Tapping the Power of Leverage in a Mastermind Group

Guest Contributor: Wendy Piersall
Wendy's Posts - Wendy's Blog


Ever since I first seriously started working with a coach back in January of 2004, I've been keenly aware of the power of the pain vs. pleasure principle.

Simply stated, we will always do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure.

In fact, my own coach was masterful in helping his clients to make changes in their lives - changes they hadn't been able to make for years. Indeed, lifetimes.

His approach was simply to get them to see that it was more painful to not change than it was to change. Usually all it took was a bit of the "Dicken's Process" - as in Scrooge. Scrooge would never change simply by looking at the pain in his past or present. It was the pain of the future, of seeing the consequences of holding onto his old ways that was the leverage he needed to make a shift - and it was a big shift indeed.

In the mastermind groups I have both run and participated in, we use leverage as a tool to maximize our success and productivity. But sometimes the suggestions our colleagues have made to help us grow our businesses are a bit painful to implement.

Write a business plan in a week?

Make 500 cold calls?

Send out 50 press releases?

Yet when we put leverage in place, we make it much easier to commit to getting the stuff done - Recent examples include:

"If I fail at meeting my commitments, I will..."

Give each mastermind group member $100 (or $1000 - whatever is painful to you!)

Go without TV for a month

Sign the title of my car over to my mother-in-law

Some members don't like using painful leverage as a tool, but can still benefit from the principle by using the flip side - putting rewards in place for getting stuff done.

Although I've received the most benefit out of utilizing leverage in a true mastermind group setting, I recently started a kick off to the week on eMoms at Home as a benefit to my blog readers (and to myself!). Monday Motivation Day is when we all commit to finishing a task by the end of the day, and put some leverage in place. Its simple community-building fun as we support each other in getting rid of procrastination and getting a great start to the week. Feel free to join us!