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
Mastermind Your Way To Home Business Success - To learn more about this author, visit Laurie Hayes's Website.
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