WHY Should People Join Your Online Mastermind Group?
Do you want to know something we all need to spend more time thinking about? It’s this three-letter word we don’t usually ask until something bad happens. To top it off, we ask it with a tone of complete innocence, as though we’re bystanders or victims of what happens to us.
I’m sure you know the word I’m thinking about: “why.” Those three letters get thrown around heavily when we’re in trouble. Ironically, the worse things get, the more hurt and surprised we are that there don’t seem to be answers. It’s time to shuffle the deck and put this question in the right place.
If they’d consulted me when they wrote the alphabet, I’d have told them to put the letter “Y” at the beginning, so we could be prompted to remember that everything begins with “why.”
Purpose Over Practicality
You’re an entrepreneur, thinking about starting or growing mastermind groups. That’s a noble task, and we’ve created a powerful tool to help you with all the practical steps. It’s called The Mastermind Playbook, and I encourage you to go check it out.
Be prepared, though: we lead off with the same subject I’m writing about today. All the tactical stuff we teach isn’t much use if you don’t define why you’re doing it to begin with. I recently learned this lesson all over again in our mastermind groups online. We’ve been reading a book called “Leadership In Turbulent Times.” It talks about four famous American presidents and their deep connection to a sense of purpose.
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson all led our nation with a deep commitment to purpose. They believed deeply they’d been elected to the highest office in the land for reasons that spanned generations. And all four men’s actions still have binding effects on us today.
Your Turbulent Time
It’s the summer of 2020, which means there’s nobody on the planet not living through a turbulent time. Let me assure you, there isn’t a better time to start a mastermind business. Like those four presidents, you have an opportunity here to change life for people who aren’t even born yet.
I’m not exaggerating. Members of Iron Sharpens Iron have grandchildren growing up differently than they would because of decisions we make today.
Let me add, however … this is way easier than it used to be. As ISI grew over the years, I realized I didn’t have a good framework for people to express their “why.” I knew you had to have one, but like so many entrepreneurs - I wasn’t sure how to go about getting it.
But when we decided to teach others to start, grow and scale masterminds, we made the connection and found tools to help us do it. I honestly don’t think we could run nearly two dozen groups of 8-12 people each, without having a clue as to “why.”
So, we don’t start you off on the wrong foot when it comes to building your masterminds online. When you invest in The Mastermind Playbook, you’re going to go through an exercise to help define your “why.” You’ll get such a solid, concrete idea of why you’re doing what you do, that you won’t be able to miss on identifying your client avatar.
How to “Why”
We have an exercise embedded in the Playbook for you to “fill in the blanks,” to understand your “why.” But I’ll summarize a little of it here, just to give you some food for thought. Think about these questions:
- Who do you consistently connect with? What kind of people keep “showing up” in your life, and what qualities / things do they have in common with you?
- What do you dream of doing when you think of “helping people grow”? Do you want to be a coach or mentor? Or do you dream of inspiring people in a group, like speaking from a stage?
- What do you need from a business? Could this be a passion, or would the plan be for it to take over as your primary source of income?
- What do you picture when you think of “a better future”? Do you view it through the lens of individual achievement, or is it a group effort?
Some other good practical tools for why is also to define “why not,” which means reasons you should not start a mastermind group. These can be reasons that are obviously bad (greed, pride, desperation to make a living). But sometimes, they’re reasons that are good … they’re just not good for you!
One example might be, you’re very good at providing business coaching services, one-on-one. My friend John Murphy recently discovered this. He thought a mastermind was the natural next step, but the logistics of building one forced him to realize he’d give up doing what he really loved (coaching).
I wouldn’t want you to feel conflicted, especially if you really do want to build a mastermind. So, I challenge you to do the work up front, and list your reasons why as well as why not to launch one.
But don’t sweat the details and logistics, because every step you need to start, grow and scale successful mastermind groups is contained in The Mastermind Playbook.
