Which Type of Mastermind is for You?

Overview:

In this episode we’re going to be talking about the key transformational elements of a mastermind and the different types of masterminds. 

It’s important to understand these key transformational elements because once you understand these elements, you’ll see how some of these elements show up in a stronger way in the various types of masterminds.

The Power of Groups

With my background as a licensed therapist and having been leading groups for over 30 years and having been in some very powerful groups myself, I’ve always believed in the power of well led groups.

There are 4 key transformational elements about groups that I’m going to highlight.

1. There’s an element of real time feedback from others. When you’re with one person, like let say once coach. They can give you feedback and you might ask yourself if you trust it or not. When you got feedback in a group, you might still question the feedback but typically there’s a history of people being honest and gentle truth tellers and getting real time feedback from multiple people at once is more powerful. You have these whole group whose getting excited with you about maybe a new aligned decision you're making and that helps you feel strong. And you might also have a group get curious with you on an approach. They're not sure about you doing that helps you to evaluate your decision more deeply, which makes you stronger in your decision. Whichever way you end up deciding about it. But that it's that whole real time feedback from a group of people that helps you really trust your processing of whatever decision you're trying to make and helps you get there a little bit faster.  
2. There’s a sharpening of thoughts because you’re passing them through many minds. When you bring up a topic in your mastermind, chances are others have had experience in this area too, whether they've experienced it or something similar to it. Or they know others who have they'll have valuable insights into your situation to help you think through more facets than you could alone or even one coach could bring to you. So your idea will get fine tuned from the group's input.
3. There’s faster growth from getting your ideas out there and brainstormed from others who may have already experienced your situation, saving you so much time of having to discover those things on your own. So to elaborate one step further from the last idea, the added benefit of the group’s knowledge is that not only does it sharpen your thoughts, it saves you time in discovering these things on your own. Oftentimes, I see that the decisions that people are making in my groups actually shaves them months. If not years, of discovering those results on their own. 
4. There’s a strong element of belonging that unconsciously gets played out. It's why you always hear sayings about being intentional about who you're spending time with because your group will have a stronger influence over you than you realize, you know, that quote, a rising tide lifts all boats or another similar same by Jim Rohn... You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. It's alluding to the human nature within all of us to rise or fall to the standard of the people around you, which is why it's important to be choosy about who your inner circle of business friends are. If the people around you are all experiencing success. It will almost be harder to not succeed because unconsciously you’ll be trying to belong and if belonging means being successful, then what will likely happen is you’ll unconsciously be staying away from unsuccessful behaviors. 

It’s why women in my group accomplish so dang much. I don’t have a curriculum for my group. Instead I know how to curate a group to include those who not only have huge hearts, but big dreams that they’ve already started making progress on. And I know how to foster relationships. The power of relationships bring the biggest transformation in others. This is another one I think is worth repeating, the power of relationships bring the biggest transformation in others.

One example of rising or falling to the level of others around you is to think of a runner. If a runner who has it in her to be fast is running with the B team, she most likely won’t perform at her peak level. She might be faster than the others in the group, but she'll be pulled toward their average, but put her in a race with 18 runners and she'll perform her absolute best because to do less would make her not fit with the group. When it comes to performance, we will rise or fall to those performing around us.

People perform better and grow faster in the appropriate group.

So now let’s switch to the 3 different types of masterminds.

When you hear the word mastermind (mastermind in air quotes) you might think you know what you’re hearing about, but it's not always what you think.

I’ve heard it said, there are no mastermind police saying what’s right or wrong. But I have in my mind a standard for what mastermind means and Napoleon hill who wrote a book about masterminds called "Think and Grow Rich" developed what I use as the best definition of a mastermind.  

He refers to a mastermind as a group, people who get together to problem solve for each other. And when they start sharing their ideas, there comes a second level of ideas just from hearing each other's thoughts. And that second level of ideas is what's called the mastermind or the third mind in a sense.

People have a sense about the word that it's meant for elite purposes of lead in the sense that something special happens around it, which often is interpreted as you can put a higher price tag on the offer; not always, but often. And I have seen group coaching programs called masterminds. And I'll say I've heard from people who really thought they were getting in to a traditional mastermind, but were disappointed to find out it wasn't one.

And they paid a pretty penny for group coaching instead.

The difference between the two are, in coaching, there’s a teacher or coach who leads everyone with only their knowledge and the students or members generally do not coach each other. 

Whereas in a traditional mastermind, the facilitator facilitates a structure where everyone in the group gets to step into a coaching role with all the wisdom and expertise that they uniquely possess and share it with each other.

