Do you ever wish you had a resource that you could find answers to some of your biggest challenges with just a phone call? In this episode, Jimmy shares the importance of joining a MasterMind Group and the benefits you will receive for doing so.

Episode Keys

• Two books that will change your life if you simply read and implement the strategies from within their pages!
• How to gain accountability for reaching your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals in life.
• How often your MasterMind Group should meet to keep current and relevant in the ever-changing world in which we live.
• Why it is critical to your growth, personally and professionally, that you must join a MasterMind Group!
• The structure of the group’s communication process allow for easy, effective sharing of ideas among members.

Podcast Transcription

In the last few weeks we’ve talked about your mind set. We’ve talked about what you contribute, develop, and bring out of your mind. But today I’m going to throw fuel on the fire. I am going to bring you a great opportunity and tool that will take the mindset you have and exponentially bring forth great information and ideas.

Hey, good morning! This is Jimmy Williams for Live a Life By Design, your Monday morning moments of motivation that’ll help make you the bigger, better, and bolder you that you desire. Today is a unique day. The reason I say it’s unique is because this is the day of the starting of the week, where you can set the tone of how productive you wish to be, or just how little you wish to get done by allowing the words of distraction, the people of disruption to take you off the mark.

I’m going to share something today with you that has been instrumental in my life in the past several years. I’ve not been shy about telling you about the coaching programs I participate in on a regular basis. This is something that is, if you will, an addendum to coaching. This is something that helps you and those that are attending with you find their greatest information. So, you know it’s important to understand what this means when I mention to you the type of group I am speaking. I am going to share with you something that I first heard of from a book that dates back to 1925. Yes, almost 100 years ago this concept was being utilized by some of the greatest minds, the greatest thinkers, of that era and those thinkers of that era created such great inventions and great deliverables for the public to improve their lives that it puts some of these gentlemen and ladies in the history books. What am I talking about? I am talking about mastermind groups.

Now, every profession that I’m aware has someone that has created a mastermind group. I’m going to talk with you in just a minute about what those groups are, how they’re formed, why they’re formed, who’s participating, and hopefully give you some of the best reasons as to why you must find or create a mastermind group for your career. Now, let’s dispel one thing. You’re thinking, “Well, I’ve got to be an entrepreneur,” or “I’ve got to be a CEO to be in a mastermind group.” And that is truly false. If you are an employee, whether you supervise people or not, you can be a better you by becoming involved in a mastermind group. So the point here is that you find something that you’re passionate about, something in your career that you wish to further develop, some idea that may not be present, but you did have in the back of your mind that you want to bring forth. That is the purpose of mastermind groups. There’s also other purposes and I will share those with you as we go through this exciting episode.

But before I do it, let’s talk about that mindset for just a brief moment. Not to rehash what we’ve already talked about in a previous episode, but if your mindset is one of finality, if your mindset is one of basically status quo, then a mindset group will not support or help you reach your bigger goals. You have to have the onset in your mind that you wish to be better tomorrow than you are today. You have to have this mindset of growth, abundance. You cannot get a growth opportunity in a mindset group by not contributing. You must be prepared when you attend a mastermind groups to help you contribute to the others that are there taking of their valuable time.

So what exactly is a mastermind group you ask, and why would anyone want to be a member of such a group? I got one word for you. I’ve already used it and that word is phenomenal growth. Now let’s take two words, exponential growth. That’s where this will take you if you have the right mindset. A mastermind group can consist of two or more people with a shared focus or goal. I referred earlier to this book back in 1925. It was a book written by Napoleon Hill, the famed author, and it was a concept that he coined in 1925 in his book, The Law of Success, and later developed the idea even further with his follow-up book, Think and Grow Rich. Now I gave you two titles just then. If you have a library or you are starting your own library, those are two books that should serve as the foundation of any growth-oriented library. You could not go in a better direction than starting with those two books.

