This is a rebroadcast of Episode 573. Synopsis This week, Dr. Misner shares a story of an early lesson he learned on the value of networking. He was working at a hardware store in South El Monte while getting his bachelor’s degree. One night after closing up, they found one of the employee’s cars on concrete blocks–someone had stolen all the wheels. One of the other employees, who lived locally, said “Calm down. Go back inside. Let me make some phone calls, and I’ll tell you when you can come back out.” When Dr. Misner and the owner of the car came back out of the store, all four wheels were back on the car, shiny rims and all. The local employee had friends in the gang that was known for stealing wheels. All it took to have the wheels returned was one phone call to a person this employee knew well. This experience brought home the lesson that it’s not what you know or who you know, but how well you know them. If you have a story about a real-life networking lesson you learned, share it in the comments. For more of Dr. Misner’s content, go to IvanMisner.com. Complete Transcript of Episode 573/716 Priscilla:Hello everybody and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast which is brought to you by The Networking For Success Channel on YouTube, which features Dr. Ivan Misner and many other networking experts. I’m Priscilla Rice and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan! How are you today? Ivan:I am doing fantastic today, Priscilla, and I have a topic that has a very unusual title. Would you not agree? Priscilla:I definitely agree and I am totally curious. Ivan:So I recently visited Los Angeles where I grew up and lived for many, many years. I was driving through an area where I grew up around and I was regaling my wife with a story about a job I had in a pretty tough neighborhood when I was in college. At the end of the story, Beth said to me, “You have got to tell this story in a podcast.” So here it is. It is sort of one of my early lessons on the value of networking. I grew up in a really working class environment early in my life. It was roughly 1975 and I was working on my bachelors degree while I was employed at a hardware store in South El Monte, California. You have to understand that South El Monte was a pretty tough neighborhood with a fair number of gangs that were active in the area. We closed the hardware store one evening at 7 pm and it took about 30 minutes to close all the registers and leave the store. In that 30 minute period, a lot could happen, particularly in that neighborhood. So around 7:30, we walked out of the store and we found one of the employee’s cars sitting in the parking lot literally propped up on blocks. Someone had stolen all four awesome wheels and left the car on four concrete blocks where it sat in the parking lot. Basically, waiting for us to get off work and walk out there. Clearly, my friend, the person whose car it was, was apoplectic when he walked out. He went absolutely crazy. What’s amazing to me was that one of the other employees who lived locally said to the guy with the car with the missing wheels. He said, “Calm down. Relax. Let me make a call. Give me just a few minutes and let me see what I can do. You guys go back in the store and wait and I will le...