Leading a mastermind group is a deeply empowering, enriching, and noble pursuit. Thousands of mastermind facilitators around the world are becoming successful entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and coaches. However, whenever you find yourself in a position of power and authority, it’s important not to succumb to pride and self-deception and instead be selfless and humble.

As we know from history, power can have a corrupting influence on even well-intentioned leaders, and running a mastermind will make you a respected authority from the perspective of your members. It’s easy to see why Jesus cited pride and greed as some of the most common pitfalls to be avoided. What’s easy to overlook, however, is that pride and greed are not undertaken consciously, but rather through self-deception. 

You might gradually convince yourself that you are more deserving or worthy than others, without realizing that greed is driving your pursuit of material...

The foundation for any personal transformation lies in daily habits and rituals. By shifting the way we spend our time each day, we can change our lives and the lives of others. This hits home for mastermind leaders especially, because they play a role in guiding and mentoring their members. 

Too often, mastermind leaders get stuck in a state of overwhelm and paralysis when contemplating the ambitious goals for themselves and their mastermind group. Instead, they should focus on a series of small adjustments to their daily life that will produce a cumulative impact on your long-term goals. We overestimate what we can do in a short time, but underestimate what we can do over the long haul.

These minor adjustments in your daily routine will result in compounding, exponential progress. Just as important as knowing which daily habits to embrace, however, is knowing which habits to avoid. Bad habits can be hard to break, but if you ignore them, they’ll hamper...

The Bible starts by saying, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” It goes on to state, however, that after all that hard work, “By the seventh day, God had finished his work, so on the seventh day he rested. Then, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. 

You may recognize this particular passage of the Bible from John Mark Comer’s book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Comer discusses it in depth, and goes on to explain its significance. Comer explains why this passage is so important and how it represents the Sabbath - a period of rest, reflection, and religious observation. Comer explains how the idea of the Sabbath illustrates a broader philosophical significance of rest, recuperation, and introspection. He also explains that these periods of relaxation are increasingly overlooked by modern culture.

Comer goes on to list the most common objections to having the Sabbath become part of one’s lifestyle. He explains...

 As early as the 1960s, futurists around the world took a look at the rapid advancement of labor-saving technologies and predicted that Americans in the future would work roughly half the amount of time per week. In fact, a famous senate subcommittee in 1967 was told that the average American would work just 22 hours per week for 27 weeks per year.

Despite futurists’ predictions about labor-saving technology, they could have never predicted just how transformational the technology of the coming decades would be to the productivity of the average American worker. It would have been impossible to predict technologies as disruptive as the internet, machine learning, cryptocurrency, or autopiloting vehicles. 

These exponentially advancing technologies drastically increased the productivity of the American workforce, but this didn’t have the effect that futurists predicted. Americans never saw the reduction in their workweeks these labor-saving...

In the summer of 2019, Wes Sierk found himself lying face-up in a hospital bed, close to death in a coma. He had sold his company for millions two weeks prior. Wes’s bedside was surrounded by his loved ones who wondered if he’d ever wake again. How could Wes’s life path have taken such a dramatic turn for the worse? 

Well, despite being a talented businessman, gifted leader, and brilliant executive, Wes had made his fair share of mistakes. The first time he’d tried to sell his company, Wes decided to negotiate the sale himself. He came from humble beginnings, and brought a sense of frugality to his business decisions. So, rather than contend with the exorbitant fees an investment banker would charge to negotiate the sale, Wes decided to try it solo.

While immersing himself in the minutiae of negotiating the sale, Wes neglected his responsibilities as CEO of the company. As a result, sales and morale dropped, and his potential buyer...

When Paul Heiss, the founder of a metal manufacturing company based in China, learned that the Chinese government would increase tariffs on aluminium scrap products, he faced a crisis. 

Some of his largest clients did business out of the U.S. and Europe, and the 25% tariff levied by China’s Custom Tariff Commission meant that Heiss simply couldn’t get his products to foreign clients affordably. 

Heiss soon realized that he would have to move his manufacturing operations to India. But how would he do it? That’s when he realized that he was asking the wrong question. Rather than asking how he’d accomplish this herculean task, he had to ask himself who could help him get it done. 

Heiss tasked his most trusted employees with finding the perfect Indian strategic partner. Heiss even created an impact filter which broke down the criteria that his team should look for in a partner and he decided on three basic points. The partner...

 Jared Van Dyke wanted to create a mastermind group for several years, but he had no idea where to start. Eventually, Van Dyke realized he had to start thinking differently about his goal. Rather than wondering how to start, he had to think about who he could connect with to create abundance and self-expansion.

By connecting with a trusted group of mentors and learning the knowledge presented in The Mastermind Playbook, Jared was successfully able to create his own flourishing mastermind, and a podcast that offers life-changing advice to his audience.

Jared’s reframing of his goal immediately brings to mind chapter 1 of Who Not How, entitled “Whos” Create Abundance and Self-Expansion.

How “Whos” Create Abundance

As Dan Sullivan puts it, the first “who” you have to worry about is yourself. Sullivan emphasizes that you must improve yourself, value yourself, and maximize your own happiness, creativity, and...

As Bill Harris gained more life experiences, he realized that the quality of his peer group and personal network and how it impacted his life for the better. This piece of wisdom motivated him to join the Iron Sharpens Iron (ISI) Mastermind Group.

As a decorated veteran, Bill decided that he wanted to start his own Mastermind Group catered towards veterans and first responders. Bill credits The Mastermind Playbook for giving him the practical knowledge and resources he needed to get his mastermind group off the ground, and continue growing it.

The key to Bill’s transition out of military service? He learned how to become an effective collaborator. He learned how to do so by joining a Mastermind, and he wanted to show other veterans how they could do the same thing through his new group. Bill’s story demonstrates the principles of effective collaboration:

Realizing the Importance of ‘Beginner's Mind’

To become an effective...

 For Greg Yates, owning over a dozen businesses with nearly a thousand employees came to an abrupt end when he found himself in prison. It wasn’t the story he anticipated telling his grandkids, but Yates nonetheless wrote a book about how hitting rock bottom propelled him to reinvent himself. 

When touring with his first book, Yates discovered he wasn’t alone. In fact, he found that people around the world felt imprisoned by their own limiting beliefs. Yates went on to become a successful coach, teaching the foundational principles that allowed him to rise from the ashes. Along the way, he discovered that beyond any motivational speech or productivity hack, he had the ground-level truth that who we believe we are is who we become. 

Yates began helping his coaching clients shift the stories they told themselves about who they are, and even started his own mastermind group, with the help of what he learned from The Mastermind Playbook.

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Shawn Skaggs has seen the ups and downs of business for many years, through leadership roles in the farm equipment and agricultural industries. Somewhere along the way, he realized that any business is vulnerable to black swan events and catastrophic change. After learning how to respond to business crises himself, he decided he wanted to help others do the same.

It was a difficult decision and there was every reason to put it off, but Shawn knew that he wanted to have an impact on his kids, his community, and the world. That need to have a truly meaningful impact on others motivated Shawn to stop procrastinating and start achieving his goals.

Shawn’s calling to leave a meaningful legacy, and his belief that we deeply need to help one another, motivated him to stop putting off his dreams. He started a mastermind group called the Impact, Legacy and Meaning Peer Group, and with help of the tips he learned from The Mastermind Playbook, grew it into a thriving...