How Do I Know If A Mastermind Group Is A Waste Of Time?

The $100 MBA Show

Omar and Nicole from The $100 MBA Show tackle a listener question about identifying whether a mastermind group is worth the time, sharing pe

Key takeaways

• A good mastermind group has members who are better than you in at least one area, enabling learning and growth.
• Actionable decisions and accountability during meetings are essential for progress.

Main topics

• Evaluating the value of mastermind groups
• Signs of productive vs. unproductive groups

Notable quotes

"You don't need to wait to be invited or pay for a mastermind group. You can create one for yourself."

Conclusion

A mastermind group is only valuable if it fosters growth through diver

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Today's Q &A Wednesday's question comes from Susie, and Susie asks, how do I know if a mastermind group is a waste of time? Nicole and I have been a part of many mastermind groups. We've started mastermind groups. We've been a part of mastermind groups together. We have a lot of experience with this and a lot of opinions. So this is a great question from Susie. But first, Nicole, can you share with us what a mastermind group is? Maybe you can give an example. Tell us a little bit about the format, what you do every week or month. Speaker 1 (0:29) A mastermind group is a usually a small group of people that gather regularly to share ideas, solve problems and to help each other with their goals. Speaker 2 (0:38) Yeah, it's very common in business circles to be part of a mastermind group. Yeah. Yes. Speaker 1 (0:41) We're Speaker 2 (0:42) going Speaker 1 (0:42) to focus a lot on that last part, which is about helping each other move forward with our goals. Speaker 2 (0:51) Welcome back to the $100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. Speaker 2 (1:04) Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps us reach even more people who need the same no-fluff practical business advice. It literally takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. So give me an example of a group you're a part of. What's the format like? What would somebody expect in a mastermind group? Speaker 1 (1:27) I love this question because when I finally got into my mastermind group, I was so happy because for the longest time I was a little bit jealous of you because you were a part of mastermind groups well before I was, and I saw the benefit that you got. And so I thought, oh, you know, hopefully one day I'll be a part of a mastermind. And I did. Eventually I got together with three other women and we ran our mastermind for five years, which I think when I would tell people that our mastermind was still running after five years, it was pretty impressive. So our format was we would meet once a month. We'd have a two-minute start at the beginning to share a win and give each other's updates on what had been happening in that month. And then we each had a hot seat item. So we spent 10 minutes going around sharing a problem, a challenge, or something that was going on that we wanted feedback in our business. And we each gave each other feedback on that. And then the last few minutes, whatever that was left, we'd use it to catch up. Speaker 2 (2:24) So who is in your group and what made it a good mastermind group? How did you know that this is a group for you? Speaker 1 (2:29) In my group was Kate and Cass and myself. Kate is in Puerto Rico, Cass is in the United States and I'm here in Sydney. So we found a time that would work for the three of us. And what was really great about that mastermind was at the time when Cass joined, we'd never met in person. She was introduced through someone else brought into the group later on because Kate and I had first started off. for a couple of months on our own. And then when Cass came in, she brought a different business because Kate and I both ran and were part of podcast companies, so running a podcast. Cass came in running a personal styling business. She's been on the podcast, so we know who it is. And so when she came in, she brought a different perspective. She was at a different stage in her business a bit earlier on in the business. And it was just a great dynamic. And I think what was one of the things that really stood out over time was how close we got. But we got very close because we were very committed. Like we showed up every single month without fail. And in the beginning, like we didn't really know Cass super well, but that friendship built over time. We ended up taking a girls trip together a few years later. Like a Speaker 2 (3:36) live. And we did Speaker 1 (3:38) a live mastermind in Japan. It was such an awesome group. I have so much to say about that group. Speaker 2 (3:44) Yeah. And that group is no longer meeting, but you still got a lot out of it. Yeah. And that's, I believe, a mastermind group should, you shouldn't last forever. Like you should outgrow this group at some point or everybody's needs start to change as they grow. Yes. But one thing I want to stress is you mentioned like, you know, you had mastermind groups before me, all that kind of stuff. I want to say that. You don't need to wait to be invited or to be a part of a mastermind group or to pay for a mastermind group. You can create one for yourself. Like that's literally what happened with me there. We went to a conference and I got along with three other people at this conference and we stayed in touch on WhatsApp. And then I just said, hey, do you guys want to meet every week and do a mastermind group together and hold each other accountable? And they were like, yeah, let's do that. That was one of my mastermind groups where we just created it ourselves, you know, or I took the initiative to say, let's do this. Like, you don't need to wait or pay or anything like that. You could just create one that works for you. I do want to stress that that group that I formed was good maybe for about, I would say, two or three months. But eventually that group wasn't serving me anymore. I'm going to share with you how I knew it was not a good group to continue to be in. I love all these people. They're wonderful. And they're still friends of mine. But every time we'd show up to the mastermind, people would not progress or they would not actually do the things they said they were going to do last week, which was not a group that's very motivating. Because when you're just showing up and say, yep, I said I was going to do one, two, three, and I did one, two, three this week. This next week, my goals are this. And you're actually like. committing to the consistency and hoping that they'll hold you accountable but when they don't do their side of the bargain it's kind of demotivating when everybody else is kind of like slacking off you have to have a a unified kind of energy and at the same time everybody's got to take it at the same level of seriousness like oh this actually matters we Speaker 1 (5:40) were super organized what we had was a i don't know if you guys did this but we had a spreadsheet And so we would fill in the week before we were going to meet, everyone had to fill in their hot seat item. So it was one of those things that you could go in and you could see what the challenge was or the topic that was going to be discussed for each person a little bit beforehand. So you could kind of prep and have it. at least have an idea in your mind what was going to be discussed. And having that spreadsheet, I mean, I sometimes go back and look at it because it's that record of the progression of our businesses, our challenges, of the things that, you know, we were dealing with at any given moment in time. But having that spreadsheet gave us that accountability of like, here is this thing that I'm going to talk about. We would have a column at the end too, where we'd write our little notes based on the feedback that we got from each other. We'd write down our action items as well, what we were going to do. And it was a record that we all could refer to. So it did keep us more accountable, I think, in that regard, just having that little level of organization. Speaker 2 (6:41) Yeah. So I