Mastermind Groups Shortchanged

How to shortchange a Mastermind Group.

Ran into this from the linked blog (which I subscribe to) -

Business Coaching: How To Run A Mastermind Group:

"Size of group: Best to have about six to eight people in the group to bring in plenty of ideas to the mastermind group but not too many to make the process overwhelming.

Process: Divide the meeting into four segments of say 15 minutes each.

1. The person seeking advice describes the process in as much detail as they can.

2. The other mastermind group members ask their questions to find out more detail and to increase their understanding of the problem.

3. Now that they are fully informed and understand, the mastermind group offer up suggestions and ideas to solve the problem.

4. In the final segment, the person with the problem picks out the best ideas and makes a commitment to take certain action between this meeting and the next meeting.

Good advice from Rich Schefren on the running of the mastermind group and he made the important point that the group will hold the member accountable and that it is unacceptable to fail to implement and effectively waste the time of the group."

While this is useful for getting helpful solutions, along the lines of Jay Abraham, it isn't actually a mastermind group. It's a brainstorming group where your feet are held to the fire to use their data. Brainstorming, not a true mastermind group.

Read Napoleon Hill, "Think and Grow Rich" Chapter 10. That's a Master Mind group. You have a plan and you attract mentors or hire specialists which can help you with specific parts of that plan. They don't know the whole plan - they just know what you require of them. And it's a give-and-take with mentors - you give them something they need which is valuable for their time (or you simply buy their books and tapes and read them, so "hiring" them virtually). Look up Kiyosaki's (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) examples on this of getting mentors. A mentor can be anyone or anything you can learn from, who/which helps you solve your problems.

Don't do focus groups. Do brainstorm with others. But work to form real network links - the "strong tie" - to get practical, helpful advice in their specialty areas. (Getting a bunch of gardeners who don't use the internet and are business failures - they garden only as a hobby - to tell you how to create an ecommerce startup would be complete folly, a mastermind group failure.)

Luck to us all...