Having just run a BLI Success workshop in New Zealand, I reflected on some of the things we looked at in the workshop - particularly the skills needed to be a successful BLI, including:

   - Being a great Mind Mapper who constantly uses and improves their own Mind Maps

   - Being a great trainer, teacher, facilitator, or coach in how to Mind Map

   - Understanding and presenting the principles behind Tony’s work on learning how to learn

   - Understanding the needs of those you want to help, and how best to deliver on these

   - Marketing capability that ensures you match your message to the needs of your audience

   - Selling to get buy-in from your audience, whether they be colleagues, friends or clients

   - Business development capability to achieve the personal goals you set yourself

The Buzan Centre: Aust/NZ has some of the best BLIs in the world, but many of them feel they lack some of the skills to be fully successful.  Two of these are Marketing and Selling – with some actually disliking the idea of having to sell.

In considering how to be more successful we need to understand where we enjoy working.  For most being a BLI is about helping others (friends, family, students, colleagues, clients) and they truly enjoy this.  However if you don’t also enjoy marketing, selling, or other business development tasks – and this applies as much to teachers and in-house trainers, as it does to independent BLIs, then it is unlikely you will achieve the success you deserve.

In my blog on creativity ‘It’s Fun being Me, is it Fun being You?’ I talk about the intrinsic motivation behind the development of creative thinking skills, and it seems this same motivation is needed by BLIs.  Being a BLI means becoming adept at all the skills needed for success.  Just as you cannot help others if you aren’t a skilled teacher, you cannot help others if you can’t market and sell the lasting benefits of Mind Mapping and your ability as a BLI. 

So get out there and start learning the skills you need, and have fun doing it.  Being a BLI is about making a difference and having fun doing it.  Which brings me back to a quote by William Shatner’s character in Boston Legal, Denny Crane:

“It’s fun being me, is it fun being you?”