Since January we have noticed a key change in the way this year's dental mastermind groups are developing.
Certainly the most significant change to our tactics has been to extend the meeting from one day (9 till 5) to a day and a half - delegates arrive Monday 1.00pm and leave at 5.00pm Tuesday. We are developing the following loose agenda:
Monday afternoon:
1. Welcome and introduction of new members 2. Reminder of the group's mission, promises and expectation; 3. Issue of extra pages to the membership folder, summarising key learning from last series of meetings; 4. Review of last quarter learning; 5. Review of individual member's last 90-days - highs and lows; 6. "shopping list" - establish each member's individual needs from this meeting; 7. Thought Leadership - Chris and Simon (the coaches) share their philosophy on what's happening in the profession right NOW.
Monday evening:
Casual dinner (important to leave the delegates to get to know each other - Simon and I usually retire early)
Tuesday:
1. PowerPoint presentation on a key subject (theme for the quarter); 2. Open discussion; 3. Completion of shopping lists; 4. Goals for next 90 days; 5. Feedback and close.
What has surprised and delighted Simon and I is that the delegates want the PowerPoint to be as brief as possible - so that they can get on with discussing their own issues. This has freed the coaches (us) from the need to educate, train, entertain - and allowed us to co-discover answers with the delegates.
We are amazed at how many ideas are emerging from the group - ideas that are providing us with on-the-spot research and development for the creation of new material with which to market ourselves.
The clients are coming up with the ideas - because we have created a safe environment in which they have the time and space so to do.
That's a win-win if I ever heard one.
We have also enrolled our existing members as our unpaid sales-force - asking them to recommend new members for "their" group.
Our operations manager told us on Monday that 80% of the calls she is accepting are from potential new clients.
We are generating curiosity in the UK dental profession, we are visible, we have good reputations - and we are growing!
I am fortunate to be mentored by Jay Abraham (probably the foremost marketing and personal/business development mind in the game.) Several hundred participate in his monthly calls on developing passive income streams.
As you know, I belong to two masterminds. I should tell you, having nothing to do with masterminding that in my international group there is now a new mother and an about to be mother. I'm 71.
I've set up and just had my first meeting of a third, brand new mastermind, comprising people in my mentoring group. There are 10 of us. Our objective is to support ourselves in developing passive income opportunities. We assume that not all of us will make the call each time, but I've arranged to have them recorded. We know this will give the rotating time keeper a great deal of responsibility. The time allocated for each of us can change each call (every other week.) By the time my next article is written we will have completed our first two two sessions, in which five of us introduce ourselves each time - and we'll have gotten down to work.
Each session will start with anyone who needs time requesting it and with anyone with no requests for coaching to bow out for the call. Like I said, this will certainly train the time keeper in time management.
Why not have more than one?---One for general entrepreneur activities, one for furthering our commitments to make a difference in the world and one to develop passive income streams... well worth three hours a month.
Two different Master Mind groups I belong to have each welcomed guests in the last few weeks. It was interesting to watch what happened and remember what it felt like to be a first-time visitor to one of these dynamic groups.
One group meets weekly at a local restaurant and the facilitator did a wonderful job of letting the visitor know what to expect, how our structure works, and to just sit back and observe the process. She was then given the opportunity to tell us about her business, current challenges, and ask the group for advice. After the meeting, many members talked more with her one-on-one, she was given membership information and invited back for a 2nd visit. There was no confusion on her part and we all treated her as if she was already a member. We will welcome her back with the same open arms if she decides to visit again, or better still, officially join the group.
The other group is virtual - we meet once a month via phone since we are in different parts of the U.S. - and we are rather informal. One member asked to invite a guest who was interested in joining. He seemed to have lots of information and experience to share with the rest of us and was excited about the idea of joining our monthly calls. He was given the call-in information and a briefing by the member who invited him on what to expect and how we invite open discussion about our respective coaching businesses. He dialed in on time and was greeted warmly, asked to introduce himself, and to chime in on any of the topics being discussed. This visitor jumped right in and became very comfortable with our informal friendly discussion. He asked about next month’s call and has committed to becoming a member.
