, and Zakayo and his many taxes. It is a VUCA World that we are living – a volatile, unpredictable, chaotic and ambiguous environment that keeps us all awake at night.

it is a volatile, umpredictable, chaotic and ambiguous environment that keeps us all awake at night.  

But here’s the thing, we do not choose to exist in a VUCA world. Where we have a choice is in how we respond to it. As Victor Frankl, the Jewish Psychotherapist who was imprisoned by the Nazis during the second world war famously said, between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

 Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. VIctor Frankl

We don’t get to choose to live in a world full of chaos, but we do get to choose how we react or respond in that world.

We can choose to complain on KOT, yet do nothing practical

Or we can choose to get to work righting the wrongs that are in our sphere of influence

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lays our growth and our freedom.

What will we choose?

I suggest to you that you have already made a choice. You made a choice to spend money to come here tonight, to fellowship with other business leaders. If you are here, I hope it’s because you believe that business can be a force for good. If you are here, I want to believe that am preaching to the choir when I raise my voice and say, I believe that Givers Gain!

The philosophy of BNI is summed up in two simple words, members, Givers Gain!

But, do they really?

If you give, you should also be ready and willing to receive. Those who give but are not willing to receive are not good givers – they will be seen as arrogant (I don’t need you/your help), and people will eventually not want to be given by such givers. As a giver, one of the rules of engagement is that you are also a willing receiver, that you allow others the opportunity to also be givers – to help you too. So consider that as my number one lesson today: Great Givers are also Good at Receiving.

According to the founder of this wonderful organization Dr Ivan Misner, there are 7 principles that should guide givers.

1.Are they in your circle of light?

2.Give without expectation

3.Give more than expected

4.Give what you can afford

5.Its ok to gain

6.Stay humble

7.Be grateful

Misner and colleagues are not alone in believing in the power of giving. Tonight my aim is to unpack these principles using the work of other business gurus whose work I have encountered, with the aim of shedding more light on the phenomenon of giving in business and in life.

Personally, my first encounters with giving in the world of business came from two books. The first is by the Wharton Business School Professor, Adam Grant, titled Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Grant points out that in the world of organizations, you will find three kinds of people: Takers, Matchers and Givers.

As the labels suggest, takers take. Takers are motivated by self interest to get as much as possible from others, without giving anything in return. They want to be number one, they want to be winners, and they believe for them to be winners, they have to be selfish. Takers do not seem to believe in reciprocity.

Givers give because they are internally motivated to be helpful to others, through giving their time, talents, and treasures.

Matchers are invested in giving and receiving, in helping others and being helped themselves. They believe in reciprocity, that one good turn deserves another. They are motivated by a sense of fairness.

As you can see from this description, Misner’s philosophy around Givers Gain is a combination of Grant’s Givers and Matchers. Misner advises business leaders to choose wisely those in our circle of giving, because if we have takers in our midst, they will take to the point of draining us all. Misner also, like Grant, says givers should give without the expectation of a return, but, in the same breath, givers should have the humility to also be receivers and not be afraid to gain.

See, if you give and give indiscriminately, you will burn out. Worse still, if yo give more than you can afford to give, you will negatively impact your life and those who depend on you – your family, your employees. Giving must be accompanied by discernment and wisdom. So, we give, not expecting anything in return, yet being open to receiving and gaining from the interaction. In other words, it is open hearted giving. You give knowing that it will come back to you, to quote the gospel song

Give And It Will Come Back To You
Good Measure Pressed Down
Shaken Together And Running Over
Give And It Will Come Back To You
When You Give Give To The Lord

by Ron Kenoly

In other words, the giving we are talking about today, it is a Biblical principle. The song lyrics include the phrases, give your best, give in love, give with a smile, do not be stingy... 

Right there you see reflected the thinking of Misner and colleagues, as well as Adam Grant and likely any other gurus who talk about giving. That it does come back to you, that it reflects humility and gratitude, that when we give, we should give willingly and give our best (not your trash or the rest). Am sure many of you have heard it said in your places of worship, that God loves a cheerful giver. Actually, so do all of us, right?

In fact, generosity, taking care of others needs, being a giver and a receiver can be found as a principle in all religions and traditions. Even our own African traditions encourage giving – generosity, taking care of the community, and being willing to also receive.

I want to leave you with five laws to live by, principles that will continue to help you live out this givers gain philosophy. It is from a book by Bob Burg and John David Mann titled The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea.  Bob and John provide the analogy of the go-giver as opposed to the go-getter. The go-getter is the taker we have already talked about…they take, and take, and take some more.

The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success

 Burg and Mann provide these five principles to guide our thinking around being go-givers, people who understand that giving works.

“All the great fortunes in the world have been created by men and women who had a greater passion for what they were giving — their product, service or idea — than for what they were getting.” – Bob Burg & John David Mann, The Go-Giver

So here are the five principles summarized for you, but I do highly recommend reading the book, it's a very quick read. The laws are listed below with supporting quotes from the text.

1. The law of value – your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. How much value are people getting from your goods and services?

   Rather than focusing on whether your service or product makes money first, ask yourself, does it serve? Does it add value to others? If the answer to that question is yes, then you can go ahead and ask, does it make money?

2. The law of compensation —Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.

   to put it another way, your compensation is directly proportional to how many lives you touch.

3. The law of influence – your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.

   Watch out for the other guy. Watch out for his interests. Watch his back. Forget fifty-fifty, son. Fifty-fifty is a losing proposition. The only winning proposition is one hundred percent. Make your win about the other person. Go after what he wants. Forget win-win—focus on the other person’s win...Watch out for what other people need, with the faith that when you do, you'll get what you need.

   

4. The law of authenticity – the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself

   People, remember this: no matter what your training, no matter what your skills, no. matter area you're in, you are your most important commodity. The most valuable figt you have to offer is you...as long as you are trying to be someone else, or putting on an act or behavior someone else taught you, you have no possibility of truly reaching people.

5. The law of receptivity—the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving

   It's not better to give than to receive. It's insane to try to give and not receive. Trying not to receive is not only foolish, it's arrogant. Receiving is the natural result of giving.

   Every giving can happen only because it is also a receiving...if you don't receive you are refusing the gifts of others—and you shut down the flow.

In summary then, givers do indeed gain. When they give guided by wisdom. From a place of loving and serving others. When they give and have the humility to also receive. When they add value to peoples lives. Givers gain when they are authentic – who they say they are is who they really are, and their clients and customers can see that. 

Givers indeed gain when they understand that customers and clients are people first. People with needs, feelings, emotions, worries, concerns. People first. Givers give because they are motivated to be helpful, yet they understand that giving is also receiving, and that's why they gain.

In a VUCA world, the only way to rise through it and above it, is to be a genuine giver. The only way we will succeed as business people is to be givers and receivers, to be a blessing to others and to be blessed by others. Shall we rise, together!