Do you feel a little awkward starting your own online mastermind group, because you think, “What do I talk about once we’ve started?” That’s a very legitimate concern, and I want to validate it because I’ve been in that situation.
I started out as a business coach. In that setting, it’s usually about all the experience the coach or mentor has accumulated. You’re passing one person’s knowledge to another. Sure, you need to ask questions and make sure you’re giving the right advice for situations clients bring you. But mostly, it’s a game of waiting for them to bring something up, and then answering from your reservoir of wisdom.
The way I designed my masterminds online, however, was to gather everyone on a weekly basis. And that immediately begs the question, “What are you going to talk about once a week, especially with eight to twelve other men on the line at the same time?”
Well, luckily, I’d already spent two decades in a business mastermind with Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller. I knew the ins and outs of what we did, week after week, and I had a good idea of how to guide conversations. But you might be coming at this from a different angle. I want you to understand how simple it is to have as much as 12 weeks of content, topics for discussion, books to read and themes to follow for your mastermind.
The 12-Week Year
We’re in the middle of an annual review of our go-to book for time blocking and management. It’s called The 12-Week Year, written by my friend Brian Moran. We’ve had Brian speak at our live events a few times, because what he teaches is so effective that we adopted it for everything we do.
My daughter Brooke, who runs operations for View From the Top, suggested we take all our knowledge of creating mastermind groups online and create a product for people who want to start their own groups. It’s called The Mastermind Playbook, and we released it last October. A ton of people signed up to buy it, because we combed every inch of the process we went through to make Iron Sharpens Iron a success, and distilled it into a tool for others to use.
I contacted Brian, who agreed to help by overlaying the 12-Week Year time management system into the Playbook. The results for you, the facilitator, are going to blow your mind. You won’t believe how simple it is to take two or three “big rocks” of starting or running your mastermind business and breaking them into daily, bite-sized “chunks” of activities you can execute like a boss.
So if you’re worried about what to do, or talk about, or what priorities you should set, I have good news for you. The Mastermind Playbook is the most efficient, productive and simplifying tool for keeping your group on schedule as you grow it.
An Example of How This Works for Me
Some people question me about The 12-Week Year and can’t believe there’s no magic to how I get so many things done. Well, to be honest, I don’t “do” a lot of what gets done. My team does a ton of work for me. But the “magic” is that my team is also following my 12-week plan! I sit down every couple of months and figure out priorities for the next 12 weeks, and then break them down into steps the team can follow.
So if you could see what I’m up to between now and mid-August, you’d know what books our mastermind groups will read. You’d see what discussion questions we’ll ask them during our meetings. You’d see the content we plan to write and publish. You’d know what experts we’ve booked for our online gatherings. You’d see the reverse-engineer planning for our live events.
Those tasks are broken down for each team member to fulfill by a certain deadline. To be frank, I don’t have time to wonder about when or how they choose to fulfill the requirements. The only data I can really crunch is whether or not they accomplish them - and they always do. So you’ll need a great team as you scale your mastermind, but let me remind you, teams become great when leadership makes the right moves with time, resources and decisions.
A lot of this is a habit now, because The Mastermind Playbook originated in my head and I know what to do in most situations. But I still need to make the executive decision about what to put at the front of the list, and that’s why the 12-Week Year is so valuable. You can wield the same kind of efficiency and productivity when you build it into running your mastermind!
If you’d prefer to have the knowledge, tools and time management systems we created with The Mastermind Playbook before you launch into the world of masterminds, I encourage you to visit our website and check out what’s on offer.