The difference in the groups is obvious - one is very structured and has a fee-based membership. The members are committed to the development of their companies and embrace the idea of paying monthly dues for the privilege of being part of a supportive, professional group led by a business expert. The other is casual, conference call based, and made up of open discussion led by no one in particular. We adapt to whichever pressing issue any one brings to the conference call table and easily stay in touch throughout the month via email. The similarity of the groups is even more obvious to me and perhaps surprising to our first-time visitors - we are all of the mindset that we can succeed in whatever endeavor we choose with the support of like minds. Remember this wonderful aspect of "Master Minding" regardless of your group's structure or size and be proud of the image and energy we give to our visitors. They'll soon get the hang of it and learn that there’s no catch - we gather together simply to support each other in reaching our goals!
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!)
As the initiator of the Mastermind Group I attend every week, I had the idea at the beginning that somehow I was responsible for it, in the sense that I had started it and I was leading it forward and so I had to be present at every session to inform, guide, facilitate, structure, focus, energize, etc. Even though I often invite another member of the group to lead a session, or co-facilitate it, or run a workshop or whatever, and we're a very supportive and pro-active group as a whole, essentially I've felt up to now that I'm the one providing the MM service for the others.
This week though, I failed on every level to do any of those things; I forgot my notes, I hadn't made the time to plan the session ahead of time, and was generally so preoccupied with my own life that I got to the session in a state very different than my usual relaxed, prepared and positive self. Immediately after I stuttered some sort of opening sentence, the group, and I mean the group, not just an individual, asked me what was wrong and what was bothering me - after 7 months of meeting every week, and sharing our thinking and ideas, it's easy enough to tell if someone isn't on their usual form.
So, I apologized and described the business problem I'd had that week and the stress I'd experienced as a result by way of explanation. How great then is the power of the Mastermind? The next thing I knew, everyone in the group had a personal experience about that aspect of business to share to try and help me. Over the course of the next hour, contributions came from everyone in the form of practical advice, suggestions for possible solutions, examples of different outcomes exampled in similar situations, albeit in completely different industries, lots of questions and a lively open discussion about my particular situation and how I might approach it. It was such a useful session that I took notes - there was so much to take in and remember. I thanked everyone at the end - I was so grateful for everyone's input to my problems and apologized again for being off-form/off-plan.
Attitudes towards attending a MM group are so important for the group to function at a true Mastermind level - I have always asked people to remember to think not "what did I get out of that?" after a session, but "what did I give or contribute to that?". I felt almost guilty after this session that I'd got so much out of it and hadn't really given anything except the problem to discuss. Over the next few days though, I got calls one by one from the group - to see if I was OK, to see how my problem/solution was going, but mainly to say 'thanks' and to let me know that it was one of the most enjoyable and useful of our sessions to date as the subject was something relevant to anyone in business, ie. all of us in our particular group.
I'm just so grateful now to have found the Mastermind process and to be able to participate in it and continue to learn from it and contribute to it in whatever capacity I can.
"What do you mean there are rules?!" A new mastermind member said to me in an exasperated tone.
In any good mastermind group you of course want rules and neutral people to enforce them, we actually call ours the sheriff. He is not the one who actually founded the group, so he doesn't have a biased opinion in fact, he keeps everyone in check ,including the founder.
"Without rules there would be total chaos," I answered. "It's a mastermind group, not a competition in here. It's a safe place without judgment where people can learn and support each other," I responded.
That's what rules do. They keep us in check and create the atmosphere where people can be supported and be positive to each other. There is no cross recruiting or selling of any kind in the group or negative talk towards others for that matter. Three strike rule applies and if people test it, they find out.
See, that's what separates a group such as a mastermind from just a social networking or forum where there is a lot of pitching being done and no one is really learning or working as a team to help each other on their chosen path.
So, if you're thinking of joining a mastermind or even starting one, sit down and think of what you want and don't want to see in the group you belong to. You want to create a positive, encouraging atmosphere that makes the mastermind a true inspiration.
One of my mastermind group members has a problem disentangling himself from a personal relationship that is strangling his success. We've been using the experience of others in the group, especially those who've dealt with similar situations, to brainstorm ways he can move forward but he is fragile and depressed and can only respond to these with "yes, but..."
