Social Motivation and the Mastermind
Recently, I've started to really use the powers of social motivation to improve my goal setting abilities and my general productivity. The Napoleon Hill book "Think and Grow Rich" mentions the concept of the Mastermind. I have been using this time-honored principle to strengthen my goals and give me a boost of motivation whenever a Mastermind is held.
What is a Mastermind?
A Mastermind is a social motivation group of people who want to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. This group can consist of similarly minded people or of a variety of different folks. Each will have its advantages. The Mastermind can meet as often as you wish and can have as many or as few people involved as you wish. Let me explain how we work our social motivation group which may give you more insight into why these groups are important.
My Mastermind consists of myself, my girlfriend, a mutual friend Katie, and Katie's friend (now ours) Ryan. I am a freelance writing and a theatre producer, which is similar to Katie (a producer, and a puppeteer), Amy is getting into freelance writing after being a newspaper designer for two years, and Ryan is an actor/artist/theatre director. Our first order of business is to discuss our progress on the goals we have set the previous week. These goals are created by each member of the group discussing what he is interested in pursuing in his life and what has been holding him back. The group then takes turns trying to figure out ways around the obstacles and making observations that the speaking member may not have noticed.
What the group really accomplishes, is helping us push through our bullshit that we had constructed in our own way. For instance, I've been writing for Demand Studios (a freelance website) for the last couple months and I've been getting pretty burnt out by it. I've also been tutoring a few local children and getting a much better wage than Demand Studios (I also enjoy teaching a whole heck of a lot). Ryan pointed out that I should double my efforts in finding tutoring students in my area so that I might be able to decrease the amount of article writing I do. Sure, I should have seen this on my own, but by meeting with the group, I was able to have other people take a look at my life and give me some hints about how to make things better, more efficient, and more financially solvent.
How to Create Your Own?
How do you create your own social motivation Mastermind group? Just get a group of positive, productive people together who will be willing to meet at a specific time every week, two weeks, or month (something that our group has had problems with ;)) and then make it happen. You can do some research to find out more of what a Mastermind can be or you can try to run it on your own terms (like we have). If you do start a group, let me know through the Contact Me page how it's gone, I would love to hear some success stories :).
