Last week, I attended a business development training offered by iPEC Coaching for its graduates. At the beginning, Bruce Schneider, the founder of iPEC Coaching, asked how many of us belong to a mastermind group that's dedicated to building our businesses. Surprisingly, very few coaches raised their hands. I myself belong to a coaches mastermind group that meets once a month. We hone our skills as coaches and share resources for building our businesses. It's wonderful to have my mastermind group keeping me motivated and updated on the coaching business.
One of the exercises we did was to identify our key talents and skills in running a successful business. Four key areas were identified: speaking, networking, marketing and sales. These are the four basic skills or areas an entrepreneur needs to be successful.
Next step, we were asked to identify our #1 skill and the one area that we have the most challenge with, and wrote them on our name tags.
We all have at least one or two things that we can do effortlessly. Perhaps you are a great public speaker. Perhaps you are an amazing "connector", a brilliant marketer or a convincing salesperson. Oftentimes we take our gifts and talents for granted, because they come so easily for us. We underestimate our gifts and talents, because we can do them effortlessly. We thought "everyone else" could do just the same. It's often when we hear others' compliments over and over again, that it begins to dawn on us that perhaps we do have some unique skills that others don't possess.
At that training, we were asked to walk around the room and find people with complementary skills. We were to find people we could partner for projects, mastermind groups, or even become business partners. The point is, instead of trying to be everything and do everything ourselves, it's much more effective, not to mention more enjoyable, if we could just focus on doing what we do best, and find someone else to do what we're not so good at. That way, everyone gets to leverage his/her unique gifts and talents, and everyone wins.
So, we were walking around the room looking at everyone's name tags, trying to find those who possess skills we don't have. Soon it was obvious to everyone that we've got a roomful of speakers, and very few salespeople. That didn't come as such a shock to me. Well, think about it, we are all coaches, and most coaches are also speakers. However, it presented a great challenge not to have enough salespeople in the room for us to partner with. We all got the point. Obviously, we all need to reach outside of the coaches community and look for other qualified marketing and sales professionals to complete our mastermind & business teams.
So, this is what I've been working on lately - looking for strategic alliances as well as admin help to complete my team.
How about you? Have you identified your key strengths? Are you leveraging your unique gifts & talents? Do you have your A-Team assembled?
What brought you to your Master Mind group? The desire to start or develop a business? The intention of meeting new friends and achieving goals together? The need of support of a desired life change?
Whatever the reason, the process of positive change began with you and your conscious decision to make something more from what you had. It all started with the belief that you do have the power to truly transform your life into something that has immense meaning and fulfillment for you, no matter what your age, title, or experience.
That creative power is enormously multiplied when you gather with the like minds of a Master Mind group and support each other in your individual endeavors. The power of your thought about making a change, when coupled with the support of your fellow members, is invaluable.
In the words of Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), American author and creator of the "Philosophy of Achievement" teachings, and the great Master Mind advocate:
"First comes thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination."
Maintaining a mastermind group is a big responsibility. There are meetings to organize, schedules to make, it can be a challenge. Leaders realize they need a team to be successful. A good leader doesn't let ego get in the way. They're happy to delegate and rely on the support of others on their team.
So how do you find your leaders? You could find people with common goals, similar methods and styles. But do you need to find people like you? Or do you want leaders that compliment each other and bring their own experience and vision.
So where are these people? They could be anywhere. They have varying degrees of experience and success in business and in life. These people don't call themselves leaders. They just do what comes naturally. They help other people. They lead with their heads and their hearts.
Often times all you need to do is pay attention. You will recognize these people. They tend to attract the people around them. In the mastermind we talk about energy. The sense of feeling we all get when we're around certain people.
Just as certain people make us feel down or anxious, there are people who lift us up, make us feel energized. Leaders energize us. We can sense the lack of personal agenda, that genuine interest in helping us. Those people are leaders, even if they don't call themselves leaders.
Whether you're running a mastermind, working a business or are active in your community.Pay attention, listen and learn. No one can do it by themselves and no matter how successful you are there's always something to learn.
Recently, we started an experiment regarding the scope of our mastermind group. We are basing much of the content of our weekly meetings around the ideas raised in Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich". Hill recommends following a 6-step plan of sustained action to achieve your Burning Desire, and so far all of us have failed in our personal attempts to follow this advice.