But before our meeting is ended, he picks up on a couple of the offered suggestions and says he will try. I hope he does more than try. And the group will be holding him accountable.
This is most certainly not a therapy group although it can be therapeutic. I notice that with each meeting as we get to know each other better, start to build a shared history, we become more trusting and aspects of our lives that are a bit more intimately challenging, we may disclose more readily knowing that all members of the group are committed to helping each other and to our success.
Together we can solve problems, gain insights and added motivation and achieve our goals quicker and more successfully than if we were trying to do it on our own.
We have a long way to go yet. Some people need to listen more and talk less, some to fully commit to attending meetings, some to ensure they both set their goals and keep to them, and all need to keep challenging each other to maintain the spirit and ethos of the mastermind group.
One of the vital essences of building a strong bond with each other though is that we have compatible interests. My group was arbitrarily formed from a course we did together as a group interested in creating greater financial success. Many mastermind groups are formed on the basis accelerating financial success.
However we assumed that meant we had similar visions and that isn't necessarily so. And what we acknowledged from the start was that financial success could not be entirely separated from taking a more holistic approach.
We are still coming to terms with being at different levels of our wealth creation journeys and with different needs. We have to work on that. And that will become more apparent as we work at creating stronger bonds with each other.
Our Master Mind will be getting some publicity in the next month in a newspaper article I proposed to the Features editor that I write for.
Several people will profit from the newspapers article.
Our Master Mind group members are aware of the article and in agreement with it. We plan to share quotes about why we started the Master Mind group and what the personal benefits have been to each of us during the first year of its conception. We'll also share our goals for the following year.
The other group members will share how they have created small businesses, something they had been wanting to do for years.
I also plan to mention the publication of my first children's book, something I never thought would have been possible a year ago when our Master Mind group began.
This blog will also be mentioned as it was the result of me posting a note about the Master Mind group on my blog. Evan Carmichael read it and asked me to do a column.
If you've never advertised your Master Mind group, consider doing so. Think of the other people in your city or organization that would be interested in doing more with their careers and lives. We can only profit from sharing each other's experiences and joys and challenges.
Can you think of other ways to share news about your Master Mind group's successes?
Have you ever been in a mastermind group where the energy seemed to be falling flat? Maybe the group's communication is a bit low, people seem distracted, commitments are not being met or even members just aren't showing up for the meetings.
A stale mastermind can start to have a counteractive impact on your goals, dreams and bottom line. If people aren't engaged, the "third mind" thinking that is created with a fresh, sizzling group can't be accessed.
A few years ago I found myself in that very place. My much loved and treasured mastermind was falling apart and I didn't know how to get them back on track. It seemed that no one was really that excited anymore.
Now I don't know if you are like me, but I counted on my mastermind group to help me connect to out-of-the-box ideas and to keep me on track with my high ROI opportunities. So when my group wasn't working, it meant I wasn't able to tap into the synergy that I thrived in.
So how do you get a deflated mastermind group back on track? Here are four ideas to get that sizzle back.
1. Create a 30 day personal challenge. Have you ever noticed how a short sprint on the treadmill can get your juices flowing quickly? It's the same with a 30 day challenge. Plus it can really boost the morale for the group to see everyone leaping forward with a goal.
2. Change up the agenda. Maybe everyone is bored with the same ole-same ole way of doing things. Change it up every meeting so that things are fresh. If you always do "hot seats" maybe the next meeting should have a theme?
3. Trim the deadweight. Your group may just need to drop the people who are bringing the energy down. The people who aren't engaged will act like a black hole that sucks the good energy right out. If someone isn't showing up at 100%, it might be time to release them and invite new energy into the group.
4. Have a fun meeting. Could you put a little zip in the group by having a fun meeting? Maybe it's time to have a mastermind retreat at a four-star resort or meet for drinks at a favorite restaurant? Putting more social time in place may help people feel more connected to each other and increase the loyalty and commitment to the group.
My group began to thrive again by using two of these strategies. We let go of some members who just weren't willing to play at a higher level and we instituted quarterly "retreats" at four star resorts. Our first retreat was in Vegas at the Ritz Carlton. It was exactly what the Doctor ordered to get us back on track!
One of the most important keys to success is knowing what you want (your goals). In coaching, I often see people who either are not clear about what they want, or, not sure about how to get it. Having a clear intention and goal is the very first step. It's important to know not just what you want, but WHY you want it. You might need to do some soul searching to have that clarity. A professional life coach can help you with that. Knowing WHY you want a particular goal will help you stay focused and persevere when you hit a roadblock.
Once you are clear about what you want, it's time to come up with an action plan to move you toward your goals. It's helpful to have a mentor, colleague or a life coach to brainstorm with you, give you guidance, and offer resources. Another effective strategy is using a mastermind group to help you achieve your goals.
A mastermind group, by definition, is a group of like-minded people sharing common goals. As with one-on-one coaching, a mastermind group also offers accountability and support for the members. I have written several posts on using mastermind group for personal and business success.
There are many ways you can use a mastermind group to help you achieve your goals. Today I'd like to focus on one specific key to getting what you want, and that is, asking for what you want. It sounds so simple and common sense, but, you'd be surprised that many people don't ask for what they want, or don't know how to ask for what they want.
People don't ask for what they want for many reasons. Maybe they don't know exactly what they want (lack of clarity). Maybe they are afraid of being judged, ridiculed or rejected. Maybe they don't want to "impose" on or burden others. Maybe they are afraid of appearing to be pushy or needy. We sometimes assume that if we ask for help, others will think of us as inadequate or incompetent. The truth is, most people want to be helpful to others, and they will happily help you if only you would ask for it. In my previous post The Gift of Receiving, I pointed out that, by asking for help, you are actually giving the person a gift, because he/she gets to experience the great feeling of giving/helping someone else. All you have to do is ask.
I remember almost 20 years ago, when I attended the Landmark Forum and the Self Expression and Leadership Program, one of the assignments was for us to make an "unreasonable request". We did it over dinner break, and over the weekend. That was an eye-opener. Most people came back to report that they thought they were making very unreasonable requests, and were fully prepared to be turned down. Instead, they were amazed that they got what they wanted. Obviously, some of these so-called "unreasonable" requests were not so unreasonable, after all.
If you don't like the idea of asking for help, substitute the word "help" with "support". We all need a support system. As human beings, nobody can survive without the support from others. It's completely healthy and essential to ask for the support you need, in both your personal and professional lives.
Coming back to mastermind group. It's important to let your group know exactly what your goals are, and what kind of support you need from them. Perhaps it's weekly accountability check-in and encouragement; perhaps it's certain type of leads; or perhaps it's specific tools or resources for your project. Let your group members know what you need, and set up the structure (e.g. weekly check-in calls, accountability buddy) that supports your goals.
I found this wonderful mastermind resource at Mary Robinson Reynolds Make A Difference site. At her site you can find inspirational movies (I highly recommend them) and other resources, including MasterMinding. She listed "7 Steps to the MasterMind Connection". They are:
1. I SURRENDER ordinary thinking. 2. I FOCUS my intention to be open to all possibilities. 3. I DECIDE differently. Within and without, I call all things past, all things present, all things future, a success. 4. I KNOW that, when two or more minds come together in the spirit of harmony, peace and good will, the accomplishment of my goals, dreams and desires will be intentionally created through this alliance, to bring about easy effectiveness, energy and good to all. 5. I ASK my partner's support in seeing and believing for me what I really want. 6. I ACCEPT and receive all that I am aligned with. 7. I DEDICATE myself to be of maximum service to those around me, to be a living example of what humanity can be and to practice "harmlessness" in generating peace, love, harmony and good will in my world. I am grateful and relaxed... and so it is.
Mary has written a complete script that you can use, and instructions of how to use this MasterMinding process. You can use it with another person, or with a mastermind group. As Napoleon Hill wrote, "No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind." It is in this "third mind" that possibilities thrive.
Whether you use this MasterMinding process or something else, the point is, to get what you want, you've got to ask for what you want. It's something that's worth trying in your next mastermind group meeting, and in your everyday life.
EvanCarmichael.com is the world's #1 website for small business motivation and strategies. Evan also runs a series of successful Mastermind Groups in Toronto for entrepreneurs.
Guest Contributor: Chris Barrow
