The importance of a mastermind

In the world of affiliate marketing and internet marketing everyone seems to be holding onto their “secrets” for dear life.  As if NO ONE in the world has thought of that idea. Seriously? (yeah yah…some of my ideas I know people have never ever thought of, but at least 80% of what you’ve thought of has already been implemented or thought of.)

Anyway, I was always VERY reluctant to share anything with anyone. But then I thought to myself, “umm why hold back”.  Honestly…why?

I had no valid reason besides the fact that I if I do share ideas and practices with others it creates competition for myself.  But, by the time I create competition for myself I would have thought of at least 500 other ideas that I want to do.  If you’re like me and just have a crazy brain that just rambles on and on about ideas and concepts you want to try, then you know what I’m talking about.

So I decided to join a mastermind because I have heard SO many people saying that they are great. I first tried a mastermind in 2005 with some people.  It had about 10 or so people in it. But these people were from all different markets, different marketing tactics and income levels.  Some even newbies, which I didn’t know until later.  This group was great but it seemed more of an “idea stealer” group than an actual mastermind.  Masterminds are supposed to be groups that take your ideas and help you implement them on a larger scale or just provide feedback on how to improve your process/funnel.  But in this one, as soon as I gave out a couple ideas for products and concepts I was working on,  I  noticed a month later it was a product or some wacky ebook.  Pretty f’ed if you ask me.  So I decided to ditch that mastermind and go back to what I do best.

Implementing.

As the years went on, I started to become more introverted and to myself. I didn’t share any tactics with anyone and I noticed that when I did, it would be thrown up on the internet somewhere in some IM guru video or some bullshit like that.  So I went even deeper into my dark cave and literally didn’t tell anyone anything about what I do.

But then it hit me, I was doing EVERYTHING myself.  From building sites, to putting up campaigns, to optimizing and tracking.  I had to get out of this shit.  I was literally killing myself – working 16 hours a day and shutting everyone else out. It was affecting my health, my personal life, and so much more. Not good.

So I decided to start hiring more people locally in San Diego.  But I had to hire people who fit my style. Not people who are just smart. I think it’s extremely important to hire people who are “cool with you”.  Not just MBA grads and people who want money. You need employees who are loyal.

For example, we play mini basketball in the office, we have a chef that cooks for us, we play nerf dart gun wars and all sorts of crazy stuff. The environment is GREAT.

Right around that time, I joined forces with my current business partner, who is the ONLY guy I met in my life where I can throw ideas off of and get some even more creative feedback back from him.  Then we hired about 7 more people along our journey.

This turned into a big of chaos as we hired these 7 people in a short time.  Short as in 2 months.  It was pure chaos with everyone doing everything and no real structure.  Until we hired some other people to help manage it all.

With so many ideas and projects going on, we needed an outlet to let all our knowledge out. That’s when we had our Magic Bullet Seminar.  The seminar was literally no holds bar information that just blew the audience away.  When we said we’re giving everything away, we literally did.  Why? Because each of the audience members paid $4,000 to attend this seminar and people who qualify deserve this information.  These are Do’ers not Dreamers.  There is a huge difference.

At the seminar, we had a sick lineup of speakers -  Keith Baxter,  Jon Jonas, Jonathon Van Clute, Gauher Chaudhry, and so many more. These guys are on point.

There are a couple others whose names I won’t mention as they are pretty underground and not sure if they want their names released.  So anyway, a group of 7 of us decided we need to make a difference in this world and think bigger than any of us imagined. We went up to a hotel/spa place up in Ventura County, CA.  We had so much synergy together and the ideas that were coming out were just insane.  We were literally HELPING each other with our businesses instead of trying to figure out how WE can do it ourselves.

That’s the way a mastermind should work.

When it comes to masterminds, I think that you should look for people who are smarter than you or around the same level.  That way you can mastermind with people who are LIKE YOU and have business at the same stage as you.

Can’t find people, or don’t know people? Try Craigslist or try Meetup.com.

But I do think that this is a HUGE part of anyone’s business to be able to bounce ideas off people who are at the same level or a little higher than you.

Tagged as: creativity, ideas, importance of masterminds, mastermind, stealing