What exactly is a mastermind group? What do they do?

Face to face masterminding is POWERFUL

When you get the chance, you should grab it with both hands...

My group has a mastermind once a week over the phone. Our businesses often overlap so it is good to stay connected. But, even when we aren't directly working together.. we meet up often for a meal/beers to thrash ideas, talk shop and to generally be in the company of IM loving folks...

People in the working world just don't seem to "get it" like we do.

I highly recommend masterminding for all I.M.er's

Peace

Jay

I don't exactly know what a mastermind group is but I think it I a "talk shop" of any business (or businesses) where they come together and think about making everything better and making more profits.

This is what I think, you can always go Google it.

"When 2 or more people coordinate in a spirit of harmony, and work toward a definite objective they place themselves in position, through that alliance, to absorb power directly from the great universal store house of "Infinite Intelligence"
per..
"Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill

A Mastermind Group is people getting together with a common interest (IM) and have objectives that benefit everyone in the group. Read Think and Grow Rich.

We just had a Toronto Mastermind Group (2nd one) with 9 people this past week. This is new, but we talked about what we did, shared programs we use, lots of talk on ARticle Marketing. Then we looked one thing each person wanted to focus on and everyone gave there insite on it.

I posted this on my blog a while ago, maybe it'll be of value to you:

How To Effectively Run A Mastermind

-Decide on type of MasterMind (supportive or paid)

-Determine purpose

-Figure out who you want in the MasterMind - what types of qualifications do you want people to have, how much diversity do you want, and how many people.

Find members. There are a lot of ways to do this. Some ideas are to ask people, place ads, go on forums, look at social organizations, work, ryze.com, Yahoo! Groups, meetup.com, or save your time and use the "Search" function on MasterMind Zone.

-When interviewing people, make sure that people exhibit certain qualities. For example, you want to make sure that you have people that are "take action" types, and not people who are the negative "victim" type. You also should look for people who are eager to improve.

-Survey members, decide what everyone can bring to the table

-Decide how long each session should last, allotting for socializing and break time. Break it down by how long each members gets to talk (including the time that they receive feedback). It is very imperative to stick to this schedule, or people get frustrated that meetings consistently run too long, and there is not a clear focus.

-Decide when and where to meet

-Either make a leader, or opt to rotate leadership. Somebody needs to be accountable for watching time, relaying messages if people miss a meeting, and contacting people if there's a change.

-Set rules and goals during the first meeting. One common rule is that everything said during the meeting needs to be confidential. Other rules are to not be able to shoot down ideas, have an open mind, be absent or late too frequently, or not achieve states goals consistently. Decide on consequences for rules. Everybody should also identify a long-term goal on the first meeting.

-Encourage people to share "brain food" - books, music, movies, quotations, websites, etc.

-Set timer as each person talks, carefully making sure that everybody talks only as long as they have set for them.

-When people give feedback, it needs to be brief and to the point so that everybody can give feedback according to time allotments. Sometimes feedback won't be needed though, as a person might decide to simply ask to be held accountable for something by the next meeting.
Be the one to go the extra mile. Someone has to lead before others will follow.

-At the end of the meeting, ask if anybody needs accountability until the next meeting (perhaps they need a call from another member to keep them in check).

In future meetings, make sure that everybody gives a brief update of their progress from last meeting.

Review rules periodically so that everyone follows. The biggest "crime" usually is people talking past their allotted time period.

Once established, everyone has to vote unanimously on new members.

Hi,

Thank you for the great information about MasterMinds. I am forming one now and this has been a big help. I wish I saw this before I posted my inquiry on the topic earlier today.