Founders

A FOUNDER’S MANIFESTO

In venture capital we look for Blue Flames – founders who are ready to fulfill their greatest potential in the next 5-10 years.

Turns out this works for others, not just for founders.

And what’s more: it doesn’t work if we just focus on founders. We need Blue Flame teams and Blue Flame communities to draw from: a critical mass (in our experience no more than 100) who are ready to fulfill their greatest potential in the next 5-10 years.

Thus, in Ignite we began a new movement for Blue Flames:

Do what you were born to do in the company of others who are doing what they were born to do.

Out of all this, a Manifesto was born.

These 8 points contain our source code for what has become the World’s 1st O/S (Operating System) for Greatness. This is what we seek to ignite and to operationalize – to bring to everyday life as a way of life – in every one we touch, as individuals, as teams, as organizations.

At Ignite, we know these to be true:

GENIUS

First, that I am gifted with my own Genius – unique, unrepeated and unrepeatable for all time.

PURPOSE

Second, that my singular Genius bears the thumbprint of Who I Am and Why I am Here.

Genius points to Purpose, Purpose to Genius.

SERVICE

Third, that I can only give out of what I have been given. And what I have been given, I must give and live for others.

Genius finds its fullness in Service – a Purpose bigger than self.

SHARED MISSION

Fourth, that if I am honest and brave, my Genius and Purpose will find their manifest call in a shared Mission – with others, for others.

A Mission rooted in finding that particular slice of humanity whose particular pains I am particularly gifted (and compelled!) to heal.

COLLABORATION

Fifth, that shared Mission leads naturally to Collaboration.

Shared Mission demands Shared Genius: mine, yours, ours.

INNOVATION

If we are a collection of our own Genius – each unique, unrepeated, unrepeatable – where then can we go, but to Innovation.

IMPACT

We Ignite, therefore, not just for self, but for each other.

Because what we are born to do, we are born to do with others and for others.

We need each other’s Genius. And far beyond Genius, we need each other to be on this journey, to fulfill this necessary progression: from a sense of our own individual Genius, Purpose, and Service (GPS) toward shared Mission and Collaboration, and ultimately, to Innovation and Impact.

TRANSCEND

This is the path of transcendence.

This is how we lift each other to heights we never in our wildest dreams, or loftiest ambitions, dared.

……..

The Ignite Manifesto as brought to life through Participative Performance Art, a fixture throughout our Ignite Journey: