Why your business needs a peer-led MasterMind

Mark is the founder of Heart of Business, and a successful business consultant and healer, who brings an active connection with the Divine to his work.

My friend Ken, who teaches at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, describes the ‘Big Gulp’ that most new doctors face.

The ‘Big Gulp’ is what happens when the new doctor has been through years of school, amassed a six-figure medical school debt, and graduated with her friends and colleagues. She excitedly rents a space to open her medical practice, hangs out her shingle, and waits for clients.

Gulp. Big Gulp.

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Even if you aren’t a doctor, I bet you know the Big Gulp.
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There are a lot of reasons for the Big Gulp- lack of business knowledge, lack of marketing knowledge, fear of failure, financial pressures, fear of failing her patients, even fear of success.

But, as a doctor might say, those are just symptoms. They aren’t the true cause of the Big Gulp.

What’s really happened is our young doctor friend has been kicked out of the nest to fly on her own. She’s spent years with mentors, colleagues, classmates, clinics, and study
groups, learning and growing the whole time. Can you imagine becoming a doctor, a good doctor, a confident doctor, using a home study course?

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The Big Gulp is really about isolation and lack of support.
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The trouble is that while there are many different ways to get support, only certain kinds of support really work to move you forward. The support that many business owners end up getting falls into one of two categories:

–Knowledge acquisition.
This includes books, CDs, even live classes. But it’s all information, and doesn’t actually give you the support to integrate knowledge and follow-through with it.

–Maintenance support.
Maintenance support is a shoulder to cry on. Friends who will commiserate with you about your situation. An empathetic colleague.

I’m a big believer in both of these- you should get plenty of them. But, on their own, they won’t move your business forward. So, what will?

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Enter: The MasterMind
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A MasterMind is a peer-led group that comes together to combine some elements of information and maintenance support, but also has what I call ‘Progressive Support.’ Progressive support includes a critical element: compassionate accountability.

Compassionate accountability comes from folks you trust enough to be able to tell you the truth, to nudge you forward, to support you moving into uncomfortable areas of learning and application.

Compassionate accountability is NOT what drill sergeants dish out, nor is it what your nightmare coach from whatever high school sport you tortured yourself with did to you. :)

You can get Progressive Support from certain types of classes, and I recommend taking those classes (heck, that’s why I offer them myself. Plus, I’m taking one with another
teacher, too.)

But, don’t rely on classes as the be-all, end-all. Instead, you want a peer-led MasterMind group.

There are three simple reasons why you want a MasterMind group as a foundation in your business.

1. It’s free.
   Classes cost money. Money is an important element in any business, and there are many things you need to invest in. But, getting your basic, foundational support for free as a
   give and take with trusted colleagues builds a whole different level of relationship.
2. It can last forever.
   What if a class you are taking ends and you don’t find another one? A Mastermind group can last for years, and provide consistency and perspective no matter what you are learning, or what your business is needing.
3. It’s peer-led.
   In a class situation, you are paying someone to lead. But, as a business owner, you need certain strengths in leadership. A peer-led group gives you the opportunity to both lead and be led. It develops needed aspects that may never come up when you are paying someone to lead you.

My MasterMind group is the biggest key to why my business has been so successful. Without my MasterMind, I can name at least a dozen major successes (including finishing my book, and getting the Business Oasis up and running) that wouldn’t have happened, or would’ve taken a LOT longer without that support.

So, I hope I’ve convinced you. Let me give you some pointers to starting your own Mastermind.

Although the MasterMind for the Heart booklet goes into much more detail, here are some starting points.

The People

Obviously, without members, you aren’t anywhere. You don’t need more than four, and you should look for the following characteristics:

1. You like them.
2. Their business is in -roughly- (very roughly) the same place as yours.
3. They have skills, abilities and knowledge that are outside your experience.

The Commitment

You will want to make at least a one-year initial commitment. A MasterMind is a living, breathing organic structure, and it will take time to get through the bumps. Don’t expect miracles from the get-go.

But, by making a one-year commitment, you’ll be able to get into a groove with each other.

The Structure

My own MasterMind combines partnering up one-on-one for individual help, as well as our group conference calls. And the daily check-in done on a private forum.

Incorporate those three structures: group meetings, individual one-on-one time, and a convenient place for a quick daily check-in, and you’ve got a lot of the basics in place.

Now, stop doing it all alone, and go ye forth and MasterMind.

My very best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
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Business Heart article (c)2006 Mark Silver, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Over 50 free articles and other free resources and tools available online.

Driving home from the store this afternoon, I passed a man riding a unicycle and juggling three balls. Now there is some talent. He was sweaty and focused, yet totally aware of the location of the parked cars he was passing.

Reminds me of the days I used to read while walking to work. Every once in a while I’d come to a sudden halt. Looking up from the pages, I’d see some object that would not be walked through very easily, i.e. a low hanging branch, a fire hydrant, etc.

Anyways, the thought crossed my mind that I’d send Mr. Unicycle rider a birthday card if I knew when his birthday was. And if I knew what the month and date were, I’d log it in my account at BirthdayAlarm.com. I have about 35 birthdays logged in my free account, some of which I send cards to, and some of which I call or do something else. I suppose you could sneak in other dates that you’d like to remember, like an anniversary or a friend’s annual celebration of being single.

BirthdayAlarm.com will send out a pre-fab email to anyone whose email you put in so that your friends and family can automatically enter their crashing-into-the-world dates.

Or you can enter them yourself. I’ll mention how since it took me a few moments to figure it out. One improvement to this online service would be to make the “enter birthdays manually” button an easy to find object on the web page.

After you’ve created your account, find a link called, “Set birthday alarms”. From this page, to enter in dates yourself, look for a link at the bottom of the copy in the right sidebar. You are looking for, “set birthday alarms manually”. You only need to enter the month and day, no year required. It’s self-explanatory from there.

Several days before any of your entered dates, you’ll receive a first reminder email and then a second reminder email alerting you of your friend’s special day. The reminder email offers to send an eCard which costs extra.

Remembering someone’s birthday is a nice touch for (friends and family obviously!) current or past clients, important vendor type relationships, esteemed colleagues, people who have graciously helped you out… you get the picture.

Here’s an easy way to create and share lists with others. This is a new tool to me and I wish I had known about it last week! I was in charge of coordinating the Veggie BBQ station at a first time event called Power Palooza, a sustainability, education, have fun, and socialize event on Saturday in Nevada City, CA.

Faced with the logistical issue of sending around a list of needed items to the crew, and then coordinating who said they’d bring what, check out this online list tool called Ta-da Lists by the makers of Backpack both of which can be used for no $.

[Backpack, by the way includes a more sophisticated Ta-da list feature plus other, very cool list and idea tracking features. I’m just introducing Ta-da Lists right now in the context of sharing “editable” lists. In Backpack, for others to edit a list you send out, they need to have their own account–not a big deal but an extra step. The basic Backpack account is free; more capabilities and pages are available for nominal cost. ]

Roll back the clock a week to see the list I created for the crew (note the items at the bottom of the screen shot that are in small font preceeded by a check mark. These are “claimed” or, if using this list as a ToDo list, they’d be indicated “done”:

Then I click on “Sharing” and enter the email addresses of each crew member. Write a quick note and click the button called: Share with these people. Easy! Another screen shot:

Obviously, you don’t have to share lists. You can keep your own on whatever subject you desire.

Books. Who has more books than their bookshelves will aesthetically display? Or come to the realization that in order to shelve all of your books you’d need floor to ceiling bookcases in your office, living room, and bedroom?

One option is to display the books that hold current interest/reference for you, and put the ones you are emotionally attached to, but unlikely to read again, in boxes for storage. Another option is to fondly “archive” those books in your memory and then send them off to make another reader happy, well informed, or more educated.

Recognizing that one of the main barriers people identify as keeping them from a simple life is stuff and managing stuff, I advocate the latter.

The argument: “I might need to reference this book someday!” isn’t a strong enough argument to take up storage, or mental space, in your life. Should you need it again, you have several resources to bring a book back into your hands: the library, eBay, Amazon, or a local bookstore to name a few.

Once you’ve decided to let your books find new homes, you have a number of excellent options to facilitate the transfer of your books. The August issue of Plenty Magazine included an article called Remembrance of Tomes Past which (besides being the inspiration for this post) listed several great ideas for what to do with books no longer on the favorites list. Article author, Kelly Pucci, offers the first four suggestions below:

[note from Shawn: Some of these options involve shipping books, which might be more of an endeavor than you want to embark upon. I include them as inspiration to let your books go where they are needed, to expand the radar of options in your local area, and to spread the word about some awesome projects in existence.]

• your local library may have book sale fundraisers
• Eco Encore (from the FAQs page) Individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations send us donations of books, CDs, movies and software that are suitable for resale. We catalogue the items and sell them in our online Amazon and eBay stores, and the profits from our sales go to the local environmental organizations we support.
  
  Looks like they mostly support environmental and sustainability groups in Washington state. You can send them your books… OR what about encouraging a non-profit in your area who has a solid volunteer base to get a similar project going? There are probably already a number of people in your area who sell on eBay and Amazon…
• Reader To Reader, Inc. (from the home page) is a 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to bringing books, free of charge, to needy school libraries across the United States. It is our belief that books have a singular power to inspire and change people’s lives.
• SAFE (from home page) was established in 1985 as a nonprofit [501 (c)3] by concerned American and Sudanese business persons, academics, and government officials to help improve educational opportunities for Sudanese children and youth. Currently, this goal is being accomplished by collecting and delivering donated books to university, college, and public libraries throughout the Sudan.