You see, the benefits of aligning yourself with and participating in such a group are many. In this episode, we are going to explore the reasons for such formation of groups and why you must create or find a mastermind group for the purpose of reaching your full potential in life. You notice, I didn’t just say in your career. No, these organizations, these small groups, are there for the betterment of your life, not just the growth of your career. In my career, I’ve been very fortunate to join a mastermind group that consists of professionals that have become like brothers to me. There are five of us in this group and they desire to seek success at higher levels than they have previously reached, all the while, helping me see opportunities for reaching my own growth goals.

The ideal size of a mastermind group is, say six to eight people. Why do you think there’s such a number of that size of mastermind group? The reason being is administrative as well as creative. It simply makes the process of establishing and holding meetings easier, as well as a more manageable distribution of ideas. Now, these four other gentlemen that I am fortunate to have in a mastermind group have reached levels of success far beyond my current career. As a matter of fact, they have been in the same profession as me, but for much longer. These gentlemen are a little older than me, but I will tell you, they act 20 years younger when it’s coming to talk about their careers, their families, their profession, the excitement for their futures. It is something else. When we have our quarterly meeting, each of us holds the chairmanship for a meeting. We just rotate, and when it’s my turn, I actually am excited tremendously to open the meeting, and just ask what has been exciting in your life in the past 90 days? Open up the faucet and start writing down notes. That’s my job. And I will tell you, these gentlemen have been so inspiring that our business and my personal life could not have grown to the level of success we’ve already achieved had it not been for these four wonderful gentlemen. I appreciate their kindness in giving me the opportunity to join their excellent group.

But let’s talk about the frequency of mastermind group meetings. So mastermind meetings basically are on as frequent a basis as you need them. So many groups may meet twice a year. Some groups may meet once a year and they have a big in-person meeting. I believe that you need to have as frequent of meetings as necessary to be productive and continue to inspire each other and motivate each other to reach the best success possible.

So for our group, let’s visit about that. We hold, as I said, quarterly meetings. We hold three virtual meetings and one in-person. Now during COVID, of course we held all of them online, but we’re now back to where we can share some time and fun together, travel together safely, and we will be holding our next meeting at a location that’s going to be in warm weather, near a golf course. Does that tell you anything? We like to play hard and work hard at the same time, and probably in that order. But we’d like to meet quarterly and the location that we select for the physical meeting, the in-person meeting is always somewhere that’s got plenty of great service, great food, a meeting place. It’s got encouragement by looking out the window and inspiration by experiencing the delights of the area. So, to me, it’s just a fun way to get continued inspiration by seeing some of the greatest views on the planet.

So, at the end of the day, we’re not there to vacation. Now, we do slip in a lot of fun, but we’re there to have a productive meeting. So I highly recommend that at these meetings that you circulate about two weeks ahead of time, at least two weeks, the agenda for the meeting, but you should have all materials submitted to everyone in the group at least two weeks prior to the meeting. Now certainly, certain amounts of material may come in at the last minute or somebody thinks of something last moment. That’s great. We actually use a Dropbox folder to share and distribute all of our information on our mastermind group. Everyone’s assistant has access to the mastermind Dropbox, and they get everything ready for us. And we have a wonderfully productive meeting for that time that we do meet virtually as well as in person.

The other thing that we do is, you heard me say, “Get our assistants involved.” We believe that to have a great mastermind group, you need to focus on the content of discussion and not the administration of the discussion. Let me give you a little difference in what I mean. Don’t get so hung up on all the note taking and all of this stuff. You need to be focusing on bringing your best ideas, your brightest capabilities, to your mastermind group. So to do that, it needs you to be clear in mind and purposeful in thought. So I want you to clear your mind, now, of everything that you got to take care of this Monday morning. I know it’s Monday. I know what you’re going to say. I’ve got a week full of all these details. I’d like for you to clear your mind for just a brief moment.

If you could focus only on one of the most important deeds that you must do or thoughts you must get further clarity on to make this your best week ever, what would that be? Now focus your time just on that thought. Get your mind wrapped around it. Now imagine if you said, “I need a little help in getting this clarity.” Boom, that’s the perfect reason for a mastermind group! Submit that through your group chat and allow your mastermind group members to start contributing, because from their background and perspective, they may bring something to the table that you’ve not experienced. This is perfect for mastermind group settings. But let’s talk about some of those reasons why you must belong or create a mastermind group. I’ve got five reasons that I want to share with you today and I will tell you these five reasons to me are impactful, but let’s start with reason number one for joining a mastermind group.

