Episode 151: The Power of Mastermind Groups

By Sarah Walton | November 22, 2022

What are Mastermind Groups?

Masterminds bring people together to problem solve and make things better. I think it’s important, especially for business women, to sign up for Masterminds because the feeling of going it alone can increase your struggle without you even recognizing it.

You can get involved directly in the program, or you create your own group by calling together some peers and colleagues whose opinions you trust. They could be people who are further down the road than you are, maybe some people who are behind you on the road, and you can share ideas and help each other move forward. There is no leader in a Mastermind group – each person has the opportunity to give and receive advice.

Benefits of a Mastermind group

There are so many Mastermind possibilities out there – even international ones held virtually. People from every time zone can show up. Here are some of the benefits of joining a Mastermind group or creating your own.

Forge connections

If you’re in business, it can be really lonely. Sometimes it might feel like nobody else could possibly understand the struggles you’re going through – it’s like you’re shouting into the wind. I think it’s important to talk about that. One of my most opened emails in the history of my business had the subject line that read: I just want people to know I exist.

Masterminds can offer that connection. They can make us feel understood, heard and offer levels of accountability.

Acknowledge successes

Masterminds also offer the opportunity either to share your successes or to be reminded of them. I was speaking to my groups recently about feeling stuck and the idea that momentum is not kicking in and that can happen when we don’t recognize how far we’ve already come. It’s so easy to let that happen.

It’s easy to look down the path that you’ve been walking all this time and not lift your head up, look back and see how far you’ve come. Women especially tend to downplay our successes. We speak minimally about them like, “it’s no big deal, just a regular Tuesday for me.”

But what you’re doing is extraordinary and moving the business forward. Your successes can be acknowledged more easily when you’re in a Mastermind.

Share challenges

Masterminds also offer the opportunity to share what’s bothering you when you’re up against a challenge. Maybe you can’t figure something out, maybe you need to hire or fire somebody, or the revenue’s not coming in how you expected. Having people who’ve got your back to turn to at moments like that are so important – you can share the burden and find a solution. Your group will call you to the mat, ask you what you’ve tried and brainstorm solutions. Masterminds will help lift you out of the moment so you don’t get stuck.

Watch: 3 Things to do When You Feel Stagnant

Increase energy

When you’re around people who are up to something, people who are ambitious, people who are excited, do you notice how much energy you feel? If you don't know what I'm talking about, I want you to imagine going to an event or a concert, even a sporting event. You feel the energy of all those people right when they get excited or they do, when they're super inspired and happy. That energy is so intense and that is what happens when humans come together. Big groups are fantastic for much more energy, that kind of vitality feeling like “I can conquer the world.”

But on the daily or weekly or monthly, when you're visiting with your Mastermind, you will always feel a shot of energy. When you're actually with your people and you start talking about what you're up to, they're going to get excited with you, or if they share what they're up to, you're going to get excited for them. That congruence matters.

Fine-tune habits

Fine-tuning your habits by watching what other successful people are doing is powerful. It’s not like reading about it in a book, or even listening to broadcast like this, or maybe watching a couple of inspiring videos on YouTube.

Watching a fellow human do something amazing because they've fine-tuned their habits is inspiring. Do you know what I mean? When you watch one another you go out there and kill it because they're disciplined and you realize, “wait a minute, I can do that!”

It's so powerful to watch that happen over time and see the effect that habits can have on a person’s vitality, their joy, their success and their financial power.

This goes for bad habits as well. Even if you’re not in a Mastermind, if you’re watching somebody do something consistently that’s causing them pain, causing them to fail in a certain way, or to be unhappy – share that with them.

Maybe they’ve redone their website 13 times in the last four months. You can offer support and ask if they’re worried about selling, ask why they think it needs to be redone. It’s important to have that level of trust and honesty with each other. Watching someone break a habit is incredibly inspiring and it’s so exciting to watch fellow human beings succeed.

Considerations for starting your own Mastermind group

If you’re thinking about starting your own group, it can take about six months to a year to really connect to each other. Small tight-knit groups of trusted colleagues who are willing to be vulnerable with each other can offer high value quality feedback.

This differs from online groups offering tips for market research because in those groups of hundreds, sometimes thousands, you don’t know those people, their qualifications or their motivations. You don’t know how far along they are in their business or why they might think their advice is appropriate for you.

And that matters, because the quality of the feedback really important. So having a tight group you can turn to and trust is really important to avoid sinking revenue and time into ideas that aren't the right fit.