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Mastermind Your Way To Home Business Success

Written by: Laurie Hayes

Article Overview: Implement the top success strategy of the world’s most accomplished men and women and take your home business to big business in record time.

Mastermind Your Way To Home Business Success

One of the secrets to succeeding at home-based business is to surround yourself with others who will elevate you to heights you could never reach on your own.

It’s critical to surround yourself with people who know more than you do, who think differently than you do, and have access to people and resources you don’t.

Benjamin Franklin was the father of the mastermind. He gathered together a small group of local tradesmen and together they created the first library, a university, hospital, firefighting brigade, insurance company and militia, all the while building each other’s respective businesses.

Henry Ford had a group of four consisting of himself, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs. They called themselves the Four Vagabonds and together helped each other achieve more than any man could alone.

Most people first learned of the mastermind principle in Napoleon Hill’s classic, Think And Grow Rich, and today you’ll find reference to this powerful alliance in every leading success resource.

As you begin your journey of building a home business, make a mastermind group one of your top priorities. Traveling the path alone is cumbersome and slow, but when you multiply your efforts and expand your awareness by tapping into the minds of others, your journey from start-up to success accelerates a thousand fold.

It’s really quite easy.

My first mastermind group was made up of four peers enrolled in a business-coaching academy. Together we supported each other, shared ideas, brainstormed, played devil’s advocate, and held each other accountable for our actions.

Although we were all coaches, we had different areas of expertise and niche markets, so we could offer objective viewpoints to each other.

A colleague and I formed the group by handpicking fellow coaches we respected and admired and contacting them with an invitation.

Once we felt we had reached a plateau, we parted ways to seek out others who would bring us to the next level in our individual journeys.

I was next invited to join a group by a woman who attended networking events I was hosting in my city. Today, I’m still a member of this group that is made up of established and burgeoning entrepreneurs who bring investment, insurance, real estate, licensing, marketing, team building and job market experience to the table. Our meetings run anywhere from local expansion, to personal challenges, to goal achieving, to working with the law of deliberate intent.

I also co-formed an international mastermind group with a colleague and invited and interviewed candidates before deciding on our final group of six. This group includes former corporate leaders, trainers, self-made millionaires, product developers and eco-friendly energy providers.

We focus on global expansion to leveraging new technologies, to breaking through personal and professional barriers, to mastering the neural conditioning process (reprogramming our brains with new automatic thoughts to overwrite old subconscious programming that gets in our way).

Forming or joining a mastermind is the key to fast tracking your progress and making the journey a whole lot easier. And the most important step you can take is to Ask.

Make a list of people who could offer you insights, resources and contacts, and identify the skills, character traits, resources and contacts that you can provide in exchange – then call those people.

There has to be something in it for everyone and sometimes honest, objective feedback or alternate viewpoints are exactly what others are looking for.

You can meet in person or over the phone – once a week, once a month or once a quarter.

There are no hard and fast rules and as long as you make your decisions collectively to ensure win-win situations are created, you’re off to a great start.

There are a variety of online resources to help you plan and form a mastermind group and the good news is you don’t have to feel intimidated or uneasy about making it happen. Invite people whom you feel a strong connection with and ask them to invite someone they believe would be a good fit.

Ask those you respect and trust to help you form your mastermind. Keep the size to five or six and test from there.

During the start-up stages, you will need to get to know each other, set boundaries and structures, set intentions, and form agreements with regard to trial periods, managing communications, etc.

By making the mastermind a part of your success plan, you will quantum leap your efforts, form life-long bonds and benefit from the energy and wisdom of the collective mind that is created.

Get started on this today.

2007 © Laurie Hayes - The HBB Source

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Article Tags: Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, home based business, international mastermind, John Burroughs, mastermind group, mastermind group, Thomas Edison Harvey Firestone



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Mastermind Article - Thanks Melanie - I'm looking forward to reading your ongoing thoughts on Mastermind groups in the Mastermind Resources blog!
Blog pinging - Thanks Martin - yes, I do ping and it has been very effective. I'm currently on the first page of Google for Mastermind Group and on the second page for Selling to Small Business.
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
Re: How do you budget your life? - Here is my financial management categories for today: 15% Long Term Savings; 10% Home Expenses; 45% Business and Marketing charges; 10% Friends (Meeting); 20$ Scientific and Law Books. But this will change when it is August or September. Orxan
BNI Groups - do they work? - Hi Lesley, From the members in my Mastermind Group I've heard a number of positive and negative things about BNI Groups. Just like a Mastermind Group, it all depends on who the people are. If the personalities fit and the members can add value to your business it can be worth checking out. The best bet is to go to a meeting as a guest to get a sense of who is in the group and if it is for you. It doesn't cost you anything except a little extra sleep the morning of. Good luck!


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