Why Join or Form a Mastermind Group
During my magical sabbatical year and a half off from work, as my leisure days became more and more structured (thanks to Coffee Shop Study Hall) and filled with commitments, I started to ask myself how I would ever find the time to fit in a real job when the time came, as I knew it would have to.
And then the time did come. I could no longer put off the start of my job search. Then one day, I made it official by registering with an agency and updating my LinkedIn page. And so I began a process that I expected would take a few months. I was wrong.
Within a couple of weeks, I had my first interview. And by the end of that day, a call for a follow-up interview. And by the end of that day, a job offer. And by the end of the following week, I was back in the full-time working world.
It had all happened so quickly that I felt unprepared to give up my jobless-but-productive life. Though it was a relief not to have to job hunt, I wondered how I would find the time to do all the things I wanted to do. How would I fit it all in?
My friend Kathleen had the answer. We would form a Mastermind group.
Instead of working side by side at our separate tables at Study Hall, we would call in once every couple of weeks to provide an update on our progress and keep each other accountable.
I was familiar with the concept of Mastermind as my boyfriend J had been part of a Success Call for several months, and that concept was very similar, though perhaps slightly less structured. The idea of Mastermind is to bring several minds together to form a group — or “master” — mind that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I had formed a similar in-person group with a few friends years before, but It had been hard to sustain as we were long-time friends and too used to the flexibility of our relationships to maintain a more formal one. In other words, it was too easy to flake.
This time, in order for the group to succeed, I knew we had to have clear structure and accountability. Kathleen was way ahead of me, having already laid out the structure of the calls.
MASTERMIND CALL STRUCTURE
Each person spends 10–15 minutes in the “hot seat” discussing the following since our last call:
- Their current goals (short or long-term)
- What they did since the last call
- What’s working (victories)
- What’s not working (challenges, blocks, asking for suggestions and brainstorming)
- What they’re committing to work on before the next call
ASANA
I suggested using web-based project management software to keep track of progress and share information. Asana was the one good thing (aside from meeting some cool people) I had taken away from a short-term horror-of-a-job the previous year. It’s free for individual users. We can create our own categories, tasks and sub-tasks, and we can see each other’s information and even comment. There’s also a mobile app. We don’t have to know all the steps to achieving each goal up front. We can simply write out a loose outline of steps when we first start, and then adjust the outline as we go.
EVERNOTE
In addition, I’ve found Evernote to be my new best friend, the perfect place to keep notes and links all in one place, a great work space beyond the list confines of Asana.
With our third member, Jessie, we’ve managed to stay fairly consistent and focused. Some weeks are better than others, of course, but more often than not, we manage to complete a few items on our ever-evolving task lists.
Thanks to our Mastermind group, I launched this blog and am starting to hit my stride. Having to give a report of my progress has really pushed me to publish posts that might otherwise have remained in draft mode for weeks, perhaps even months.
Mastermind is still a work-in-progress, but I’m optimistic enough to call it a success-in-progress.
Originally published on www.fogcitybloomer.com.
