Why and How You Should Join a Mastermind

Did you ever hear a term and it just glosses over you? You know what it means and you hear people say it all the time, but you convince yourself it’s not for you and move on with your day. Everytime I heard the word “mastermind,” I was like oh, there’s that word again, and moved on to the next thing. After listening to story after story of successful folks, there were a few themes that came up during every interview: exercise, wake up early, be agile, cut out stress, and then sure enough, join a mastermind.

Okay, but what exactly is a mastermind and how do you join one…?

The idea is relatively simple: surround yourself with smart people to help support you and your ideas. Obvious statement is obvious, right? I’ve always had a great support system with friends, family, and peers, but the thing is, they weren’t the appropriate people to share my new endeavors with. Don’t get me wrong, they were always excited for me, but I’m not going to ask a friend about how to write a book if they’ve never written a book before or were interested in this at all. Much like how as instructional designers, we need to think about the target audience for our learning experiences, I needed to think about who I was connecting with and for what purpose.

For me, it was that I found myself accidentally stumbling into the business world with entrepreneurship, consulting, and free-lance, yet I had zero clue what I was doing. For you, it could be landing an instructional design position, getting a promotion, or finally launching your side hustle after years of contemplation.

So, who should be in your new inner circle with this mastermind? Here’s what I wish I knew beforehand: it doesn’t need to be folks directly in your field and this could be a huge benefit to you. I was able to find the right people to help me outside of the instructional design space. Whether I was focused on writing my book, creating content with the podcast or YouTube channel, hosting workshops for universities, and launching Instructional Design Institute, I didn’t always reach out to fellow instructional designers for advice. Yes, I did indeed talk to many instructional design friends, but it wasn’t on a weekly cadence and it was more superficial details. Instead, I found my mastermind in a bit of an odd way and this might be the way for you to find your people too.

After downloading podcast after podcast about entrepreneurship, I realized that I didn’t like 90% of them out there. I couldn’t resonate with most of these people as I had no plans on trying to quit my 9-5. I also had an incredibly specific niche of trying to serve aspiring and current instructional designers. I luckily stumbled upon one podcast about entrepreneurship, but it wasn’t the host I connected with, it was actually the guest being interviewed. She was a nursing professor who realized that nursing students were not being supported enough in their degree programs. They wanted more help outside of the classroom and multiple students were coming to her for advice. This deeply resonated with me as many people I talk to are students in instructional design degree programs who felt that their degree didn’t prepare them enough for the real-world.

I found her email in the show notes and wrote to her about how inspiring her story was and about how I’ve found myself in the same kind of circumstances. I asked if we could have a virtual coffee chat sometime because I was so curious how she established her own business around this coaching concept. I was actually planning on asking her if she wanted to create a mastermind, but she did me one better and invited me to join her mastermind group. Within this group were two former nursing professors, a weather scientist, and a realtor. What did we have in common? We were all trying to serve our audiences. They didn’t know a thing about instructional design and I obviously had no idea about their fields, but they have been my support system for the last 3 years.

What separates masterminds from normal groups is that while it’s friendly, it’s also treated like a business meeting. We take turns going around the Zoom room to share what we’ve worked on for the week, ask for feedback, and then set a new goal before we meet again. This takes accountability to a whole new level. When you have an amazing win, you can celebrate with your team. When you are feeling down and out, your folks can pick you back up. Something I’ve always found amazing about this group is that they genuinely want to be there. Even though we meet later in the evenings, we always do our best to show up, be present, and provide support. I really do believe that because of these folks, I’ve been able to go above and beyond my own expectations.

So, how do you find your mastermind?

Well, you could do literally what I did step-by-step. Contact folks who share the same passions as you, ask if you can have a virtual chat sometime, and see if it makes sense to try and form a group. What I would look for specifically would be for people who are on the same wavelength as you. What I mean by this is that I wouldn’t be reaching out to Bill Gates to form a mastermind. He probably has one, but I’ll assume it’s with other billionaires. You want to find people who share the same headspace as you because their advice can help and it’s relatable.

My second suggestion would be to simply use LinkedIn. Yes, you can join online communities on LinkedIn and find connections that way. However, you don’t even need to join an official group page. Let’s say you are an aspiring instructional designer and you want to form a mastermind for all of you to land instructional design positions. If you follow the instructional design tags, you’ll see the same names popping up again and again. By commenting and liking instructional design posts, more will appear in your feed and it won’t be long until the algorithm is working for you to turn your LinkedIn into an instructional design sharing machine. You can use this to stay up to date with current trends, topics, research, etc. More importantly though, you’ll find others with similar interests as you. I’m also confident in saying that many, many people are on LinkedIn to make connections, but they would rather wait for someone to connect with them first. Taking that initiative can lead to a world of conversations you would never have otherwise. Of course, be smart about who you choose to contact. If you sense a red flag, follow that instinct.

Lastly, you could have people come to you. Nothing is stopping you from creating your own post about the mastermind you want to form and invite others to join you. Once again, many people want to connect and thrive with others, but they are waiting for that invitation. If you provide that warm welcoming, people will openly respond.

So, what’s the main takeaways here? Connecting with others who share similar passions and interests is a no brainer, but you need to find folks who are committed to the goals. Once you do find your mastermind, your creativity and innovation will soar. All you need is that push and guidance in the right direction and you’ll be off and running before you know it.

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