So if we’re clear on what a traditional mastermind is, let’s get into the 3 basic types or variations of masterminds.

1. Stage masterminds. Because there’s someone typically on a stage orchestrating a large group. It's a large format mastermind where there is the group leader or a facilitator who might pull someone up from the audience and have them discuss their problem in front of the whole large group. And then let's people from the whole audience give their ideas. And of course not everybody in the audience will get to share their ideas. Um, like they might pass a mic, they might toss a ball and whoever catches it gets to give their ideas. However they do it. Um, that's typically a large group format. 

   Now I have been in places where they've done this and they've broken off into small group masterminds as well. So people will get to mastermind with whoever they're sitting around or however, they decide to group these people. And they'll typically run a timer so that everybody gets a chance in the spotlight or the hot seat as we call it and get to share.

   But that's what I would call a stage mastermind. They're not incredibly personal, but they're really good for networking. And if you want to be in a room with other people who one to sharpen their self-growth and their business growth. And you want to have that variety. A stage mastermind is the way to go. You'll get to network with a ton of people.

2. Mastery masterminds. This is a hybrid of a coaching group and a smaller type of mastermind. So you'll often see a mastery mastermind. On the back end of somebody's business. So let's say somebody is teaching a specific skill. They might have included now a mastermind into their offers because they noticed that when their students are finished going through.

   Their signature course to learn whatever that specific thing is they've come to learn. They want ongoing support and they want to be able to be in a room with others who are just as intentional as them at fine tuning their ability to do this. And that's where I would call it a mastery mastermind.

   You're joining because you want to learn their methods. So it attracts others into the group who also want to learn those methods. There's not typically a lot of diversion from speaking of that topic since the goal is the mastery of that topic. 

3. Support masterminds. Pure facilitating, can include people from the same or different industries, but typically they are a small group mastermind, anywhere from three to fifteen, it depends on obviously. The timeframe; some people meet once a month, some people meet all day, some people meet every week for an hour and everything in between, so you can imagine. Depending on how many people, if you have fifteen people in the group and you're meeting twice a month for two hours, each meeting, you probably have half the people having the spotlight at one meeting. And then the other half the other meeting, unless you're just doing five minute hot seats. So it depends, and there's a lot of variety within it, but generally you're pulling together people from a similar industry with a similar goal, but it's not, hyper-specific. On a topic per se.

So my mastermind is a support mastermind where I pulled together women entrepreneurs. But the whole topic is on generally growing your business. And my feeling is, and my desire is to support you wherever you are in building your business. So whether it's a need to focus on more marketing, whether you're focusing on hiring, whether you're focusing on your systems, all of those things are important.

And when I bring women together, we focus on whatever it is that they need at that time because their needs might be changing from month to month and everybody in the group has something to contribute to the other. So it's not really a matter of one specific topic. Its where are you right now in your business.

And I know somebody else in the room has been there or know somebody who has, and so they're going to be able to contribute and help you through it. Each of these masterminds contains so much room for growth, the benefits of each vary, according to the styles, but they're all important. They all could fit within your business.

What I typically suggest is if you're thinking of putting a mastermind into your line of offers is to think about you... who you are, what you enjoy, what comes naturally to you. And if you're someone who loves to be on stage, maybe doing a stage type of mastermind would come easy to you and be really fun.

Or maybe you're more of a person that wants to stick to their topic and go deeper into your topic because you love it so much. You really want to help people who are learning it, then incorporating a mastery mastermind would be great for you. Or maybe you have a broader focus and you would like to drop people in and support them at different stages of their journey in different areas, but generally all going towards the same goal, like growing your business, then maybe a support mastermind would be great for you to start or to join.

So think about these as far as how you want to incorporate something new into your business or what you might want to join, because people when they're in masterminds, when they're in these group experiences, they're powerful. And that's why you'll see people who are really successful out there who are in multiple masterminds because they understand the power of relationships.

So I hope this helped you today, as you think about these three types of masterminds, maybe you can envision what type of mastermind you'd like to be in, or maybe start for your business. I would love if you left a podcast review and included, which mastermind style sounds most fun to you, or reach out to me in the DMS on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and let me know.

There is room for so much growth in any of these styles. The benefits of each vary according to the styles. 

As you think about these 3 types of masterminds, maybe you can envision what type of mastermind you’d like to be in or maybe start for your business. I’d love if you left a podcast review and included which mastermind style sounds most fun to you. Or reach out to me in the DM’s on IG, FB or Linked in and let me know!