So, we decided as a group to foster action by adding a weekly Power Morning to our schedule. The principle seems simple enough - each week those of us who can spare a few hours meet up to generously give our time and individual skills to help a specific member of the group to take action towards their personal business goals. The member in question is required to do a little pre-planning on this of course, so that on the day they can confidently direct the rest of us to make best use of our time and energies. The ideal scenario is that we have an action-packed, dynamic morning, creatively and harmoniously drawing on each others' talents propelling us forward on our quests...
However, in practice, it isn't quite working out as we'd all imagined. The first participant overslept (very uncharacteristic of her) and was ruffled and unprepared when the mastermind team arrived at her studio raring to go. The morning was consequently a bit disorganised and much less productive than it could have been, leaving the group feeling a bit flat. The second session was organised and productive, but it was a little unclear to the group exactly what purpose their actions served, so they questioned the value of contributing their precious time. And the third session was ambitious, in that the participant planned everyone's individual tasks down to the letter, except that the tasks more suitable for a week of action rather than a few hours, so the general feeling was of disappointment or frustration of being asked to do too much and not being able to complete what was started.
Although the Power Mornings from the group's point of view are focused on giving generously and gratefully, rather than what we can get out of them, and as such are based on a worthy ethos, my intuition tells me that in this case the Power Mornings will have to go. Meeting up twice a week with the same particular group is, it turns out, a huge time commitment that could turn into a chore rather than something we all look forward to. And becoming more directly involved in each other's businesses changes the dynamics of the actual mastermind session itself - it makes the process more personal and subjective; it risks losing the more objective and constructively-critical viewpoints we started out with that are so valuable when exchanging ideas and coaching members to find solutions and ways forward.
Achieving the right frequency for your group might take a little experimentation to find out what works, but getting the balance right is crucial if the group is to survive and continue to strengthen and develop.
I guess I have a lot to share - something from each of my masterminds - now 3. So, first: The more the merrier. The mastermind calls take no time - four hours every two weeks. And each group has different people, of course and a different purpose.
I can't decide how to call them - let's go A,B,C
Group A, the longest and most stable. Each of us has a commitment to fulfill a worldwide mission. The structure is essentially: Share and accomplishment, request coaching, hear the coaching and commit to one or more.
I am currently working on coaching professional staffs on workplace relationships. I've authored a book called The Laws of Relationships. I'm trying to figure out how to spread its influence. I had a flash of inspiration, to generate my book into an e-course and market that to other coaches. Because professional staffs are an under served market. So when I had that mastermind only a few minutes later, I didn't ask for coaching.
One of the participants said, I'm incomplete with this. How come you're not chomping at the bit for the coaching this group provides? I was going to blow her off, but she started me really thinking (so much so that I passed it on to other groups.) I saw she had caught me in, “I already know - so I don't need coaching” - a way of thinking that pops up over and over and keeps me stuck. So a great mastermind question - why aren't you chomping at the bit for the coaching?
Group B. One of our weekly group, R, (now grown to 5 people) is a born-again Christian; the other 4 of us are Jewish. R is called to serve people by 'spreading the word' and wonders whether he belongs in our group. This opened up a profound discussion, that lasted 2 sessions. We were all called upon to look at our own spiritual values and our relationship to his strong feelings. We're perfectly content with his contributions. And -if anything - he has altered our pre-existing assumptions.
Group C, the just begun business group. I was hosting and probably will until we have greater stability. What struck me was when one of the members objected to the coaching mindset. He simply said, why don't we each raise an issue and then have suggestions on how to resolve it? Interesting how the vocabulary shifts the context. I have no objections at all to his phraseology. And I agree with him about the implications that 'a coach' is on a higher level than a mere mortal.
In my last post I discussed the importance of rules in a mastermind group. I read somewhere that without rules there is chaos, and I have to say I agree. I mean, we don't always like the rules but let's face it, they are there for a reason. I am a mother of two and also run a private dayhome and I definitely need rules!
So, if you were to set up your own mastermind group or going to join one what are some rules that your group would benefit from to keep it in tact?