First, challenge and accountability of your performance in comparison to your goal. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Accountability. It’s easy to write down at the first of the year these big goals that you wish to accomplish, and then you look in November and you go, “Hmm, maybe I need to change those over. This may be too big.” Well not so. If they were your true intentions and you said, “If I can capture these goals, and basically if I can meet these goals, I will have moved the needle for my family, for my life, for my company, for my clients,” whatever reason I set that big, hairy, audacious goal, well, then we need to accomplish it if it’s truly what you wish to see happen. You see only through the changing of our sales does growth occur. Don’t join a group that doesn’t challenge you to grow. That does not serve anyone.

Each member of the group must hold the others accountable for their own success. Instead of being a lone wolf, seeking your growth and success on your own, in a mastermind group you will have like-minded professionals who want and desire to see your success. And you see their success. To me, it’s the rising tide raises all boats theory on success. If we each hold the other accountable, which is my number one reason for joining the group, you will find quickly that not only does it change you as a professional, to be a much better one, it will change your life for your clients, for your business, for your company. It will help you create an accountable action on yourself that makes you grow to be the bigger, better person that’s within you. So, number one reason I think is to give you challenge and accountability of your performance.

Now, if that’s not enough to show you these other four reasons, this is going to rock this thing out of the park. Here we go. Reason number two for joining a mastermind group is to gain new perspectives on challenges you face in your life and business. Now, you notice I put life ahead of business in that previous statement. You see, I want to ensure you that we’re not simply in a mastermind group to make more money. Now that might be a by-product, I agree. And it’s probably one of the bigger goals, but if it does not in some way shape, reshape, change your life, enhance your life and bring about a permanent change in the way you think about life, you’ve got the wrong group. If you’re merely there to say, “Okay, I just need to make more money.” Well, I don’t know that that’s the reason I would approach a mastermind group. Sure. You could accomplish that. That could be one of the goals, but it can’t be your primary goal for selecting a group. As a matter of fact, if that’s your only goal in trying to select a group, you will find real quickly that your contributions to this mastermind group you just joined will be minimal and not very acceptable by the remaining members. While others in your group may share a similar background with you, their experiences are most likely and have been different. This gives the person a unique perspective in helping you frame your problems, document your challenges, and maybe, just maybe, they’ve conquered the issue in their lifetime. This is valuable to someone who wishes to grow their mindset, as I mentioned when we started this episode, grow their business and their team in an exponential manner. It is critical to me that the perspectives you give to the challenges you face are the first step in you gaining solutions and overcoming the challenge.

It’s also something that I must repeat, and I’ve done this in many episodes, I am a big journaler. I believe in dumping my brain out on paper and let me tell you something, folks, just as a side note, the paper is never critical of what I write down. The paper never says, “Hey, you shouldn’t think like that.” I want you to know by doing just that, the brain dump on paper every evening, getting those thoughts out of your head, you can then begin to clear your mind that you can work on these challenges. Well, if that’s the case, why not throw a few of those challenges into your group chat for your mastermind group? Allow the others of your group to chime in and give their perspective.

It is credible that this perspective be analyzed and how it applies to you. If in fact someone has overcome the challenge you’re now facing, and you pose that question to the group, wouldn’t that be a time saving tool that would help you overcome it and move forward quickly? This is that exponential growth, to move ahead 10 paces in where you’re trying to go. That to me is a helpful, helpful decision. So reason number two is, the new perspectives you may gain on challenges you face.

Reason number three for joining a mastermind group to me is education and advice to grow your skills and attraction of success. Now I’m a big fan of Jim Rome. I believe that as much as you wish to chase success, try to chase it down, the further it eludes you from our grasp. However, if you change who you are to help attract those you wish to have as clients, customers, friends, you will find that they will be more easily attracted to you by the person you become. While others in your group have had education and advice they may have sought themselves, think about what you’re seeking. When you make new connections in life, you’re opening a well of information, new information, new ideas. By joining a mastermind group, you will find that new approaches, creative solutions, and other positive aspects are within your grasp that may have alluded you before.

