Grow Business. Grow Self. "Your Bonfire"

Me and the dog burned the brush pile last night.

Of course, in a moment of quiet, I was thinking.?Try my bonfire business analogy below on for size.?To me, every aspect of this relates to the life of the business.? Maybe you'll find yourself in one of the stages outlined below too.

Getting the bonfire started was very difficult this time.?We tried a number of methods, some gasoline too, and it just wasn't igniting. This was also not my first bonfire for what it's worth.

My thinking then switched from 'what to do' to 'what is wrong?'?What needs to change??Is it the environment??The wood?

The next, and last, approach, was to just start a small fire, however I can, see if it is steady and hopefully let it build into the bigger brush pile.

Newspaper. Leaves. Tinder. Twigs. Big twigs. The small fire built slowly, looking like it would peter out at times, but didn't, it moved around a bit, smoldered a bit, only flame-kissed other branches, however it seemed to have promise. There was hope.

A small gust of provided wind, out of my control, would blow and the flames would grow, and then settle back down, seemingly heading back toward failure!

I added a number of prayers, laughing half crazy because it's funny to pray for my fire right? Why wouldn't God want me to have my fire tonight?

The fire then worked into the center of the pile, again not really burning all that well, but right in the heart of the pile now.?There was still a chance it would fail since it had been about 20 minutes without the pile going up in flames.

And now I am stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I have a fire, but not really a fire. I can't abandon it because it might burn. I can't do much to help it along because it is dead smack in the middle of a huge brush pile. I also can't take the hose to it because it still might work!

Slowly it built, properly and decidedly this time it seemed. And I noticed from the driest location with the best small twigs.?The heat grew consistently (you could hear it and feel the heat now) with good flames and soon the fire was burning small and hot at the core of the pile.

The flames grew taller and then started working taller from the center on outward to other areas of the pile.

Before I knew it, almost catching me by surprise, the flames were about 20' high and a little scary and intimidating.?There was no doubt about it, we had our bonfire!?

Was it about to get out of control though??Would I need to use the hose and dampen its progress to feel more comfortable? There was certainly enough fuel now.?This was chaotic (This was in the middle of my field 100' from any thing and I cut back all the grass around the pile, just so you know)??

Eventually, after careful watch and lots of concern with the rapid growth flaring wildly, the flames subdued to what I thought was reasonable and were now comfortably consistent.?The fire burned hot and under control for a long time at this phase.?This was my most enjoyable phase of the bonfire.

Next, as the fire settled down to small flames and?very hot char, I ran around the outside of the burn area looking for small sticks to toss in to kick up the flames here and there, adding whatever I could to the fire to make sure it all burned up. Tying up loose ends, if you will.

Then I grabbed a beer.

As dusk set in and the sky darkened so did the fire.?And that was just fine because it was over. It was supposed to be over and I was glad it was over without any catastrophe.?

So I went to bed, looking back realizing that whole episode only lasted about 2 hours.