Turbo-Charging Your MasterMind Group

Guest Contributor: Julia Wert-Marrocco
Julia's Posts - Julia's Blog


Mastermind Groups, just like any person or group of people, on its own, will take the path of least resistance, unless someone helps push the group along. Sometimes people in the group are naturally big thinkers,doers, and encouragers, but not always.

Some MasterMind Groups, however, are finding themselves going nowhere, or even dissolving.

When the group and the individuals in the group are not moving forward, there are some things you can do to re-start the group's engine:

1. Change/rotate leaders. It's easy to get into habits (and ruts). The group may need new leadership. Change it around on a regular basis. You might want to change leadership every quarter or so, depending on how often you meet. fresh, new ideas and patterns of how you operate the group may be just the boost you need.

2. Begin to push each other out of your comfort zones. Your group always needs to be a place of trust and respect, but that does not mean a comfy, cushy, crying towel. It needs to be fertile soil for big new ideas, where you can make bold, daring promises and be held accountable to them.Step up to the plate, and ask each other to do the same. If they promise to work out twice a week, ask "why not 3 times?" etc.

3. Learn how to think bigger. My friend Charlie "Tremendous" Jones says, "5 years from now you will be the same person you are today, except for the books you read and the people you hang around". The only way you will learn to think bigger is with practice. The only way to practice thinking bigger is by reading, and by talking to big thinkers. I call this "pumping mental iron". Start letting your bigger ideas out. The group is a safe place for big ideas, even if they seem crazy at first; ideas can always be refined. Let them out!

4. Join a professionally faciliated group, or hire a professional facilitator to lead your group. Not someone to tell the group what to do, but someone to facilitate the group. A skilled facilitator will keep the group moving ahead, help identify when it is "stuck", make sure the objectives of the group are clear, and get each meeting started and wrapped up on time. You can pay anywhere from $100 to $2,000 a month per person to either join a professionally run group, or hire a professional facilitator to run your group. Consider the value of your time. This is well worth the money if it will really turbo-charge your group engine.

5. And, speaking of "pumping mental iron", what ARE you reading? Here's an idea for you: Why not have everyone in your group read a book, write a report on it, and give a copy to everyone else in the group? If you did this once a quarter and you have 5 people in your Mastermind group, essentially you will have read 20 extra books this year! If you did it once a month, you will read 60 extra books a year! Now THAT's pumping some mental iron!

6. Put some skin in the game. One cause of groups dissolving is that the members don't have anything invested in the group. If you charge a membership fee, people find more value, and are more apt to take the group seriously. You will weed out "wanna-be's", and end up with people who are serious about taking their lives or careers to a big "NEXT". I once paid $2,000 per month to belong to a specific MasterMind group that met 6 times a year. Do you think I put some effort into it? That's an understatement! It was life-transforming.

7. Do some homework. Time goes quickly and our lives can seem rather chaotic, and all of a sudden, tonight is the meeting and you are not prepared. With all the worries of the day, everyone arrives at the meeting waiting for someone to "lay the magic on them". WRONG.
But all too common. We've all been guilty. As a coach, I have this happen with clients. they come rushing into their appointment, panting, unprepared and wait for the magic to happen. If you have homework to complete before your next MasterMind meeting, you are more likely to implement the changes you have promised yourself, kept the thought process going, and come up with some new ideas in the meantime. You reap what you sow.

I hope these seven tips help you Turbo-Charge your MasterMind Group. Notice I did not title this "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective MasterMind Groups". Boring. Boring we are not.
(No offense, Stephen, it's just that we need to come up with our own material!)