Written by: Heidi Richards Mooney, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you participate in an online forum, one that has a small but targeted group of highly motivated, successful individuals each with a similar goal of achieving great success? These groups can have long-term benefits because you come into contact with people you might never meet or have the opportunity to interact with, without the platform that social media offers. They too can offer similar outcomes of the more traditional masterminds; to learn from a variety of perspectives, to get ideas from more people, to brainstorm ways to tackle everyday challenges… and more.
My definition of a mastermind group:
A group of people who meet on a regular basis to exchange ideas, seek the advice of the group, be held accountable to following thru on your commitments and to share resources; a mastermind group can be the epicenter of new ideas.”
If you are like other small business owners, you may feel isolated and that no one really understands the challenges you face in your business. A Mastermind Group will help you feel less isolated and alone.
Over the years, I have been involved in several masterminds. Some of them meet/met in person, some were and are online exchanges between female speakers around the world. Some were started by others and I was invited to attend, some were started or co-founded by me.
Regardless of who started the group, each of them has helped me both professionally and personally, taking my businesses to new levels of success and helping me to crystalize my purpose in life and set the goals required to achieve my purpose) both long-term and immediate. My mastermind groups have helped me to find out what it was I was really working toward, helped me set and achieve goals as well as offering the kind of encouragement that was necessary when things didn’t always go my way.
There are several benefits you can receive from participating in a mastermind group. Before deciding which group to get involved in or to start, you must first ask yourself what it is you want from a mastermind group as well as what you can contribute to the group.
Highly successful mastermind groups work best when you follow a few simple guidelines:
People - When deciding who would best fit in your group, choose people who have specialized knowledge you lack. Enlisting people with very different outlooks strengthens a mastermind group.
Time - Make a time commitment and stick to it. It doesn’t matter if you meet once a week or once a month. The point is that when you decide the frequency, make the commitment, and don’t allow anything except serious emergencies to interfere with your date.
Focus - Create an agenda to follow. This provides a sense of order during your meetings. Sample agendas might include an open discussion at the beginning of the meeting and then focusing on individual challenges for about 20 minutes each.
One of my groups focused on one member’s challenge each meeting with the others offering their feedback or advice. Each member gets her turn to share. This is very powerful because each of us learns something from the other’s challenges. My online group meets in a “chat room” and we each ask a question (there are 5 of us). The other 4 offer their responses. We meet for approximately one hour and we have an open discussion at the end of the meeting if there is time.
Simplicity - Keep it Small and Simple. If your group is too large you run into the challenge of everyone not having sufficient time to present their own challenges. Groups of 4 to 7 seem to work best.
The Rules - Decide on your rules of engagement in the very beginning. In many of my groups, we openly discuss details of our companies with the understanding that our “inside” secrets” are never divulged outside of our group. What happens in a mastermind should stay in that mastermind. You may even consider having everyone sign a non-disclosure agreement before they are accepted into the group, especially if sensitive information may be shared.
Structure - Depending on the nature of your group you might consider assigning a facilitator for each meeting to keep the group on target. You learn to facilitate by doing it.
Be Accountable - Another key component I should mention is that a true mastermind has an accountability component – that means we help one another achieve our goals by asking how we are doing, offering encouragement and “holding our feet to the fire” when we share our goals and our timelines for achieving them.
Loosen Up - Yes, it's important to take your work seriously as well as those of the other members of your group. But it's also important to make your meetings interesting, and yes, even fun. If it's too serious, it will be more difficult to create a feeling of camaraderie and trust.
I love the interaction and dynamic flow of ideas that occur during my mastermind group meetings and cannot wait to get to work on everyone’s suggestions. It is exciting to see the results and bask in the knowledge that my goals were achieved more easily and, in less time, than had I done it ‘on my own.’
When you participate in a mastermind group you will see an immediate change in how you approach your own challenges. And the other benefit is that it makes you really look at problems from a new perspective – you find that business owners are more alike than different even when we “sell” a different product or solution to our own target audience.
“Being involved in mastermind groups for more than 25 years has been more rewarding for me than I could ever describe, in that I have received so much more than I could ever give back.”
If you are stuck, in a rut or simply need some guidance on the next steps to take to achieve your goals, consider participating in a mastermind group (or start one of your own).
Amy Poehler said it best:
"I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people who dream, and support, and do things."
Heidi Richards Mooney, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Heidi is a professional speaker (past president for Floridas Speakers Association) an author, coach, small business owner, internet marketing and social media expert who specializes in helping clients get their Website, Blog, and social media channels noticed. She teaches audiences how to GROW their business using targeted social media channels including Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.
Heidi is also the publisher of several online magazines including WE Magazine for Women, Women of Wisdom Magazine, Marketing Small Business Magazine, Inventing Women Magazine, and Flowers Galore Magazine. She brings a unique combination of experience, technical expertise, and traditional marketing skills as well as creative new marketing approaches to maximize her clients online and social media presence. "
