So many relationships have been built and broken on missed or targeted expectations and joining a mastermind is no different. When you join a mastermind you should know exactly what you can expect from the group, the leader, and what is expected of you. To make sure that everyone has a positive experience, we have to understand that expectations are a two-way street.
What Do I Need To Do For The Group?
Show Up
As a member of a mastermind, it is important that you show up, ready to listen, be challenged in your thinking, and receive constructive criticism. Simply attending the predetermined meetings can change your experience of the group and it is important for you to be present so you can ask questions, get help, and give help to your fellow members.
Homework
It is also important that you do your homework. Typically at the end of the meetings, you are asked what goals you have for the next meeting and you either have completed it or you haven’t. It is this simple task that helps you practice creating goals and gives you small wins each week when you accomplish your goals. It also shows group members that you are serious about your business and want to move forward.
Encour
You may or may not be the “smartest” one in the group, but know that your opinion, support, and advice always matters. Be sure to show up not only to get help but allow yourself to encourage other members. Your encouragement or confirmation of an idea they have could change their entire outlook! Don’t sell you or your fellow members short.
What Should I Expect From A Mastermind?
Learn From Others
You can expect that people will come from different backgrounds and business practices. Just as you will learn what you CAN do, a mastermind is also an opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes. Sometimes when you’re sitting in on one of your meetings you’ll hear a story about a fellow member who went through a really tough time with a topic you’ve been struggling with and came out victorious.
Let’s use raising prices as an example. You learn from a fellow member that they had all the same fears you had before they raised their prices. Maybe they even said exactly what you’re thinking, “I’m afraid my clients will get mad and I’ll get angry emails or lose clients”.
Then you learn that they were SHOCKED they didn’t lose any clients. Or the one client who left was a client that always complained and they really didn’t like them anyway.
Seeing how other people have faced the same challenges you have and what the outcome was will help give you the confidence to be the incredible business owner that you are. There is a lot of power in knowing that you aren’t the first one to have gone through it. And if the worst happens you have an entire group of people to support you and help evict that negative self-talk that tends to creep up when we are alone in our thoughts.
A mastermind will support you and give you ideas in a way that is empowering, useful, and often proven methodologies.
Long-term Relationships
In most masterminds, you can really rely on having long-term relationships with the members. It often isn’t a fluid group where there is a revolving door of people coming and going. The group typically has members enter at a certain time and the group forms together. People bond and feel a closeness that you don’t feel elsewhere because the intimacy grows as you face struggles head on and cheer each other on. It’s actually quite powerful and why the group bonds together because they are all vested in each other.
Long-term relationships allow consistency with members and encourage the bonding of the group. People tend to be quite open about their finances, fears, and dreams so they can be better understood in the group and therefore better supported. There aren’t many other places where a business owner can feel comfortable opening up without fear of competitors seeing, being judged, or feeling inadequate. Masterminds expect you to be vulnerable and comfort in doing so happens because of the long-term relationships created.
Celebrations
Just as a mastermind will be there to get you through the hard times, it’s equally as important that they are there to celebrate with you when you have achievements. Arguably, they are the only ones who really know how much work and guts it took you to make that achievement and you can expect them all to cheer you on through each one.