I will give you examples through some of the rules one of the mastermind groups I belong to uses. Now, it's my belief that it's much easier to have accountability when you have a group where people are meeting face to face. But online, I find especially for newer people, that they may have more anonymity and have a tendency to not follow the rules the same way they would in person. Our mastermind group chats online through skype groups, web conferences and the phone. The best way I have seen the rules work is with a monitor. We do have a gentleman appointed by everyone who actually monitors the conversations to be sure they are appropriate and safe for everyone. Especially our chat area that's open 24 hours a day, what we call the "virtual water cooler".
We call our monitor the sheriff because he is unbiased and everyone in the group feels they can turn to him when there is a problem or even a question. This can be a tricky thing when appointing someone in this position because it can be a powerful position or detrimental position if not taken seriously. Our group just happens to be very fortunate to have a sheriff who exudes the leadership and trustworthy qualities that makes him the perfect man for the job. If someone does say something out of line, (including the one who originally started the group), he/she is immediately called on it, any inappropriate words or conversations in the chat are deleted and the person will be given a warning and if not stopped, will be removed from the group.
These enforced rules creates a safe haven where people can discuss what's on their mind or brainstorm ideas without being judged or criticized.
The other point of rules is to keep the atmosphere positive within the mastermind group. The outside world can often be a negative place that doesn't influence creativity, entrepreneurialism and other freedoms of the like. The rules will set the tone of a positive and support place for people to go. So, are you catching my drift of what a fantastic influence rules can be in a mastermind group?
Since our mastermind includes people who run businesses from home, another rule is no cross recruiting, sales pitches, spamming, etc.
Inviting new people into the mastermind group - we can all invite people but we must propose each new member to a leaders board to be approved before entering the group.
Those of us on the leaders board are also expected to lead or be part of the trainings. This is a huge benefit to being part of a mastermind group - the trainings. Our particular group is based around online marketing so the leaders use their strengths to help others who may be new to online marketing, wanting to pick up tips or just share their ideas with so they don't feel all alone in the marketplace. It can take a lot of work to run a mastermind group and having all of these leaders working together to help trainings run, monitoring the chats and answering questions when needed helps everything run smoothly.
This rule is another great one, it's orientation. People are required to attend a type of orientation before being active in the group. This is a huge benefit, so that the new people can feel comfortable when first joining and they aren't fumbling around in the dark, so to speak, when they attend trainings. It takes care of the small stuff first so they can get down to the fun part of joining a mastermind group - participation!
This week I finished the draft for my second children's book and sent it to my publisher to review. A year ago, I would not have believed this accomplishment was possible.
Being in a Master Mind group has helped me think of doing the impossible with my freelance writing career. The friends in my group encourage me to dream and then think of ways to advance my writing career and fulfill my dreams. Over the past year, their suggestions have helped to get my mind off current writing assignments with local publications and focus on bigger markets.
When our Master Mind group began, I sincerely did not want to take on the responsibility of writing a book. The length of time it would take to write a book didn't appeal to me. My negative attitude about book writing experiences was due to stories I had heard from other writers.
However, with the encouragement of my Master Mind friends, during the past year, I approached a publisher of children's books that a professor had recommended from a class I took on children's writing. She said if we had never published a book before, this would be a good publisher to approach to get your foot in the door.
I thought, well, this is what my friends have been telling me to do to enlarge my territory, so to speak (from the Prayer of Jabez). I thought I could probably handle writing a small children's book if given an assignment.
So I contacted the publisher, saying I was interested in writing for them. Within a few days, she wrote back, telling me to send a resume and writing samples. I sent them right away and a couple of days later, she then offered me an assignment with a due date of 2 months.
I finished the book on time and she assigned me three more in a series. I've finished the first one of those and am working on the next ones.
I spell out this process out to let you know how fast your life can change with a Master Mind group. A year ago, I would not have believed this could happen to me.
But this publisher, whose name I'll divulge later when the book is released, is great to work with. It's being produced in a timely manner and will be something I'll be proud of. Over all, it's been a really pleasant and exciting experience.
A step in my career I had not wanted or anticipated is now coming true. It's like a dream and it is due in large part to my Master Mind group.
What giant steps are you taking in your career, due to Master Mind encouragement? What words of advice would you have for someone in your group to encourage them to think big?
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: Hueina Su
