Mentorship to Mastermind in 7 Simple Steps

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Mentorship to Mastermind in 7 Simple Steps

Do you have a mentor?

Yes, we all do, weather we know it or not. I did not know it until recently, I found I have had lots of mentors, many of which I only thought of as a boss. You, start out in life with your parents and other family members mentorship. What does it really mean to have or be a mentor? And what does it take to turn a mentorship program into a mastermind alliance?

I want to answer these questions today, because I am experiencing this in my life at the time I am writing this. I started working part time at a local ranch and at first the owner was my boss, you see I knew nothing about mentorship even though, I experienced it my whole life unaware of the POWerful force that mentors have been in my life.

Until I started an online business and was introduced to the idea of mentorship, I did not know anything about it, let alone how to align with a mentor to create a mastermind. The online business community I am a part of relies heavily on mentorship and so does everything else, no where else in my life have I run across people that speak and think about mentorship the way this particular community of entrepreneurs thinks and speaks on the subject.

Maybe, two years ago I devised a plan that would bring my mentor and me into a mastermind alliance and now it is happening. It took a little bit of strategic manoeuvring and I went about things in a certain way that had I done things differently I may not have achieved the same results. Before I get into the steps I took, allow me to share a little about my mastermind plan, first I want to clearly define mentorship and mastermind.

What is Mentorship?

“Mentoring” is a process that always involves communication and is relationship based, but its precise definition is elusive. In a nutshell, mentorship is a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.

Mentorship is a process for you to acquire, the informal transmission of knowledge, social capital, and the psychosocial support, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time. You can perceive the quality of a possible mentor by the results obtained by your mentor relevant to work, career, or professional development.

I learned when I was seeking a career in the trades, you are an apprentice and you work under the mentorship of a Journeyman, I worked with several Journeymen and I really learned a lot. I was unaware that this was mentorship. If the receipt of mentorship is a man, you may be referred to as a protégé, if you are a woman you would be a protégée, an apprentice or, nowadays, a mentee.

Your mentor may be older or younger, they have a certain area of expertise and results that you are seeking. Mentorship is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. Just like when your parents taught you to dress yourself, or when your teacher taught you to read. When you begin to recognize mentorship, you will see a vast abundance of these relationships all around you and all around the world.

Tri$haly’s Tips For Selecting a Mentor

What is a Mastermind?

You mastermind group should offer a combination of brainstorming, education, peer accountability and support in a group setting to sharpen your business and personal skills. A mastermind group helps you and your mastermind group members achieve results.

You challenge each other to set powerful goals, and more importantly, you challenge each other

to accomplish your and achieve results. Your mastermind group requires commitment, confidentiality, willingness to both give and receive advice and ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. You encourage mastermind group members to act as catalysts for growth, devil’s advocates and supportive colleagues.

Napoleon Hill’s Definition of the “Mastermind Alliance”

The concept of the “mastermind alliance” was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill in his book, “Think And Grow Rich,” mastermind groups have been around since the beginning of time, even Benjamin Franklin belonged to such a group, which he called a Junto.

Napoleon Hill wrote about the “mastermind alliance” principle as:

“The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.”

He also wrote…

“No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind [the master mind].”

The intention has been to work together with my ranch mentor to use horses in coordination with one of my corporations and in an amazing twist of events, my business partner and I are now working with the ranch owner on a second project involving my other company, which is a solar corporation.

Mentorship to Mastermind in 7 Simple Steps

1 Share your Vision

If your like me you struggle with this one, if you have the right mentor then you will be able to share your vision freely and tactfully. You feel intimidated by the idea of putting your BiG goal out there, people will scoff and laugh, maybe even family who is supposed to love you. I have felt the scorn of a likely supporter dashing my hopes and dreams. I have discovered the secret is in discernment, you must be able to know the right time to share it is usually when you are asked to share. You also have to discern how much to share, I have found it is important to share where you are going, equally important is with holding key elements of your plans to achieve the vision.

When you have the right mentor, they will appreciate that you plan to move on to greener pastures and support you in getting there, when they ask you. If you are spouting off your big plans to have a better business than what your mentor has when you have not established your credibility or been asked to share it may reflect badly.

Everything happens for a reason and I likely, would be failing at running my own barn, if things went my way. Instead, I have the opportunity to learn the skills and the things you would want to know before you begin managing your own herds. Typically these skills are passed generationally and I am excited to start that legacy for my own family, who has 80 acres to get started with.

I am so grateful that I shared the vision with my mentor turned mastermind member. You have to realize that if I had not shared my vision that we would not have created our mastermind, with so much momentum to move forward. You want to tell your mentor and really anyone who will listen what you intend to do, where you want your life to go and certain elements of your plan to get there.

2 Take Massive Action

Do whatever you can, whenever you can, start where you are with what you got and do something that moves you forward. Read books about the area in which you are receiving mentorship, you may even be able to help your mentor learn new things. Plug in to newsletters and read books on the cutting edge of your field and when appropriate share this information with your mentor.

Always be willing to do whatever it takes to reach the common goal, do your best to be flexible to your mentors wishes. See their top objective as yours, it should be, until your vision comes to fruition and you have achieved similar results to your mentor, you should actively share in and participate in their outcomes.

