I did a thing. I joined BNI. Why?

2025-10-01

I did a thing. I joined BNI. Why? Since day one, when I started with ArtInSoft, I’ve never delivered a curriculum to look for a job. Every next opportunity in my career has come through people who saw the results of my work and decided to hire me for the next project. For that, I’ve always been grateful—and I hope saying this out loud doesn’t jinx it, but instead attracts even more great projects. For years, I worked as an individual: creating courses, coding software, giving presentations, building products. But recently, I reached a turning point. I released a platform I had been using privately to create my own courses, and I made it available for others to use. That’s when I realized something: building and launching a platform requires a completely different skill set than being “Xavier the coder” or “Xavier the course creator.” It requires visibility, networking, and building relationships far beyond the developer world I’ve always been comfortable in. And that’s why I joined BNI. I joined to:

Learn how to network outside of the “geek” bubble I know so well.
Practice new skills in communication, accountability, and consistency.
Build meaningful relationships with people from diverse industries.
Tap into a global network that opens doors I could never reach alone. Already, I’ve found a sub-sphere of individuals I enjoy working with, and I feel we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible. So here I am, starting this journey—practicing, learning, and building. I’m excited to see where this path leads, and I’m grateful for the chance to grow beyond what I thought my career path was supposed to look like.