  And you thought all was lost when the University bookstore wouldn’t buy back your $150 textbooks!

• Books for Soldiers (from FAQs) is a self-service site. Once you are approved as an Official BFS Volunteer, simply go to our message board (you can get there by going to http://booksforsoldiers.com and clicking on the VOLUNTEER FORUM link at the top of the page) and take a look at the posted requests.

  You send books directly to soldiers following the guidelines and recommendations on the website. For example, packages with no return address can get intercepted as suspicious.

• Local used bookstores might even give you some cash for your stash!
• Local thrift stores usually aren’t very picky about what books you leave them.

A fellow cafe patron observed, only moments ago, “That could drown a lot of flies!” referring to the 12-ounce-double-latte-with-a-packet-of sugar-in-the-raw just set down before me. My response: “That was way too gross before 9am on a Saturday morning!” As if it weren’t too gross for 9:17 am on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning? And what am I doing at a cafe before 9am on a Saturday morning, eyes still puffy with sleep?

Well, I ask you this: What happens when you wake up? Do you float in half-awake dreamy space? I wish! In one millisecond I’m in an almost aware dream state and then Ding!, a millisecond later, I’m shot straight to an awareness of sounds, body temperature, and skin sensation with no hope of falling back asleep. Wednesday or Saturday.

The worse part is that this Ding! wakes up the mental chatterer, “Oh boy! it’s a new day! let’s go!” No. let me sleep some more. “Hey! you know all those things we said yesterday we were going to do tomorrow? It’s tomorrow! We can start!” Shut up. let me enjoy this comfy bed. “So I think I have an idea about that one problem, we could try blah blah blah! Ya know, we really compromised in that situation with John yesterday. What could we have done? Well…” Makes me want to cry sometimes, I tell ya.

That chatterer is like a wiggly little puppy who wants to play play play but it’s decidedly not cute. The strategy I usually take to shut it up: I just get up. The activities that follow seem to side-track it enough to quiet down a bit. Not a great strategy, admittedly. Sets a bad precedence. I mean, isn’t this how we get into do-do-do mode, i.e. just doing in order to engage or appease the mind?

What about relaxation? (very important) What about intuitive planning and writing time? (super important) What about quietly listening to the silence of the universe? (super super important) What about creating an internal environment conducive for listening to intuition? (super duper important)

Plus, being wide awake AND present in the awareness of body, mind, spirit, and the external world (without mind chatter) is a really yummy experience. Lately I’ve been experiencing this once a week. On Fridays. From 8:30am - 10am to be specific. (That’d be during yoga class.) And without fail, at some point during this time period for the last four Fridays my intuitive voice has chimed in, “How about that meditation class you’ve heard about from a couple of different people?”

For those who are into listening to subtle, or not so subtle clues, to guide them, let’s do a quick count of intentional deafness indicated in the paragraphs above:

1. 2 friends telling me about their good experience with the same meditation class led by a certain teacher
2. 4 times the intuitive voice has chimed in to check out that class
3. countless times waking up to out-of-control mind chatter
4. too many times racing through a day “doing” without allowing time to “check-in”

= Duh! That’s like standing under a 30 foot wave and saying, “What tsunami?”

Ok, ok! I’ll check it out! I’m also interested in hearing what you, reader, do to work with your mental chatterer…

Silence is the true friend that never betrays.
~ Confucius

The seventeenth issue of the Project Simplify newsletter The Weekly Simplifier is now archived on our newsletter archives page.

Here is a brief summary of the contents:

1. A Note From Shawn
What if you had to make your life simple and peaceful—or else?
2. Quote of the Week
by Voltaire
3. Article: The Dance Between Perfection and Life
by PS Head Simplifier Shawn Tuttle
4. This Week’s Simplification Tip
Small Steps
5. In the News & On the Web
In The News: Systems for paper clutter control; When life moves too fast; Entrepreneurs take time to organize their time
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
New Blog Categories
7. Keep Smiling
goComics

Read the full issue here.
Subscribe to The Weekly Simplifier here.

[posted by Lance]

Part of staying organized is re-evaluating every now and then to make sure your system supports your current state of affairs. It was that kind of re-appraisal that led us to add a few new categories to our blog, to help us with filing things properly, and to help visitors find things more easily.

Here are the recent batch of new categories. They are now included in the list under “Blog Categories” in the site sidebar. Click on a link to see what’s happening in any given category.

• Connections
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