Step outside your comfort zone be willing to adjust your schedual, routine and habits in an effort to achieve your common goals, with your mentor. The better you can accomodate your mentor the greater the expectations you can have when you transition to becoming aligned with them in a mastermind setting.

3 Act Like An Equal

See yourself as equal in ability and competence as your mentor, know that if they can do it, you can do it. Your mentor likely already knows that they are not that special, and that they just think and act in certain ways that most anyone could model. You would not want to cross the line to thinking that you are better than your mentor in any way even if you have capabilities that they don’t, if they have the knowledge that you do not have respect that and respect their results.

Remember that your mentor was once like you and had to learn all the things that you are learning now. For me my mentor grew up a rancher and has a lifetime of wisdom that is imparted to me daily, everyone knows that there is an advantage to his experience.  I am so grateful to be working with a family that has such a tremendous and long history in their community, you and I can take solace in knowing that you can achieve and surpass the success of any existing entity or even invent a new one.

You are just as good as anyone else out there dead or alive, you can achieve what they have achieved and mo. Even  though others may have the advantage of inheriting a successful family business, there is nothing saying that you could not start today and grow the largest company on the planet out of a simple idea that no one else has thought of yet. You are equal.

4 Seek Help When Required

When you are unsure, do not hesitate to ask. You will require help at many times on the journey to where you are going with your mentorship and mastermind programs. It is imperative that you recognize your weaknesses and seek the help of those around you to compensate for you, where you are not strong. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses even your mentor and they will appreciate the time saved when you lay out where you are lacking.

Some business owners have to work with individuals for a long time to discover where an employee requires extra help. Many people out their are lacking self awareness and have never taken the time to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, values or direction in life. Often costly mistakes are made when weaknesses are unidentified, a good mentor will help you to make this analysis before your working relationship begins.

5 Go The Extra Mile

Before you share your vision, the practice of going the extra mile will secure you respect from your mentor. You always be asking yourself “How can I do what my mentor has asked or mo, or better than what has been asked.” I have found the number one answer to this the majority of the time is to just do it faster, in the work place I have seen a ton of zombie like should who lack the spring in their step. You do not want to be one of those people or when the time comes to share your vision it will be met with skeptism over your ability to get the job done.

When your mentor sees that you move briskly and do not waste time AKA money on chit chat or idleness, you will be identified as someone who can get the job done. With that extra umph put into any and every job, you will, inspire those around you to look at you as someone they want to work with more closely. I have experienced amazing results from doing this for mentors, because the sad truth it is rare, the zombies barely even show up. When you go the extra mile people are often shocked and overwhelmed with gratitude.

Going the extra mile just begets good karma, you can create opportunities in this manner, when you have shown your value with action, you make yourself a person of interest. Your mentor will want to know about you and will start to ask questions, for me it happened when I was taking time off for a business trip. Where are you going? Why? And on and on until my mentor had a broad view of a part of my vision.

6 Ask Questions About Your Work

Ask lots of questions, even the stupid ones, trust me you will only regret the questions you did not ask. The whole point of mentorship and masterminding is to learn, especially in the case of mentorship the quality of your questions can be a determining factor of the outcomes you achieve. Be extremely liberal with asking questions find out all the details that you can about the project at hand.

Take note that your mentor, especially if your mentor is a successful business person will not like wasting time. Be sure your questions remain professionals, most successful people have a low tolerance for chit chat, gossip and any communication that does not directly contribute to accomplishing the tasks that are being set into motion. Should your mentor decide to divulge any personal information, do not pry and be discrete with that information.

7 Share Your Ideas

Freely share your ideas and insights about the projects that are in the works, 9 times out of 10 your mentor will shoot your idea down. A good mentor will appreciate that you are always thinking and that one time that they say that is a good idea and they implement it, will have you beaming. There is little better than hearing your mentor bragging about the great thing they did and then adding that it was your idea.

So many times I have learned so much, simply by suggesting wouldn’t it be faster or easier to do this and that. Most times I am met with an abundance of detail about how and why my idea is not sound, which allows me to adjust my ideas with a little mo insight each time. You have good ideas, we all do, some are not good and we know it, when you think you do have a good idea be willing to share it with your mentor.

This one action of sharing ideas is leading me to a better place in life than I ever imagined for myself when I lived my life under the guidance of a boss. Mentorship and masterminding are so much mo POWerful than your average employer/employee relationship, it is just amazing to engage in this type of relationship with full awareness of the role it plays in me achieving my purpose abundantly.

I want to thank the Super Women Connection for helping me to grow in the vital area of mentorship. I am especially grateful for the SWC Book Club introduced me to Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think And Grow Rich, which is where I learned these Steps from Mentorship to Mastermind and I am pleased to share them with you. And if you are a lovely lady I encourage you to click to join the Super Women Connection on Facebook and get your free copy of Think And Grow Rich, compliments of the Super Women Connection. Sorry men click the link on the book title and buy it from Brian for more information.

Thanks for stopping by and please comment your experiences with mentorship and masterminding? I really want to know.

What’s your story?

$tay Awe$ome

Trishaly

P.S. Blogging is the Number One way to build your business, bar none and if you do not currently have your own business you can start a business online today focused around a blog like this. Start your viral blogging business ! Or connect with me on Facebook !