Working in Your Flame Archives

I literally built my business from operating out of my garage to a global enterprise with over 9400 BNI chapters in more than 70 countries all around the world. Overall, I have twelve lessons for you that I’ve learned from taking my business literally garage to global. I’ve covered eight so far in previous blogs.

Here are the final four lessons on how I took BNI literally from my garage to global organization

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

I think culture is the secret sauce to a successful organization. Your organizational culture is critical to your success. If you are part of a company that has a horrible culture and an amazing strategy, you’re not going to do well. However, if you are part of a company with an amazing culture and a really good strategy, you are going to be the industry leader.

Know your mission.

Get really clear about what your mission is. The mission of BNI is to help members increase their business through a structured, positive and professional referral program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships and referrals

Work in your flame, not in your wax.

Do the things you’re passionate about, and hire people to the stuff you hate doing. When you’re in your flame you’re doing things you love to do. When you’re working in your wax it’s taking all your energy away. There are times we may have to work in your wax. However, as soon as possible, you will want to hire somebody who your wax is their flame and they’re excited to do that.

Share a vision that everyone is striving towards.

BNI has dominated its industry in almost every market for decades because of a shared vision and a shared implementation of that vision. Vision is where you want to go and your mission is how you want to get there. BNI’s vision is “Changing the Way the World Does Business”.

So, these are the final four of my twelve lessons on how I took BNI literally from my garage to global organization. If you missed them, here are the links to the first blog and the second blog in this series.

This is the second classic video in the “Ivanism” Garage to Global series, hosted by Entrepreneur.com. I expand on common phrases I’ve used over the years. How can they apply to your business and referral networking style? Today I discuss the Ivanism, “Working in Your Flame vs Your Wax“

In this classic video, I explain why I equate the phrase ‘working in your flame’ with being in business and loving what you’re doing, and the phrase ‘working in your wax’ with being in business and really not liking or enjoying what you’re doing.

Are you flame or wax happy? That sounds like a bizarre question–but it’s not.

When you’re working in your wax and when you’re working in your flame are two very different things, and can affect you in different ways. If you’re flame happy, you’re excited, motivated and ready to pursue your ambitions. But what happens when are wax happy, and simply complacent with working on things that you aren’t passionate about?

The video below talks about this idea and ways you can make sure you’re always flame happy.

Watch the video now to learn how to take small yet significant steps in your journey toward truly loving what you do for a living! What does working in your flame mean for you? What is it you do in your chosen profession that you truly love? Likewise, what is it you do that causes you to work in your wax and how might you delegate those tasks to another employee who might actually enjoy those same tasks? I’d love to get your feedback on this–thanks!