You see, education is not simply by going to school. As a matter of fact, I tell everyone I am a consummate lifetime learner. I take great courses in areas of history, science, mathematics, literature, language. These are not in the areas of which I practice my day to day profession. But the reason I take them is to make me a better, more knowledgeable, more wise individual. Now, my wife will tell you, there are some things I need to be more wise on, but that’s just how life is. And so at the education piece, you must be responsible for your own education about life.

However, if you’re responsible for it, why not ask help from those that have maybe greater and deeper experiences in certain educational areas that you seek? The four gentlemen that I am in a mastermind group with have each got a different type of education than me. Some have engineering type backgrounds, some have different creative backgrounds, such as in writing and so forth. That only helps me as a member of the mastermind group become a more well-rounded individual. So when you’re thinking, “What’s a really good reason,” if you think of none of the other two I’ve mentioned, reason number three, education and advice to grow your skills and attract success may just be the reason you need to seek out a mastermind group. But let’s proceed.

Reason number four for joining a mastermind group: deep networking, which is critical for any entrepreneur. I am blessed with a list of, if you will, electronic Rolodex. That’s a word that a lot of people probably don’t remember. The old Rolodex. I’ve got an electronic Rolodex or a database that I can pretty well call up any expert of any area that I may need to help our clients reach one of their goals. You see, it’s a real world of who, not how here in the 21st century. One of the things that I pride myself is making relationships. I didn’t say just finding resources. I actually have relationships with these individuals. I can contact any specialty type of a lawyer that I may need for a client’s purposes. I’ve got physicians of all specialties that I may call or refer a client if they have a need. I have friends that are architects, landscapers, construction, generalists, and specialists if someone needs assistance. Auto dealerships of every make and model you can imagine are friends of mine in my electronic Rolodex.

What am I saying? I’m saying that deep networking occurs and you may have someone in your mastermind group that knows someone else that you may need to get to know to help you grow your business and serve your clients. In this world of ever evolving business and life in general, if I may say, you are not an island. There’s no way that one person with this immense amount of data, change on a continual basis can ever have all the knowledge necessary to take care of all the situations that arise. I know many people who utilize their mastermind group for purposes of helping them locate other services or professionals to meet a need or collaborate with on a client matter. 30 years ago, this would have been unthought of in the business realm. Now it’s standard practice. Remember, as I said, it is a who, not how world in which we live. So reason number four, deep networking.

Well, let me just say this. One of the biggest reasons I held to number five for joining a mastermind group. I use this particular aspect with our mastermind group all the time. Matter of fact, I won’t even wait for meetings. I just pop it out there on our group chat, started getting information. I’m talking about brainstorming and feedback on ideas. I’m honored to be a member of this distinguished group of professionals I’ve been describing to you that make up our mastermind group. I often leave the meetings feeling that I haven’t contributed as much as I’ve received. It is critical that everyone contribute, but remember that you may be meeting a need of someone else in the group that hasn’t confirmed your contribution. My team at Compass Capital Management serve as a feedback filter and work on brainstorming about certain projects and challenges for our clients.

However, I utilize my mastermind group for more entrepreneurial feedback and brainstorming. What worked for them when their company was at this level? What mistakes did they make that provided the learning experience for them? This type of feedback to me is priceless. You know those commercials where they give you a certain dollar amount for something and another dollar amount for something, then they get down there and say, “The experience, priceless.” That’s how mastermind groups are for me. I have enjoyed immensely the mastermind group for which I belong. The challenge this week for all of you listening is, seek out like-minded individuals or just an individual to discuss the sincere areas of business that are challenging you and ask for feedback, accountability, to overcome the challenges you face and advice on how they may have tackled such difficulties in their career.

Join a mastermind group that will help you become a bigger, better, and bolder you. It is important to you as a person that you grow your skills in all areas. It is vital to you as a person that you grow in experience and wisdom. I know you’ll see the benefits just as I do, so this week, go ahead, live your life by design.

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