All-Weather Strategy of Investing
Q: Who has heard of the all-weather strategy of investing? Yes/No?
An all-weather investing strategy is one where regardless of market conditions, your investment portfolio continues to increase in value. It is the holy grail of investing because your investment portfolio doesn’t need to regain losses before increasing in value.
An all-weather investment strategy means you can always invest without the fear of losing and there is no need to try and “time” your investments according to market conditions.
BNI – an All-Weather Strategy for Business
Continual investment in BNI is an All-Weather Strategy for business. Regardless of what is going on in your business, as long as you have a business, long term involvement in BNI will keep you in a better place than dipping in or out or leaving and not being part of BNI.
We know that the right business doing the right activities well in BNI will get a financial return on investment over the medium to long term, that’s a given. BUT the real benefits go well beyond the financial return.
Let us look at some of these non-financial benefits.
Consistency Beats Brilliance
Discipline turns ability into achievement. There are so many examples of people in sport who have a natural ability in spades, but their lack of discipline may have meant their achievements didn’t reflect their ability.
Turning up at BNI weekly and paying attention to how you deliver your ability, being part of a system with discipline, thinking about how you present to the world, being accountable to more than just yourself, caring about more than just yourself and being your best self amongst peers is a discipline that will transfer to your day-to-day business. Even by just getting dressed for business success once a week and thinking about your business, as it is seen by others, benefits your business.
Admiral McRaven’s Life Lesson #1: “Make Your Bed” speaks so eloquently about the basic tenets of virtue, commitment, and perseverance. Like making your bed, BNI starts the day in an organized manner and powers your week.
Working ON the Business not IN the Business
Working only IN your business, even if you do put aside time to work on your business, leads to tunnel vision and introspection. Only being inside the four walls of your business, virtual or physical is not healthy.
Being the leader of a business can be a lonely place and while we can get outside input in other ways, BNI automatically opens our eyes to the rest of the business world every week, just by being there. Up to date information about finance, technology, property, legal, marketing, and sales – we get updated weekly, over breakfast with friends.
BNI serves as a de-facto board of directors reminding us of what our business needs to be resilient and sustainable. BNI helps us be more than JUST “our” business.
Centre of Excellence
A great BNI chapter will create excellence and a desire to be better. It will inspire, motivate, and rejuvenate. It will help us to celebrate our wins and empathise with us over our losses. What other advertising medium does that? A great BNI chapter is family and family is for life.
Givers Gain®
Givers Gain® is a philosophy for life, not just BNI. Other sayings like “the secret for living is giving” and “giving is the key to true happiness” reflect the same philosophy. BNI embodies this philosophy and helps us practice Givers Gain®, leading to true happiness. What greater reward can there be?
All Seasons
We haven’t even talked about the laughter and fun we share each week, the ability to instantly access experts to help us and others, learning how to pitch your business or developing leadership skills. Being part of BNI consistently over a long period, regardless of good or bad weather helps us be better in business and better people.
