Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about is the power of Mastermind groups. What role can they play in helping people achieve the results that they want?
David Hyner: A mastermind group. In my experience in the last 15 years is one of the quickest ways to take your goals and yourself personally, business, professionally ,to the next level. It’s surrounding yourself with a group of people who have got the skills, knowledge and expertise that you haven’t got. It’s surrounding yourself with a group of people who will both – and these are the two critical words – support you and hold you accountable to your goals. Because in our lives most of us have got people who have got agendas for us. Everyone from our life partners to the dog, the Inland Revenue, our accountants. Everybody has an agenda for us and our time and our money, except for people in a mastermind group, who have got no agenda for us other than ours and their success. So we’re different personalities. If we were a mastermind group you would have no hesitation in being able to spot in me when I’m not really doing what I said I was going to do, so you just eyeball me and go; really Dave? And whereas other people, in our lives, we might be able to fluff, wrap in cotton wool and push to one side and carry on doing what we like doing, a mastermind group, very quickly will go; go on Dave, step up or step out.
Grant Leboff: So what are the keys then to making masterminding work? If you think, OK this is good for me, I need to join one of these groups or create one of these groups. What’s the way to do it?
David Hyner: First thing I would do is make sure you know your strengths, make sure you know your weaknesses and insecurities and look for people who have got the strengths that you haven’t got. People who have got aspirations, maybe massive goals. Get people with a real diverse industry base knowledge or skill sets, and meet on, maybe, a six weekly, bi monthly or monthly basis. May take anything from half a day to a day, and take it in turns to sit round a table and eat, drink and share. By share I mean share your massive goals. Every year the group helps you, and each other, achieve one personal and one business goal. I would strongly, strongly, recommend that the meetings run by going round the table and saying this is my massive goal, and then brainstorming either a challenge or an opportunity that you’ve currently got on that project. Allow the group to brainstorm your goal, because they’re going to give you a totally different perspective to those if we surrounded ourselves with our friends who are just like us. Those meetings turn into a fireside chat, really quickly. If you’ve got a group of people not like you for support and accountability is there from the offset. So you brainstorm the goals, at the end of each meeting you then say OK thank you for brainstorming the goals, between now and next meeting, this is what I’m going to do; these three or four things, and then between meetings, you support each other and hold each other accountable to make sure they’re achieving their goals. Because too few of us get the accountability we need.
Grant Leboff: So masterminds, by the sounds of it, obviously groups of peers, because you’re not going to be able to get itself into a mastermind group of chief executives turning over hundreds of millions of pounds [£] if you’re running a business turning over a few hundred thousand. So if you’re looking for peers, how does that work? Because you want to ensure, obviously, that there’s the contrast as well.
David Hyner: There are loads and loads of groups you can join, but if you wanted to start one yourself, I would certainly look alone amongst your peer groups. Look within and external to your industry. I’ve seen industry groups work I’ve seen them even within a company and a team, being supported and held accountable on a regular basis. But to find these people, all you need to do is look in your social circles, your business circles, your online circles. I mean on LinkedIn there’s everyone we ever could hope to meet in a mastermind group – they are there, waiting. Again, ask them, qualify then, ask them if they want to be part of a group and if they do, what are you going to bring to the table, what are your skill sets, what are your insecurities? If they won’t tell you your strengths or insecurities, you don’t want them in your group. How brave are they? Are they willing to be pushed?
Grant Leboff: And for you, how key is a mastermind into into being successful?
David Hyner: It has taken me to the next level in two of my businesses. I have my publishing business, my speaking business. It is the difference that made the difference. I have seen other mastermind groups where incredibly successful people, who were quite happy but had bigger dreams but was just plodding along, have gone ballistic within 12 months. The camaraderie, the lifetime friendship that comes from these groups as well… And if I may, the history behind them. Most people assume that mastermind groups started from Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. He was a journalist, was paid to interview industrialists in the turn of the last century and he found that one of the biggest traits amongst really effective and wealthy people was that they had little mastermind groups. People wrongly assume that that’s how they started… they didn’t. I couldn’t believe it, when I did the research, to discover they started in Birmingham [laughs] here in the UK! There was a little group called the Lunar Society who were the founders of the industrial revolution. Their members, as individuals let alone as a group, changed the world for ever. But the good news, Grant, is that they’re no different to you or I or anybody watching this right now. All they did was meet on a regular basis, brainstorm their massive goals – and they changed the world – and support each other and hold each other accountable. Look what they achieved. Why can’t we? Could you imagine Grant, the combined skills, knowledge and expertise of everybody watching this right now… It’s staggering. We play at stuff. A mastermind group is the best way. We’re very good at getting support, very few of us are really, truthfully, good at getting the accountability we need.
There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.
