This months article is called Mentors and Masterminds so I wanted to share my own first mastermind experience.
I met Ann Etheridge at a seminar I delivered back in January 2006. We felt an immediate connection and had coffee soon afterward. In conversation, we found that we were both seeking support to grow our businesses. She mentioned another friend, Meri Raffetto, who was also interested in this and suggested we all meet to see if there was synergy between us. There was! We all decided to hold weekly meetings at each others homes. We came to each meeting prepared with our agenda of what we wanted to talk about, get feedback on, brainstorm around and more. For us that included new business ideas, marketing ideas, support as we navigated the rollercoaster of being business owners.
We also committed to connecting between meetings by e-mail and phone if we had something pressing to discuss or review. That experience lasted nearly a year and was an integral part of my early success as a new business owner. It gave me the camaraderie and collegiality I was missing since I left my position at the university and went out on my own. Today I continue to have mastermind partnerships with different people and in different ways based on my needs as by business evolves.