How to Start a Mastermind

If you’ve been thinking about starting your own mastermind group, and are about to take action, here’s a brief idea of what you need to do if you’ve been wondering how to start a mastermind group.

First off, you need to have a good idea what your mastermind is going to be for. Is it going to be to get better grades, be focused on effectively raising teenagers, improving personal performance/athleticism, making your community (or world) a better place, investing, starting or building a business, or some other reason? The purpose of your mastermind should be specific, and it’s not uncommon to have more than one mastermind but start with one.

Once you know what you mastermind will focus on, you’ll need to establish some ground rules for participation, like maintaining a high level of confidence among members, showing up prepared and on time. It’s also a good idea to establish exit procedures, in the event someone wants to withdraw or needs to be asked to resign.

A mastermind could also have a specific lifespan. For instance, if the mastermind is focused on a particular event, then following the conclusion and clean-up of the event, it would disband. Otherwise, your mastermind will be perpetual, allowing for growth and change of the mastermind.

As far as how many participants you will have in your mastermind, you can start with one other person and interview respective potential members. I think the best, most effective, number to manage is five or six members, but I think we can all agree that you should never have more than 12 other members. It just makes it problematic to effectively deliver the mastermind results to each participant (plus it calls for an all-day-long affair).

Selecting your mastermind members is a process, you want to find people who are similar to you in social stature and share similar – but different – aspirations. For instance, if your mastermind is focused on building a business, you would want to have several business people in different stages of varied businesses, who have particular skill sets.

When reviewing skills, be certain not to be shopping for what your business needs. Look instead for someone who is like-minded, has a business or interest that they want to see grow, is creative, ambitious, and desires to take their business and lifestyle to the next level. Don’t invite a bookkeeper because your business needs a better accounting system (this is a common mistake). Look for individuals who are likely to bring with them their own unique perspective.

Have regular mastermind meetings, either in person or virtual. Depending on what you desire to accomplish, and at what rate, you might want to meet once-a-week, or once-a-month. Once a week is common for virtual masterminds, with once every 6 months or annual face-to-face live mastermind. Live masterminds, usually start out at once a week for the novices, then settle down into once a month masterminds.

Know how your meeting is going to go and set appropriate parameters, such as allowing each participant to have 20 minutes to update and share, 10 minutes for the mastermind feedback, then onto the next person. Have someone designated to take notes (this task can alternate, or you can have one person designated), and one (could be the same person) to keep track of the time. Allow another 10-minute closing segment, to wrap up, bring up any new business, and to confirm the next mastermind session.

Your mastermind participation can be paid or non-paid, like membership dues. Paid raises the accountability of the members, plus it gives you a reserve expense account in the event that you might like to schedule a special guest, or event for your mastermind. Either way, a periodic guest or event will help to invigorate your group if conducted properly.

Since you’re seeking to start a mastermind, then you probably already know what to expect, the most effective way to create exponential growth by meeting with several other people in a mastermind, which creates a virtual additional personality/entity (the mastermind), which feeds the group with inspiration, ideas, solutions, and creative possibilities. Far surpassing the sum of the participants of the group.

But you probably already knew that.