Once upon a time, two friends each started their own business.
Both of them, in the early days, did it all.
They were the practitioner, the marketer, the administrator, the director, the cleaner, the coordinator, the salesperson and the bookkeeper.
One of them — a fiercely independent fellow, was determined to grow his business by himself, even as he began running out of time and his skillset and capacity were stretched.
He made sure to do everything himself, rely on no one but himself and learn from nothing but his own mistakes.
The other friend took a different approach.
As things started to get more complex and as time ran out, he collaborated with other business owners doing the same thing as him. Each day, they shared their challenges, triumphs and everything in between.
While he still learned from his own mistakes, he also learned from the mistakes of others. And he also learned from their wins, which he implement immediately.
Like this:
One person in the mastermind lands on a system for marketing that increases client acquisition. Another has a strategy for optimising the client experience that works like gangbusters. At the same time, someone else again comes up with an excellent solution for content creation that can be done almost on autopilot.
While they only had one winning idea, they got to benefit from three winning ideas.
He realised there was power in collaboration — and it wasn’t long before the idea of the Master Mind was born. The collective he collaborated with had created a supercharged operating system that functioned far more optimally than just one mind alone. Hence, the ‘master’ part of the mind.
At the start, both business owners stumbled forward at approximately the same speed.
But over time, the second friend’s progress became impossible to ignore.
While the first business owner continued to fumble, the second business owner found his stride.
He made better decisions, made them faster, and knew what moved the needle.
He saw things that others missed.
Case in point:
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In a 30-minute call a few weeks ago, I found ~$20,000 for someone in their business because of an accounting oversight. While it was staring at them in the face and had been for at least a year, they had never actioned it… and their accountants had never mentioned it, either.
And all they would need to do is send a simple email to get the ball rolling.
When you know what to look for, you can see opportunities everywhere.
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That point aside, despite his fierce independence, the first friend felt stuck, confused and alone.
Overwhelmed and with no time, independence didn’t look so virtuous.
So while it’s true that you start your business alone, it’s not true that it needs to stay that way.
Just last week, Lachy was peppered at the ASCA conference with questions like:
“It seems like you guys are always doing something new. How do you move so fast?”
The answer is simple:
I participate in masterminds, and I lead them. As the old saying goes, you don’t truly understand something until you pay it forward.
So I benefit on both sides of the equation.
Not only do I get to learn from others, but I also get to teach them, too. Hence, ‘Mastery’.
IMO, one of the best decisions you can make is to invest in a mastermind — I’m yet to see a single committed person who did not get an insane ROI. I wish I could share some of the stories, but they are honestly too personal, and I want to protect my relationship with the guys who share them with me.
Yet, most of you will probably look at your situation and, despite reading this, act like the first business owner. And I’d understand because I speak to gym/studio and clinic owners who talk themselves out of a collaborative mastermind even when the proof is staring at them in the face.
It’s human nature to talk yourself out of stuff like that. I get it.
It’s normal to say it’s not worth the money since you don’t have much of it right now, and you can’t see how things could change.
But the first step forward is awareness, so take from that what you will.
– Karl Goodman
